7 ms·

This is getting meta and no longer directly responsive to the article, which I don't wholly disagree with. A tractor and a book are different situations. Books

• lisper 12y ago
  Stallman is not a tenured academic. He's the president of a non-profit (the FSF). He makes his living from people's voluntary donations and (I presume) speaking fees.
  • api 12y ago
    Doesn't he have an office at MIT in the Gates building? In any case, it doesn't impact what I said. His gig is nice if you can get it, but I don't think the FSF can afford to pay everyone who works on GNU code.
  • mikegerwitz 12y ago
    He does not get paid by the FSF, nor does he accept speaking fees (insofar as I am aware; I'm not sure if there are certain sponsors, but he insists that those be donated to the FSF, not himself); his time is donated. He received a MacArthur grant a while back, while he is able to live off of.
    • BuildTheRobots 12y ago
      After a quick google, it seems he was granted $500,000 (paid over 5 years) in 1990. [1] This seemed like quite a lot until I divided it by the 25 years he's been living on it. £20k/year doesn't actually strike me as that much. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacArthur_Fellows_Program http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacArthur_Fellows_Program
      • deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
      • muuh-gnu 12y ago
        > £20k/year doesn't actually strike me as that much. You should learn about investing. If he invested the initial amount without spending it, a moderate dividend yield of 3% would make him $15000 a year. Add 25 years of dividend growth, and he is probably receiving $50000-$100000 today, or even more if he reinvseted some of the dividends.
      • chc 12y ago
        He has received more and larger cash inflows than that.
• Retric 12y ago
  There is little wrong with DRM as a concept, "But" just because you call something DRM does not mean it should be able to do anything. IMO, a DRM bill of rights needs to exist to qualify for government protection. Data needs to be transferable FOR FREE to a new user. You can't shut down your DRM servers without first removing the DRM. You can't remotely change anything on a user’s system. Source code must be freely available for security researchers. DRM can only protect information not the operation of a physical device.
  • api 12y ago
    That's a good idea, but I don't see it happening. Perverse incentives abound on every side. Everyone wants this tilted their way. We had a very good system in the age of printed and recorded media. Not perfect, but good. We just have to figure out how to update it, or figure out a new one. Part of my point was that this hasn't happened yet, and I'm sad that few seem to be thinking about this from all sides snd really working on it.
  • cpwright 12y ago
    > DRM can only protect information not the operation of a physical device. So I think it would actually be reasonable for the DRM to protect a physical device; but the contract should be structured as such. If I have title to my car and can dispose of it as I see fit; I shouldn't have to abide by DRM. If it is rented and doesn't actually belong to me, then I could see technological mechanisms such as limiting mileage or range as a valid way to enforce part of the contract. What the line of appropriate vs. not appropriate is of course not necessarily black and white; but I do think John Deere is in the wrong here and the farmer is in the right.
    • Retric 12y ago
      In a hypothetical situation where DRM caused a car to shut down on the way to a hospital ‘slightly out of range’ that’s hard to justify. The other major issue is a 'hacker' being able to remotely shut down a fleet of rental cars is less than ideal. Just picture a corn harvest where no Tractor worked for 1 week. However, I can see using something like DRM to protect information about how a rented device is operated or where it is being more reasonable. (You drove X miles, where speeding, did not change the oil on a leased car.)
• wosos 12y ago
  >(Someone who works for nothing is the definition of a slave.) I could go and lick the grass on my porch. I won't get paid for that. No matter how much I would like it. Many things are just not profitable. Unless you find other models, like patronizing
  • wwweston 12y ago
    If an activity (particularly one like writing books) creates value for people and yet somehow people engaged in that activity can't get paid, that might deserve a closer look than "many things are just not profitable." Or a better comparison than to a hypothetical personally recreative activity like licking grass.
    • wosos 12y ago
      Yes, definitely it would need a closer look. And makes you think if it would or should go the same way of other non profitable but socially valuable activities, by the hands of non profit foundations and/or government support. And if that would be a better or worse model than the current one.
