[p2p-research] Fwd: [fcforum] Fw: iPad DRM is a dangerous step backward. Sign the petition!

[M. Fioretti]

On Fri, Feb 05, 2010 12:29:59 PM -0600, Kevin Carson (free.market.anticapitalist at gmail.com) wrote:

> > "Reproducing" as in "making a copy" for themselve or "reproducing" as
> >  in copying the same content somewhere else online? There is quite a
> >  difference.
> 
> Definitely a difference, but not insofar as it affects my principle.
> There should be no coercive legal prohibition against reproduction in
> either case.

Too bad, because it's a very, very very practical difference. The
second kind of "reproduction" damages people who publish stuff freely
available online but partially or exclusively do it for profit
(banners, requests for donations...)

Since when I've started writing, I've got lots of "thanks, I learned a
lot from your explanations, they saved me a lot of time" for stuff I
had ONLY written because I needed the money promised by some editor
(who did it only because he could get at least some limited rights on
that stuff or because I hope that it will produce money over time with
banners and similar. almost all that stuff also went (almost)
immediately online, where was and still is available for free to
whoever needs it. Yeah, sure "somebody else would have written the
same thing sooner or later, etc etc" but why should you limit such an
extra stimulus when it does benefit others and does not create any
measurable damage?

In the same years, I've also found online, several times, integral
copies of both of those articles and of stuff I had directly released
under some CC license, on websites that had littered them with much
more advertising that you'd find (WHEN you'd find it) at the original
link. Integral copies (normally without my name or a link to the
original article) made days, weeks, maximum 2 months after original
publication, put on websites made only of thousands of pieces equally
copied and equally overfilled with banners.

So don't talk of cultural damage, artificial scarcity to extract rent
or anything like that. The content already was and is available for
free, full version. Those people did not create derived works,
translations, increase access to knowledge or anything of the
sort. They did not do any work at all, except setting up the server
and some robot to copy the articles, and they only did for their own
personal profit. They only diminished the amount of money generated by
the total, ACTUALLY HAPPENING web traffic (not projections!!!) that
went to who had worked to create that content.

To stress the correction I made in another message after your fully
justified critique, please note the "ACTUALLY HAPPENING" part. I am
not saying that I am or should be entitled to money only because I
write something. I am only saying that if what I write is judged by
others good enough to read it and this generates money, that money
should go to me, not others. Until copyright expires, of course, and
remember that I *am* for greatly reducing it. That's all the
"guarantee" I need to produce some of the things I write. Other works,
yes, I just write and publish them under CC, but only after I've paid
the bills.

As for those webmasters... people like those should be kicked from
here to the moon. And the first who should want to kick them should be
the advocates of open, accessible knowledge. THey destroy the
incentive for others to publish stuff online accessible to everybody.

I am very happy that there is a copyright law that gives holders the
right to demand and obtain that such leeches take the copies
offline. I or the editors I work(ed) for have already used several
times this protection to have those copies removed, and I will
continue to do it when needed.

-- 
Your own civil rights and the quality of your life heavily depend on how
software is used *around* you:            http://digifreedom.net/node/84