On Wed, 2 Jul 1997, Paul Bradley wrote:
Technology may well enable us to take the product and give nothing in return to those who made it available, but doing so will not further our own beliefs and aims to any extent.
Again, this is the right way to think of "intellectual property", not as real tangiable property which can, or even should be protected, but as a bond of trust between provider and end user, if you rip off a copy of my s/w and decide you like it, why not buy a copy? The same is true of music, source code, hard-copy books etc...
This is why I favor copylefting all information, software and otherwise. If a computer program is copyrighted it cannot be easily shared or improved, while copyleft encourages this. Same for music, texts and other works -- if a song is released under the terms of the GNU GPL or similar copyleft, I am free to copy and modify that song as I see fit, which includes making DATs, burning my own CDs and performing improvisations to the song (whose transcriptions could be likened to its "source code," of which I am free to improve upon as I see fit). The artist can be supported by purchasing hard copy of the music (CDs etc) from her/him, as well as posters, t-shirts and other paraphernalia (as well as outright donation), but I am no longer restricted by the scourge of copyright law and the fictitious construct of "intellectual property" in my thoughts and communications about the work; I am free to share my thoughts and communications with others. Michael Stutz http://dsl.org/m/