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...the philosophy behind the Linux platform is inconsistent with protecting copyrighted works, this is no way the fault of the copyright owners.
The whole point of Linux is that it does inhabit the copyright system and uses it to its fullest advantage! Some people might consider this pranking capitalism. Good for them.
The idea is that the copyright system exists. If you'd like to provide an alternative to corporate bodies -- which I usually envision through the context of the legal term "fictious entities"; each corporation is a body, a person, if you will -- who desire to tie rights to property very specifically to one individual, what do you do? You write a license that says the opposite, that you use copyright to prohibit any one person from having sole control of your property. Now it's community property, thanks to its license's use of copyright.
Linux, moreso the GPL, is very much is consistent with protecting copyrighted works. Without copyright, the GPL can't exist! Copyright is the very foundation of the GPL! To claim that copyright, that capitalism must in some a priori fashion tie a work to a single individual, is a very shortsighted position. The GPL protects property so licensed from exclusive ownership. To me, that's a protection worth pursuing. And look, I'm not a GPL zealot; I don't even particularly like it (link fixed 20060914). Still,this unfair undercut of the concept of copyright is much more dangerous.
For me, the above statement shows the RIAA is trying to copyright the uses of idea of copyright! They no longer approve of the system that empowered them, that they've been outsmarted, as it were, and now they're trying to bully the term into redefinition. In theory, I believe the courts won't buy the hype. In practice, I'm concerned.
posted by ruffin
at 2/27/2006 11:32:00 AM
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