  • metasean 12y ago
    >Unless you find other models, like patronizing Patronizing like - https://www.patreon.com/ https://www.patreon.com/ - or patronizing like, "offensively condescending" [1]. Based on context, I'm assuming the former, but patronizing is a auto-antonym, so it should be clarified [2]. [1] https://www.wordnik.com/words/patronizing https://www.wordnik.com/words/patronizing [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-antonym https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-antonym
    • jessaustin 12y ago
      "Patronage" might be a better word for that...
    • wosos 12y ago
      Thank you, you're right, I was speaking of a patronage like in the case of https://www.patreon.com https://www.patreon.com
• ploxiln 12y ago
  Many people who try to make a living making music or writing are unable to do so, even if the music or the writing is pretty good, and that's due to obscurity, not piracy. Historically, even fewer people were able to. Pages and even chapters of books have been copied by photocopiers (found in many libraries!) for decades. The only limit to the copying was how many quarters you had. You need to give up the idea that people need to get paid for the stuff they get paid for today, that everyone who makes money doing something today, needs to make at least that much on the same thing in the future. People will have to do whatever they can get paid for, which is the case for most people today anyway. Creators won't starve, they'll create less and have a real job. You think the problem of "creators starving" is so bad it justifies anything and everything needed to prevent it. I don't.
  • api 12y ago
    "Create less and have a real job." Wow. I see lots of this kind of sentiment when I bring this up, but yours deserves credit for being exceptionally honest.
    • elwin 12y ago
      The world probably needs less content creation. We're long past the point where there are too many useful books to read in one lifetime. Even in narrow fields, we're producing comedy television, historical fiction novels, or cat pictures faster than one person could consume them all. You could spend a lifetime just researching what's worth consuming. With this kind of overproduction, it's no surprise creators can't make money.
      • api 12y ago
        There are about seven billion people, and they all like different things. There's no overproduction.
        • TeMPOraL 12y ago
          Surely there is, unless you think that people like the "content" that is explicitly designed to abuse them and trick into buying things.
• angersock 12y ago
  In the existing world, creators starve all the time--consider the concept of the "starving artist". There is this meme that somehow not having copyright immediately implies no possible monetization strategy, and it needs to die.
  • api 12y ago
    There are other monetization strategies. A popular one is to offer something for free and then use it to conduct mass surveillance and sell your customers to advertisers and governments.
    • angersock 12y ago
      Or the Patreon model, where people can be patrons of an artist whose work they appreciate!
      • chc 12y ago
        Patreon is tantamount to panhandling. It's not much of a business model.
        • angersock 12y ago
          You know, a lot of the best artists of the Renaissance did pretty well "panhandling".
• arca_vorago 12y ago
  I'm getting tired of explaining why this kind of reasoning is wrong. Specifically, your statement about how "In his world, the creators of things starve." No, for the thousandth time, it's not true at all. There is nothing standing in the way of content creators selling GPL code, and even keeping it private until its been bought. Full stop. stop perpetuating this fallacious myth abouth FOSS, please. That being said, the real issue still is about ownership. If I buy a block of wood, even if you already shaped it into your "art" i have every right to modify it as I see fit. Its a physical thing that I own. Now, I couldnt copy your work and sell it though. In reality a tractor isnt that much different. Its a physical object, with software "which could be argued is also physical in the form of 1s and 0s", and if I buy it I have the right to modify it as I see fit. What if something goes wrong with the software and I want to fix it? Oh no, thats illegal?! In reality this is about control of the user, and money, not about anything else. It reduces freedom and security and functionality in almost every way. A good example of this is my bad purchase of a samsung smart tv. Even though I know its running linux and hence gplv2, samsung has made it almost impossible to root the device without bricking it. Why? because they want control over the user and lots of their money system is setup around that. Its not about protecting the user. Its not about warranty issues, because I would gladly click the "i accept that my device is no longer under warranty if I load debian on it instead of your crappy samsung os". Its about app store and ad money, and pitentially about surveillance.
