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+<!--#include virtual="/server/header.html" -->
+<!-- Parent-Version: 1.90 -->
+<title>Freedom or Copyright?
+- GNU Project - Free Software Foundation</title>
+<!--#include virtual="/philosophy/po/freedom-or-copyright.translist" -->
+<!--#include virtual="/server/banner.html" -->
+<h2>Freedom&mdash;or Copyright?</h2>
+
+<address class="byline">by Richard Stallman</address>
+
+<p><em>This essay addresses how the principles of software freedom
+apply in some cases to other works of authorship and art. It's
+included here since it involves the application of the ideas of free
+software.</em></p>
+<hr class="thin" />
+
+<p>
+Copyright was established in the age of the printing press as an
+industrial regulation on the business of writing and publishing. The
+aim was to encourage the publication of a diversity of written works.
+The means was to require publishers to get the author's permission to
+publish recent writings. This enabled authors to get income from
+publishers, which facilitated and encouraged writing. The general
+reading public received the benefit of this, while losing little:
+copyright restricted only publication, not the things an ordinary
+reader could do. That made copyright arguably a beneficial system for
+the public, and therefore arguably legitimate.</p>
+
+<p>
+Well and good&mdash;back then.</p>
+
+<p>
+Now we have a new way of distributing
+information: computers and networks. Their benefit is that they
+facilitate copying and
+manipulating information, including software, musical recordings,
+books, and movies. They offer the possibility of unlimited access to
+all sorts of data&mdash;an information utopia.</p>
+
+<p>
+One obstacle stood in the way: copyright. Readers and listeners who
+made use of their new ability to copy and share published information
+were technically copyright infringers. The same law which had
+formerly acted as a beneficial industrial regulation on publishers had
+become a restriction on the public it was meant to serve.</p>
+
+<p>
+In a democracy, a law that prohibits a popular and useful activity is
+usually soon relaxed. Not so where corporations have political power.
+The publishers' lobby was determined to prevent the public from taking
+advantage of the power of their computers, and found copyright a
+handy weapon. Under their influence, rather than relaxing copyright
+rules to suit the new circumstances, governments made them stricter than
+ever, imposing harsh penalties on the practice of sharing. The latest
+fashion in supporting the publishers against the citizens, known as
+&ldquo;three strikes,&rdquo; is to cut off people's Internet connections if
+they share.</p>
+
+<p>
+But that wasn't the worst of it. Computers can be powerful tools of
+domination when software suppliers deny users the control of the
+software they run. The
+publishers realized that by publishing works in encrypted format,
+which only specially authorized software could view, they could gain
+unprecedented power: they could compel readers to pay, and identify
+themselves, every time they read a book, listen to a song, or watch a
+video. That is the publishers' dream: a pay-per-view universe.</p>
+
+<p>
+The publishers gained US government support for their dream with the
+Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998. This law gave publishers
+power to write their own copyright rules, by implementing them in the
+code of the authorized player software. Under this practice, called
+Digital Restrictions Management, or DRM, even reading or listening
+without authorization is forbidden.</p>
+
+<p>
+We still have the same old freedoms in using paper books and other
+analog media. But if e-books replace printed books, those freedoms
+will not transfer. Imagine: no more used book stores; no more lending
+a book to your friend; no more borrowing one from the public
+library&mdash;no more &ldquo;leaks&rdquo; that might give someone a
+chance to read without paying. No more purchasing a book anonymously with
+cash&mdash;you can only buy an e-book with a credit card. That is
+the world the publishers want to impose on us. If you buy the Amazon
+Kindle (we call it <a
+href="/philosophy/why-call-it-the-swindle.html">the Swindle</a>)
+or the Sony Reader (we
+call it the Shreader for what it threatens to do to books), you pay to
+establish that world.</p>
+
+<p>
+The Swindle even has an Orwellian back door that can be used to erase
+books remotely. Amazon demonstrated this capability by erasing
+copies, purchased from Amazon, of Orwell's book 1984. Evidently
+Amazon's name for this product reflects the intention to burn our
+books.</p>
+
+<p>
+Public anger against DRM is slowly growing, held back because
+propaganda expressions such
+as &ldquo;<a href="/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html">protect
+authors</a>&rdquo;
+and &ldquo;<a href="/philosophy/not-ipr.html">intellectual
+property</a>&rdquo; have convinced readers that their rights do not
+count. These terms implicitly assume that publishers deserve special
+power in the name of the authors, that we are morally obliged to bow
+to them, and that we have wronged someone if we see or hear
+anything without paying for permission.</p>
+
+<p>
+The organizations that profit most from copyright legally exercise it
+in the name of the authors (most of whom gain little). They would
+have you believe that copyright is a natural right of authors, and
+that we the public must suffer it no matter how painful it is. They
+call sharing &ldquo;piracy&rdquo;, equating helping your neighbor with
+attacking a ship.</p>
+
+<p>
+They also tell us that a War on Sharing is the only way to keep
+art alive. Even if true, it would not justify the policy; but it
+isn't true. Public sharing of copies is likely to increase the sales of
+most works, and decrease sales only for big hits.</p>
+
+<p>
+Bestsellers can still do well without forbidding sharing. Stephen
+King got hundreds of thousands of dollars selling an unencrypted
+e-book serial with no obstacle to copying and sharing. (He was
+dissatisfied with that amount and called the experiment a failure, but it looks
+like a success to me.) Radiohead made millions in 2007 by inviting
+fans to copy an album and pay what they wished, while it was also
+shared on peer-to-peer networks. In
+2008, <a href="http://www.boingboing.net/2008/03/05/nine-inch-nails-made.html">
+Nine Inch Nails released an album with permission to share copies</a>
+and made $750,000 in a few days.</p>
+
+<p>
+The possibility of success without oppression is not limited to
+bestsellers. Many artists of various levels of fame now make an
+adequate living through <a href="http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091119/1634117011.shtml">voluntary
+support</a>: donations and merchandise purchases of their fans.
