Re: "Against Intellectual Property"

On Wed, Aug 02, 2000, Marty Hayes <9ball[_at_]hostsite.net> wrote:
>
> On Mon, 31 Jul 2000, Bryan Taylor <bryan_w_taylor[_at_]yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> > On Thu, 27 Jul 2000, Eric Eldred <eldred[_at_]eldritchpress.org> wrote:
> > >
> > > Those of you who are not Slashdot readers might not be aware of
> > > this link,
> > >
> > > http://danny.oz.au/free-software/advocacy/against_IP.html
> > >
> > > "Against Intellectual Property," chapter of a book,
> > > "Information Liberation," by Brian Martin.
> >
> > Here's another article in the LA Times with a similar message:
> >
> > http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/20000729/t000071270.html
>
> Thanks, Bryan and Eric, for giving me the heartiest chuckle I have
> had in the last ten days or so.
>
> Did anyone else note the absurdity of these links? In the first
> instance on SlashDot, the article argues against the premise of
> intellectual property, but the preceding paragraph says (obviously
> not verbatim), "Hey, this is only a single chapter of a book that
> isn't available online, and if you want to order it, it costs
> $7.95". In the second link, the LA Times staff writer lists a
> litany of reasons that copyright law is essentially obsolete -- and
> right below the writing credits, there is a link telling me as the
> reader that I can look at the archives for free, but it will cost
> me if I want to retrieve a copy.
>
> I'm quite sure I cannot be the only one noting the irony.

I don't think it's ironic ... charging money for access is not an exercise of copyright, and saying that "copyright is obsolete" is not the same thing as saying that creative works should be available at no cost. What these authors are doing is replacing copyright with contract, which seems to me not "ironic" at all, but exactly consistent with their expressed views.

Robert C. Cumbow
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 rcumbow[_at_]grahamdunn.com
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