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Name: RMS 2009-05-02 11:12

Copyright laws are among the most significant in shaping the world as we know it. Copyright laws are not about entertainment, but rather, about thought control.

As a species we are standing on a crossroads never before faced by any species on the planet.

I argue that the single most significant contributor to our supremacy over this planet is our capacity for meme-exchange. We have taken mammalian peer-learning to an unprecedented level. The fact that every member of our species frequently expends great energy in the singular business of meme-aquisition, and that we spend just as much energy in the business of meme-distribution, serves as a testament to its survival-utility and evolutionary effectiveness.

Are we to embrace this freedom, allow the currents of information to flow unrestrained, and see where our exponentially-increasing rate of technological evolution (which, from a more metaphysical perspective, is not so different from our genetic evolution) takes us?

Or are we, on the other hand, going to lock ourselves down and block this flow, all in the name of preserving the economic prosperity of a select few?

Is our future one of wild change and uncertainty, or one of regularity and control?

Name: Anonymous 2009-05-02 20:26

>>30
No. The software licensing terms for some of Microsoft's software do not permit me all of my free software rights:
0. the right to run the software for any purpose whenever I wish
1. the right to study and tinker with the software. Access to the source code is a prerequisite for this
2. the right to help my neighbour when I wish. This is right to share verbatim copies of the software.
3. the right to contribute to my community when I wish. This is the right to share my modifications.

Windows doesn't permit me to practise freedom 0 let alone the other three freedoms.

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