[fsug-bangalore] GPLv3 Series: Richard Stallman on P2P

[Rakesh 'arky' Ambati]

--- " पà¥*रवà¥*णà¥* à¤* (Praveen A)"
<pravi.a at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
>  Here is one interview of RMS about P2P sharing and
> DRM.
> 
> Good one.
> 
> http://www.linuxp2p.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=10771

(The content of the interview sans the flame posts)

Richard Matthew Stallman is the creator of the Free
Software movement, the founder of the GNU project and
the [698]Free Software Foundation. He has written
several programs used in almost all GNU/Linux
distributions, such as the GNU C Compiler, the GNU
Emacs editor and the GNU Debugger, amongst others. He
wrote the GNU GPL, and is also currently co-authoring
version 3 of the GPL. He also gave POSIX it's name,
the term used to mean most UNIX-like operating systems
today. We asked him for his opinions on File Sharing,
DRM and some other subjects.


LinuxP2P: What is your general opinion of Peer to Peer
File-Sharing? Is it a positive or negative thing, and
why? 


RMS: People have a right to share copies of published
works; P2P programs are simply a means to do it more
usefully, and that is a good thing.

LinuxP2P: The recording and movie industries claim
that P2P users infringe on their intellectual
property. In your opinion, is this correct, or are the
users exercising fair use?

RMS: The reason they use the term "intellectual
property" is because it misleads and confuses. If they
said "infringe their copyrights", they would be making
a clear and meaningful statement. But when they say
"intellectual property" instead of "copyrights", the
mix up copyright law with a dozen other laws. It's
impossible to say anything clear about such a confused
subject.

Anyone who uses the term "intellectual property" is
either trying to confuse the public, or confused
himself. Those who wish to encourage clear thinking
would do better to avoid it. (See
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.xhtml for more 
explanation.) So let's imagine that they tried to be
clear, and said these people are infringing their
copyrights. Whether that is true, I am the wrong one
to ask--I am not a lawyer. What I can say is that I
think that question is irrelevant to the ethics of the
issue. If copyright law forbids people from sharing,
copyright law is wrong.

LinuxP2P: What is your opinion on DRM? Is it good or
bad, and why?

RMS: Digital Restrictions Management means technically
restricting the public's use of published works. It is
fundamentally unjust.

I reject all DRM. I have signed a pledge not to buy
fake CDs that carry
DRM--http://www.pledgebank.com/boycottdrm. The host of
a speech once gave me a fake CD, and I said "Here you
see the face of the enemy--please return this to the
store".

I have also never bought an encrypted DVD, and I never
will buy one, unless I someday live in a country where
DeCSS is legal.

LinuxP2P: Now that we have iTunes, Rhapsody and
Napster etc. providing an outlet for digital music, is
there really a need for P2P file sharing to continue?

RMS: That question is absurd--it's like saying "Now
that we  have Fox News, is there really a need for
blogging?"

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I understand that
Rhapsody and Napster are shackled by DRM. People
should not do business with them.

iTunes is a peculiar case: it allows you to burn the
music onto a genuine audio CD. Therefore, it is DIM
(Digital Inconvenience Management) rather than DRM,
and I think that makes iTunes ethically acceptable--in
this respect, at least.

However, Apple says it reserves the right to change
the rules on you at any time. Therefore, you should
systematically burn  all music you get with iTunes
onto genuine audio CDs, as a kind of a backup--and
don't wait too long before backing up your music! If
you wait until you actually want a certain piece on a
CD, you may longer be able to write the CD.

In any case, iTunes distributes only music. As far as
I know, the only way you can get a
non-digitally-restricted version of a movie is through
a P2P network.

Important! Read this!
http://www.linuxp2p.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=11033#11033

A further problem with iTunes is that it distributes
MP3 format. We need to move away from the use of that
format, because it is patented. The free software that
used to exist for MP3 encoding has been driven
underground by threats of  lawsuits.

 The free software community has developed another
audio format called Ogg Vorbis which is both superior
in sound  quality and non-patented. You can help take
away the patent  holder's power by using Ogg Vorbis
format for the audio file you make, and by preferring
that format for files you listen  to.

LinuxP2P: In what directions would you say P2P has to
develop  before it is accepted by content producers?

RMS: When publishers describe the works that they
publish as "content", in effect referring to these
works as mere filler, they ironically show how little
they value and appreciate them as works of the
intellect.

