p2p news / p2pnet: LinuxP2P.com admin DaBlade scored a highly enlightening Q&A with Gnu guru Richard Stallman.

Among other things, he labels iTunes as DIM (Digital Inconvenience Management) rather than DRM saying, "I think that makes iTunes ethically acceptable - in this respect, at least.".

But, Stallman (right) emphasises, "Apple says it reserves the right to change the rules on you at any time. Therefore, you should systematically burn all music you get with iTunes onto genuine audio CDs, as a kind of a backup–and don’t wait too long before backing up your music! If you wait until you actually want a certain piece on a CD, you may longer be able to write the CD."

The Q&A is on DaBlade’s site here, and below >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Richard Stallman on P2P
By DaBlade - LinuxP2P.com

Richard Matthew Stallman is the founder of the Free Software movement, the GNU project and the Free Software Foundation. He has written several programs used in almost all GNU/Linux distributions, such as the GNU C Compiler, the GNU Emacs editor and the GNU Debugger, amongst others. He wrote the GNU GPL, and is also currently co-authoring version 3 of the GPL. He also gave POSIX it’s name, the term used to mean most UNIX-like operating systems today. We asked him for his opinions on File Sharing, DRM and some other subjects.

LinuxP2P: What is your general opinion of Peer to Peer File-Sharing? Is it a positive or negative thing, and why?

RMS: People have a right to share copies of published works; P2P programs

are simply a means to do it more usefully, and that is a good thing.

LinuxP2P: The recording and movie claim that P2P users infringe on their intellectual property. In your opinion, is this correct, or are the users exercising fair use?

RMS: The reason they use the term "intellectual property" is because it misleads and confuses. If they said "infringe their copyrights", they would be making a clear and meaningful statement. But when they say "intellectual property" instead of "copyrights", the mix up copyright law with a dozen other laws. It’s impossible to say anything clear about such a confused subject.

Anyone who uses the term "intellectual property" is either trying to confuse the public, or confused himself. Those who wish to encourage clear thinking would do better to avoid it. (See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.xhtml for more explanation.)

So let’s imagine that they tried to be clear, and said these people are infringing their copyrights. Whether that is true, I am the wrong one to ask–I am not a lawyer. What I can say is that I think that question is irrelevant to the ethics of the issue. If copyright law forbids people from sharing, copyright law is wrong.

LinuxP2P: What is your opinion on DRM? Is it good or bad, and why?

RMS: Digital Restrictions Management means technically restricting the public’s use of published works. It is fundamentally unjust.

I reject all DRM. I have signed a pledge not to buy fake CDs that carry DRM–http://www.pledgebank.com/boycottdrm. The host of a speech once gave me a fake CD, and I said "Here you see the face of the enemy–please return this to the store".

I have also never bought an encrypted DVD, and I never will buy one, unless I someday live in a country where DeCSS is legal.

LinuxP2P: Now that we have iTunes, Rhapsody and Napster etc. providing an outlet for digital music, is there really a need for P2P file sharing to continue?

RMS: That question is absurd–it’s like saying "Now that we have Fox News, is there really a need for blogging?"

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I understand that Rhapsody and Napster are shackled by DRM. People should not do business with them.

iTunes is a peculiar case: it allows you to burn the music onto a genuine audio CD. Therefore, it is DIM (Digital Inconvenience Management) rather than DRM, and I think that makes iTunes ethically acceptable–in this respect, at least.

However, Apple says it reserves the right to change the rules on you at any time. Therefore, you should systematically burn all music you get with iTunes onto genuine audio CDs, as a kind of a backup–and don’t wait too long before backing up your music! If you wait until you actually want a certain piece on a CD, you may longer be able to write the CD.

In any case, iTunes distributes only music. As far as I know, the only way you can get a non-digitally-restricted version of a movie is through a P2P network.

A further problem with iTunes is that it distributes MP3 format. We need to move away from the use of that format, because it is patented. The free software that used to exist for MP3 encoding has been driven underground by threats of lawsuits.

The free software community has developed another audio format called Ogg Vorbis which is both superior in sound quality and non-patented. You can help take away the patent holder’s power by using Ogg Vorbis format for the audio files you make, and by preferring that format for files you listen to.

LinuxP2P: In what directions would you say P2P has to develop before it is accepted by content producers?

