The Right to Read - Richard M. Stallman
-
Upload
josephina-kafka-beefeater -
Category
Documents
-
view
216 -
download
0
Transcript of The Right to Read - Richard M. Stallman
-
8/8/2019 The Right to Read - Richard M. Stallman
1/28
-
8/8/2019 The Right to Read - Richard M. Stallman
2/28
-
8/8/2019 The Right to Read - Richard M. Stallman
3/28
COPYRIGHTED ProjectGutenberg Etext,Details Below
This is the Plain Vanilla Text version tycho10.txt or
ycho10.zip Also available in HTML format versionycho10h.txt or tycho10h.zip Also as French HTML
ormat version tycho10f.txt or tycho10f.zip
Please take a look at the important information
n this header.
We encourage you to keep this file on your own
isk, keeping an electronic path open for the next
eaders. Do not remove this.
*Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla
Electronic Texts**
*Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By
-
8/8/2019 The Right to Read - Richard M. Stallman
4/28
Computers, Since 1971**
These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of
Volunteers and Donations*
nformation on contacting Project Gutenberg to get
Etexts, and further information is included below.We need your donations.
The Right to Read
by Richard M. Stallman
Copyright 1996 Richard Stallman
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire
article is permitted in any medium, provided thisotice is preserved.
The Right to Read - GNU Project - Free SoftwareFoundation (FSF)
November, 1999 [Etext #1981]
The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Right to Read,
-
8/8/2019 The Right to Read - Richard M. Stallman
5/28
by Stallman ****This file should be named
ycho10.txt or tycho10.zip*****
We are now trying to release all our books one
month in advance of the official release dates, forme for better editing.
Please note: neither this list nor its contents are finll midnight of the last day of the month of any such
announcement. The official release date of allProject Gutenberg Etexts is at Midnight, Central
Time, of the last day of the stated month. Apreliminary version may often be posted for
uggestion, comment and editing by those who
wish to do so. To be sure you have an up to daterst edition [xxxxx10x.xxx] please check file sizes inhe first week of the next month. Since our ftp
program has a bug in it that scrambles the datetried to fix and failed] a look at the file size will have
o do, but we will try to see a new copy has at leastone byte more or less.
-
8/8/2019 The Right to Read - Richard M. Stallman
6/28
-
8/8/2019 The Right to Read - Richard M. Stallman
7/28
nformation about ProjectGutenberg
ne page)
We produce about two million dollars for each houre work. The fifty hours is one conservativestimate for how long it we take to get any etextelected, entered, proofread, edited, copyrightearched and analyzed, the copyright letters written,c. This projected audience is one hundred millionaders. If our value per text is nominally estimatedone dollar then we produce $2 million dollars per
our this year as we release thirty-two text files peronth, or 384 more Etexts in 1998 for a total of
500+ If these reach just 10% of the computerizedopulation, then the total should reach over 150llion Etexts given away.
he Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away Onerillion Etext Files by the December 31, 2001.0,000 x 100,000,000=Trillion] This is ten thousandles each to one hundred million readers, which isnly 10% of the present number of computer users.001 should have at least twice as many computer
sers as that, so it will require us reaching less than% of the users in 2001.
We need your donations more than ever!
l donations should be made to "Projectutenberg/CMU": and are tax deductible to the
xtent allowable by law. (CMU = Carnegie- Mellon
-
8/8/2019 The Right to Read - Richard M. Stallman
8/28
-
8/8/2019 The Right to Read - Richard M. Stallman
9/28
-
8/8/2019 The Right to Read - Richard M. Stallman
10/28
nformation prepared by theProject Gutenberg legal advisor
* (Three Pages)
**START** SMALL PRINT! for COPYRIGHTPROTECTED ETEXTS *** TITLE AND
COPYRIGHT NOTICE:
Copyright 1996 Richard Stallman
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire
article is permitted in any medium, provided thisotice is preserved.
The Right to Read - GNU Project - Free Software
Foundation (FSF)
This etext is distributed by Professor Michael S.Hart through the Project Gutenberg Association atCarnegie-Mellon University (the "Project") under th
Project's "Project Gutenberg" trademark and withhe permission of the etext's copyright owner.
-
8/8/2019 The Right to Read - Richard M. Stallman
11/28
LICENSE You can (and are encouraged!) to copy
and distribute this Project Gutenberg-tm etext.Since, unlike many other of the Project's etexts, it is
opyright protected, and since the materials and
methods you use will effect the Project's reputationour right to copy and distribute it is limited by theopyright laws and by the conditions of this "Small
Print!" statement.
