[Upd-discuss] French Judge refuses to shut down internet connections of P2P users

[Marc Lavallée]

Le 18 Janvier 2005 17:31, Christian Beauprez a écrit :
> I suppose the question is this, if you can authorize something do you
> have the right to do the thing you are authorizing or merely to prevent
> others from doing it?

Authorizing implies authority. Prohibiting too. 

> To me if one can authorize an action, it implies one has the authority
> to do that action.

Not necessarily; those who authorize actions are often unable to act 
themselves. So they must own, in order to authorize and/or force others to 
act.

> I have been told that some jurisdictions say you ONLY have the right to
> prevent others from doing but can't see how this could be justified when
> taken to an extreme "i.e. the negative right of copyright".

My comprehension of copyright is based on ownership, which is not negative 
but simply nihillistic: since its basic rule is that nothing can be known 
by others, copyright was invented so that knowledge can be owned, to make a 
profit out of sharable intellectual resources. In this context, exchanging 
rights with others is considered positive, because it allows people to 
share and act.

I'm not a lawyer, even less a philosopher... There's many ways to act and 
share, and I prefer the culture of "free" because it's simple, nonviolent 
and very efficient. 

-- 
Marc