Are re-edits the real revenge of disco? | Music | Guardian Unlimited

Are re-edits the real revenge of disco? | Music | Guardian Unlimited: "Ron Hardy was spinning in Chicago's proto-house club The Music Box than anything we've heard in house music clubs this past decade. Maybe disco didn't require retribution after all, perhaps it just needed time?

...


"Over the last six months it's become the main genre we sell," says Simon Rigg, manager of London dance music specialist Phonica Records, who guesses that up to 40% of his current vinyl stock comprises reworked versions of older music. The same tale comes from Alec Greenhough, who runs distributor Toko and All Ears Ltd.

"A lot less imagination seems to go into new dance music these days," says Danny Webb, dance music purchaser at Manchester's Piccadilly Records, where re-edits account for a similar percentage of dance vinyl sales. "I think DJs would rather spend their money on older records that may have been re-edited as these have, [and] in many cases been tried and tested on dancefloors by DJs over many years.""

The cultural cachet of the fake bag

It wasn't so long ago that the fashion editors at high-fashion titles were letting readers in on a little secret: the cool kids were either picking up "fake" bags for $20 on Canal Street or putting their name on lists for meticulously handmade it-bags. Both fashions were decidedly about money. The latter was a case of conspicuous consumption made palatable for upper middle class values by invoking the language of longevity and anti-fashion: it was an 'investment piece' and the money spent was worth it because it was a classic and would never go out of style. The 'fake' bags, on the other hand, were of-the-moment precisely because they screamed out that the moment would pass. They acknowledged the speed of trends and the need to move on once the masses got there. So too they can be seen as a case of classic slumming it (fake bags were no where near as cool if you weren't wearing Balancegia pants.) Their status as fashionable also stemmed from the young fashion assistants, models and downtown girls who carried them, the young things whose approval the fashion industry so desperately needs and whose creativity they so mercilessly borrow from and co-opt. So the Canal St bag's popularity was also a nod to the fact that the fashion industry's young minions and inspirations were not paid nearly enough to enjoy the lifestyles they were involved in creating. It was ironically aspirational in the urban context (actual aspiration being reserved for people in the suburbs.)

If ever there was a designer who was able to play with the dialectic of fashion and all of the social commentary inherent in it, it is Marc Jacobs.

In 2000 Jacobs revived the career of Stephen Sprouse, a designer who made his name in the 80s and was known for a pop punk aesthetic. Sprouse's Louis Vuitton bag (or is it Louis Vuitton's Sprouse?) was a classic Vuitton shape, covered in Sprouse's graffiti. Sprouse turned the label's ubiquitous logo into a tag and by doing so gave the bag multiple meanings and spoke to different groups of people in different ways. Fashion commentators will often note that Sprouse gave the label street-cred but the limited availability of the $700 bag also made Canal street knock off the real prize. If you're going to thumb your nose at the meaning and meaninglessness of a luxury logo, why not do it properly?

Today, the fashion industry is on the warpath against "fake" bags and the same magazines who admitted that 'fake' bags could have real cultural cachet, regularly run features that claim counterfeit luxury labels are responsible for everything from terrorism and drug trafficking to child-labour in China.



So while the fashion press is reporting that the simultaneous New York launch of © MURAKAMI at the Brooklyn Museum
and 'Monogramouflage' his latest collaboration with Vuitton is set to highlight the 'problem' of counterfeits, it's just as easy to see other not-so-corporate narratives at work. Coinciding with the launch, Vuitton has set up 10 fake street vendors outside the museum to sell fake fakes, that is 'real' Vuittons that cost real money. Authenticity is the luxury markets new buzzword and apparently there is nothing more authentic than not having enough money to buy an overpriced limited-edition bag that was made using the mechanisms of mass production. So the upper east side socialites who trudged their way to Brooklyn are rewarded with some good old fashioned slumming it (so 'fun') and Vuitton gets to have its cake and eat it too, co-opting reality for it's own purposes.

The Pirates Can't Be Stopped in Portfolio

Daniel Roth's excellent piece "The Pirates Can't be Stopped" in Portfolio. He also discussed the story on NPR's On the Radio (full transcript.

Yet it has been difficult to quantify the damage supposedly wreaked by downloading. In mid-2007, economists Felix Oberholzer-Gee, from Harvard, and Koleman Strumpf, from the University of Kansas, published the results of their study analyzing the effect of file sharing on retail music sales in the U.S. They found no correlation between the two. "While downloads occur on a vast scale," they wrote, "most users are likely individuals who in the absence of file sharing would not have bought the music they downloaded." Another study published around the same time, however, found there was, in fact, a positive impact on retail sales, at least in Canada: University of London researchers Birgitte Andersen and Marion Frenz reported that the more people downloaded songs from P2P networks, the more CDs they bought [READ FULL REPORT]. "Roughly half of all P2P tracks were downloaded because individuals wanted to hear songs before buying them or because they wanted to avoid purchasing the whole bundle of songs on the associated CDs, and roughly one-quarter were downloaded because they were not available for purchase."

Samizdat, Magnitizdat and how individuals overcame state censorship with private copies

A Book review from the New York Times, March 24, 1985

NEXT, MAGNITIZDAT

By JERI LABER; JERI LABER IS THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF HELSINKI WATCH.
Published: March 24, 1985

BEHIND THE LINES

The Private War Against Soviet Censorship. By Donald R. Shanor. 179 pp. New York: St. Martin's Press. $13.95.

FACED with a revolution in technology that is rapidly transforming the industrialized world, the leaders of the Soviet Union are in a quandary. If they openly embrace the new technology, the horizons of Soviet citizens may expand far beyond the limits set by official censorship. But if they close their doors to new discoveries, they may soon lose their place among the advanced nations of the world. Soviet rulers, early on, sacrificed the freedom of their people at the altar of industrial progress; now they are afraid to loosen the bonds, even at the expense of scientific advancement.

