Yes! Finally, someone agrees with me! More specifically, Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine agree with me that the copyright and patent system should be abolished, as it is stifling innovation; the opposite of what it was intended to do.
Read all about it here. Oh, and you can read their book here too.
Danny O’Brien made the point that copying isn’t such a big deal any more, but that plagiarism is almost universally condemned.
One reason for this could be the environment that originated the open content ethos. In an academic environment, using someone else’s work to support your own conclusions is encouraged, but using it without [...]
I’ve just spotted another case where free information = profit. The Brazillian technobrega scene is driven mostly by artists encouraging their music to be copied freely. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, RIAA!
In 2000, Baen Books created a free internet library as an experiment in publishing. The “First Librarian“, author Eric Flint, kept a proto-blog of the experience. I found it educational. Of particular interest is the intro, #1, #6, #10, and #11, as these all confirm that free downloads boost sales, both for books and music.
Cory [...]
Information wants to be free
Economically speaking, it is more efficient to pay for the production of information than to pay for information itself.
This is true for a number of reasons:
1. Information is a public good, and therefore can’t be sold
2. Copyright creates artificial monopolies, which cause market innefficiency
3. Because copyrighted information is non-rival, and the [...]
“Information Wants To Be Free”. What this phrase means depends very much on who’s using it. Roger Clarke has researched the various places and ways that this phrase has been used.
When Richard Stallman uses the phrase, “free” means “freedom”. “I believe that all generally useful information should be free. By ‘free’ I am not referring [...]
