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Re: The copyright issue


From: Andreas Röhler
Subject: Re: The copyright issue
Date: Mon, 09 Aug 2010 19:07:06 +0200
User-agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; de; rv:1.9.1.11) Gecko/20100711 Thunderbird/3.0.6

Am 09.08.2010 18:16, schrieb David Kastrup:
Andreas Röhler<address@hidden>  writes:

Am 09.08.2010 15:06, schrieb David Kastrup:
Andreas Röhler<address@hidden>   writes:


Am 09.08.2010 12:01, schrieb Richard Stallman:

The main reason our lawyer gave when advising us to ask for copyright
assignments is so that the copyright status of the program is simple.
He said that would help us in court if we need to sue someone for
violating the GPL.

We can make an exception occasionally when it is very important
but we should not make many exceptions.

The crux is: this policy puts the risk at the weakest shoulders, at
the contributors.

No, it _takes_ the task of suing for compliance from the shoulders of
the contributors.
Freedom is not a tool to sue. That's a mistake.
If nobody is willing to defend freedom, it goes away.  That's the whole
point of the GPL and the fundamental reason of GNU.  Feel free to
disagree, but preaching the opposite in a GNU mailing list is about as
useful as trying to convince the Pope of preaching Islam.  His job
description is just incompatible.

The accusation is acquisition and possession of child pornography.
If you consider this in any way connected with copyright assignment
policies, you are just crazy.  It may be loosely connected with
freedom of information and privacy, but that's utterly, utterly
unrelated to the topic of discussion.  So please get a grip and use,
if at all, examples that have anything to do with the point you are
trying to make.
Defending free software means defending freedom of information also.
Are you for legalizing credit card fraud and bank fraud?  Your bank
accounts are just information.

A possible crime may might be constituted with spreading information, not just possessing it.
Civilisation starts with the notion of difference between words and actions.

Words shall be free. No "hate speech" law may be part of culture, thats a barbarian style of politics. Culture means freedom of speech, freedom of access to all kind of available info.

BTW in the mentioned time also laws have been passed here, making pure possession
of so called hacker tools a crime. Same play against basic rights.


  Why would not some person be allowed to
tamper with the information that constitutes your money?

Jörg Taus did both.

The case of Jörg Tauss has been used to pervert
legislation. Until then Art. 19 of Universal
Declaration of Human Rights from December 10, 1948, was
respected et least in theory:

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and
expression; this right includes freedom to hold
opinions without interference and to seek, receive and
impart information and ideas through any media and
regardless of frontiers.
But Tauss was not just informing himself about a machinery, he was
actively participating in it and feeding it.

Really? Don't believe that. He states different.
What the grants against persecution of a member of Parliament are worth, if
its allowed to search his home and computers?


  That is not the same as
working for "freedom of information".

Shortly before Jörg Tauss was sentenced, legislation
was changed, making already of possession of
information, i.e. pictures of a crime, a crime itself.
If the principal purpose of the crime is to create the "information" to
be passed around into people's possession for money and other
consideration, actively participating in a private network created for
the purpose of swapping this kind of material is keeping the crimes
going.

Notably Jörg Tauss as Member of Parliament opposed that
new law before, tried to check himself whats behind the
child-porn-campaign. He felt fooled by services,
assumed getting wrong informations at the real issue
and purposes.  He was the speaker of his parliaments
group in just this IT-, freedom of information related
matters.
Apparently, he did not keep records on the level appropriate for an
investigation, but merely on the level needed for personal access.

It is fine to admire him for his stance in software patents, but that
does not make his legal problems any more on-topic here.

FSFE should know his name from Patent- and other FSF-related
matters very well.
Utterly meaningless for this discussion.  Focus.





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