[LAU] ASCAP Assails Free-Culture, Digital-Rights Groups

[Dave Phillips]

drew Roberts wrote:
> On Wednesday 30 June 2010 10:43:41 Dave Phillips wrote:
>   
>> Whatever you or I might believe about copyright law, the FSF 
>> clearly understands that it protects projects like Linux. Money is not
>> the only issue in the misappropriation of what is called intellectual
>> property. The FSF perceives stuff like Linux as intellectual property,
>>     
>
> You really should not put words into their mouths. They are strongly opposed 
> to the term "intellectual property."
>
> Well, at least RMS: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html
>
>   

Yeh, I should have thought twice about that remark. I know RMS's stand, 
I've read that paper.

In all things GNU he is The Man, but I don't agree with him on everything

>> entitled to copyright protection by law, and they enforce action against
>> violators of the GPL, and with the same justification taken by the
>> greedy record companies. It's law, and it applies to the good and bad
>> alike.
>>     
>
> Well, the freedoms they want for code would exist without copyright, but since 
> we have copyright, they use copyright to protect those freedoms. (Their 
> thinking from what I can tell.)
>   

The point isn't that the freedoms wouldn't exist without it. As you say, 
those freedoms can be protected by copyright law.

Obviously too, and often sadly, laws outlast their utility. My major 
beef with current copyright is its terms of extension and renewability. 
I won't say that it guts the whole notion of the public domain, but it 
no longer functions to guarantee its replenishment. Thankfully CC and 
other such licenses do ensure a rich public sources of 
copyright-unencumbered works.

Best,

dp