This fascinating dilemma is an underlying theme in Donald R. Shanor's ''Behind the Lines: The Private War Against Soviet Censorship.'' Using interviews with more than 150 present and former Soviet citizens, Mr. Shanor, a professor of journalism at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, investigates the ways in which censorship is circumvented in Russia. He also explains how Soviet public opinion is expressed and examines the programming of United States radio stations broadcasting to the Soviet Union. But it is his description of the resourcefulness of ''the underground telegraph'' that is most intriguing.

Mr. Shanor points out that the samizdat literature of the dissidents is but a small part of an underground information network that probably includes the vast majority of Soviet citizens - people who are not dissidents but simply want to know the truth about what is going on around them. They carefully read between the lines of the official press and eagerly circulate news gleaned from relatives abroad. They listen regularly to foreign radio broadcasts and to audio and video cassettes smuggled from the West. Music, politics, drama - every subject is of interest. For those living under Soviet rule, information is the coin of the realm.

Recent reports indicate that the Soviet Union is now negotiating to buy large numbers of Western-made personal computers, but it is not clear how such computers will be used. The Russians have as yet no organized program to develop computer literacy among the young. They seem more concerned with maintaining their centralized control over communications. And so vast sums of money are spent on technology used to jam Western broadcasts. Copying machines are kept under lock and key, the production of video recorders has been halted, and direct telephone dialing abroad came to an end soon after the 1980 Moscow Olympics.

Despite these controls, audio tape recorders have become a staple in Russian homes, and there are now more than 168 million radios and 100 million television sets out of a populaton (in 1980) of about 267 million. While Soviet censors busy themselves tracking down samizdat authors by the typeface on their typewriters, ordinary citizens are planning picnics out of town, beyond the range of the jammers, where they tape-record Western broadcasts on shortwave radios that they have rewired themselves. Finnish television programs are picked up in Estonia, ''the unofficial video recording center of the U.S.S.R.,'' where they are recorded on video cassettes and then distributed throughout the country, sometimes with Russian-language voice-overs. Magnitizdat (tape publishing) is taking its place alongside samizdat .

The future holds new problems for Soviet censors, as foreign companies compete to develop smaller, cheaper and more efficient products - word processors and personal computers with printout capabilities; tiny wireless radios and televisions, powerful enough to pick up international transmissions; cordless telephones no larger than a wristwatch that can be dialed directly to receivers abroad.

Mr. Shanor believes that in the long run the Soviet Union will be unable to control the private use of the new technology. Let us hope he is right. His is an optimistic view, one that foresees a better informed Soviet public demanding more openness from a new generation of Soviet leaders and holding them accountable for their actions.B

A report on MySpace profile pic used in news stories

From Photo District News

http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/newswire/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003725145

March 13, 2008

By Daryl Lang

When a prostitute hired by former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer was identified Wednesday, news outlets eagerly published photos grabbed from her MySpace profile.

Can they get away with that?

Three attorneys who specialize in copyright law say media organizations are sailing in dangerous waters if they publish a personal snapshot without permission.

"Whoever took that picture owns that picture," says New York attorney Nancy Wolff. "It's either an infringement or they [the news outlets] have to make a fair use argument."

Wolff says the news organizations probably decided the risk of a lawsuit was low. They also probably considered competitive pressure as other sources published the same photos. "It's a fast business decision," Wolff says.

The fair use argument would be a thin one, attorneys say. Fair use cases consider factors such as whether the image has been transformed and whether publishing the image displaces the market for the image, according to New York attorney Joel Hecker.

In this case, Hecker says, the image was not transformed and it diminishes the market for the image rights.

"If these are the only images available, they might go for thousands and thousands of dollars on licensing," Hecker says. "I think the probability would be that this would not fall under fair use."

Hecker says he would advise a photographer in this situation to contact news agencies and negotiate a fee, and if that fails, to sue.

Another New York attorney, Edward Greenberg, who has handled several recent cases involving media outlets that ran unlicensed images, says one consideration is whether the photographer has registered the images with the copyright office*, or does so within 90 days of publication.

"Some infringers will intentionally infringe and wait for a letter from a photographer, and there's a 95 percent chance they'll never get one," Greenberg adds.

The New York Times appears to be the only news outlet to speak to the woman previously known only as "Kristen." The newspaper identified her as Ashley Youmans and said she goes by the name Ashley Alexandra Dupré on her MySpace page.

The Times published three images of Youmans on its Web site Wednesday, crediting them to MySpace.com. Two of the images also appeared in the print newspaper Thursday. Times assistant managing editor for photography Michele McNally declined to comment on whether the paper obtained permission before publishing the photographs.

Other outlets, including TV networks and the Associated Press and Reuters wire services, have also run some of the photos, crediting MySpace.

The AP noted that the images were "obtained from a MySpace webpage" and specified that they were to be used, "only to illustrate news reporting or commentary on the facts or events surrounding the Eliot Spitzer prostitution scandal." Reuters identified the images similarly, and flagged them as available only for editorial use.

Associated Press director of photography Santiago Lyon says AP consulted with its legal department before deciding to use the photos.

"Given the news value of the photographs, we decided that these were images that the public needed to see," Lyon says.

MySpace's Terms & Conditions page states that "MySpace does not claim any ownership rights" over the photos users post on the site. It says MySpace has the right to display user content within MySpace, but "This limited license does not grant MySpace the right to sell or otherwise distribute your Content outside of the MySpace Services."

The photos remained on Youmans's MySpace profile Thursday morning, but had been taken down by Thursday afternoon.

