		   Why Software Should Not Have Owners 

			  by Richard Stallman

Digital information technology contributes to the world by making it
easier to copy and modify information.  Computers promise to make this
easier for all of us.

Not everyone wants it to be easier.  The system of copyright gives
software programs "owners", most of whom aim to withhold software's
potential benefit from the rest of the public.  They would like to be
the only ones who can copy and modify the software that we use.

The copyright system grew up with printing--a technology for mass
production copying.  Copyright fit in well with this technology
because it restricted only the mass producers of copies.  It did not
take freedom away from readers of books.  An ordinary reader, who did
not own a printing press, could copy books only with pen and ink, and
few readers were sued for that.

Digital technology is more flexible than the printing press: when
information has digital form, you can easily copy it to share it with
others.  This very flexibility makes a bad fit with a system like
copyright.  That's the reason for the increasingly nasty and draconian
measures now used to enforce software copyright.  Consider these four
practices of the Software Publishers Association (SPA):

* Massive propaganda saying it is wrong to disobey the owners
to help your friend.

* Solicitation for stool pigeons to inform on their coworkers and
colleagues.

* Raids (with police help) on offices and schools, in which people are
told they must prove they are innocent of illegal copying.

* Prosecution (by the US government, at the SPA's request) of people
such as MIT's David LaMacchia, not for copying software (he is not
accused of copying any), but merely for leaving copying facilities
unguarded and failing to censor their use.

All four practices resemble those used in the former Soviet Union,
where every copying machine had a guard to prevent forbidden copying,
and where individuals had to copy information secretly and pass it
from hand to hand as "samizdat".  There is of course a difference: the
motive for information control in the Soviet Union was political; in
the US the motive is profit.  But it is the actions that affect us,
not the motive.  Any attempt to block the sharing of information, no
matter why, leads to the same methods and the same harshness.

Owners make several kinds of arguments for giving them the power
to control how we use information:

* Name calling.

Owners use smear words such as "piracy" and "theft", as well as expert
terminology such as "intellectual property" and "damage", to suggest a
certain line of thinking to the public--a simplistic analogy between
programs and physical objects.

Our ideas and intuitions about property for material objects are about
whether it is right to *take an object away* from someone else.  They
don't directly apply to *making a copy* of something.  But the owners
ask us to apply them anyway.

* Exaggeration.

Owners say that they suffer "harm" or "economic loss" when users copy
programs themselves.  But the copying has no direct effect on the
owner, and it harms no one.  The owner can lose only if the person who
made the copy would otherwise have paid for one from the owner.

A little thought shows that most such people would not have bought
copies.  Yet the owners compute their "losses" as if each and every
one would have bought a copy.  That is exaggeration--to put it kindly.

* The law.

Owners often describe the current state of the law, and the harsh
penalties they can threaten us with.  Implicit in this approach is the
suggestion that today's law reflects an unquestionable view of
morality--yet at the same time, we are urged to regard these penalties
as facts of nature that can't be blamed on anyone.

This line of persuasion isn't designed to stand up to critical
thinking; it's intended to reinforce a habitual mental pathway.

It's elemental that laws don't decide right and wrong.  Every American
should know that, forty years ago, it was against the law in many
states for a black person to sit in the front of a bus; but only
racists would say sitting there was wrong.

* Natural rights.

Authors often claim a special connection with programs they have
written, and go on to assert that, as a result, their desires and
interests concerning the program simply outweigh those of anyone
else--or even those of the whole rest of the world.  (Typically
companies, not authors, hold the copyrights on software, but we are
expected to ignore this discrepancy.)

To those who propose this as an ethical axiom--the author is more
important than you--I can only say that I, a notable software author
myself, call it bunk.

But people in general are only likely to feel any sympathy with the
natural rights claims for two reasons.

One reason is an overstretched analogy with material objects.  When I
cook spaghetti, I do object if someone else takes it and stops me from
eating it.  In this case, that person and I have the same material
interests at stake, and it's a zero-sum game.  The smallest
distinction between us is enough to tip the ethical balance.

But whether you run or change a program I wrote affects you directly
and me only indirectly.  Whether you give a copy to your friend
affects you and your friend much more than it affects me.  I shouldn't
have the power to tell you not to do these things.  No one should.

The second reason is that people have been told that natural rights
for authors is the accepted and unquestioned tradition of our society.

As a matter of history, the opposite is true.  The idea of natural
rights of authors was proposed and decisively rejected when the US
Constitution was drawn up.  That's why the Constitution only *permits*
a system of copyright and does not *require* one; that's why it says
that copyright must be temporary.  It also states that the purpose of
copyright is to promote progress--not to reward authors.  Copyright
does reward authors somewhat, and publishers more, but that is
intended as a means of modifying their behavior.

The real established tradition of our society is that copyright cuts
into the natural rights of the public--and that this can only be
justified for the public's sake.

* Economics.

The final argument made for having owners of software is that this
leads to production of more software.

Unlike the others, this argument at least takes a legitimate approach
to the subject.  It is based on a valid goal--satisfying the users of
software.  And it is empirically clear that people will produce more of
something if they are well paid for doing so.

But the economic argument has a flaw: it is based on the assumption
that the difference is only a matter of how much money we have to pay.
It assumes that "production of software" is what we want, whether the
software has owners or not.

People readily accept this assumption because it accords with our
experiences with material objects.  Consider a sandwich, for instance.
You might well be able to get an equivalent sandwich either free or
for a price.  If so, the amount you pay is the only difference.
Whether or not you have to buy it, the sandwich has the same taste,
the same nutritional value, and in either case you can only eat it
once.  Whether you get the sandwich from an owner or not cannot
directly affect anything but the amount of money you have afterwards.

This is true for any kind of material object--whether or not it has an
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--------------------------

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This tutorial descends from a long line of Emacs tutorials
starting with the one written by Stuart Cracraft for the original Emacs.

This version of the tutorial, like GNU Emacs, is copyrighted, and
comes with permission to distribute copies on certain conditions:

Copyright (c) 1985, 1996 Free Software Foundation

   Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
   of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
   copyright notice and permission notice are preserved,
   and that the distributor grants the recipient permission
   for further redistribution as permitted by this notice.

   Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
   of this document, or of portions of it,
   under the above conditions, provided also that they
   carry prominent notices stating who last altered them.

The conditions for copying Emacs itself are more complex, but in the
same spirit.  Please read the file COPYING and then do give copies of
GNU Emacs to your friends.  Help stamp out software obstructionism
("ownership") by using, writing, and sharing free software!


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---------

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