RE: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

Robert White
2003-04-30T20:25:46Z

Dude, loosen your mind a little...

Like so many you are laboring under the misapprehension that all rights have
the same precedence. That's obviously dumb and you know it. I have the
right to keep and bare arms, you have the right not to be gunned down while
buying milk at the neighborhood circle-K. You have the right to smoke, I
have the right not to have to breathe that smoke. See... "rights" are not
absolute.

You are splitting a pointless hair. The statement "an author has a right to
profit from his creation" doesn't (and didn't in my mind) have anything to
do with any follow-on statements about extorting money nor was it predicated
on the "right" in any kind of absolute sense. It is clear and obvious that
the creation of a work that has no value doesn't magically give an author
the "right" to demand to be paid out of a vacuum. It is, however, also
obvious that if someone creates something with a substantial value, that
creator has a right not to be screwed out of that value unilaterally.

If I write a book, I have the right to expect that people who use that book
meet certain reasonable terms for the privilege.

Simply put, if you make something and you can make it pay you money, you
have the right to that money.

If you create something valuable and then can't manage to make it pay then
you have the right to lose your shirt.

There is a moral right to reap benefit from your action.

Playing word games about the betterment of humanity is all fine and good,
but for the most part people act solely in self-interest. The key, of
course, is to get as many as possible to act in *enlightened* self-interest.

If you go around telling people "you don't have a right to make a profit
just because you wrote that" the smart people will know what you mean and
the dumb ones wont. That is pretty much the textbook example of a
needlessly inflammatory statement.

Compound that with the fundamental concept that profit does not necessarily
mean money and you get to such sublime concepts as "If I make it, nobody
should be allowed to say I can't use it, I made it damn it..."

This argument is about the law, but it is not *JUST* about the law as it
exists, it is about trying to match the law to what is just.

In point of fact copyright law is completely about the rights of authors, in
particular it is about convincing authors to forgo their right to hoard
everything they create. It's about convincing authors that there is good
cause and reason to release their proprietary death-grip on their works.
The *goal* is to benefit all man kind, sure, but the law is about salving
the certain wounds the author will suffer once his ideas leave his control
and get tattered and recycled by the soiled masses.

Say it that way and you will make more sense to the authors.

Rob.

-----Original Message-----
From: Rik van Riel [mailto:riel@redhat.com]
Sent: Tuesday, April 29, 2003 6:35 PM
To: Robert White
Cc: Timothy Miller; James Bottomley; Larry McVoy;
linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: RE: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

On Tue, 29 Apr 2003, Robert White wrote:

> 1) the author has a right to profit from his creation

Not at all. Copyright law is to promote the progress of
sciences and arts; in short, it is about the rights of
mankind, not about the rights of authors.

The temporary monopoly which authors get over their work
is there to encourage authors to create more works, which
in turn benefit all of mankind. Just a side effect to
promote the good of the many.