Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!lll-lcc!rutgers!clyde!cuae2!ihnp4!inuxc!pur-ee!uiucdcs!uiucdcsb!liberte From: liberte@uiucdcsb.cs.uiuc.edu Newsgroups: comp.emacs Subject: Re: Swedish copyright laws Message-ID: <165400009@uiucdcsb> Date: Thu, 18-Dec-86 20:28:00 EST Article-I.D.: uiucdcsb.165400009 Posted: Thu Dec 18 20:28:00 1986 Date-Received: Sat, 20-Dec-86 03:17:35 EST References: <861214@<961981> Lines: 63 Nf-ID: #R:<961981:861214:uiucdcsb:165400009:000:2845 Nf-From: uiucdcsb.cs.uiuc.edu!liberte Dec 18 19:28:00 1986 Some clarifications are in order. GNU Emacs is not public domain. It is free and constrained to be free. In fact, the Free Software Foundation is attempting to control future actions of the users of their software, perhaps regrettably. Democracy and capitalism are not identical. Democracy is a political system, capitalism an economic system. They tend to go together, but dont have to. In fact, the U.S. espouses democracy while often promoting dictatorships which support capitalism. I will post a longer note to talk.politics.theory discussing these issues in more detail. Below is the more relevant part on information. ------------------------------------- Back to the issue of the ownership and control of information. This should be distinguished from the sale of information. Information is a strange thing since it is non-material and costs hardly anything to copy. But the creators of information need to recover their research and development costs and need to be rewarded in proportion to the market value of the product. Thus, I defend the right of software companies to charge for their software, perhaps on a sliding scale based on the number of sales. This is essentially what the "free market" system does by allowing companies to charge what the market will bear. But there has to be a competing company to drive the price down as more sales are made. However, with competition we also get the cut-throat practices, the wastefulness of redundant research, and the shoddy products that reduce us to barbarians. In the future, as more and more of what is traded will be information, it will become ever more important that fair trade policies be established for this information commodity. Information should become cheap and it will sell more easily. When information is used for the development of other products, royalties should go to the creator of the information. Therefore, getting a program source should be relatively inexpensive, but if that source is used in another product, accrued royalties may equal or exceed the alternative one-time payment, and will pay for the source in proportion to its lasting value. To ensure that this system works, the sale of information and other products would have to be regulated. Such regulation and control by the government amounts to ownership by the government. If the government is truly "of the people" then the abuses of government will be minimized. People fear government mostly because their experiences have been bad. Education is the key to successful participatory democracy. Daniel LaLiberte 217-333-8740 University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Department of Computer Science 1304 W Springfield Urbana, IL 61801 liberte@b.cs.uiuc.edu liberte@uiuc.csnet ihnp4!uiucdcs!liberte { moderation in all things - including moderation }