4 ms·

You could also look at the FOSS world. Licenses are actually important because if you license some software under GPL, you have legal grounds to sue if a corpor

You could also look at the FOSS world. Licenses are actually important because if you license some software under GPL, you have legal grounds to sue if a corporation then uses that software in violation of the license. Most corporations just treat GPL as anathema because it's rarely worth the legal effort. So far we haven't thought of social media content as licensed but it effectively is: the license is usually the EULA of the host giving them the ability to do whatever they want with it. So really to be responsible with social media content we really should both get a license from our users and then provide a compatible license to federating peers. At that point they can decide not to accept the license, thereby refusing to federate that content. There are already filters like this for filtering certain kinds of content from peers, so it doesn't seem like it should be a huge reach. Creative Commons might be sufficient here. If you license content as non-commercial, then would Facebook be barred from choosing to display it to the users of their commercial platform?

dcow 3y ago
It's important to note that Stallman considers the GPL a hack on the copyright system (a clever one, sure, but a hack nonetheless). He'd rather it not have to exist, because we shouldn't need to exist in a world where companies can own the recipe to mix bytes around and achieve a certain software flavor. I mean you can't copyright a food recipe. It so obviously would be stupid to have designer meals and chefs who are the only person that can cook a certain dish. The argument is that software isn't any different. And you can't copyright the fastest route from point A to B on a map. So why can you e.g. copyright the preferred method of sending bytes down an HDMI cable?
- indigochill 3y ago
  I'm sympathetic to that perspective, but that would entail pushing an ideal upstream to where change isn't going to happen because there's far too much financial interest in copyrighting arrangements of bytes. So if the system's unfixable, then hacking it seems like the right approach. Besides which, ignoring GPL, Creative Commons seems like a good license because creative works are more than logical arrangements of bytes (there are only so many useful ways of sending bytes down an HDMI cable, but many more ways to write a novel) and is probably the more appropriate license for social media content (at least assuming the author wants to apply that license to their content).

dcow 3y ago

It's important to note that Stallman considers the GPL a hack on the copyright system (a clever one, sure, but a hack nonetheless). He'd rather it not have to exist, because we shouldn't need to exist in a world where companies can own the recipe to mix bytes around and achieve a certain software flavor. I mean you can't copyright a food recipe. It so obviously would be stupid to have designer meals and chefs who are the only person that can cook a certain dish. The argument is that software isn't any different. And you can't copyright the fastest route from point A to B on a map. So why can you e.g. copyright the preferred method of sending bytes down an HDMI cable?

indigochill 3y ago
I'm sympathetic to that perspective, but that would entail pushing an ideal upstream to where change isn't going to happen because there's far too much financial interest in copyrighting arrangements of bytes. So if the system's unfixable, then hacking it seems like the right approach. Besides which, ignoring GPL, Creative Commons seems like a good license because creative works are more than logical arrangements of bytes (there are only so many useful ways of sending bytes down an HDMI cable, but many more ways to write a novel) and is probably the more appropriate license for social media content (at least assuming the author wants to apply that license to their content).