*Copyright does not require registration but creators do have an opportunity to register their copyright if they so choose. See copyright office basics:
http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html#cr

Grain.org on the opening of a Global Seed Repository

Dot Earth Entry in the New York Times on the opening of the The Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway.

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/26/buried-seed-vault-opens-in-arctic/

Here's what Grain.org had to say

Thousands of accessions have died in storage, as many have been rendered useless for lack of basic information about the seeds, and countless others have lost their unique characteristics or have been genetically contaminated during periodic grow-outs. This has happened throughout the ex situ system, not just in gene banks of developing countries. So the issue is not about being for or against gene banks, it is about the sole reliance on one conservation strategy that, in itself, has a lot of inherent problems.

The deeper problem with the single focus on ex situ seed storage, that the Svalbard Vault reinforces, is that it is fundamentally unjust. It takes seeds of unique plant varieties away from the farmers and communities who originally created, selected, protected and shared those seeds and makes them inaccessible to them. The logic is that as people’s traditional varieties get replaced by newer ones from research labs -– seeds that are supposed to provide higher yields to feed a growing population – the old ones have to be put away as “raw material” for future plant breeding. This system forgets that farmers are the world’s original, and ongoing, plant breeders.

I gave a talk at the Australasian Cultural Studies conference in Dec 2007 on a related subject. In "Are Seeds Software" I spoke of the importance of use as a guarantor of continued diversity and the backyard gardener as an important site of conservation. I will post a link when the paper is published.

storytelling and copyright

If storytelling is the sign of a healthy community, what are the implications of a society that treats some stories as property?

From Apophenia June 18, 2003

storytelling... Sandra Ball-Rokeach

Talking with my advisor yesterday, he spoke about Sandra Ball-Rokeach at USC's Annenberg School For Communication who suggests that the sign of a healthy community is one that tells stories. Storytelling has been dramatically undervalued in contemporary society. Creating characters, talking about events, sharing philosophies all through the power of story... I guess TV has replaced this, creating a common story. But the least common denominator is far from interesting... What are the stories that emerge out of truly connected communities? Shared stories of experience and shared fables for enjoyment? Are there communities out there that still value that form of connecting?

Zhang Daqian: Painter, Collector, Forger at MFA Boston

Press release from MFA Boston:

Zhang Daqian (1899-1983) casts a long shadow over the modern history of Chinese painting. As a painter, he was known for his singular ability to mix traditional techniques and styles with contemporary ideas and currents. As a collector, he accumulated important examples from all genres of Chinese painting and left behind copious seals and inscriptions. As a forger, Zhang so mastered the art of deception that his fakes were purchased unwittingly by nearly every major art museum in the United States—the MFA included. Indeed, the first question asked by experts when a work is considered suspect is: “Could this be by Zhang Daqian?”

This exhibition focuses on all three facets of Zhang’s career and features a rich selection of works from the MFA alongside loans from private collections. Of particular interest is a master forgery acquired by the Museum in 1957 as an authentic work of the tenth century. The painting, which was allegedly a landscape by the Five Dynasties period master Guan Tong, is one of Zhang’s most ambitious forgeries and serves to illustrate both his skill and his audacity.

Be Kind Rewind Trailers and the etymology of 'Sweding'

Trailer for Be Kind Rewind (out in Oz, March 20, 2008)





Be Kind Rewind You Tube Profile
http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=BeKindMovie


Director Michael Gondry 'swedes' (translation: re-makes) his own film trailer.


Gondry's explanation on the etymology of sweding as told Chris Lee of the Los Angeles Times:

"I wanted a name that meant nothing," Paris native Gondry said in Clouseau-esque Franglais about the invention of the verb. "I had in mind, like, the suede shoes -- a fake velvet. A sort of ultra-suede? But I always get the word wrong because I'm French."

Another version of the origins of 'sweding' is propsed by Jennifer Hillner in her Wired profile (12.24.07)Wired of Gondry.

Gondry even invented a verb to describe it. To swede: the act of making a movie from everyday materials and simple technology. The word comes from a scene in the movie where Black explains to customers why the store's remade tapes cost $20 per rental and won't be ready for a week — they're imported from the far-off land of Sweden.

So when we see an authority figure threaten to confiscate our heroes video creations, one can't held but think of copyists of another sort: the Swedes behind the bit torrent tracking site Pirate Bay.

Official-type guy: "I have a warrant to destroy all your tapes. The FBI warning its at the beginning of every video tape."

Jerry (Jack Black): "Well, we erased that."

Granting permission where none is needed

"During my conversation with her representative, Mr. Blair, he pointed me to Ms. Rowling’s Web site, suggesting that would be the best place to find her response to the RDR Books case and the Harry Potter Lexicon. “You have our permission to quote from her Web site,” he said.

I already have that right, Mr. Blair. But thanks anyway."


From "A Tight Grip Can Choke Creativity", JOE NOCERA, in The New York Times, February 9, 2008 in which "A small book publisher faces off against the titans in a Harry Potter copyright case."

Greg Curnoe's Marilyn Langstaff

Marilyn Langstaff
by Greg Curnoe
Date made: 1962
Materials: gouache, dayglo, stamp pad ink
Measurements: 28.5 x 26 cm

Wikipedia helps the smart journalists, confounds the rest

It's not a reliable source, some journalists say Wikipedia can lead you to reliable sources. "Any reasonable person has to be up front that there are weaknesses," says founder Jimmy Wales. "On the other hand, there are lots of sources that have weaknesses."

read more | digg story

(This post was automatically generated by Digg, based on the original poster's summary. )

No known copyright restrictions

In addition to my own research, I recently did some work on a project about recontextualising heritage collections, a joint project between the Centre for Cultural Research at the University of Western Sydney and the Powerhouse Museum. The project is looking at the variety of ways that digital media and social authoring can enhance and enrich the curatorial process.

