The Null Device

This was good enough to plagiarise in its entirety: Charlie Stross on copyright fascism:

You can identify copyright fascists because they're the guys who say things like "skipping advertising breaks on TV is theft", and apply emotive words like "piracy" (armed robbery and murder on the high seas) to having an unauthorised copy of a piece of software (shoplifting).

There's an agenda at work here, folks. Learn to recognize it.

(NB:I'd use the term "creator" instead of Distributor, except that there are precious few musicians, programmers, authors or editors who'd take such an extremist position. As usual, the ones who are least creative are the ones who are most anxious to defend totalitarianism.)

(link)

There are 2 comments on "":

Posted by: Toby http://www.adbusters.org/ Sun May 19 01:03:54 2002

Excellent quote, acb: one of the simplest descriptions of Fascism I've read (and one that clearly reminds we are in the grip of Fascists, right here, in dear old Oz), and a wonderfully deft correction of "piracy" to "shoplifting"! thanks...

Posted by: Vicki http://www.yawl.org Sun May 19 23:55:04 2002

I'm with Charlie: this isn't about the rights of the creator, it's about Disney and Bertelsmann and the huge record labels.