Questioning the notions of copyright and intellectual property - links.

When I first reflected on the foundations of intellectual property and copyright in the early nineties, when internet was in infancy, I felt quite lonely in believing they were not only illegitimate, but harmful to the process of creation. Since then, I felt comfort my viewpoint was not isolated and is gaining momentum.

A Fair(y) Use Tale
Disney Parody explanation of Copyright Law and Fair Use.

Joss Stone "piracy is great"
Fortune and fame, a by-product of talent, not the primary goal.

Alternative Freedom (Trailer)
Featuring interviews with Lawrence Lessig and more.

Eben Moglen - Wikipedia

Moglen believes the idea of proprietary software is as ludicrous as having "proprietary mathematics" or "proprietary geometry". "Anything that is worth copying is worth sharing."

The Real Reason for Germany's Industrial Expansion?
"Did Germany experience rapid industrial expansion in the 19th century due to an absence of copyright law? A German historian argues that the massive proliferation of books, and thus knowledge, laid the foundation for the country's industrial might."

Innovation: It Isn’t a Matter of Left or Right
Sharing is not communism. Stalin would have despised Wikipedia.

 Imagine a world without copyright
"We must keep in mind, of course, that every artistic work - whether it is a soap opera, a composition by Luciano Berio, or a movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger - derives the better part of its substance from the work of others, from the public domain. Originality is a relative concept; in no other culture around the globe, except for the contemporary Western one, can a person call himself the owner of a melody, an image, a word."
"Cultural monopolists desperately want us to believe that without copyright we would have no artistic creations and therefore no entertainment. That is nonsense. We would have more, and more diverse ones."

A qui appartiennent les connaissances ?
L’évolution du droit de la propriété intellectuelle est un enjeu politique. Tirant argument de la « révolution multimédia », certains groupes d’intérêts se sont en effet mobilisés pour demander et obtenir une révision du droit de la propriété intellectuelle allant dans le sens de son renforcement au profit des détenteurs de droits.

Who stole my story? by Paulo Coelho
How Coelho saw the sale of his book grow exponentially by allowing them to be downloaded for free.

Best-Selling Author Turns Piracy into Profit

“Since the dawn of time, human beings have felt the need to share – from food to art. Sharing is part of the human condition."

Against Intellectual Monopoly
"It is common to argue that intellectual property in the form of copyright and patent is necessary for the innovation and creation of ideas and inventions such as machines, drugs, computer software, books, music, literature and movies. In fact intellectual property is a government grant of a costly and dangerous private monopoly over ideas. We show through theory and example that intellectual monopoly is not necessary for innovation and as a practical matter is damaging to growth, prosperity and liberty."

The dotCommunist Manifesto. Eben Moglen
"Where are the advocates of freedom in the new digital society who have not been decried as pirates, anarchists, communists? Have we not seen that many of those hurling the epithets were merely thieves in power, whose talk of ``intellectual property'' was nothing more than an attempt to retain unjustifiable privileges in a society irrevocably changing? But it is acknowledged by all the Powers of Globalism that the movement for freedom is itself a Power, and it is high time that we should publish our views in the face of the whole world, to meet this nursery tale of the Spectre of Free Information with a Manifesto of our own."

L’invention suppose tout l’actif préalable au travail humain
"Je suppose que, demain, un inventeur imagine quelque outillage nouveau qui bouleverse la technique d’une des grandes industries directrices,..."

Enforcing Copyrights Online, for a Profit
"When Brian Hill, a 20-year-old blogger from North Carolina, posted on his Web site last December a photograph of an airport security officer conducting a pat-down, a legal battle was the last thing he imagined."

Feel Free to Steal My Content

"I consider that the golden rule requires that if I like a program I must share it with other people who like it." Richard Stallman

Texte fondateur du Droit d'Auteur.

Ce n'est pas fortuit qu'il fut redige pendant le regime de la Terreur de la France Revolutionaire, pratiquement en meme temps que la loi du partage égalitaire immédiat dans les successions, le décret sur le tutoiement obligatoire, l'institution de la loi martiale (donnant lieu a la fusillade du Champ-de-Mars), la loi de Ventose an 2 (le séquestre des biens des suspects reconnus ennemis de la République), et autre mesures dites "sociales".
Certains de mes amis republicains (a la sauce Francaise) me retorqueront que c’est un argument a contrario de mes theses sur la propriete intellectuelle. ;-)

Mais il est en realite bien dans mon optique: le monopole intellectuel est une notion communiste qui va a l'encontre de la creativite necessaire a la liberte d'entreptrendre.
Le communisme tel qu'il s'est manifeste n'a rien a voir avec le partage.
S'il est une chose qu'il est necessaire de partager, c'est le savoir universel. Imaginez ou l'on en serait si un malin profiteur de  la betise ambiante avait eu avant l'heure l'idee saugrenue de patenter l'alphabet.

Daylight "Saving" Time?

The so called Daylight Saving Time: yet another cretin decision imposed upon us.
"You can’t save daylight by moving around the hands on your clock, of course. So daylight saving time remains as absurdly named as it ever was.”
May I suggest a Google search on "The true cost of daylight saving". You'd be surprised of your findings.

Android emulation on your PC

From my facebook post on the topic...

Ha! (and hi) to all you guy's already converted to Android:

You can dump your gimmick smartphone and have your beloved android apps right on your pc, which has the added benefit of a proper screen, proper keyboard.
The only thing you'd be losing is the ability to call someone, but who cares? Isn't it degrading for a smartphone to be a mere phone?
With all the functions and Android phone distracts you with, you haven't got the time to make phone calls anyway.
It might even be an advantage not to receive calls at all:-D
And if you insist to be able to phone, you can always get the cheapest of Nokias, which is the best phone on Earth, which has the most useful function of all: a flashlight!

I hadn't actually tried when I posted the above, so my first self comment 30 min later was:

Amazing! It actually works.
I still have to learn how to install my favourite apps, since the dedicated "Market" icon I've got on my Streak is absent.
There is even a Galaxy Tab and Android 2.3 virtual devices!
The only quirks I experienced so far, are some Korean characters on the pop-up keyboard (but using my pc keyboard, or the side keyboardd is fine), and it's slow to load and react.
I wonder it would take advantage of 3g (and make calls) and GPS if the PC (such as the bModo mentioned earlier) had an integrated SIM...
Can you imagine the possibilities? Merging the best Windows and Android Tab (some truly amazing) apps in a single slate? All I can say is wow!

http://developer.android.com/guide/developing/tools/emulator.html
http://androidforums.com/android-applications/19118-windows-emulator-using-android-os.html 
http://www.blogsdna.com/10400/android-2-2-froyo-emulator-for-pc-and-mac-os-x.htm 

The dotCommunist Manifesto

Quote:

"Music, for example, throughout previous human history was an acutely perishable non-commodity, a social process, occurring in a place and at a time, consumed where it was made, by people who were indistinctly differentiated as consumers and as makers. After the adoption of recording, music was a non-persishable commodity that could be moved long distances and was necessarily alienated from those who made it. Music became, as an article of consumption, an opportunity for its new "owners'' to direct additional consumption, to create wants on the part of the new mass consuming class, and to drive its demand in directions profitable to ownership."