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A couple of years ago, this space noted that the Free Culture Movement (or the Copyleft or whatever one wants to call it), takes its inspiration from the free software wing of the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) movement, as represented most notably by Richard Stallman.
Stallman's recent interview with Forbes (subscription required) once again establishes the importance of this web of intellectual connections, as Stallman talks about how much he hates the content industries (perhaps as much as he hates Microsoft), and about his intent to use GPLv3 as a mechanism to destroy the content industries' attempts to use DRM:
Forbes: Some say the GPLv3 puts the free software world on a "collision course" with Hollywood. Is there a collision coming, and if so, what is it?
Stallman: The collision that is coming is in your computer. The MPAA [Motion Picture Association of America] and the RIAA [Recording Industry Association of America] have been trying for years to deny you the control over the software you use and deny you control of your own computer. They have procured unjust laws such as the DMCA [Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998], specifically to prohibit you from regaining control.
Officially, MPAA stands for Motion Picture Association of America, but I suggest that MPAA stands for Malicious Power Attacking All. And RIAA stands for Really Intends to Alienate the Audience.
Those who seek to impose DRM [digital rights management] generally design it so that the public cannot escape from it. Whatever software they use to implement DRM, they will try to prevent you from changing it. Congress is now considering bills that would prohibit digital TV and radio receivers that are built in ways that the public can change.
The goal of releasing a program under the GNU GPL is to assure you the freedom to change the program. If the perpetrators of DRM achieve their goal, that implies ours has been defeated. So we must refuse to cooperate with them, and that means a collision. This collision course is the only ethical course for software developers.
DRM ought to be prohibited by law, but we cannot achieve that by changing the license of our software. What we can achieve is to prevent our software from being packaged such that you don't really have the freedom to change it. The obvious consequence of this view is that mechanisms of payment for content would be disabled, which would mean the abolition of markets, which would mean a reliance on government funding. So Stallman's view of funding is that your taste in music and movies would be (like your hope for drug treatment) at the mercy of bureaucratic whim.
This is a very strange definition of freedom. And it is, by the way, this imperialistic ambition of GPLv3 that has triggered Linus Torvald's defection.
PFF needs a coat of arms, with the legend: Markets Make Us Free.
posted by James DeLong @ 10:52 AM | Big Tent
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