copyright at the point of a gun

[Adam Back <aba@dcs.ex.ac.uk>]

Christopher Petro writes:
> 	I never said they should, however in this case I will make the
> arguement that the Feds DID have something to do with creating the
> Jaggernaut called M$, and that they could also fix Billys little redmond
> wagon without a court case shoud they wish.

On the Feds buying M$ software (no big deal ... if it suits them let
them buy it).

The real subsidy of M$ and any software vendor is the copyright,
patent, and license enforcement mechanism provided by the government.

Don't forget that copyright enforcement boils down to thugs with guns
coming to lock you up.

In a crypto-anarchic society concepts such as copyright, license and
patents have little meaning because the obvious statement of reality
is that once you have released something to another individual, you
lose all control over it.

With strong anonymity, ecash and so on, even things like GNU, patents,
export controls whatever can be swept away for individuals, and for
anonymous companies.  GNU license?  No problem, just ignore the
license.  Copright?  No problem just ignore the copyright notices,
strip them off.  Patents?  Ignore them to.

If people still buy software, or support contracts from anonymous
companies who ignore patents, well that is the market deciding what it
thinks of copyright.

Judging by the state of software-piracy with PC software with 80-90%+
piracy rates, the market is already pretty much ok with ignoring
copyright, and would be happy to have no copyrights.

The bounty scheme, support contracts are much closer to the natural
schelling points in a free society than "enforcement" of bit flow, and
ideas.

FSF is the first wave.

Adam