[Ecommerce] Re: [Csc-announce] FYI: Paper on WIPO

[Richard Stallman]

    > I wrote this bit and I'm comfortable with it. Personally, I don't think
    > these are good agreements at all; the world certainly does not need the
    > WPPT or the WCT. But they could have been a lot worse. And that is the
    > point. The paper does not endorse any of the agreements referred to and
    > should not be taken as doing so.

To describe a treaty as "balanced" is not, strictly speaking, to say
that it is good.  But it has become a platitude to say that the
criterion for good copyright policy is to find a "balance" between
interests.  Thus, if you describe the treaty as "balanced",
practically speaking people will read that as praise.

These treaties could be even worse.  Every bad thing that happens,
short of extinction of all life, could be worse.  But they attacked
the public's rights, and we should condemn them roundly.


(See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/reevaluating-copyright.html for an
explanation of why "balance" is a mistaken criterion for copyright
policy.)