Re: DRM

[Jonathan S. Shapiro]

On Sat, 2005-11-05 at 21:33 +0100, Alfred M. Szmidt wrote:
>    I believe that the author of a work should be able to determine how
>    it is used, up to the limits of copyright provisions. My reasons
>    for using GPL, LGPL, and so forth in my work are strategic. I do
>    not (at present) subscribe to Richard's ideology. This may be
>    because I have never heard the underlying principle(s) behind his
>    ideology clearly stated in order that I might evaluate them.
> 
> Read www.gnu.org, it is clearly stated why users should have the
> freedom to share digital information like software, and songs, and why
> someone who wrote something shouldn't be able to dictate how you use
> it.

Alfred: the right to share is clear, and has absolutely nothing to do
with FSF, GNU, or GPL.

The argument that I should not be able to set terms for the use of my
creations is not clear (to me). I do not have time to read www.gnu.org
in its entirety. Can you narrow this down a bit?

> Nor is this Richard's ideology, the right to share information existed
> long before him.

The right to share does not equate to the obligation to share. Nor does
it equate to an obligation to share on an "all or nothing" basis.

>    I do not believe that the DRM technology is evil per se. I strongly
>    dislike DRM, but I believe that an author should be able to control
>    the use of their work within the limits and framework of copyright.
> 
> The author can already do that: don't share it to begin with.  What he
> shouldn't be allowed to do is dictate how people who he has shared
> that information with are supposed to handle it.

I do not agree. *I* should not be able to dictate what terms *you* set
for the use of *your* work. However, in the same way, you should not be
able to dictate them to me, or to narrow the range of choices that I may
make concerning how and in what degree I choose to share in the absence
of a societal consensus.

>    I strongly dislike DRM. If we can arrive at a set of technical
>    means that supports privacy and security without supporting DRM, I
>    would be very comfortable with deploying a system that could not
>    support DRM.
> 
> You cannot achive privacy without trust, don't trust someone, don't
> share with that person.  Just don't dictate what the person should do
> with the information you shared.

The inability to set terms for use of my work within the framework of
copyright (which is the prevailing societal consensus) is precisely the
part of the ideology that I do not agree with.

The FSF ideology, in effect, attempts to dictate terms to me concerning
what may be done with my work product. I consent to these terms only on
a case by case basis.

I am prepared to agree that the particular balance selected by copyright
law today may not be the most effective social balance, and that a new
selection of social balance is overdue. I would *definitely* agree that
recent changes to copyright law have been very bad, and have altogether
ignored the issue of balance. I also feel that the balance points
advocated and promulgated by FSF and embodied in GPL/GFDL are an
improvement in many cases and for many purposes.

When the free software community makes the leap to ideology, however,
these cease to be balance points. They become an ideologically dictated
position that should be applied universally. This is the jump that I
disagree with, and it is why I consider myself an "open source" advocate
rather than a "free software" advocate.


shap