A] ALL COPIES: The Project permits you toistribute copies of this etext electronically or on
any machine readable medium now known or
ereafter discovered so long as you:
1) Honor the refund and replacement provisions ohis "Small Print!" statement; and
2) Pay a royalty to the Project of 20% of the netprofits you derive calculated using the method you
already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If yoon't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are
payable to "Project GutenbergAssociation/Carnegie Mellon-University" within the
0 days following each date you prepare (or were
egally required to prepare) your annual (or
-
8/8/2019 The Right to Read - Richard M. Stallman
12/28
equivalent periodic) tax return.
B] EXACT AND MODIFIED COPIES: The copiesou distribute must either be exact copies of this
etext, including this Small Print statement, or can bn binary, compressed, mark- up, or proprietary
orm (including any form resulting from wordprocessing or hypertext software), so long as
EITHER*:
1) The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable,and does *not* contain characters other than those
ntended by the author of the work, although tilde~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may b
sed to convey punctuation intended by the author,and additional characters may be used to indicate
ypertext links; OR
2) The etext is readily convertible by the reader at
o expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalenorm by the program that displays the etext (as is
he case, for instance, with most word processors)OR
3) You provide or agree to provide on request at n
-
8/8/2019 The Right to Read - Richard M. Stallman
13/28
additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the etext
n plain ASCII.
LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF
DAMAGES
This etext may contain a "Defect" in the form of
ncomplete, inaccurate or corrupt data, transcriptioerrors, a copyright or other infringement, a defectiv
or damaged disk, computer virus, or codes thatamage or cannot be read by your equipment. But
or the "Right of Replacement or Refund" describedbelow, the Project (and any other party you may
eceive this etext from as a PROJECT
GUTENBERG-tm etext) disclaims all liability to youor damages, costs and expenses, including legalees, and YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR
NEGLIGENCE OR UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, ORFOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT,
NCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT,CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL
DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THEPOSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
ou discover a Defect in this etext within 90 da s
-
8/8/2019 The Right to Read - Richard M. Stallman
14/28
of receiving it, you can receive a refund of themoney (if any) you paid for it by sending an
explanatory note within that time to the person youeceived it from. If you received it on a physical
medium, you must return it with your note, and suchperson may choose to alternatively give you a
eplacement copy. If you received it electronically,uch person may choose to alternatively give you a
econd opportunity to receive it electronically.
THIS ETEXT IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU
AS-IS". NO OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KINDEXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS
TO THE ETEXT OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ONNCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES
OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR APARTICULAR PURPOSE. Some states do not
allow disclaimers of implied warranties or theexclusion or limitation of consequential damages,
o the above disclaimers and exclusions may notapply to you, and you may have other legal rights.
NDEMNITY
You will indemnif and hold the Pro ect its directors
-
8/8/2019 The Right to Read - Richard M. Stallman
15/28
officers, members and agents harmless from allability, cost and expense, including legal fees, that
arise directly or indirectly from any of the followinghat you do or cause: [1] distribution of this etext, [2
alteration, modification, or addition to the etext, or3] any Defect.
WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN
F YOU DON'T HAVE TO?
Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing theumber of public domain and licensed works that
an be freely distributed in machine readable formThe Project gratefully accepts contributions in
money, time, scanning machines, OCR software,public domain etexts, royalty free copyright
censes, and whatever else you can think of. Monehould be paid to "Project Gutenberg
Association/Carnegie-Mellon University".
SMALL PRINT! Ver.04.29.93 FOR COPYRIGHT
PROTECTED ETEXTS*END*
Copyright 1996 Richard Stallman
-
8/8/2019 The Right to Read - Richard M. Stallman
16/28
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire
article is permitted in any medium, provided thisotice is preserved.
The Right to Read - GNU Project - Free SoftwareFoundation (FSF)
The Right to Read
by Richard Stallman
Copyright 1996 Richard Stallman
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entirearticle is permitted in any medium, provided thisotice is preserved.
Table of Contents
Author's Note References Other Texts to Read
This article appeared in the February 1997 issue o
Communications of the ACM (Volume 40, Number
-
8/8/2019 The Right to Read - Richard M. Stallman
17/28
).
