Plan 9 license

[Tom Hull]

Getting a little off-topic here. I think ESR's original point is more
along the lines of pointing out that free software people have no real
reason to engage in copyright infringement -- that there is never any
need to steal that which is already free. Consequently, any assertion
that free software people seek to promote copyright infringement is
just plain ignorant. Unfortunately, the tendency is to replace the
accurate term "copyright infringement" with various inflammatory and
inaccurate metaphors: piracy, theft, bootlegging, etc.

One could go even further and point out the "Linuxmanship" advocacy
article, which suggests that Linux advocates should be extremely
pro-active in insisting that corporations strictly follow their
proprietary software licenses, to underscore the true costs of
using such software, and the relative advantages of using free
software.

David Johnson wrote:
> 
> On Fri, 01 Sep 2000, Richard Stallman wrote:
> > I am ashamed of Eric Raymond for using the term "piracy" to describe
> > unauthorized copying.  That word is a propaganda term, designed to
> > imply that unauthorized copying is the moral equivalent of attacking a
> > ship.
> 
> The image of pillaging bucanneers may be an unfortunate association,
> but it is metaphorically correct. [...] Comparing piracy to committing
> copyright "theft" on the "high seas" of the internet is an apt metaphor.

One connotation that "piracy" has is that it is a business activity,
in particular a business that exists beyond the reach of law. I think
this was the implication when people originally started talking about
"pirates" making unauthorized copies of records, tapes, etc. Also,
note that the damage that such piracy does -- that it depresses the
market for authorized copies -- can only occur when it is done on a
massive level. (Hard to do except from some haven beyond the reach of
the law.)

This is also why "theft" is misleading: if someone steals, say, my lawn
mower, that act deprives me of its use; but if someone makes a copy of
a piece of software that I "own", how do I even know that happened? How
does it affect me? Sure, I can imagine a scenario where the copier might
have paid me instead, but it's a lot like bemoaning that the guy who
stole my lawn mower deprived me of the future business that I could've
transacted mowing other people's lawns.

One problem with using "piracy" and "theft" as metaphors here is that
they diminish their original meanings by trying to extend themselves
to cases that are relatively trivial.

> If information can indeed be owned,
> and right or wrong the law says it can be, then violating copyright is
> akin to theft.

Wasn't it Proudhon who said "property is theft"? If so, isn't this a
matter of stealing that which is already stolen? I'm not here to champion
Proudhon, but if you have an idealized notion of nature, then it's easy
to see how property is something that is arbitrarily imposed by law, not
something natural. There are many cases where the concept of property
does not sit well with nature (e.g., water, which obeys the laws of
physics much more dependably than the laws of man). Property in ideas,
of course, is even more slippery, since we don't even have physics to
fall back on.

-- 
/*
 * Tom Hull -- thull at sco.com * http://www.ocston.org/~thull
 */