Comments on: Creative Commons paradox http://www.p2pnet.net/story/2947 p2pnet.net offers not-your-lamescream news on movies music digital media P2P peer-to-peer TV television file sharing freedom of speech open source product news Wifi mobiles company Fri, 21 Nov 2008 05:16:06 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.2.1 By: Reader's Write http://www.p2pnet.net/story/2947#comment-8568 Reader's Write Mon, 17 Jan 2005 09:21:28 +0000 http://www.p2pnet.net/story/2947#comment-8568 There is no paradox here. Lawyers are needed to write good licenses which everyone will understand, and are then needed when someone deliberately violates these licenses. Having convoluted licenses that create uncertainty and needing lawyers to be involved in every stage of creativity is a type of wasteful friction that is harmful to the economy. This is like the paradox that some software authors I know use to suggest that my support of Free/Libre Software is inappropriate. Their claim is that if all software were more reliable and it just "did its job" then this would put software authors and computer support companies out of business. In their mind buggy software is a "public good" which feeds the economy. Lawyers and software authors are in quite related fields: they help shape the rules that govern our lives, with the rules either being executed in a court or in a computer. http://www.flora.ca/russell/drafts/code-is-law-speedgeek.html I would hope most people recognize that our society has far more important things to be doing than spending all our time rebooting our computer while defending ourselves in court. Russell McOrmond There is no paradox here. Lawyers are needed to write good licenses which everyone will understand, and are then needed when someone deliberately violates these licenses. Having convoluted licenses that create uncertainty and needing lawyers to be involved in every stage of creativity is a type of wasteful friction that is harmful to the economy.

This is like the paradox that some software authors I know use to suggest that my support of Free/Libre Software is inappropriate. Their claim is that if all software were more reliable and it just “did its job” then this would put software authors and computer support companies out of business. In their mind buggy software is a “public good” which feeds the economy.

Lawyers and software authors are in quite related fields: they help shape the rules that govern our lives, with the rules either being executed in a court or in a computer.

http://www.flora.ca/russell/drafts/code-is-law-speedgeek.html

I would hope most people recognize that our society has far more important things to be doing than spending all our time rebooting our computer while defending ourselves in court.

Russell McOrmond

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