what shall I do?

Ricardo Andere de Mello gandhi at quilombodigital.org
Fri Jan 9 02:01:03 UTC 2004


Em Quinta 08 Janeiro 2004 19:28, vocĂȘ escreveu:

> I don't belive that for a second, take patents for example.  You can't
> implement an MP3 player that is Free Software without violating a
> patent, making it essentially illegal.

oh man... theory is a nice thing... but remember that hollywood studios could 
not avoid decss being spread all over the world. And if you are capable of 
playing DVD on your GNU/Linux box, you should thank little Jon. We know he 
did something wrong (not actually from his country law, only americam law), 
but I think he did a VERY GOOD thing, because he enabled thousands of people 
to watch movies on their computers.
These rules works on court, but the internet has another rules. Is it hard to 
understand this? If it is legal, it will be free software, if not, they will 
call it piracy, but it will still exist.
You can sue one guy, but can you sue the entire world? What is the point of 
being illegal? 
In another example, reverse engineering was a normal learning process for 
hackers, now everybody keeps doing the same thing, but just don't tells that 
does. I don't know one hacker that at some point of his life does not reverse 
engineered some proprietary software, just to see how it works, or to have 
more balls at his pinball game.
The "underground" will always exist, and the internet will guarantee it's 
existence. For each software protection created, 10 minutes later a new crack 
is created. I'm NOT discussing if piracy is write or wrong. I'm just saying 
that it exists for one reason: "People want access to information!".
Here in Brazil, a music CD is about 12 dollars. This is VERY expensive for our 
country. There are pirate CDs being sold for 1.5 dollars, a lot more 
affordable for poor people. Who have money buy the original, who don't, buy 
the piracy. If capitalism cannot solve digital exclusion, maybe piracy (and 
free software) can.

[]s, gandhi

-- 
Ricardo Andere de Mello
Quilombo Digital - Presidente
gandhi at quilombodigital.org - 55 11 32717928



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