Old computer users (Was: Re: Laptop (cell phone) in my pocket?)

[Matt Graham]

From: Alan Dayley <alandd at consultpros.com>
> History in general is vastly important, despite how it is treated in
> most schools.

History:  An account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant,
which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly
fools.  --Ambrose Bierce, _The Devil's Dictionary_

> An important history lesson from Eben Moglen, attorney and historian,
> can be found in his keynote speech at the Red Hat Summit of 2006.
> Watch it from a link at http://www.redhat.com/promo/summit/videos/
> Learn that copyright and patents were not about making people wealthy
> but were a successful tool to attract innovated people to the young
> United States!

Cut-n-paste from http://www.fark.com/cgi/comments.pl?IDLink=2918235 :

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aaarkieboy              2007-07-08 03:41:05 PM

For anyone who still feels a twinge of guilt or regret when pirating a
copyrighted work, know this: it is now morally justifiable to pirate
music, movies, and books under a tradional analysis of copyright law.

The original justification for copyright law was a moral contract
between the creator and society: the creator would be entitled to
receive a temporary monopoly on the use of that work (i.e., a copyright)
in exchange for allowing the work to enter the public domain when the
monopoly expired. The concept was fundamentally contractual (although
embodied in statues) and had benefits and burdens on both sides, as any
enforceable contract requires.

This created a win-win situation: the creator benefitted exclusively
from the creation for the duration of the copyright (originally 25
years) and society thereafter benefitted as works continually entered
the public domain. The creator was enriched during the copyright period
and society was enriched in exchange as the body of freely-available,
no-longer-copyrighted works continued to grow.

But then the system began to break down. Companies like Disney, the
RIAA, and the MPAA began to lobby for extensions to the copyright
period. Sonny Bono (watch out for the tree, man) and his ilk accepted
campaign contributions in exchange for voting to continue extending the
period. It is now obvious that current copyrights will never expire --
every time Mickey Mouse gets close to the end of his monopoly period,
some future Sonny Bono will do it again. Copyrights have stopped
expiring.

Now consider what this does to the social contract embodied in copyright
law. The contract is now completely one-sided. The copyright owner has
all the benefits (perpetual monopoly) and society has none (no growth of
works in the public domain). Society has lost its side of the bargain
that formed the entire basis for creating this system.

Do you know what happens in law when a contract has all benefits on one
side and all burdens on the other? It is regarded as unenforceable or
illusory. There must be consideration (i.e., an exchange of benefits and
burdens) on both sides of a contract as a legal prerequisite to being
enforceable.

This means that the social contract that embodies copyright law is no
longer enforceable. You are morally free to pirate music, movies,
anything you want.

Of course morality and law are not synonymous. Pirating is still
illegal. But it is no longer immoral.

And the most interesting part is that Sonny Bono is therefore
responsible for destroying the moral weight of copyright law. He
eliminated the element of consideration that had previously served as
the justification for copyright.

Ain't karma a biatch, Sonny?
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Sorry for the wall-o-text, but it's kind of interesting.  Whether it'd
hold up in court is another matter entirely.

-- 
Matt G / Dances With Crows
The Crow202 Blog:  http://crow202.org/wordpress/
There is no Darkness in Eternity/But only Light too dim for us to see