Information wants to be free?

[jhetley]

That's one of the slogans of the extremist fringe of the "Intellectual Property" debate.  I suspect for a lot of them, that is "free" as in "I don't have to pay for it" rather than "free" as in "The cops can't haul it off to Gitmo."

Problem is, when you apply that theory to works of fiction, to music, to performances of any kind, you are dealing with just that -- performances.  I don't write "information."  I write "entertainment."

"Creativity wants to be paid."

This editorial brought to you by one cup of coffee.  That's what free information will get you, if you add a couple of dollars* on your own...

*Used to be a quarter, but $tarbucks happened.

Comments

[slithytove.livejournal.com]

Stewart Brand, who coined the phrase, had a more nuanced view, and understood the contradictions. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_wants_to_be_free)

[kinzel.livejournal.com]

I have a v hard time drinking Starbucks coffee ("Buy your coffee with an oil slick on top and 500 useless calories per cup! see: http://www.calorie-count.com/calories/item/57059.html); makes it that much harder to feel good about buying coffee at today's outrageous prices.

I note there are a number of folks with the opinion "authors have no natural right to their words..."

Sigh.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

I don't even like $tarbucks coffee black. Tastes charred to me. I can burn my own food, thank you.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

I think Stewart was also thinking about facts. Anyone who takes my writing as _factual_ has a problem...

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

Facts are also the basis of the "free as in speech" software movement. All software is is a set of instructions. If one person has given you a set of computer instructions (in spoken form) you're allowed to listen to them, to remember them, to re-say them, to modify them and say them differently, to relate them to someone else, etc.... all the things that copyright generally forbids.

Note that this is spoken *about* a certain sort of licensing in an approving way, and isn't (generally) intended as a criticism of non-"free as in speech" products, or as a reason to violate copyrights.