RMS: When publishers describe the works that they publish as "content", in effect referring to these works as mere filler, they ironically show how little they value and appreciate them as works of the intellect.

I do not wish to devalue works of authorship, so I decline to refer to them as "content". I also decline to refer to writers and musicians as "producers", because I do not want to treat music and writing as "products" (which implies a narrowly economic point of view).

Many writers and musicians are happy with P2P sharing. Many others, pursuing the unlikely dream of getting rich through commercial publication, do not like it. I do not see how further developments in the P2P software could be expected to set them straight about their dreams of riches, and I tend to think that this has to be done by cultural change instead.

As for the music factories–a.k.a. the major record companies–what they want is power. They will never accept P2P sharing as long as it remains a way to escape from their power. For their abuses against the people, they deserve to be abolished, and that should be everyone’s goal.

LinuxP2P: The Free Software Foundation is currently working on the GPL version 3, which I understand will ban all forms of DRM. A large amount of P2P software exists under the GNU GPL. Will the GPLv3 have any effect on those projects, considering one can use P2P software to download files with DRM?

RMS: That is somewhat of a misunderstanding–we cannot "ban DRM". What we can do is prevent GPL-covered software from being corrupted into an instrument for implementing DRM.

The way we do this is not by restricting which technical jobs the program can do. (That kind of restriction would make the program non-free.) Instead, we make sure that users retain the effective freedom to change the software and run their changed versions.

Since DRM is based on restricting the user, effectively maintaining the user’s freedom thwarts DRM. Or more precisely, effectively maintaining the user’s freedom to change a certain program thwarts use of that program to implement DRM. We cannot stop them from implementing DRM in other ways.

These parts of GPL v3 will have no effect on such programs, because they are not used to impose Digital Restriction, and their developers do not attempt to stop users from running modified versions.

LinuxP2P:In the last couple of years, independent media and entertainment seems has grown immensely. Just last week, CreativeCommons.org passed the 200000 mp3s indexed milestone. Most independent music, movies etc., use Creative Commons licensing.

A lot of the independent artwork has been spread through P2P (Using legal independent artistry sites such as Jamendo.com and ccMixter.org, as well as manually by the artists themselves.). Apart from the obvious, which is that the GPL is written to cover software, what differences are there between generic CC licensing and the GPL?

RMS: I have already explained the patent problem of MP3 format.

As your question illustrates, people have a tendency to disregard the differences between the various Creative Commons licenses, lumping them together as a single thing. That is as mixed-up as supposing San Francisco and Death Valley have similar weather because they’re both in California.

Some Creative Commons licenses are free licenses; most permit at least noncommercial verbatim copying. But some, such as the Sampling Licenses and Developing Countries Licenses, don’t even permit that, which makes them unacceptable to use for any kind of work. All these licenses have in common is a label, but people regularly mistake that common label for something substantial.

I no longer endorse Creative Commons. I cannot endorse Creative Commons as a whole, because some of its licenses are unacceptable. It would be self-delusion to try to endorse just some of the Creative Commons licenses, because people lump them together; they will misconstrue any endorsement of some as a blanket endorsement of all. I therefore find myself constrained to reject Creative Commons entirely.

Does Creative Commons publish the number of music files that are released under Creative Commons licenses that DO permit noncommercial sharing of copies? If so, could you give that number?

LinuxP2P wrote,:

Apart from the obvious, which is that the GPL is written to cover software,

It may seem obvious, but it’s not true. The GNU GPL is written primarily for software, but it can be used for any kind of work. However, its requirements are inconvenient for works that one might want to print and publish in a book, so I don’t recommend using it for manuals, or for novels.

LinuxP2P wrote:

What differences are there between generic CC licensing and the GPL?

Nothing meaningful can be said about "generic CC licensing"–those licenses are more different than similar. The first step in thinking clearly about those licenses is to discuss them separately.

LinuxP2P: Can the GPL be applied to artwork? For example, most of the people who submit wallpapers to KDE-Look.org submit them under the GPL, would the GPL’s terms still apply, considering it isn’t software.

RMS: There must be some basic misunderstanding here. If a work is released under the GPL, then the GPL’s terms apply to it. How could it possibly be otherwise?

LinuxP2P would like to thank Mr. Stallman for taking time out of his busy schedule to participate in this interview. We wish him and the FSF the best of luck with his ongoing GPLv3 project and all the other projects he’s involved in.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 6th, 2006 at 6:03 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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