  • chc 12y ago
    > I'm getting tired of explaining why this kind of reasoning is wrong. Specifically, your statement about how "In his world, the creators of things starve." No, for the thousandth time, it's not true at all. > There is nothing standing in the way of content creators selling GPL code, and even keeping it private until its been bought. Full stop. You appear to be arguing that it is not expressly forbidden by the GPL, but this is not what api said. There is something standing in the way of content creators selling GPL code — practicality. When you can only sell one license to the software ever, it's really impractical to build a business around selling that software. In fact, I cannot think of any companies that create GPL-licensed software and actually make their money selling that GPL-licensed software.
• 2close4comfort 12y ago
  Creators can't have it both ways. The info you sell has to be useful to the people buying it...or they won't buy it. Just because we now have a technically literate population doesn't mean that you can change the rules to make selling new shit still applicable. Information is free if you sell it (in a book...in a prog...written on a stone tablet) you are letting others use it. Farmers are an easier target for them cause mostly they font own their land, or seed, now it would seem even their tractors. I think they have been hanging out too close to Monsanto and others whom make our litigious society possible while logically incongruent. And if everyone is a creator then why how can everyone starve? It will only starve the ones who create poorly.
• zanny 12y ago
  > the creators of things starve The creators of things can do whatever they want in Stallmans world. They just cannot use the state as a weapon against the sharing of information they created, or more appropriately, hold a state issued right to control. A tool to deny the propagation of knowledge in all its forms which destroys culture (how much media from the 20th century is lost forever again?) and cripples social progress. Nothing about dissolving the false economy of existent information scarcity means anyone needs to stop producing it. Just because you cannot control everything about your information beyond simple goods exchange, that you cannot deny people access to it if someone else who has it wishes to provide it, and that you cannot stymie it for profit does not mean you still cannot create information as a profession, in all its forms. Most modern visual artists online today operate off a model without transfer based rent seeking (ie, commissioning, or for comic artists patreon or kickstarter models).
  • vacri 12y ago
    The creators of things can do whatever they want in Stallmans world. That's not true at all. Stallman is against DRM in general, not state-backed DRM specifically.
• dtech 12y ago
  In the doom scenario you sketch nobody would produce creative content anymore, and what exactly would be the problem with that then? Apparently people don't think it's worth enough. This is how a free market works. I also disagree with your statement that people only want creative content for free. I think Spotify and Netflix prove that people simply want the most convenient service, but old-fashioned companies keep making roadblocks that make legal content less convenient to use than pirated/illegal content. > Stallman [...] is a tenured academic. It doesn't matter to him that nobody pays for his work. The university does? I assume he can get fired if he doesn't do his job even if he has tenure. > Someone who works for nothing is the definition of a slave. I think a lot of volunteers, e.g. a large amount of programmers who contribute to open source projects, do not think of themselves as or could be qualified as slaves.
• bachmeier 12y ago
  > In his world, the creators of things starve. Why can't John Deere make money selling tractors? The company was founded in 1837. Hasn't running a business for 178 years demonstrated that it is possible to eat and produce? Or is your comment unrelated to the article?
  • chc 12y ago
    It seems pretty clear to me from context that api was talking about Richard Stallman's views on copyright law, not John Deere's tractors.
• deveac 12y ago
  >In his world, the creators of things starve. How so? The entirety of human history has shown us that we create no matter what. Art, music, tools, stories, technology, etc. Creators have been making (and eating) for eons, well before modern IP laws. Look at the patron model, or commission based production, used for centuries. Or look at creation during leisure time for leisure (and its close modern cousin, large portions of the App Store). The absence of strong, modern IP laws has never meant (and never will) "creators of things starve". It may mean varying levels of overall creation, but it gets hard to quantify what that would mean, especially when many components of our current strong IP laws work against and damage creation of IP. >Stallman can ignore this side of the equation because he is a tenured academic. You kind of lost me with this attack on him. This is just a lazy cop-out that gets you out of considering the counterargument on its points and merits. You're not debating his argument, you're attacking his character. Incidentally though, he is getting paid, and he is using the ancient patron model which is entirely consistent with his views.
