[Web4lib] Wikipedia vs Britannica

[Chuck0]

Walt.Crawford at rlg.org wrote:
> Sorry, ChuckO, but as far as I'm concerned, you're still extremist--and
> directly damaging efforts to achieve a reasonable balance in copyright,
> unlike Creative Commons and other efforts to achieve such a balance.

Thanks for calling me an "extremist". Is there anything else you'd like 
to say on this list to impugn my reputation? Or is this list more 
concerned with enforcing copyright and less about name-calling?

> Open access journals and open source software have nothing to do with
> opposing copyright as a whole.

Of course they do. They have been developed in recognition of the fact 
that the Internet makes it easy for people to share information. 
Copyright and intellectual property laws have been mechanisms to control 
the the distribution of content. IP laws exist so that wealthy people 
and corporations can use the violence of the state to enforce their 
monopoly on information distribution. IP laws are not about protecting 
the rights of some author. Just look at how IP laws have been extended 
in recent years and how they are being used against people sharing music 
or duplicating CDs and so on. Monopolies such as the music industry are 
hysterically afraid that digital technology makes it so easy to 
distribute information that they will be put out of business. Kind of 
like the churches being alarmed over the invention of the printing press.

> GPL ***depends*** on copyright for its force. So do all but one flavor of
> Creative Commons license.

But these are new methods that undermine traditional copyright in order 
to recognize the reality that people share information.

> You say it right in your signature: You're against copyright. Period.
> That's your privilege--but saying it's not an extreme stance is ludicrous.

I don't think that it is extreme in the least! It goes totally with the 
basic principles of librarianship, such as helping people find information.

> And, frankly, once you've said you're entirely opposed to copyright, you no
> longer have any standing to assert what is and isn't fair use. You've
> abandoned the field of discussion about nuances of intellectual property,
> since you oppose the concept entirely.

Yes, I oppose intellectual property laws like I have for most of my 
life. It's one of the reasons why I became a librarian. What I find 
exciting is how quickly the edifice of intellectual property law has 
come crashing down. How can anybody defend the indefensible in this 
digital age?

> [Not particularly incidentally, most copyright holders are not wealthy,
> although that's sure a convenient battle-cry.]

Copyright and intellectual property laws benefit the rich who rely on 
distribution monopolies for their wealth. As an average author, 
copyright law doesn't do much for me if I can't afford lawyers. It's 
interesting that average copyright holders are cited in these 
discussions. The DCMA was not implemented because people were 
plagiarizing the works of Susan Sontag. It and other laws were approved 
in order to protect the distribution monopolies of the publishers, 
Hollywood, Microsoft, and the record industry.

Chuck