Subj : Re: GNU Public Licences Revisited (again)
To   : comp.programming
From : David Golden
Date : Wed Sep 21 2005 08:21 pm

> Oh yes that is an article written by someone that writes books which
> are  copyrighted and write articles in magazines that are themselves
> copyrighted. 

And? If you disagree with copyright law (the author of the article
mightn't; that's actually pretty irrelevant for his summary of what
"value" means to him ?!),  you might still copyright everything you
produce: you're not inconveniencing those who ignore copyrights, and
you might even encourage disregard for unjust law if redistribution of
your information is sufficiently desirable by people.

See also one person's answer to
"Why is it not inconsistent to claim copyrights but still find copyright
laws to be unethical and wrong?"
at  
http://www.ram.org/ramblings/philosophy/fmp/copying_primer.html

(Personally, I think it best to decide to let the fruits of those who
would restrict others "wither on the vine", and am actually far more
careful about NOT breaching copyright licenses than most people I
know.)

> So on what basis do we judge whether the price of his articles and
> books are a rip-off? 

Whether a price is a "rip-off" is subjective just as value is.
The entire passage you quoted is about the ERROR of the idea of "trading
value for value" that leads to perception of "rip-offs" and the idea
it's somehow wrong to profit.

I  hold he should be free to ask whatever price he wants
for a copy from him, the potential buyer free to decide whether it's
worth paying him to obtain that copy. (I've even proposed it should
probably be attribution, to give him incentive and advantage).

I disagree with the special extra law to prevent people you've ALREADY
"sold" a copy to making and redistributing further copies:  I haven't 
argued against being able to contract to prevent further redistribution
of information with a particular person you disclose information to -
presumably you might charge much less for such disclosure accompanied
by the establishment of such a contract, but you haven't really sold
him a copy, you have interest preventing him doing whatever he might
want with it. 

That is to quite different to there being extra statutory law creating
general power to restrict copying and resdistribution as far as I'm
concerned. 

>> The act of creation of a thing is NOT the thing being created. I
>> don't deny either are potentially valuable, though.

> In which case the act of copying is theft no?

No.

.