is copyright evil? (Re: about warez.at)

[Tomasz Wegrzanowski]

On Sat, Oct 20, 2001 at 03:24:32PM +0200, Simo Sorce wrote:
> On Sat, 2001-10-20 at 14:40, Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:
> > On Sat, Oct 20, 2001 at 02:18:11PM +0200, Alessandro Rubini wrote:
> > >
> [snip]
> > If there were no copyright, nobody would have any bussiness in
> > hiding source code, therefore nobody would hide it.
> 
> Can you explain why the absence of copyright law would make a
> proprietary software business release their source code?
> 
> > > Moreover, we need copyright to enforce copyleft. Without copyright, we
> > > can't ensure our software is not proprietarized.
> > 
> > That's just a trick. Without copyright laws, we wouldn't need copyleft,
> > because nobody would have any bussiness in hiding source.
> 
> again, where's the reasoning behind this statement? are you able to
> obtain source code back from binary? (a meaningful one)

Without copyright law there would be no proprietary software companies
(why would they exist ?), so there would be no problem.

I'd say that your lack of belief that world will work without "the system"
is natural. Here, 12 years ago, many people couldn't believe that market without
control can work. And although they see they were wrong, many still
can't believe that private education or health care could work.

> > > [1] I may forget some item, but "most" applies even if I am wrong
> > 
> > Some ? What about music and films ?
> > I think the situation is exactly opposite. With the exception of books,
> > everything else has its source hidden.
> 
> so what is the source code for music or films? and why you think it is
> hidden?

For music it's notes or whatever is used to control modern musicplaying hardware.
I can't tell you what's movie's source, but you can't make new movie just from
looking at current one. And in most movies there's lot of computer rendering
for special effects etc., and you don't get it with a movie.