>>>>> Alexander Terekhov <[email protected]> writes: [Dropping news:comp.os.linux.advocacy, for nntp://aioe.org/ is unlikely to allow it.]
> Official death of copyleft in EU: > http://www.gamerlaw.co.uk/2012/07/legality-of-second-hand-sales-in-eu.html Well, thanks for an early warning, but frankly, I don't quite understand what it has to do with copyleft? While the growing acceptance of the "information as a property" idea is disturbing, this particular court decision may be a move in a direction that isn't exactly wrong. For decades, the powers behind this "intellectual property" misconception have reminded us that "you steal when you copy", and "you're pirating when we're to lose our profits" (despite the fact that the piracy is outlawed not only because it leads to lost /profits/, but first and foremost because it leads to lost /lives/), and now they've got what they've wanted: the thing one can steal, the other can resell. Quite an obvious thing, should one think of it! And where they would go next? It's my understanding that one's free to examine his or her own property, to disassemble or improve it, -- it may be a hammer, or it may be a radio, or a TV (and indeed, we've got a glorious past to remember, that of radio amateurs constantly improving their very own equipment.) Now, would the same principle be applied to a program? I wonder if there'll soon be a law that gives everyone the freedom to study how a program works, and to change it to make it do what you wish (just like you can do to your property!), and do that for just /any/ program one lawfully acquires. With that, we'll still be 2.5 to 3 freedoms apart of the software freedom proper, but that could be a good start, anyway. [...] -- FSF associate member #7257 _______________________________________________ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list [email protected] https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss
