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Comment by ghshephard | Hacker News Reader

" And most of us are against the indiscriminate sueing of file sharers"

I was with you up to that point. I think you would find that the majority of HN doesn't have a lot of sympathy for those who would distribute other people's creative works in violation of said creator's copyrights.

After all, the same thing that protects authors rights in the GPL underly the rights belonging to the creators of "Game of Thrones".

Let's not stretch something that 95%+ of us agree on (You should't be able to copyright an API) into a place where there isn't consensus.

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Well. There's a difference between "lack of sympathy for those who would violate copyrights" and "indiscriminate sueing of file sharers".

(Especially how it's turned out -- the few cases that went to court and proceeded to a verdict have absurdly huge penalties; the suits were structured so that often an accusee's best strategy is immediate settlement even if innocent.)

Many of us do rely on IP law to get paid, and there do need to be ways to reward and encourage creative work, but there also needs to be a balance.

I favor the GPL over BSD n-clause (and over putting code into the Public Domain). However, I would still prefer a world without any copyright enforcement. It would mean the GPL was unenforceable, but a company using GPL code in a piece of commercial software would have no protection against undesired redistribution of that software, so it evens out a little bit: even though the source code for the derivative work would not be freely available, the functionality of the derivative work would be.

However, instead of doing away with copyright entirely, I would prefer to see copyright only enforceable when the redistribution is directly for-profit: that is, but for a payment, the copied or derived work would not be available. (Worded that way to prevent "commercial redistribution" from including software published on blogs with ads and similar venues.)

GPL would still mostly apply in that ideal fantasy world, because who wants to violate the GPL except to distribute something for profit? All the notable GPL violations I can think of have been the result of commercial interests (preventing competitors from copying something you're trying to sell).

The GPL, from a practical standpoint, is the opposite of normal copyright. Particularly, while the GPL does happen to use copyright law, its effect is the opposite--instead of taking away consumers' rights, it adds to consumers' rights.

The GPL is really a stop-gap measure. It cleverly turns copyright law against itself, and manages to use an existing legal framework to achieve a completely different end. However, it would be even better if it did not have to exist and all code was always open source. The whole free software movement is about not having software protected by copyright or even implicitly protected by being closed-source: it's the software that has to be free, in the sense of freedom.

In short, while the GPL does use copyright, it's just an implementation detail. The actual effects are the opposite--it uses copyright law to neuter copyrights so that the users' freedom is always preserved.

I actually agree with you and don't think you deserve down votes. Having written open source code (and code in general), I'm far more on the side of 'people who enforce copyright' than on those that choose to download copyrighted works.

Plus, in a selfish way, I'd love if Microsoft, Dassault, et al started enforcing their copyright on software harder. That would push more people towards open source and alternate solutions. Piracy really undermines one of the major 'selling' points of free software.

That said, the way the copyright industry has gone about their war on copyright infringers is very wrong. Using the courts to basically extort those that can't afford to defend themselves? Trying to pass legislation like a bull in a china shop - completely ignoring the distructive side effects their pet issue might cause. I don't think anyone on HN believes the way they have been trying to win the battle makes any sense.

I don't know about a majority.

This poll, while hardly conclusive, suggests at least a sympathy for the "IP is imaginary!" crowd.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2555088

No, it really doesn't.

There are 3/28 votes for abolishing copyright, 1/28 for the current system as-is and the bulk, 24/28, for retaining copyright with some reforms.

Supporting copyright reform is solidly opposed to the "IP is imaginary!" crowd. Supporting reform means valuing the concept of copyright and wanting to see it work better. The "IP is imaginary!" crowd would much rather see the current system collapse under its own weight as a path towards getting copyright abolished.

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