[PEN-L:551] Re: Re: copyrights.

[Anand Narayan <Narayan@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The Free Software movement has done a good bit of work in this. They contend that software should always be free and duplicatable. YOu can check some of their policies at www.gnu.org

About letting works be in the public domain, that can only work if enough authors/publishers/artists are willing to buy into that philosophy. One could arguably copyright work using the GNU public license, which freely gives the right to copy and duplicate, as long the copies themselves do not have an additional copyright, even if modified.

The argument about innovation again is empirical, so disproving it would only involve proving that innovation can and will occur even if the rights were not granted.

Anand Narayan

>
> I though that the major goal of a socialist project is to get rid of the
> system of bourgeois entitlements aka property rights.  That includes also
> intellectual property rights which are more draconian (at least in the US)
> than laws governing other types of property.
>
> Since information is public good par excellence, anyone who calls himself a
> socialist should have no objections to free distribution of information
> he/she produces.
>
> PS.  I agree with Lou that US media moguls should be put on trial for
> crimes against humanity, just like Joseph Goebbels was.
>
> Regards,
>
> Wojtek Sokolowski
>
>