I do not wish to devalue works of authorship, so I
decline to refer to them as "content". I also decline
to refer to writers  and musicians as "producers",
because I do not want to treat music and writing as
"products" (which implies a narrowly economic point of
view).

Many writers and musicians are happy with P2P sharing.
Many others, pursuing the unlikely dream of getting
rich through  commercial publication, do not like it.
I do not see how further developments in the P2P
software could be expected to set them straight about
their dreams of riches, and I tend to think that this
has to be done by cultural change instead.

As for the music factories--a.k.a. the major record
companies--what they want is power. They will never
accept P2P haring as long as it remains a way to
escape from their power. For their abuses against the
people, they deserve to be abolished, and that should
be everyone's goal.

LinuxP2P: The Free Software Foundation is currently
working on the GPL version 3, which I understand will
ban all forms of DRM. A large amount of P2P software
exists under the GNU GPL. Will the GPLv3 have any
effect on those projects, considering one can use P2P
software to download files with DRM?

RMS: That is somewhat of a misunderstanding--we cannot
"ban DRM". What we can do is prevent GPL-covered
software from being corrupted into an instrument for
implementing DRM.

The way we do this is not by restricting which
technical jobs the program can do. (That kind of
restriction would make the program non-free.) Instead,
we make sure that users retain the effective freedom
to change the software and run their changed versions.

Since DRM is based on restricting the user,
effectively maintaining the user's freedom thwarts
DRM. Or more precisely, effectively maintaining the
user's freedom to change a certain program thwarts use
of that program to implement DRM. We cannot stop them
from implementing DRM in other ways.

These parts of GPL v3 will have no effect on such
programs, because they are not used to impose Digital
Restriction, and their developers do not attempt to
stop users from running modified versions.

LinuxP2P:In the last couple of years, independent
media and  entertainment seems has grown immensely.
Just last week, CreativeCommons.org passed the 200000
mp3s indexed milestone. Most independent music, movies
etc., use Creative Commons licensing.

 A lot of the independent artwork has been spread
through P2P (Using legal independent artistry sites
such as Jamendo.com and  ccMixter.org, as well as
manually by the artists themselves.). Apart from the
obvious, which is that the GPL is written to cover
software, what differences are there between generic
CC licensing and the GPL?

RMS: I have already explained the patent problem of
MP3 format.

As your question illustrates, people have a tendency
to  disregard the differences between the various
Creative Commons licenses, lumping them together as a
single thing. That is as mixed-up as supposing San
Francisco and Death Valley have similar weather
because they're both in California.

Some Creative Commons licenses are free licenses; most
permit at least noncommercial verbatim copying. But
some, such as the Sampling Licenses and Developing
Countries Licenses, don't even permit that, which
makes them unacceptable to use for any kind of work.
All these licenses have in common is a label, but
people regularly mistake that common label for
something substantial.

I no longer endorse Creative Commons. I cannot endorse
Creative Commons as a whole, because some of its
licenses are unacceptable. It would be self-delusion
to try to endorse just some of the Creative Commons
licenses, because people lump them together; they will
misconstrue any endorsement of some as a blanket
endorsement of all. I therefore find myself
constrained to reject Creative Commons entirely.

Does Creative Commons publish the number of music
files that are released under Creative Commons
licenses that DO permit  noncommercial sharing of
copies? If so, could you give that  number?

LinuxP2P wrote: Apart from the obvious, which is that
the GPL is written to cover software,

It may seem obvious, but it's not true. The GNU GPL is
written primarily for software, but it can be used for
any kind of work. However, its requirements are
inconvenient for works that one might want to print
and publish in a book, so I don't commend using it for
manuals, or for novels.

 LinuxP2P wrote: what differences are there between
generic CC licensing and the GPL?

 Nothing meaningful can be said about "generic CC 
licensing"--those licenses are more different than
similar. The first step in thinking clearly about
those licenses is to  discuss them separately.

 LinuxP2P: Can the GPL be applied to artwork? For
example, most  of the people who submit wallpapers to
KDE-Look.org submit them  under the GPL, would the
GPL's terms still apply, considering it isn't
software.

RMS: There must be some basic misunderstanding here.
If a work is released under the GPL, then the GPL's
terms apply to it. How could it possibly be otherwise?

LinuxP2P would like to thank Mr. Stallman for taking
time out  of his busy schedule to participate in this
interview. We wish him and the FSF the best of luck
with his ongoing GPLv3 project  and all the other
projects he's involved in.