The Right to Read
by Richard Stallman
Copyright 1996 Richard Stallman
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire
article is permitted in any medium, provided thisotice is preserved.
from "The Road To Tycho", a collection of articlesabout the antecedents of the Lunarian Revolution,
published in Luna City in 2096)
For Dan Halbert, the road to Tycho began inollege--when Lissa Lenz asked to borrow his
omputer. Hers had broken down, and unless sheould borrow another, she would fail her midterm
project. There was no one she dared ask, exceptDan.
This put Dan in a dilemma. He had to help her--but
-
8/8/2019 The Right to Read - Richard M. Stallman
18/28
f he lent her his computer, she might read his
books. Aside from the fact that you could go toprison for many years for letting someone else read
our books, the very idea shocked him at first. Like
everyone, he had been taught since elementarychool that sharing books was nasty and wrong--omething that only pirates would do.
And there wasn't much chance that the SPA--the
Software Protection Authority--would fail to catchim. In his software class, Dan had learned that
each book had a copyright monitor that reported
when and where it was read, and by whom, toCentral Licensing. (They used this information to
atch reading pirates, but also to sell personalnterest profiles to retailers.) The next time his
omputer was networked, Central Licensing wouldnd out. He, as computer owner, would receive the
arshest punishment--for not taking pains to prevenhe crime.
Of course, Lissa did not necessarily intend to read
is books. She might want the computer only towrite her midterm. But Dan knew she came from a
middle-class famil and could hardl afford the
-
8/8/2019 The Right to Read - Richard M. Stallman
19/28
uition, let alone her reading fees. Reading his
books might be the only way she could graduate.He understood this situation; he himself had had to
borrow to pay for all the research papers he read.
10% of those fees went to the researchers whowrote the papers; since Dan aimed for anacademic career, he could hope that his own
esearch papers, if frequently referenced, wouldbring in enough to repay this loan.)
Later on, Dan would learn there was a time when
anyone could go to the library and read journalarticles, and even books, without having to pay.
There were independent scholars who readhousands of pages without government library
rants. But in the 1990s, both commercial andonprofit journal publishers had begun charging
ees for access. By 2047, libraries offering free
public access to scholarly literature were a dimmemory.
There were ways, of course, to get around the SPA
and Central Licensing. They were themselves
legal. Dan had had a classmate in software, Fran
-
8/8/2019 The Right to Read - Richard M. Stallman
20/28
Martucci, who had obtained an illicit debugging too
and used it to skip over the copyright monitor codewhen reading books. But he had told too many
riends about it, and one of them turned him in to th
SPA for a reward (students deep in debt wereeasily tempted into betrayal). In 2047, Frank was inprison, not for pirate reading, but for possessing a
ebugger.
Dan would later learn that there was a time whenanyone could have debugging tools. There wereeven free debugging tools available on CD or
ownloadable over the net. But ordinary userstarted using them to bypass copyright monitors,
and eventually a judge ruled that this had becomeheir principal use in actual practice. This meant
hey were illegal; the debuggers' developers wereent to prison.
Programmers still needed debugging tools, ofourse, but debugger vendors in 2047 distributedumbered copies only, and only to officially license
and bonded programmers. The debugger Dansed in software class was kept behind a special
rewall so that it could be used onl for class
-
8/8/2019 The Right to Read - Richard M. Stallman
21/28
exercises.
was also possible to bypass the copyright
monitors by installing a modified system kernel.
Dan would eventually find out about the free kernelseven entire free operating systems, that had existearound the turn of the century. But not only were the
legal, like debuggers--you could not install one ifou had one, without knowing your computer's root
password. And neither the FBI nor MicrosoftSupport would tell you that.
Dan concluded that he couldn't simply lend Lissais computer. But he couldn't refuse to help her,
because he loved her. Every chance to speak wither filled him with delight. And that she chose him to
ask for help, that could mean she loved him too.
Dan resolved the dilemma by doing something
even more unthinkable--he lent her the computer,and told her his password. This way, if Lissa readis books, Central Licensing would think he was
eading them. It was still a crime, but the SPA wouldot automatically find out about it. They would only
nd out if Lissa re orted him.
-
8/8/2019 The Right to Read - Richard M. Stallman
22/28
Of course, if the school ever found out that he hadiven Lissa his own password, it would be curtains
or both of them as students, regardless of what sh
ad used it for. School policy was that anynterference with their means of monitoringtudents' computer use was grounds for disciplinar
action. It didn't matter whether you did anythingarmful--the offense was making it hard for the
administrators to check on you. They assumed thismeant you were doing something else forbidden,
and they did not need to know what it was.
