Copyright in a modern society

Richard Stallman gave a talk in the Cambridge University Computer Lab yesterday. Since this is right next door to the MS building, quite a few of us went there to see the icon of the Free Software movement in person. Stallmann's talk was about copyright and what alternatives he proposed in contrast to the ever more restricting copyrigh laws that get introduced allover the world.

The talk was extremely well prepared and even though in between I found myself wondering, what exactly makes this guy over there, with the scrubby beard, the long and greasy hair and the round belly so impressive - this guy definitely has charisma and he has something to say. It's not quite easy to outline his views in short here (his talk took more than the allocated 90 minutes), but basically he was arguing that since making copies has become easier over the last centuries, we should not impose copyright laws in the private area, which probably most people will agree - if you buy a CD or a book you should have the right to borrow it to your friends. You should be allowed to read the book as often as you want and to resell it or give it away, if you don't want to have it anymore.

The other part of the talk focussed on the kind of media that is distributed because of someone making a living of it. Selling books or CDs does not contradict Stallman's philosophy. However, he argues that currently, publishers make the most of the money while the artists, authors and musicians can barely survive from what they get out of it - except when they are real superstars. That's why his proposition is that every musician should let people download music from the web and just ask them to give as much money as they would like. Some examples show that his might work.

All in all, Stallman argues towards a socialist/communist society. His ideas would work, if every human was good and contributed his part to the global good of the world. I'm afraid, history has shown us, that this does not work. In his examples, the people supporting the musicians would always be the same ones. Might be, that this raises enough money for the artist's survival, so that he does not need to care. But this system is extremely unfair to the ones paying, because those who don't get the same value out of this system as them and thereby encourages people to be assholes.

You could even advance this argumentation by comparing private households and businesses. If I buy software for my personal purpose and pay according to Stallman's scheme, I might pay the true worth to its authors and feel fine. However, a company will never pay for software just for the sake of feeling good, if they can get the same thing for free.

All in all, the talk was great. The world needs radicals like Stallman. Maybe not because his ideas can directly change the world to a better place, but because they spawn discussions that may lead into the right direction.