muckrights-sans-merde
bonum fabula frat
### roy-for-copyright-maximalism
other pages:
=> muckrights-isnt-largely-skewed-to-the-right.html muckrights-isnt-largely-skewed-to-the-right
*originally posted:* sep 2021
i dont blame you if you think the only point here is "roy is wrong" but this is a pretty important issue, and its too bad that roy is wrong about it. he probably doesnt INTEND to side with copyright maximalism here, though that is what his argument does (unintentionally or otherwise).
considering how often he writes about patents, and is against maximalism there, you would hope he would get this. but even ive caught him making a huge error about patent issues, getting suckered by some vlogger who conflated a non-commercial license with "open source" (it isnt) and then copyright with patents (roy definitely knows better on that one, but he still bought the argument) and even the technical ability to reverse engineer with freedom, dismissing the latter.
of course we all make mistakes, though this was just sloppy and youd expect roy to say "oh, yeah, that was totally wrong". because it was. but muckrights deliberately misleads people, so inadvertently misleading them, eh...
```
Wed 10:51:28 | schestowitz-TR | you are mixing two issues
Wed 10:51:40 | schestowitz-TR | blending unauthorised sharing with censorship
Wed 10:52:23 | schestowitz-TR | if hollywood makes an expensive firms and licences it badly, we should avoid it
Wed 10:52:38 | schestowitz-TR | but to deny them the ability to tackle distribution violations is another thing
Wed 10:52:44 | schestowitz-TR | and less a mora argument
Wed 10:53:11 | schestowitz-TR | *moral
```
actually, the two issues have been related in roys very own britain for centuries-- whomever roy was speaking to, they were probably NOT conflating "unauthorised sharing" with censorship, because copyright was at one point a royal right to publish something. in other words, if the crown didnt want it published, it was censored.
copyright is used as a means of censorship on a routine basis, i think in the past roy has even covered this on his own blog: http://techrights.org/2014/03/12/censorship-using-copyrights/
```
Wed 10:52:23 | schestowitz-TR | if hollywood makes an expensive firms and licences it badly, we should avoid it
Wed 10:52:38 | schestowitz-TR | but to deny them the ability to tackle distribution violations is another thing
```
it isnt "another thing" for so many reasons.
first, allowing them the "ability" to tackle "distribution violations" puts a corrupt industry in charge of enforcement. thats as terrible an idea as it was when thomas edison had thugs going around bullying people who he considered violating his patents. there should be reasonable limits on what copyright holders can do, because what they do is go after people who (sometimes) arent violating anything and treat them as criminals. then they produce dubious evidence which too often gets taken seriously.
note that roy is basically arguing AGAINST someone even making an argument against this. it may not be his intention, but it follows from what hes saying.
also, modern copyright (in both scope and duration) is "probably" unconstitutional, per article 1 section 8. article 1 predates the bill of rights, so we havent even gotten to first amendment considerations yet. so when you talk about letting hollywood go after "unauthorised distribution" youre talking about giving them rights they never had, at the expense of rights people DO have.
copyright was not originally strong enough (and did not apply to most people in practice, basically all non-commercial use was legal, all "sharing" was "authorised") to conflict with the first amendment either. today, people are less free in this regard than ever before. a good percentage of that is internet companies that have bowed to hollywood, increasing (right,) censorship-- to appease (alleged) rightsholders. so i dont know what roy is smoking today, but he should probably put the pipe down.
this isnt even (solely) legal or judicial censorship, because the internet companies are granting hollywood additional power (to censor) to avoid the spectre of legal action. this is partly dmca-type considerations, and partly JUST plain censorship. roy may think this doesnt apply to what hes saying (or is in some way separate from what hes saying) but his argument does nothing to mitigate these implications-- its sloppy, misleading and incorrect.
the whole concept of free culture is to defend and increase sharing, to defend and increase free expression, and roys argument is helping to carve out a huge swath of legitimate expression, because hes paying no attention to the most important details of the issue hes talking about. if he were merely tutoring a student about this, the student would have every right and reason (if they noticed) to interrupt roy and challenge this claim.
i know ive kept track of a lot of ridiculous things hes said, too many of which were completely and deliberately dishonest, but one of the things that stands out about this claim from today is that even from roy, this is surprising. its so wrong, and so misleading-- even for him. i guess he should stick to patents, if this is his "defence" against corporate censorship via copyright maximalism.
also, legitimate arguments against censorship ARE INDEED "moral" arguments. in fact, stallman himself said that not being able to share software forces him to be a "bad neighbour". hes made similar arguments about not being able to share other copyrighted works. so not only is roy wrong about this, hes also wrong (very mistaken) about something that contradicts stallmans own position. again.
contradicting stallman when hes wrong, for the sake of championing freedom is one thing-- contradicting stallman when hes right, via an argument that technically champions internet censorship is fucking sad.
=> https://muckrights-sans-merde.neocities.org