[free-sklyarov] Re: Rallies on Monday

Seth Finkelstein sethf at sethf.com
Sat Jul 21 09:40:52 PDT 2001


Declan McCullagh wrote:
> This state of affairs creates a mild problem (to go back to the recent
> topic of discussion on cypherpunks) for those who strongly believe in
> the First Amendment when applied to nonprofit or not-for-profit speech
> but less so when it comes to speech that's part of a commercial
> transaction.

	Heck, Declan, as far as I recall, you don't believe
that the First Amendment applies to people who merely REPEAT
(for profit) too many words you originally wrote as
speech that's part of a certain commercial transaction
(i.e. "copyrighted articles", which you are paid for). 
In fact, I can't look this up now, but I believe you've
posted to the cypherpunks list on this very topic
in the past. You want the government to punish people
who simply say too many words that you originally said.
Isn't that very inconsistent philosophically for you?

	By the way, as you know, this distinction is
enshrined in copyright law:
                                                                               
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html

Sec. 107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use

(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether 
      such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit 
      educational purposes; 

> Let's hope Dmitry, a budding capitalist, doesn't fall
> into that same commercial-speech-can-be-regulated catchall.

	But Declan, as a Libertarian proselytizer. how can you
justify making your living from a government-granted monopoly
which infringes on free speech?

	Note the above is not necessarily my view. But if you
are going to try to use this tragedy to recruit people for silly
Libertarian ideology, I think consistency demands you apply the
same argument to your articles too. Have you changed your views
on this topic since I last saw them discussed?

--
Seth Finkelstein  Consulting Programmer  sethf at sethf.com  http://sethf.com
http://www10.nytimes.com/2001/07/19/technology/circuits/19HACK.html




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