Re: Property, scarcity, selbstentfaltung (was: Re: [ox-en] Book project)
- From: MJ Ray <markj cloaked.freeserve.co.uk>
- Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2003 15:45:34 GMT
Stefan Merten <smerten oekonux.de> wrote:
Free Software uses this feature of digital copy but goes one step
further - and IMHO the crucial one. Especially the GPL fundamentally
gives up the property rights on an information product. A GPLed piece
of information is basically the property of anyone - which makes the
term useless regarding the option of excluding anyone. [snip!]
I think this is not true. The GPL merely changes the flow of information
from being dictated to by the copyright holder, to being dictated by the
copyright licensee. As a licensee, you are free to give the copyrighted
material to anyone. In all free software licences, you are also free to not
give the copyrighted material to anyone. Nothing forces *you* personally to
include anyone. It's a sort of self-determination for copyright licensees.
However, this probably makes it less likely that someone will be excluded,
as instead of depending on the wishes of one person, it depends on all
licensees wanting to exclude them. At the start of the life of a work,
though, it is only held by one person. Even though it is licensed under the
GPL, how they choose who to license it to will determine how much it costs.
This can be seen by GPL "sell-offs". The NaN Blender one is probably the
most public so far. Reaction to that has been very mixed, though.
The GPL does not "give up" or "abandon" property rights. It merely tries to
use them in a particular way, to try to encourage progress in programming,
like most copyright laws were intended to do for creativity.
So, I refuse to accept the above reasoning as an justification for saying
"free software is gratis". Would you like to refine and retry? You may
well be right, or I currently suspect it may just be that most free software
has a price below what is worth collecting because there is no scarcity.
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