I was looking at the ways in which people use the collections data, images and other media that many museums and galleries have made available online.

On January 21, 2008 I posted on The Commons, a collaborative project between Flickr and The Library of Congress.

LOC is posting images from their collection that have "No known copyright restrictions".

I immediately wondered why they hadn't deemed them "public domain".

Here's their explanation:

No known restrictions on publication means that the Library is unaware of any restrictions on the use of the image. There are generally two cases where this phrase is used:

1. There was a copyright and it was not renewed.


2. The image is from a late 19th or early 20th century collection for which there is no evidence of any rights holder:

* There are no copyright markings or other indications on the images to indicate that they were copyrighted or otherwise restricted, AND
* The records of the U.S. Copyright Office do not indicate any copyright registration, AND
* The acquisition paperwork for the collection does not contain any evidence of any restrictions, AND
* Images from the collection have been used and published extensively without anyone stepping forward to claim rights.

These facts do not mean the image is in the public domain, but do indicate that no evidence has been found to show that restrictions apply.

Real Fakes from SilkStreet (TM)

Beijing's SilkStreet is known as the place to go for brandname knock-offs. Agenda reports on the making of a brand:

‘Real deal’: Beijing fakes market gets own brand
Counterfeit

silk0108.jpg

In a highly ironic move, but at a time when China is increasing its need for brand legitimacy, Beijing’s most notorious location for counterfeit luxury goods - SilkStreet - has just turned itself into a legitimate brand and threatens anyone who tries to counterfeit the intellectual property of the SilkStreet trademark…

The first items to bear the SilkStreet name, displayed on Wednesday, include apparel such as neckties shirts and scarves, as well as a few household items such as tablecloths. They are marked “quality guaranteed” with a label that tells buyers that “the goods are certified by the Silk Street Market. If any quality problems are found, the market will bear the responsibility of compensation.”

“SilkStreet products are sold exclusively in the market. Anyone using the brand outside will be held liable,” the Beijing Evening News quoted Wang Zili, general manager of the market, as saying. — (Via China Daily)

The Copy and Paste Show

The Copy and Paste Show is a project by Seth Price, Ida Ekblad & Anders Nordby, and 808. This show was curated by Hanne Mugaas and is part of Time Shares, a series of online exhibitions co-presented by Rhizome and the New Museum of Contemporary Art. It has benn online since September 27, 2006.

The Copy and Paste Show explores the evolution of copy-and-paste culture, through which the copying of digital material has become a major technique in the construction of online identity and style. As with any visual style, web aesthetics often rely on the appropriation of non-original media. In design, people often copy html codes from other websites in order to sample existing material. In constructing online profiles or personal websites, participants often call upon found images, video or graphics. In this context, software and tools gains importance, as they enable new kinds of sharing and distribution amongst cultural producers, and amateurs become empowered to create and distribute sophisticated and layered work. The artists in The Copy and Paste Show explore how technical and digital tools alter web aesthetics, music production, and online and offline relations through the use of copy and paste techniques.

Fittingly, I simply copied and pasted most of this information!

More on the Chinese Oil Painting Village

In November I posted a link to an excellent piece in Artforum about the infamous Chinese oil painting village in Dafen.

Last month, on The Atlantic's site, James Fallows posted his own pictures of the art and artists in the village and ponders the importance of bearing witness.


An artist in Dafen with his prolific output

He also links to this earlier article about the village in the Chicago Tribune.

So what are these paintings? Are they any less real than the original? Is it fair to accuse these artists who copy the paintings with their own minds and hands with piracy? If there can only be one true Van Gogh Sunflowers, what does it matter if there are thousands of handpainted copies? What if one of those copies was better in some way than the original? Do the copies undermine the value of the original?

Monkey see, Monkey Do: Mimicry and laughter among orangutans

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7167878.stm

'Laughs' not exclusive to humans
The basis for laughter may have originated in an ancient primate ancestral to both humans and modern apes, a study suggests.

Scientists found that orang-utans had a sense of empathy and mimicry which forms an essential part of laughter.

Facial expressions, such as the open, gaping mouth resembling laughter, were picked up and copied by orang-utans.

The speed with which they were mimicked suggests these expressions were involuntary, Biology Letters reports.

In other words, the "laughter" was contagious.

Dr Marina Davila Ross, from the University of Portsmouth and Professor Elke Zimmermann at the University of Veterinary Medicine in Hanover, Germany, studied the play behaviour of 25 orang-utans aged between two and 12 at four primate centres around the world.

When one of the orang-utans displayed an open, gaping mouth, its playmate would often display the same expression less than half a second later.

Dr Davila Ross commented: "In humans, mimicking behaviour can be voluntary and involuntary. Until our discovery there had been no evidence that animals had similar responses.

"What is clear now is the building blocks of positive emotional contagion and empathy that refer to rapid involuntary facial mimicry in humans evolved prior to humankind."

She added that the findings shed a new light on empathy and its importance for animals which live in groups such as orang-utans.

Recording Industry targets computer users

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/28/AR2007122800693.html

Download Uproar: Record Industry Goes After Personal Use

By Marc Fisher
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, December 30, 2007; M05

Despite more than 20,000 lawsuits filed against music fans in the years since they started finding free tunes online rather than buying CDs from record companies, the recording industry has utterly failed to halt the decline of the record album or the rise of digital music sharing.

Still, hardly a month goes by without a news release from the industry's lobby, the Recording Industry Association of America, touting a new wave of letters to college students and others demanding a settlement payment and threatening a legal battle.