+Kevin Kelly estimates the artist need only find around
+<a href="http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/03/1000_true_fans.php">
+1,000 true fans</a>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When computer networks provide an easy anonymous method for sending
+someone a small amount of money, without a credit card, it will be
+easy to set up a much better system to support the arts. When you
+view a work, there will be a button you can press saying, &ldquo;Click
+here to send the artist one dollar&rdquo;. Wouldn't you press it, at
+least once a week?</p>
+
+<p>
+Another good way to support music and the arts is with
+<a href="/philosophy/dat.html">tax funds</a>&mdash;perhaps a tax on blank media
+or on Internet connectivity. The state should
+distribute the tax money entirely to the artists, not
+waste it on corporate executives. But the state should not distribute
+it in linear proportion to popularity, because that would give most of
+it to a few superstars, leaving little to support all the other
+artists. I therefore recommend using a cube-root function or
+something similar. With linear proportion, superstar A with 1,000
+times the popularity of a successful artist B will get 1,000 times as
+much money as B. With the cube root, A will get 10 times as much as
+B. Thus, each superstar gets a larger share than a less popular
+artist, but most of the funds go to the artists who really need this
+support. This system will use our tax money efficiently to support
+the arts.</p>
+
+<p>
+The <a
+href="http://stallman.org/mecenat/global-patronage.html">Global
+Patronage</a> proposal combines aspects of those two systems,
+incorporating mandatory payments with voluntary allocation among
+artists.</p>
+
+<!--
+<p>
+In Spain, this tax system should replace the SGAE and its canon,
+which could be eliminated.</p> -->
+
+<p>
+To make copyright fit the network age, we should legalize the
+noncommercial copying and sharing of all published works, and prohibit
+DRM. But until we win this battle, you must protect yourself: don't
+buy any products with DRM unless you personally have the means to
+break the DRM. Never use a product designed to attack your freedom
+unless you can nullify the attack.</p>
+
+</div><!-- for id="content", starts in the include above -->
+<!--#include virtual="/server/footer.html" -->
+<div id="footer">
+<div class="unprintable">
+
+<p>Please send general FSF &amp; GNU inquiries to <a
+href="mailto:gnu@gnu.org">&lt;gnu@gnu.org&gt;</a>. There are also <a
+href="/contact/">other ways to contact</a> the FSF. Broken links and other
+corrections or suggestions can be sent to <a
+href="mailto:webmasters@gnu.org">&lt;webmasters@gnu.org&gt;</a>.</p>
+
+<p><!-- TRANSLATORS: Ignore the original text in this paragraph,
+ replace it with the translation of these two:
+
+ We work hard and do our best to provide accurate, good quality
+ translations. However, we are not exempt from imperfection.
+ Please send your comments and general suggestions in this regard
+ to <a href="mailto:web-translators@gnu.org">
+ &lt;web-translators@gnu.org&gt;</a>.</p>
+
+ <p>For information on coordinating and submitting translations of
+ our web pages, see <a
+ href="/server/standards/README.translations.html">Translations
+ README</a>. -->
+Please see the <a
+href="/server/standards/README.translations.html">Translations README</a> for
+information on coordinating and submitting translations of this article.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Copyright &copy; 2008, 2010, 2011, 2019, 2020 Richard M. Stallman</p>
+
+<p>This page is licensed under a <a rel="license"
+href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">Creative
+Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License</a>.</p>
+
+<!--#include virtual="/server/bottom-notes.html" -->
+
+<p class="unprintable">Updated:
+<!-- timestamp start -->
+$Date: 2020/10/06 08:25:53 $
+<!-- timestamp end -->
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+</body>
+</html>