  • alexqgb 12y ago
    "Look at the patron model, or commission based production, used for centuries." Here's a better idea: look at the actual work produced under this model. With a few notable exceptions, it's an endless parade of flattering portraits of rich people, glorified depictions the wars they won, politically slanted historic fictions used to justify their authority, and scenes from the religious stories they used to instill terror and obedience in the people they dominated ruthlessly. In other words, if you actually understood what you were talking about, you'd know that art produced under the model you describe existed - above all - to project and protect the power of the people who paid for it. The beauty of the copyright systems is that it provided the first real break from a brutal and largely impoverished world in which a tiny handful of rich, powerful individuals (and the institutions they controlled) maintained exclusive control over what did and didn't get made. Seriously, what else have you got? A compelling case for a return to the divine right of kings? Maybe you could defend the Church's Index of Banned Books while you're at it? Or remind us why burning witches was maybe a good thing after all? Protip, dude: don't use history to support your arguments if you don't know the first thing about the history you're citing. The system defined by contemporary IP law is far from perfect, but the idea that it's worse that what it replaced is completely insane. Further progress means adapting IP law to the realities of the 21st Century, not saying "Screw it, let's just revert to what worked for the ruling class in 16th."
• seanp2k2 12y ago
  Regarding the cup of coffee, they've put DRM on that too: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/03/how-do-you-drm-a-thing-like-a-coffee-pod/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/03/how-do-you-drm-a-...
• kansface 12y ago
  We absolutely do not need a digital rights tracking system to turn bits into de facto physical objects. The point being, if we needed it, it would be invented and widely adopted. Practically no consumer wants that system, or anything remotely close to it. There is no magic in making everything digital free - its just the way the universe works. Those things which can be trivially produced (digital copies) are tantamount to an infinite supply. In the case of limitless supply, prices will approach zero. Eventually the law will catch up with the rest of society. Creatives will make money in other ways; there will always be writers, artists, poets, and hackers. People are compelled to create and share. They will not always be paid per unit of work after the fact.
• ratboy666 12y ago
  The software in the farm equipment is useless without the farm equipment. Sure, the "file" may be easy to copy, but building the rest of the tractor to USE the file? Slightly more difficult. And, referring to the article, why would you use a tractor to copy music? I do think that the cheapest way to get a tractor that would use the software would be to pay Deere for another tractor.
• bad_user 12y ago
  > Books are hard to copy Err, no, it only takes half an hour at most and a Xerox machine. It's much cheaper than buying it too. We used to do it all the time when I was in college, which helped a lot given that sometimes we needed books that were out of print. And btw, the best thing about a printed book is that it's forever yours and you can rent it, burn it or copy it with no technical restrictions ;-) > Writers have to get paid, and people are cheap and don't want to pay them Welcome to the world of capitalism; supply and demand is a bitch, isn't it? My problem with such an argument is that it tries to take a moral stand, whereas there's no morality in it, because being paid for shit is not a fundamental right. Plus in a world in which copyright terms keep getting extended such that Disney will never lose their rights for Mickey Mouse, some people find it hard to give a shit about copyrights. But the freaking elephant in the room is that DRM does not protect the interests of "creators" and it does not stop people from pirating content. DRM only achieves two things - (1) lock-in for the company owning the platform (e.g. Amazon) and (2) milking loyal customers. As an example, I'm resetting my phone like once every two months or so and reinstalling everything ... the Kindle app is now telling me that my books were downloaded on too many devices and so I can't download them. I can't "unregister" devices either, because this is simply a software bug. I then searched those books on torrent sites, found them, downloaded them and I'll never buy books from Amazon again.