NYTimes misappropriates Copyleft
January 24th, 2004
It’s great to see an article like The Tyranny of Copyright? in the mainstream press (NYTimes in this case). Most people are probably not aware of the culture theft that is going on. It’s unfortunate that they use the term Copy Left to represent this “movement”, because the FSF which coined the term “copyleft” is far anti-copyright. The folks like Lessig and myself are pro-reasonable copyright.
Personally I don’t think the FSF is anti-copyright. I think the FSF is interested in having sane copyright legislation. I believe that’s also what Lawrence Lessig thinks.
Take a look at “Misinterpreting Copyright” at http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/misinterpreting-copyright.html
A quick quote -
How did copyright policies come to be diametrically opposed to their stated purpose? And how can we bring them back into alignment with that purpose?
If the FSF was anti-copyright, they wouldn’t want to “bring them back into alignment”, they’d want to banish them.
http://www.blueskyonmars.com/mt/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=1228
You’re right that the FSF is not technically “anti-copyright”, because copyright law enables them to do what they do. And, thanks for the link. That was an interesting article that I agree almost entirely with.
However, the position of RMS and the FSF (as evidenced by the GPL itself) is that people have a right to distribute the works (software, in the case of the GPL) that they possess. If you look at the Open Source vs. Free Software debates, it’s not that the FSF thinks that people should be able to choose their license. The FSF feels that it is *wrong* to not allow people to distribute software they have.
I believe that content owners should be able to choose their distribution terms during their “limited time” monopoly. This should not be at the expense of the consumer’s right to use their purchase in just about any way other than distribution (and even distribution is okay within the established Fair Use framework). I may be misinterpreting Lessig, but I think this is consistent with what he writes.
Kevin