Students were not usually expelled for this--not
irectly. Instead they were banned from the schoolomputer systems, and would inevitably fail all theilasses.
Later, Dan would learn that this kind of university
policy started only in the 1980s, when universitytudents in large numbers began using computers.
Previously, universities maintained a different
approach to student discipline; they punishedactivities that were harmful, not those that merely
aised sus icion.
-
8/8/2019 The Right to Read - Richard M. Stallman
23/28
Lissa did not report Dan to the SPA. His decision t
elp her led to their marriage, and also led them touestion what they had been taught about piracy as
hildren. The couple began reading about theistory of copyright, about the Soviet Union and its
estrictions on copying, and even the original UniteStates Constitution. They moved to Luna, where
hey found others who had likewise gravitated awa
rom the long arm of the SPA. When the TychoUprising began in 2062, the universal right to readoon became one of its central aims.
Author's Note
The right to read is a battle being fought today.Although it may take 50 years for our present way o
fe to fade into obscurity, most of the specific lawsand practices described above have already been
proposed--either by the Clinton Administration or bpublishers.
There is one exception: the idea that the FBI andMicrosoft will keep the root passwords for persona
omputers. This is an extrapolation from the Clippe
-
8/8/2019 The Right to Read - Richard M. Stallman
24/28
hip and similar Clinton Administration key-escrow
proposals, together with a long-term trend:omputer systems are increasingly set up to give
absentee operators control over the people actuall
sing the computer system.
The SPA, which actually stands for SoftwarePublisher's Association, is not today an official
police force. Unofficially, it acts like one. It invites
people to inform on their coworkers and friends; likhe Clinton Administration, it advocates a policy ofollective responsibility whereby computer owners
must actively enforce copyright or be punished.
The SPA is currently threatening small Internetervice providers, demanding they permit the SPA
o monitor all users. Most ISPs surrender whenhreatened, because they cannot afford to fight bac
n court. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 1 Oct 96,
D3.) At least one ISP, Community ConneXion inOakland CA, refused the demand and was actuallyued. The SPA is said to have dropped this suit
ecently, but they are sure to continue the campaignn various other ways.
-
8/8/2019 The Right to Read - Richard M. Stallman
25/28
The university security policies described above
are not imaginary. For example, a computer at oneChicago-area university prints this message when
ou log in (quotation marks are in the original):
This system is for the use of authorized users only
ndividuals using this computer system withoutauthority or in the excess of their authority are
ubject to having all their activities on this system
monitored and recorded by system personnel. In thourse of monitoring individuals improperly usinghis system or in the course of system maintenance
he activities of authorized user may also bemonitored. Anyone using this system expressly
onsents to such monitoring and is advised that ifuch monitoring reveals possible evidence of illega
activity or violation of University regulations systempersonnel may provide the evidence of such
monitoring to University authorities and/or lawenforcement officials."
This is an interesting approach to the Fourth
Amendment: pressure most everyone to agree, in
advance, to waive their rights under it.
-
8/8/2019 The Right to Read - Richard M. Stallman
26/28
References
The administration's "White Paper": Information
nfrastructure Task Force, Intellectual Property andhe National Information Infrastructure: The Report o
he Working Group on Intellectual Property Rights1995). An explanation of the White Paper: The
Copyright Grab, Pamela Samuelson, Wired, Jan.
996
Sold Out, James Boyle, New York Times, 31 March
996
Public Data or Private Data, Washington Post, 4Nov 1996 Union for the Public Domain--a neworganization which aims to resist and reverse the
overextension of intellectual property powers.
For Other Texts to Read Return to GNU's homepage [www.gnu.org]
FSF & GNU inquiries & questions to
[email protected]. Other ways to contact the FSF.
-
8/8/2019 The Right to Read - Richard M. Stallman
27/28
Comments on these web pages [email protected], send other questions
Copyright 1996 Richard Stallman
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire
article is permitted in any medium, provided thisotice is preserved.
Updated:
2 Feb markg
The Right to Read - GNU Project - Free Software
Foundation (FSF)
End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Right to
Read, by Stallman
COPYRIGHTED Project Gutenberg Etext, Details
Below
rom http://mc.clintock.com/gutenberg/
-
8/8/2019 The Right to Read - Richard M. Stallman
28/28