Richard Stallman Comes to Stanford

Richard Stallman at Stanford University

A few weeks ago, I had the amazing opportunity to meet Richard Stallman — founder of the GNU Project and Free Software Foundation, and developer of the amazingly popular GNU Emacs, GNU compiler (gcc), and GNU debugger (gdb).

RMS, as he likes to be called, is a living legend in the computing field. He’s widely considered to be the father of the free software movement. There is no question that the free software philosophy has brought enormous amounts of good to the world. I firmly believe this. I think most programmers and computer scientists would agree, too.

GNU/Linux render farm at Dreamworks

Free software is everywhere today. The popular operating system GNU/Linux (which Stallman wrote large parts of) powers so much of our computing today, nearly everyone has used it, whether they’ve heard of it or not.

The majority of servers on the Internet are powered by Apache and GNU/Linux, major parts of the Internet and most networks in large corporations are powered by GNU/Linux, and even 95% of the desktops and servers at major Hollywood movie studios like Disney, Pixar, DreamWorks, and Sony run GNU/Linux.

Many people are confused about what the phrase “free software” means. Before I continue, let’s be clear about the definition of free software. Read the rest of this entry »

Copying Is Not Theft

When artists do work, they should be paid — no one is debating that. Musicians are paid when they perform at concerts, when they sell discs, and when they compose for someone. Artists are paid when they sell their artwork, when they are commissioned to make art, and when their art appears in art museums.

However, artists shouldn’t chase down and sue every adolescent who copies their work without advance permission. The job of artists is to create stuff — and for that they should be compensated. They should not necessarily be compensated for the distribution of their work, especially when computers and the Internet make it trivial to distribute bits at a near-zero cost.

At the end of the day, artists should be paid when they make stuff. Mozilla is a great example of a company that understands this. Let’s say that software engineers are artists for the sake of this example (in many ways, we are artists). So, Mozilla engineers get paid when they’re designing, programming, and submitting patches for Firefox, Thunderbird, and SeaMonkey. Yet, when the time comes for the software to be distributed, Mozilla engineers are not paid anything. All Mozilla software is free (as in freedom) and open source, as governed by the Mozilla Public License. Read the rest of this entry »

Misinterpreting Copyright

I just read a great article about copyright that articulates the free software position extremely well. It’s written by Richard Stallman, the guy who started the free software movement.

Some highlights:

The copyright bargain places the public first: benefit for the reading public is an end in itself; benefits (if any) for publishers are just a means toward that end. Readers’ interests and publishers’ interests are thus qualitatively unequal in priority.

This is why our discussion about copyright is so unbalanced today. People need to remember that the public is more important than the publisher. Read the rest of this entry »

Freedom of Speech on the Internet — Part 10: Lawrence Lessig = Awesome

Number of Creative Commons licensed works (IN MILLIONS), plotted over time

Lessig’s efforts to reform copyright involve two main points:

1.) The law should give up its obsession with “copy.”

In the digital world, “copying” is not a meaningful act, so the law should focus its attention on something more meaningful. There are dozens of proposals for alternative copyright models, which I do not have space to cover here. The essential point is that change is needed in the law. As Lessig puts it:

We need to deregulate a significant space of culture and focus the regulation where it can do some good.

In its current form, copyright law amounts to the regulation of culture, which was clearly not its original intent.

2.) The law should distinguish between amateur and professional copying.

The law should recognize the importance of remix culture to youth culture by distinguishing between amateur and professional copying. Copyright law should encourage both amateur and professional creativity by producing incentives for the professional and promoting freedom for the amateur.

For most of the twentieth century, John Philip Sousa’s worst fears about creative production were true: the “infernal machines” – cassette players, CD players, radio, TV – robbed human culture of its creativity and of its voice. He describes:

Never before in the history of human culture had its [creative works] production become as concentrated, never before had it become as professionalized, never before had the creativity of the ordinary person become as effectively displaced . . .

Read the rest of this entry »

Freedom of Speech on the Internet — Part 9: Yes We Can Regulate Culture with Copyright Law

“In 1906, John Philip Sousa traveled to the U.S. capital to speak about the technology which he referred to as the ‘talking machines’ [the record player]. John Philip Sousa was not a fan of the talking machines. This is what he had to say: ‘These talking machines are going to ruin the artistic development of music in this country. When I was a boy . . . in front of every house in the summer evenings you would find young people together singing the songs of the day or the old songs. Today you hear the infernal machines going night and day. We will not have a vocal chord left. The vocal chords will be eliminated by a process of evolution, as was the tail of man when he came from the ape.’” [emphasis in the original]

– Lawrence Lessig, Stanford Professor of Law

Besides the threat of Internet censorship, Stanford Professor Lawrence Lessig also recognizes copyright law as another threat to free expression on the Internet.

He has been an outspoken advocate for copyright law reform, proposing reduced legal restrictions on copyrights and trademarks in the digital realm. Lessig has dedicated most of his career to copyright reform; he sees it as the single most important issue that will define the success of the Internet in the future.

The current copyright situation for digital media. Neither professionals nor amateurs are allowed to copy or remix existing copyrighted works. (Photo courtesy Lessig).

The ideal copyright scenario, after Lessig’s suggested reforms have been implemented. He proposes that amateurs be allowed to remix and modify copyrighted works without limit (free use). Only professional copying is off-limits. The “grey areas” are left up to the copyright owner to decide (Photo courtesy Lessig).

He produces many blog posts, podcasts, and speeches arguing in great detail his reasons for proposing reduced copyright restrictions. Lessig argues that one of the most important triumphs of the Internet is its “remix culture” – a phrase that he coined to describe the widespread acceptance and encouragement of derivative works (works that include copyright protected elements of other works).
Read the rest of this entry »