Now, in an unusual case in which an Arizona recipient of an RIAA letter has fought back in court rather than write a check to avoid hefty legal fees, the industry is taking its argument against music sharing one step further: In legal documents in its federal case against Jeffrey Howell, a Scottsdale, Ariz., man who kept a collection of about 2,000 music recordings on his personal computer, the industry maintains that it is illegal for someone who has legally purchased a CD to transfer that music into his computer.

The industry's lawyer in the case, Ira Schwartz, argues in a brief filed earlier this month that the MP3 files Howell made on his computer from legally bought CDs are "unauthorized copies" of copyrighted recordings.

"I couldn't believe it when I read that," says Ray Beckerman, a New York lawyer who represents six clients who have been sued by the RIAA. "The basic principle in the law is that you have to distribute actual physical copies to be guilty of violating copyright. But recently, the industry has been going around saying that even a personal copy on your computer is a violation."

RIAA's hard-line position seems clear. Its Web site says: "If you make unauthorized copies of copyrighted music recordings, you're stealing. You're breaking the law and you could be held legally liable for thousands of dollars in damages."

They're not kidding. In October, after a trial in Minnesota -- the first time the industry has made its case before a federal jury -- Jammie Thomas was ordered to pay $220,000 to the big record companies. That's $9,250 for each of 24 songs she was accused of sharing online.

Whether customers may copy their CDs onto their computers -- an act at the very heart of the digital revolution -- has a murky legal foundation, the RIAA argues. The industry's own Web site says that making a personal copy of a CD that you bought legitimately may not be a legal right, but it "won't usually raise concerns," as long as you don't give away the music or lend it to anyone.

Of course, that's exactly what millions of people do every day. In a Los Angeles Times poll, 69 percent of teenagers surveyed said they thought it was legal to copy a CD they own and give it to a friend. The RIAA cites a study that found that more than half of current college students download music and movies illegally.

The Howell case was not the first time the industry has argued that making a personal copy from a legally purchased CD is illegal. At the Thomas trial in Minnesota, Sony BMG's chief of litigation, Jennifer Pariser, testified that "when an individual makes a copy of a song for himself, I suppose we can say he stole a song." Copying a song you bought is "a nice way of saying 'steals just one copy,' " she said.

But lawyers for consumers point to a series of court rulings over the last few decades that found no violation of copyright law in the use of VCRs and other devices to time-shift TV programs; that is, to make personal copies for the purpose of making portable a legally obtained recording.

As technologies evolve, old media companies tend not to be the source of the innovation that allows them to survive. Even so, new technologies don't usually kill off old media: That's the good news for the recording industry, as for the TV, movie, newspaper and magazine businesses. But for those old media to survive, they must adapt, finding new business models and new, compelling content to offer.

The RIAA's legal crusade against its customers is a classic example of an old media company clinging to a business model that has collapsed. Four years of a failed strategy has only "created a whole market of people who specifically look to buy independent goods so as not to deal with the big record companies," Beckerman says. "Every problem they're trying to solve is worse now than when they started."

The industry "will continue to bring lawsuits" against those who "ignore years of warnings," RIAA spokesman Jonathan Lamy said in a statement. "It's not our first choice, but it's a necessary part of the equation. There are consequences for breaking the law." And, perhaps, for firing up your computer.

Quotations on Software patents

Quotations on Software patents.
http://eupat.ffii.org/archiv/zitate/

"What frightens and infuriates so many of us about software patents is that they seek to monopolize our intellectual processes when their representation and performance is aided by a machine." Jim Warren (Autodesk) 1994

Richard Stallman's GNU Manifesto

GNU Manifesto

http://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html

The GNU Manifesto

The GNU Manifesto (which appears below) was written by Richard Stallman at the beginning of the GNU Project, to ask for participation and support. For the first few years, it was updated in minor ways to account for developments, but now it seems best to leave it unchanged as most people have seen it.

Since that time, we have learned about certain common misunderstandings that different wording could help avoid. Footnotes added in 1993 help clarify these points.

For up-to-date information about the available GNU software, please see the information available on our web server, in particular our list of software. For how to contribute, see http://www.gnu.org/help.
What's GNU? Gnu's Not Unix!

GNU, which stands for Gnu's Not Unix, is the name for the complete Unix-compatible software system which I am writing so that I can give it away free to everyone who can use it. (1) Several other volunteers are helping me. Contributions of time, money, programs and equipment are greatly needed.

So far we have an Emacs text editor with Lisp for writing editor commands, a source level debugger, a yacc-compatible parser generator, a linker, and around 35 utilities. A shell (command interpreter) is nearly completed. A new portable optimizing C compiler has compiled itself and may be released this year. An initial kernel exists but many more features are needed to emulate Unix. When the kernel and compiler are finished, it will be possible to distribute a GNU system suitable for program development. We will use TeX as our text formatter, but an nroff is being worked on. We will use the free, portable X window system as well. After this we will add a portable Common Lisp, an Empire game, a spreadsheet, and hundreds of other things, plus on-line documentation. We hope to supply, eventually, everything useful that normally comes with a Unix system, and more.

GNU will be able to run Unix programs, but will not be identical to Unix. We will make all improvements that are convenient, based on our experience with other operating systems. In particular, we plan to have longer file names, file version numbers, a crashproof file system, file name completion perhaps, terminal-independent display support, and perhaps eventually a Lisp-based window system through which several Lisp programs and ordinary Unix programs can share a screen. Both C and Lisp will be available as system programming languages. We will try to support UUCP, MIT Chaosnet, and Internet protocols for communication.

GNU is aimed initially at machines in the 68000/16000 class with virtual memory, because they are the easiest machines to make it run on. The extra effort to make it run on smaller machines will be left to someone who wants to use it on them.

