copyleft: the book
Miriam Rainsford, a composer, musician, graphic designer and writer, is publishing a book called copyleft: creativity, technology and freedom?:
'Copyleft' rises controversially against the concepts of so-called 'piracy' and 'intellectual property', believing that these words are in fact propoganda, devised by the corporations which make money off the artists' backs, and are rarely in use by artists themselves (see http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html). To quote Richard M. Stallman, "piracy is storming a ship": he believes that all materials should be free to share, in the same way that, on purchasing a book, one is free to lend it to friends, read from it in public, or donate it to a secondhand bookstore where another person may benefit from buying and reading it. Under copyleft licensing, one is free to do all this and more, in order that society may benefit from the learning experience.Information is not just a privelege, but a basic human right, and our rights to education are threatened by the rise of so-called 'Digital Rights Management' laws. What is at stake is whether we wish to have not only our software and creative artwork, but also our hobbies, our culture and the music that we listen to controlled by multinational corporations and force fed to us in sanitised, pre-packaged and politically acceptable forms, becoming as it were a method of propaganda akin to the control in which Communist governments of the Cold War era asserted over the thinking of their populations. Is it possible for us to preserve our rights to freedom of information, freedom of thought, and freedom of speech through a licensing system that better provides for learning, understanding and progress in invention? Copyleft asserts that this is possible through the use of free licenses such as the GPL.
'Copyleft' in itself is a unique book, as it will be released under the copyleft principles of the GNU licenses, and available concurrently with book sales for free download from the Internet. Verbatim copying of the book will be freely permitted, as long as any quotation or reproduction is itself subsequently permits redistribution. By setting an example through the use of this license, the author seeks to demonstrate that such an idea has legal precedence and can be practically applied in not only in the software industry but also in the arts and creative media.
I am a writer. I've made money from writing and I hope to make money from writing again. But the absolutism of RIAA and MPAA and the idea that intellectual property is 'just like' real property, that ideas can be locked up and available only for a price is wrong. Free exchange of ideas is essential. Compensation and support for artists is also essential (I would say 'just' compensation for artists, but it's not just now--the 'best' artists don't always make money). We have to find a balance and we have to let everyone participate in the conversation.