Friday 72-year-old Richard Stallman made a two-hour-and-20-minutes appearance at the Georgia Institute of Technology, talking about everything from AI and connected cars to smartphones, age verfication laws, and his favorite Linux distro. But early on, Stallman also told the audience how “I despise DRM…I don’t want any copy of anything with DRM. Whatever it is, I never want it so badly that I would bow down to DRM.” (So he doesn’t use Spotify or Netflix…)
This led to an interesting moment when someone asked him later if we have an ethical obligation to avoid piracy… First Stallman swapped in his preferred phrase, “forbidden sharing”…
I won’t use the word piracy to refer to sharing. Sharing is good and it should be lawful. Those laws are wrong. Copyright as it is now is an injustice.
Stallman said “I don’t hesitate to share copies of anything,” but added that “I don’t have copies of non-free software, because I’m disgusted by it.” After a pause, he added this. "Just because there is a law to to give some people unjust power, that doesn’t mean breaking that law becomes wrong…
Dividing people by forbidding them to help each other is nasty.
And later Stallman was asked how he watches movies, if he’s opposed to DRM-heavy sites like Netflix, and the DRM in Blu-ray discs? “The only way I can see a movie is if I get a file — you know, like an MP4 file or MKV file. And I would get that, I suppose, by copying from somebody else.”
Sharing is good. Stopping people from sharing is evil.
Abstract credit: https://slashdot.org/story/451774
I won’t use the word piracy to refer to sharing. Sharing is good and it should be lawful. Those laws are wrong. Copyright as it is now is an injustice.
Once again, I’m impressed by Stallman’s focus on not accepting a bad faith arguement at face value.
We didn’t always have shitty laws about when we can copy a file.
Some of us remember when creators had to get creative how they monetized their work, instead of bludgeoning fans with the threat of jail time.
Dude, he saved humanity with the GNU project and FSF. I want myself and my kids to be that and not Gates, Musk, …
No, it’s not. It’s extra not wrong if the “legal” method includes DRM or forces you into any DRM platform.
Fuck stallman
Why do anti piracy people come to a piracy community in a pro piracy instance just to post anti piracy arguments?
that way we know we’re not in an echo chamber
stallman was also asked if pedophilia is okey and he said yes, so take him with a grain of salt, i guess 😂
You’re a bit out of date on that one.
Because you’re thinking when he said that in 2006. It took until 2019 that he changed his perspective. Now granted that’s quite a time gap between 2006 and 2019 in believing pedophilia is okay. But he seems to have changed his tune on that. And people did make it known to him.
To be fair, the question (if it was asked verbatim) doesn’t even make sense. Pedophilia can’t really be okay or not okay, it just is.
It’s like asking if schizophrenia is okay.
Now, if you’re talking about child molestation, that is clearly and unequivocally wrong, but if that’s what you mean, you should say that.
It should never even be questioned. Pedophilia will never be okay. Children cannot reasonably consent and if anyone thinks they do, don’t care to know what ‘grooming’ is or probably is a groomer to make a child believe that.
I don’t think that is what he meant. Perhaps some more nuance might show you both to be correct. Cronophilia is not a choice, it just is, to OP’s point. However acting on those urges is always unequivocally morally wrong, reprehensible and criminal. Children cannot consent.
Precisely what I meant, thank you. People seem to have troubles differentiating between thoughts and actions when it comes to paraphilias.
You’re going beyond the meaning of the word. Pedophilia is just the attraction itself, there can’t be anything okay or not okay with it, it just is. That’s like asking “Is psychopathy okay?”. There’s no answer for asking if the state of something is okay or not okay, because like I said, it just is.
Huh?
The Daily Beast first reported that Stallman wrote in 2003, “I think that everyone age 14 or above ought to take part in sex, though not indiscriminately. (Some people are ready earlier.)” In 2006, he wrote, “I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily [sic] pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren’t voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing.”
he also said this on account of epstein’s victim Virginia Giuffre:
“We can imagine many scenarios, but the most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely willing.” When a person on the email chain noted that the girl was 17 at the time, and that sex with a minor is statutory rape, Stallman replied, “I think it is morally absurd to define ‘rape’ in a way that depends on minor details such as which country it was in or whether the victim was 18 years old or 17.”
Yeah, Stallman needs to educate himself on human brain development. The decision-making centers of the brain don’t stop developing at 17 or 18 but 25. So, a lot of people are wrong on this, unfortunately.
And that’s why I was wondering if the question was asked verbatim. Stallman doesn’t seem to know what the word means either.
I don’t get what’s supposed to be so controversial about the first part, though. Many countries already have their age of consent somewhere around 14, often including Romeo and Juliet laws (i.e. not indiscriminately), so not really an unpopular take, and I can’t say I disagree with him there.
Coming from a country with an age of consent lower than 18 and possibly one of the few people who acknowledge even the US - famous for its stance on 18 - has an AoC under 18 in more than half of ots States, I understand where he’s coming from in that quote. Choosing to care only about an arbitrary age - one that so very few actually agree on outside of puritan cultures - is flawed.
Was he asked how he ensures the people creating the media he consumes are able to afford food and housing?
The same way people who make millions ensure I’m able to afford food and housing. They don’t. We don’t. Everyone’s in it for themselves to some extent, because in some situations, nobody’s going to reach out and lift you up if you need it. We’re all just trying to survive.
There are a lot of people who make movies, music, and games who bust their ass and deserve to eat and be sheltered. That’s fine, but those people, just like you and me, have the means of taking care of themselves. You are not ethically or morally obligated to care about a stranger’s welfare, especially if the stranger does not care about yours. It’s fine to be altruistic; I’m not saying it isn’t, but it’s not an ethical imperative either.
Most people buy what they can and share/borrow what they can’t.
If someone working in entertainment goes without a meal because I bought my meal rather than starving to buy a Blu-ray they were in, I’m not their problem. That one sale isn’t going to put a meal on their table. A hundred Blu-ray sales might not even do that.
No a pro-piracy argument, but most artists get fractions of a penny from the sales of media anyway. Only the biggest stars are paid a fair share of the profits. I always try to find a way to support directly or use a platform (bandcamp, steam) that adds some value and gives a majority to the creator.
It’s strange how you ignored that this is primarily about software piracy and he makes a living off software. I think he understands.
This “just asking questions” thing is just pure intellectual cowardice from you.
They’re not going to starve when my friends share their media which I wouldn’t have bought anyway with me.
donations and commissions. That’s how modern artists operate, for example
The answers to both are easy and the US could start to fix it tomorrow if there was the will. Hell New York is already making motions in that direction.
Red Vienna style public housing, public transit, and large scale decomodification of staples. Not letting crops rot in fields and silos etc. We could feed the world. Not just our population. There’s no profit in that or society in general. That’s why the wealthy are working hard to destroy both.
sharing I guess
Massive public financing coming from the government. Damn, I don’t know know how many Italian movies are turning a profit from sales - but I doubt it gets to 1%. Still, they keep making movies.
Only from free and open source sustenance, he is disgusted by anything else.
