[Upd-discuss] Christian Engstrom on Copyright Law and Online Freedom

[Richard Stallman]

    Hmm.  I thought Engstroem did a good job pointing out that the goal is
    wrong:  "Technology opens up possibilities; copyright law shuts them down.

To criticize the enemy's goal is to say, "Sharing is good, and
people's right to share must be respected."  The words you have quoted
stop short of saying this.  Instead they say, "Stopping people from
sharing retards techological progress".  That is attacking a side
effect.

      Copyright was meant to encourage culture, not
    restrict it.

That statement is valid, but it too avoids a clear defense of sharing.
It too focuses on side effects -- though they are closer to the
central issue than the previous side effects.

      Speaking about the deleterious aspects of copyright law, and the
    spurious and harmful nature of modern copyright law quickly triggers a great
    many people's 'crank response':  the eyes glaze over, and you're arguments
    fall on a deaf ear.

    It's absurd, but it's enormously difficult to penetrate this cultural
    barrier.

In my experience it is not so hard.  Plenty of people are willing to
listen to the idea that sharing is good, when I present it in my
speeches.  (See audio-video.gnu.org.)  Surely I am not the only one
who can do it.

    On the other hand, more and more people are becoming aware and concerned by
    the negative effects of governments and corporations snooping into our
    private communications.  It's my completely informal and unscientific
    opinion/observation that more people are actively concerned with this issue
    than are concerned with the plundering of the public domain.

You are probably right about that, but what conclusion should we draw?

If we assume that the lack of interest in our issue is permanent and
irremediable, that would lead to the conclusion you stated: that we
should argue against side effects of the enemy's proposals.

This may work to defeat a particular proposal.  For instance, arguing
about privacy could convince privacy advocates to oppose a specific
plan for copyright enforcement which also threatens privacy.  But that
is as far as it goes.  These privacy advocates won't be interested in
our enemy's next plan which has no privacy implications.

I have seen organizations follow this "pragmatic" short-term reasoning
for a decade, so I see its weakness.  Attacking side effects can
sometimes defeat a proposal, but it does not build a base of support
for our cause.

In the long term, the way a political movement wins support is by
communicating its central ideas.  That's what we must do to win.
Instead of assuming people will never care about freedom to share, we
have to arouse their concern.

Fortunately we have a tremendous audience just waiting to hear
what we stand for.

Tens of millions of people do file sharing.  They know how useful it
is.  But many of them don't mentally dare to defend what they do,
because they have never seen anyone dissent from the copyright
lobby's position that sharing is wrong.

All it takes is for them to hear someone make a clear and rational
defense of the right to share, and some of them will become our
supporters.  And then they will oppose ANY attack on sharing, whatever
side effects it may or may not have.  And they will defend our cause
in discussions and help change more of the brainwashing.