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Missing the big pictureMissing the big picturePosted Feb 5, 2010 2:01 UTC (Fri) by djao (subscriber, #4263)In reply to: Missing the big picture by rsidd Parent article: The FSF objects (again) to the Google book settlement Indeed, the FSF's response in the link you pointed out suffers from the same flaw, although the issue there is confounded by the presence of EULAs. One thing the FSF failed to mention is that in practice, EULAs depend on copyright for their existence -- without copyright, a EULA would have no legal enforcement mechanism, just as EULAs on hardware like the CueCat proved to have no force in law. I find also that much of the force of the FSF's moral argument disappears once you start requiring publishers to take active steps such as releasing source code. The argument against copyright on computers was always that copying files is so easy that to prohibit it requires oppressive, draconian, and totalitarian measures. In practice, removing these restrictions would accomplish about 95% of the good that the FSF is trying to bring about. To oppose such a change on the grounds of the remaining 5% is shortsighted -- far better to accept the 95% improvement immediately, and then fight for the remaining 5% later. Finally, in the context of books and printed matter, which is what we are discussing here, there is much less of a difference between object code and source code. "Decompiling" books in most cases is nothing more than OCR, which is a tractable technical problem on which great progress has been made over the years. So the FSF's concerns about software freedom from the point of view of the distinction between object code and source code are much less relevant here.
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Missing the big picture Posted Feb 5, 2010 3:12 UTC (Fri) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link] The argument against copyright on computers was always that copying files is so easy that to prohibit it requires oppressive, draconian, and totalitarian measures. Some people have made such an argument against copyright, but not, as far as I know, the FSF. In fact I don't think the FSF has ever argued against copyright. Their only cause has been availability, modifiability and redistributability of source code to the user. The original motivation was Stallman's being confronted with a buggy binary-only printer driver, back in 1981 or so.
Missing the big picture Posted Feb 5, 2010 8:55 UTC (Fri) by djao (subscriber, #4263) [Link] RMS has definitely argued against large portions of the current copyright system, including the prohibitions on private copying, both in person and in print. I consider RMS to be philosophically the same entity as the FSF.From "Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman," p. 144: By allowing the noncommercial verbatim copying, it means the copyright no longer has to intrude into everybodys home. It becomes an industrial regulation again, easy to enforce and painless, no longer requiring draconian punishments and informers for the sake of its enforcement. So we get most of the benefit, and avoid most of the horror, of the current system.and again on p. 153: Im convinced now that people should have the right to publicly, noncommercially, redistribute verbatim copies of everything.What is interesting especially about the latter quote is that it is directly relevant to the debate that we are having right now. Suppose that I want to noncommercially redistribute verbatim binary copies of GPL software without also giving out the source code. (Assume GPLv2 for concreteness.) According to a literal reading of the above quote, RMS is stating that this should be allowed. However, the GPL does not normally allow this. There is a slight exception in Section 3(c), but even that exception contains an obligation to transmit certain pieces of accompanying information along with the binaries -- and suppose that I do not do that. We now have a scenario that corresponds almost exactly to what Google is doing, namely transmitting binary-only copies of GFDL works without transmitting essential accompanying license information, except that Google of course is a commercial entity. Even by the FSF's uncompromising standards, this topic lies in a gray area and involves conflicting principles. It's definitely not clear that the FSF's position is the one that most furthers their own goals.
Missing the big picture Posted Feb 5, 2010 9:24 UTC (Fri) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link]
Interesting: I didn't know he had said that. Certainly, as you say, such a
stance undermines the GPL and also contradicts what he said in the Pirate Party case.
But one should note that this was in a question-answer session after a talk,
Stallman and copyright Posted Feb 5, 2010 15:30 UTC (Fri) by pboddie (guest, #50784) [Link] My impression, after attending a talk by Stallman last year, was that he's taking copyleft and formulating a broader system as a reform of copyright - sort of like going from special relativity (copyleft) to general relativity (copyleft for programs and content), or something. Thus, his arguments touch upon some of the things that arise in the spectrum of Creative Commons licensing: there may be things such as scientific papers where you want to impose restrictions on modification or redistribution (somewhat like CC-BY-ND) in order to prevent cherry-picking of regions of the text to support or suggest the opposite of the meaning of the text; other works might be freely shared provided you aren't profiting from that sharing (CC-BY-NC); software would naturally observe a system much like copyleft is today.
Missing the big picture Posted Feb 9, 2010 11:40 UTC (Tue) by nye (guest, #51576) [Link]
>EULAs depend on copyright for their existence -- without copyright, a EULA would have no legal enforcement mechanism
IANAL, but I believe this is not true.
Copyright has no control at all over usage. Once the copyright owner has sold or otherwise conveyed a copyrighted work to an and user, that user is free to use it in any way they wish without requiring permission, subject to the restriction that they do not copy/broadcast/redistribute it without permission from the copyright holder. Even in jurisdictions where a EULA is considered enforceable, there is no legal requirement to accept it in order to use the software[0]. However, if you *do* click through the EULA, then it is often considered to be equivalent to having signed a contract, to which you are now legally bound. This would be the same regardless of whether or not copyright applies.
[0] Some claims have been made that loading software into memory in order to run it counts as copying and thus requires a license, and there may be some jurisdictions which uphold that repugnantly deliberate misinterpretation of the law. In this case a EULA would indeed be required to use software, but this interpretation is absurd - eg. it would probably mean that you can only run a GPL program if the source is loaded into memory alongside the binary.
Missing the big picture Posted Feb 9, 2010 22:12 UTC (Tue) by djao (subscriber, #4263) [Link] Even in jurisdictions where a EULA is considered enforceable, there is no legal requirement to accept it in order to use the softwareTrue. However, if you *do* click through the EULA, then it is often considered to be equivalent to having signed a contract, to which you are now legally bound.Debatable, but for the sake of argument, let's assume it's true. Now put the two together. Without copyright, it would be legal to distribute modified versions of software. One could, for example, modify a piece of software to remove the click-through dialog for the EULA, and then distribute it. Since clicking the EULA was never a requirement for using the software in the first place, the result would be that people could use the software without clicking on the EULA. This means that, in practice, companies would have no way to force users to click through a EULA. A company could still impose a EULA using a paper contract, as is true in any industry, but the widespread abuse of EULAs would cease if click-throughs were abolished. It is in this sense that EULAs (as they exist today) depend on copyright law. Even if the EULA itself forbids modifying the software, it is technically possible for people to modify software without clicking through the EULA, or even installing the software.
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