Re: FSF condemns partnership between Mozilla and Adobe to support Digital Restrictions Management

[Richard Hector <richard@walnut.gen.nz>]

On 19/05/14 04:00, Lee Winter wrote:
> Anyone who proposes to restrict my ability to choose, for or against,
> DRM-restricted property is making a proposition that I will _always_
> res/ist./  After all, it is about freedom.  Mine.

I haven't seen any arguments in this thread threatening that. Firefox
not supporting DRM doesn't stop you consuming DRM-encumbered content;
you're welcome to use IE or chrome or something instead.

> And, for the record, I
> do not consider intellectual property to be morally equivalent to a
> human being.  Owning property has been around for million of years.  And
> I approve of that practice (see Locke).  The distinction is that people
> are not and never have been property, much as some would like to think
> of other people as property.

That's one distinction. Another is that people, like other property, are
physical objects, where 'intellectual property' isn't (though it may be
represented as such).

> But, contrary to Stallman's arguments,
> intellectual property is real and worth protecting.  Otherwise I would
> consider every GPL "protected" product to have a BSD or an MIT license.

One has to be very careful quoting Stallman. Terminology, and the
interpretation of it, are vitally important.

I won't claim to exactly represent his viewpoint, but I believe he does
respect some of what you want to consider 'real and worth protecting' -
as you say, it's how the GPL works. But I doubt he'd call it
'intellectual property', or mean exactly what you mean by that.

Richard