[Fsfe-uk] Are you a copyright communist?

[Paul Mobbs]

Are you a copyright communist? (I think I might fit the description).


P.



http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1387447,00.html

The war on copyright communists

Bill Gates wants software patents to protect his profit, not the public

Andrew Brown
The Guardian, Tuesday January 11th, 2005


Bill Gates is an intelligent man who has done a great deal of good in the 
world. So when he gets caught out in a bare-faced lie this should matter to 
all of us; and last week, when he called the opponents of American 
intellectual property law a "communist" movement he was encouraging a mistake 
that could impoverish the entire world.

He said: "Of the world's economies, there's more that believe in intellectual 
property today than ever. There are fewer communists in the world today than 
there were. There are some new modern-day sort of communists who want to get 
rid of the incentive for musicians and moviemakers and software makers under 
various guises. They don't think that those incentives should exist."

The argument in principle that Gates makes against "communism" starts in 
exactly the right place. But his vested interests lead him to drag it in the 
wrong direction. It is as if the Sheriff of Nottingham were to announce that 
it's enormously important that your property was protected from criminals - 
so he'll take everything you have that might be stolen and lock it up for 
safety in his castle.

<SNIP>


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"We are not for names, nor men, nor titles of Government, nor are we for
this party nor against the other but we are for justice and mercy and
truth and peace and true freedom, that these may be exalted in our
nation, and that goodness, righteousness, meekness, temperance, peace
and unity with God, and with one another, that these things may abound."
(Edward Burroughs, 1659 - from 'Quaker Faith and Practice')


Paul Mobbs, Mobbs' Environmental Investigations,
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