To avoid horrible confusion, please pronounce the ‘G’ in the word ‘GNU’ when it is the name of this project.
Why I Must Write GNU

I consider that the golden rule requires that if I like a program I must share it with other people who like it. Software sellers want to divide the users and conquer them, making each user agree not to share with others. I refuse to break solidarity with other users in this way. I cannot in good conscience sign a nondisclosure agreement or a software license agreement. For years I worked within the Artificial Intelligence Lab to resist such tendencies and other inhospitalities, but eventually they had gone too far: I could not remain in an institution where such things are done for me against my will.

So that I can continue to use computers without dishonor, I have decided to put together a sufficient body of free software so that I will be able to get along without any software that is not free. I have resigned from the AI lab to deny MIT any legal excuse to prevent me from giving GNU away.
Why GNU Will Be Compatible with Unix

Unix is not my ideal system, but it is not too bad. The essential features of Unix seem to be good ones, and I think I can fill in what Unix lacks without spoiling them. And a system compatible with Unix would be convenient for many other people to adopt.
How GNU Will Be Available

GNU is not in the public domain. Everyone will be permitted to modify and redistribute GNU, but no distributor will be allowed to restrict its further redistribution. That is to say, proprietary modifications will not be allowed. I want to make sure that all versions of GNU remain free.
Why Many Other Programmers Want to Help

I have found many other programmers who are excited about GNU and want to help.

Many programmers are unhappy about the commercialization of system software. It may enable them to make more money, but it requires them to feel in conflict with other programmers in general rather than feel as comrades. The fundamental act of friendship among programmers is the sharing of programs; marketing arrangements now typically used essentially forbid programmers to treat others as friends. The purchaser of software must choose between friendship and obeying the law. Naturally, many decide that friendship is more important. But those who believe in law often do not feel at ease with either choice. They become cynical and think that programming is just a way of making money.

By working on and using GNU rather than proprietary programs, we can be hospitable to everyone and obey the law. In addition, GNU serves as an example to inspire and a banner to rally others to join us in sharing. This can give us a feeling of harmony which is impossible if we use software that is not free. For about half the programmers I talk to, this is an important happiness that money cannot replace.
How You Can Contribute

(Nowadays, for software tasks to work on, see the GNU task list. For other ways to contribute, see http://www.gnu.org/help.)

I am asking computer manufacturers for donations of machines and money. I'm asking individuals for donations of programs and work.

One consequence you can expect if you donate machines is that GNU will run on them at an early date. The machines should be complete, ready to use systems, approved for use in a residential area, and not in need of sophisticated cooling or power.

I have found very many programmers eager to contribute part-time work for GNU. For most projects, such part-time distributed work would be very hard to coordinate; the independently-written parts would not work together. But for the particular task of replacing Unix, this problem is absent. A complete Unix system contains hundreds of utility programs, each of which is documented separately. Most interface specifications are fixed by Unix compatibility. If each contributor can write a compatible replacement for a single Unix utility, and make it work properly in place of the original on a Unix system, then these utilities will work right when put together. Even allowing for Murphy to create a few unexpected problems, assembling these components will be a feasible task. (The kernel will require closer communication and will be worked on by a small, tight group.)

If I get donations of money, I may be able to hire a few people full or part time. The salary won't be high by programmers' standards, but I'm looking for people for whom building community spirit is as important as making money. I view this as a way of enabling dedicated people to devote their full energies to working on GNU by sparing them the need to make a living in another way.
Why All Computer Users Will Benefit

Once GNU is written, everyone will be able to obtain good system software free, just like air.(2)

This means much more than just saving everyone the price of a Unix license. It means that much wasteful duplication of system programming effort will be avoided. This effort can go instead into advancing the state of the art.

Complete system sources will be available to everyone. As a result, a user who needs changes in the system will always be free to make them himself, or hire any available programmer or company to make them for him. Users will no longer be at the mercy of one programmer or company which owns the sources and is in sole position to make changes.

Schools will be able to provide a much more educational environment by encouraging all students to study and improve the system code. Harvard's computer lab used to have the policy that no program could be installed on the system if its sources were not on public display, and upheld it by actually refusing to install certain programs. I was very much inspired by this.

Finally, the overhead of considering who owns the system software and what one is or is not entitled to do with it will be lifted.

Arrangements to make people pay for using a program, including licensing of copies, always incur a tremendous cost to society through the cumbersome mechanisms necessary to figure out how much (that is, which programs) a person must pay for. And only a police state can force everyone to obey them. Consider a space station where air must be manufactured at great cost: charging each breather per liter of air may be fair, but wearing the metered gas mask all day and all night is intolerable even if everyone can afford to pay the air bill. And the TV cameras everywhere to see if you ever take the mask off are outrageous. It's better to support the air plant with a head tax and chuck the masks.

Copying all or parts of a program is as natural to a programmer as breathing, and as productive. It ought to be as free.
Some Easily Rebutted Objections to GNU's Goals

“Nobody will use it if it is free, because that means they can't rely on any support.”

“You have to charge for the program to pay for providing the support.”

If people would rather pay for GNU plus service than get GNU free without service, a company to provide just service to people who have obtained GNU free ought to be profitable.(3)

We must distinguish between support in the form of real programming work and mere handholding. The former is something one cannot rely on from a software vendor. If your problem is not shared by enough people, the vendor will tell you to get lost.

If your business needs to be able to rely on support, the only way is to have all the necessary sources and tools. Then you can hire any available person to fix your problem; you are not at the mercy of any individual. With Unix, the price of sources puts this out of consideration for most businesses. With GNU this will be easy. It is still possible for there to be no available competent person, but this problem cannot be blamed on distribution arrangements. GNU does not eliminate all the world's problems, only some of them.

