Re: [Fsfe-uk] MSN Thought Thieves

[Lee Braiden]

On Saturday 14 May 2005 11:23, Alex Hudson wrote:
> If individuals/corps don't own "IP rights", who does, and how does that
> differ from no-one owning them?

Well, I meant "belong" in a wider sense than ownership.  I did mention that 
they should belong to society, and by that I meant that no one person should 
have control over technology that benefits the whole of our society.  As I 
understand Lessig's arguments in his book "Free Culture", that is what 
Copyright was originally intended to provide anyway.

> > I can't see any way to participate in this without legitimising
> > Microsoft's unethical approach to IP
>
> How does attempting to show up their motives legitimise them? It is
> better to let this pass without any comment?

Because your motivations for participating will be given little if any 
attention, whereas your participation will at least be registered in the 
numbers of people who took part.

This argument comes up with voting too: is it better to vote for parties you 
don't agree with, and even a system of voting that you don't agree with?  Or 
would it be better for people to stay away en-masse, and therefore to 
invalidate the election, forcing the powers that be to establish a better 
election system and then try again?

It's a tough call, but in this particular case, I can imagine more harm from 
participating than good.  Why not make a video and distribute it 
independently of Microsoft, if you have something to say?  It would be better 
off on creativecommons.org anyway, probably ;)

-- 
Lee.