Re: <nettime> Linux strikes back III

[Florian Cramer <cantsin@zedat.fu-berlin.de>]

Am Donnerstag, 16. Oktober 2003 um 09:42:58 Uhr (-0700) schrieb Morlock Elloi:
 
> I take issue with a Good Cop principle. There is no such thing - if
> you want to use so-called legal system and IP property laws you become
> just one of the parties that help maintain the whole thing, enriching
> lawyers and "leaders" along the way. OS is created by many and the
> cause/ideology exploited by a small fraction of loud ones. Exploited
> in $, celebrity status and attention grabbing sense.

I don't see how lawyers and "leaders" get enriched by a case like FSF
vs. Linksys. Eben Moglen works as a pro-bono-legal counsellor (i.e.
without payment) for the FSF which itself operates as a
non-profit-organization on a shoestring budget, orders of magnitude
smaller than that of - for example - Rhizome. And the fact that
negotations with coroporate GPL infringers are usually done in a
diplomatic behind-the-scenes way contradicts your diagnosis of
"attention grabbing" and "celebrity status". (And Moglen and Kuhn can
hardly be called celebrities, not even in Free Software circles.)

Aside from that, I find it a bit ironic that you post your statement to
a list with the following footer: 
 
> #  distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission

What does that line mean if not using the "so-called legal system and IP
property laws"?

To use an analogy to the Linksys/FSF case: What would you do if some 
corporate publisher would release a book on Internet culture based on
Nettime postings - including your own ones -, but without (a)
acknowledging the source and (b) without having asked anyone for
permission? Would you mind if, for example, Felix or Ted as the Nettime
moderators would enter negotiations with that company, proposing (just
as the FSF did) an amicable settlement to the effect that the contents
of the book must be made freely available in the Internet?

-F

-- 
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