[Thousand-oaks-pm] Richard Stallman¹s dystopian view of the future

[Daniel Sherer]

That was an interesting story.

I doubt anyone in this group (software developers) is advocating that it's a
"bad thing" for authors to get paid for their work.  But it shouldn't be
illegal for you to give your work away either.

In this story, there is never any "cheating" of any author out of their
rightful income.  But the future world imagined here is one where software
developers are forbidden from developing and distributing their work.  Linux
and other "open" systems are illegal.  As are all programs and ideas that
run counter to DRM and the DMCA.

It reminds me of the stupidity that occurred when someone published decss.c
(a program that allowed you to read the contents of any dvd that you had
legally purchased.)  When the source code to that program was published in
"machine readable" format it was deemed a "crime" under the DMCA.  But, if
you printed it on a t-shirt, like the one I own, then it was considered
"free speech".

Or, further back, when Phil Zimmerman wrote PGP and was accused of
"exporting munitions" because people could encrypt their documents?

I think it's valid for all of us to consider how far we think is "too far"
when it comes to DRM.  In my opinion, this story shows what happens when you
go too far in one direction.  It seems far-fetched, but current publishers
are asking libraries to enforce restrictions on digital books such that
after they've been "read" 25 times they self-destruct.  (public libraries
have thus far resisted.)  So, is it really that far-fetched to imagine a
world where you can't log someone else into your computer under your
userid?  (I'll bet your company policy already specifies this!)


Daniel

On Sat, May 21, 2011 at 10:05 AM, Leonard Cuff <lcuff2 at yahoo.com> wrote:

>  I did read it, and had very mixed feelings. On the one had, sure, I want
> to copy and paste from an ebook to make notes, send pithy quotes to a friend
> or blog about. On the other hand, if the whole thing can be copied, it
> becomes free when some hacker posts it.  We need a sophisticated digital
> rights management scheme for text so that people can get paid for their
> text.  That was one of Ted Nelson’s main idea when he invented the idea of
> hypertext  (and project Xanadu) back in the 1960s.  Today’s web is still
> nowhere close to realizing that idea.
>
> Stallman’s dystopic view of having to pay for much of what we read might
> come to pass. Is it such a bad thing for authors to get paid for their work?
> I don’t think so.
>
> Leonard
>
>
> On 5/21/11 9:48 AM, "shawn faison" <faison09 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Has anyone read this?  I thought it was interesting and relevant enough to
> open source programming, so I wanted to pass it on.
>
> http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
>
>
> Shawn
>
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