An excellent mini-essay from Charlie Stross regarding the slogan “Information wants to be free.” This explains my frustration with the debate over IP law reform - the tendency of both sides to reduce the issue to ultimately empty slogans.*
So it follows that if you want information to be free you are taking on an obligation to make information, and give it freedom. An obligation to work to better the lot of humanity, not to merely sponge off the labour of others.
Next time you hear someone invoke “information wants to be free” as a justification for demanding free-as-in-no-payment-expected content, ask them: precisely what content have you released for free lately?
Information, Freedom, Flame-bait - Charlies Diary.
* This also stems from my frustration with the many people I know who have decided it’s apparently ok to simply leech of the efforts of others. I get that the law is draconian and intrusive, but getting a free rip of a new album is not civil disobedience – it’s theft, even if petty theft.