On Sun, Nov 1, 2009 at 10:33 AM, Amalyah Keshet [akeshet at imj.org.il] <akeshet at imj.org.il> wrote: > > "Free is just another price, and prices are set by individual actors, in > accordance with the aggregated particulars of marketplace power. "Information > wants to be free," Anderson tells us, "in the same way that life wants to > spread and water wants to run downhill." But information can't actually want > anything, can it? Amazon wants the information in the Dallas paper to be > free, because that way Amazon makes more money. Why are the self-interested > motives of powerful companies being elevated to a philosophical principle? " > > http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2009/07/06/090706crbo_books_gladwell > > Posted by Amalyah Keshet, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem >
Malcolm Gladwell's New Yorker article is certainly worth a read. His critique of Stewart Brand's famous dictum has a certain merit, but he is guilty of at least as egregious a categorical error when (in paragraph 4) he refers to unauthorized copying as "theft". The content publishing industry has spent a lot of money to propagate the 'theft' metaphor in attempt to influence public attitudes towards copyright law, and Gladwell seems to have taken the bait. William Patry puts it very well in a recent interview (http://bit.ly/V6hEn) concerning his book "Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars" when he says: "My only regret, and this is what much of my book is about, is that in the case of corporations, what are business issues?are misdescribed?as moral issues, when in fact they are economic issues. I think we will reach better economic results if we discuss economic issues honestly." -- Jeff Doyle www.openmuseum.org @jeffdoyle