Meanwhile, the users who know nothing about computers need handholding: doing things for them which they could easily do themselves but don't know how.

Such services could be provided by companies that sell just hand-holding and repair service. If it is true that users would rather spend money and get a product with service, they will also be willing to buy the service having got the product free. The service companies will compete in quality and price; users will not be tied to any particular one. Meanwhile, those of us who don't need the service should be able to use the program without paying for the service.

“You cannot reach many people without advertising, and you must charge for the program to support that.”

“It's no use advertising a program people can get free.”

There are various forms of free or very cheap publicity that can be used to inform numbers of computer users about something like GNU. But it may be true that one can reach more microcomputer users with advertising. If this is really so, a business which advertises the service of copying and mailing GNU for a fee ought to be successful enough to pay for its advertising and more. This way, only the users who benefit from the advertising pay for it.

On the other hand, if many people get GNU from their friends, and such companies don't succeed, this will show that advertising was not really necessary to spread GNU. Why is it that free market advocates don't want to let the free market decide this?(4)

“My company needs a proprietary operating system to get a competitive edge.”

GNU will remove operating system software from the realm of competition. You will not be able to get an edge in this area, but neither will your competitors be able to get an edge over you. You and they will compete in other areas, while benefiting mutually in this one. If your business is selling an operating system, you will not like GNU, but that's tough on you. If your business is something else, GNU can save you from being pushed into the expensive business of selling operating systems.

I would like to see GNU development supported by gifts from many manufacturers and users, reducing the cost to each.(5)

“Don't programmers deserve a reward for their creativity?”

If anything deserves a reward, it is social contribution. Creativity can be a social contribution, but only in so far as society is free to use the results. If programmers deserve to be rewarded for creating innovative programs, by the same token they deserve to be punished if they restrict the use of these programs.

“Shouldn't a programmer be able to ask for a reward for his creativity?”

There is nothing wrong with wanting pay for work, or seeking to maximize one's income, as long as one does not use means that are destructive. But the means customary in the field of software today are based on destruction.

Extracting money from users of a program by restricting their use of it is destructive because the restrictions reduce the amount and the ways that the program can be used. This reduces the amount of wealth that humanity derives from the program. When there is a deliberate choice to restrict, the harmful consequences are deliberate destruction.

The reason a good citizen does not use such destructive means to become wealthier is that, if everyone did so, we would all become poorer from the mutual destructiveness. This is Kantian ethics; or, the Golden Rule. Since I do not like the consequences that result if everyone hoards information, I am required to consider it wrong for one to do so. Specifically, the desire to be rewarded for one's creativity does not justify depriving the world in general of all or part of that creativity.

“Won't programmers starve?”

I could answer that nobody is forced to be a programmer. Most of us cannot manage to get any money for standing on the street and making faces. But we are not, as a result, condemned to spend our lives standing on the street making faces, and starving. We do something else.

But that is the wrong answer because it accepts the questioner's implicit assumption: that without ownership of software, programmers cannot possibly be paid a cent. Supposedly it is all or nothing.

The real reason programmers will not starve is that it will still be possible for them to get paid for programming; just not paid as much as now.

Restricting copying is not the only basis for business in software. It is the most common basis because it brings in the most money. If it were prohibited, or rejected by the customer, software business would move to other bases of organization which are now used less often. There are always numerous ways to organize any kind of business.

Probably programming will not be as lucrative on the new basis as it is now. But that is not an argument against the change. It is not considered an injustice that sales clerks make the salaries that they now do. If programmers made the same, that would not be an injustice either. (In practice they would still make considerably more than that.)

“Don't people have a right to control how their creativity is used?”

“Control over the use of one's ideas” really constitutes control over other people's lives; and it is usually used to make their lives more difficult.

People who have studied the issue of intellectual property rights(6) carefully (such as lawyers) say that there is no intrinsic right to intellectual property. The kinds of supposed intellectual property rights that the government recognizes were created by specific acts of legislation for specific purposes.

For example, the patent system was established to encourage inventors to disclose the details of their inventions. Its purpose was to help society rather than to help inventors. At the time, the life span of 17 years for a patent was short compared with the rate of advance of the state of the art. Since patents are an issue only among manufacturers, for whom the cost and effort of a license agreement are small compared with setting up production, the patents often do not do much harm. They do not obstruct most individuals who use patented products.

The idea of copyright did not exist in ancient times, when authors frequently copied other authors at length in works of non-fiction. This practice was useful, and is the only way many authors' works have survived even in part. The copyright system was created expressly for the purpose of encouraging authorship. In the domain for which it was invented—books, which could be copied economically only on a printing press—it did little harm, and did not obstruct most of the individuals who read the books.

All intellectual property rights are just licenses granted by society because it was thought, rightly or wrongly, that society as a whole would benefit by granting them. But in any particular situation, we have to ask: are we really better off granting such license? What kind of act are we licensing a person to do?

The case of programs today is very different from that of books a hundred years ago. The fact that the easiest way to copy a program is from one neighbor to another, the fact that a program has both source code and object code which are distinct, and the fact that a program is used rather than read and enjoyed, combine to create a situation in which a person who enforces a copyright is harming society as a whole both materially and spiritually; in which a person should not do so regardless of whether the law enables him to.

“Competition makes things get done better.”

The paradigm of competition is a race: by rewarding the winner, we encourage everyone to run faster. When capitalism really works this way, it does a good job; but its defenders are wrong in assuming it always works this way. If the runners forget why the reward is offered and become intent on winning, no matter how, they may find other strategies—such as, attacking other runners. If the runners get into a fist fight, they will all finish late.

Proprietary and secret software is the moral equivalent of runners in a fist fight. Sad to say, the only referee we've got does not seem to object to fights; he just regulates them (“For every ten yards you run, you can fire one shot”). He really ought to break them up, and penalize runners for even trying to fight.

“Won't everyone stop programming without a monetary incentive?”

Actually, many people will program with absolutely no monetary incentive. Programming has an irresistible fascination for some people, usually the people who are best at it. There is no shortage of professional musicians who keep at it even though they have no hope of making a living that way.

But really this question, though commonly asked, is not appropriate to the situation. Pay for programmers will not disappear, only become less. So the right question is, will anyone program with a reduced monetary incentive? My experience shows that they will.

For more than ten years, many of the world's best programmers worked at the Artificial Intelligence Lab for far less money than they could have had anywhere else. They got many kinds of non-monetary rewards: fame and appreciation, for example. And creativity is also fun, a reward in itself.

Then most of them left when offered a chance to do the same interesting work for a lot of money.

What the facts show is that people will program for reasons other than riches; but if given a chance to make a lot of money as well, they will come to expect and demand it. Low-paying organizations do poorly in competition with high-paying ones, but they do not have to do badly if the high-paying ones are banned.

“We need the programmers desperately. If they demand that we stop helping our neighbors, we have to obey.”

You're never so desperate that you have to obey this sort of demand. Remember: millions for defense, but not a cent for tribute!

“Programmers need to make a living somehow.”

In the short run, this is true. However, there are plenty of ways that programmers could make a living without selling the right to use a program. This way is customary now because it brings programmers and businessmen the most money, not because it is the only way to make a living. It is easy to find other ways if you want to find them. Here are a number of examples.

A manufacturer introducing a new computer will pay for the porting of operating systems onto the new hardware.

The sale of teaching, hand-holding and maintenance services could also employ programmers.

People with new ideas could distribute programs as freeware(7), asking for donations from satisfied users, or selling hand-holding services. I have met people who are already working this way successfully.

Users with related needs can form users' groups, and pay dues. A group would contract with programming companies to write programs that the group's members would like to use.

All sorts of development can be funded with a Software Tax:

Suppose everyone who buys a computer has to pay x percent of the price as a software tax. The government gives this to an agency like the NSF to spend on software development.

But if the computer buyer makes a donation to software development himself, he can take a credit against the tax. He can donate to the project of his own choosing—often, chosen because he hopes to use the results when it is done. He can take a credit for any amount of donation up to the total tax he had to pay.

The total tax rate could be decided by a vote of the payers of the tax, weighted according to the amount they will be taxed on.

The consequences:

* The computer-using community supports software development.
* This community decides what level of support is needed.
* Users who care which projects their share is spent on can choose this for themselves.

In the long run, making programs free is a step toward the post-scarcity world, where nobody will have to work very hard just to make a living. People will be free to devote themselves to activities that are fun, such as programming, after spending the necessary ten hours a week on required tasks such as legislation, family counseling, robot repair and asteroid prospecting. There will be no need to be able to make a living from programming.

We have already greatly reduced the amount of work that the whole society must do for its actual productivity, but only a little of this has translated itself into leisure for workers because much nonproductive activity is required to accompany productive activity. The main causes of this are bureaucracy and isometric struggles against competition. Free software will greatly reduce these drains in the area of software production. We must do this, in order for technical gains in productivity to translate into less work for us.
Footnotes

1. The wording here was careless. The intention was that nobody would have to pay for permission to use the GNU system. But the words don't make this clear, and people often interpret them as saying that copies of GNU should always be distributed at little or no charge. That was never the intent; later on, the manifesto mentions the possibility of companies providing the service of distribution for a profit. Subsequently I have learned to distinguish carefully between “free” in the sense of freedom and “free” in the sense of price. Free software is software that users have the freedom to distribute and change. Some users may obtain copies at no charge, while others pay to obtain copies—and if the funds help support improving the software, so much the better. The important thing is that everyone who has a copy has the freedom to cooperate with others in using it.
2. This is another place I failed to distinguish carefully between the two different meanings of “free”. The statement as it stands is not false—you can get copies of GNU software at no charge, from your friends or over the net. But it does suggest the wrong idea.
3. Several such companies now exist.
4. The Free Software Foundation for 10 years raised most of its funds from a distribution service, although it is a charity rather than a company. You can order things from the FSF.
5. A group of computer companies pooled funds around 1991 to support maintenance of the GNU C Compiler.
6. In the 80s I had not yet realized how confusing it was to speak of “the issue” of “intellectual property”. That term is obviously biased; more subtle is the fact that it lumps together various disparate laws which raise very different issues. Nowadays I urge people to reject the term “intellectual property” entirely, lest it lead others to suppose that those laws form one coherent issue. The way to be clear is to discuss patents, copyrights, and trademarks separately. See further explanation of how this term spreads confusion and bias.
7. Subsequently we have learned to distinguish between “free software” and “freeware”. The term “freeware” means software you are free to redistribute, but usually you are not free to study and change the source code, so most of it is not free software. See the Confusing Words and Phrases page for more explanation.


Please send FSF & GNU inquiries to gnu@gnu.org. There are also other ways to contact the FSF.
Please send broken links and other corrections (or suggestions) to webmasters@gnu.org.

Please see the Translations README for information on coordinating and submitting translations of this article.

Copyright © 1985, 1993, 2003, 2005, 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA

Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies of this document, in any medium, provided that the copyright notice and permission notice are preserved, and that the distributor grants the recipient permission for further redistribution as permitted by this notice.
Modified versions may not be made.

Updated: $Date: 2007/07/21 13:54:16 $