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Monopolies of the mind: front page
Ideas were inexhaustible and free until people caged them in. It's time we opened the cage.
A talk by Stephan Kinsella that clarifies fundamental concepts of ownership and property. Presented at the Property and Freedom Society 2022.
Copyright and privacy cannot coexist. Society is at a crossroads where only one of these will exist in the future, and the copyright industry has been working hard to erode privacy to protect its obsolete business. It’s time to acknowledge the conflict and accept that copyright enforcement need to be actively prevented in order to safeguard fundamental rights.
A.k.a. slow mo kidnapping to serve the Disneyocracy.
Many people know how Megaupload got attacked, and how their promo video (full of Top 40 stars), despite being released free to be republished and remixed, was targeted by hundreds of fraudulent takedown requests. But it prevails, and it's here for you. Enjoy!
How the system of copyright we must endure is Kafkasque in nature, how it damages artists, how it censors creators, and how it enriches a few already-rich men, all at the expense of the public. A TEDx presentation by Nina Paley.
On the ethical problems with the free software ethos.
A longer explanation of what property is, why intellectual poverty (the proposition that one may morally prevent others from duplicating intangibles) is false, why duplicating intangibles is not theft, and how the intellectual poverty lie came about.
A very quick primer through the ethics of property.
Why? Simple: using this key -- the secret piece of the puzzle -- people can now build hardware and free software compatible with HDMI, that can decrypt the encrypted video traversing between HDMI-compliant equipment, without having to obey the restrictions imposed by the HDMI oligopoly. Game over -- pirates 1, digital restrictions management AACSholes 0. One more note: using this key might be illegal in some parts of the world -- but whoever cares about what's right can't afford to care about what's legal.
Many people claim that patents and copyrights are not barriers of entry to the market. That's wrong.
Judge in charge of deciding whether they were guilty or innocent, member of a corrupt lobbyist organization in favor of putting peaceful men in prison.
Here's a stellar example of how the propaganda machine works.
Clown Lars Gustafsson toes the corrupt party line, has the audacity to demand "free speech".
Intellectual property defenders talk about the fact that you "created your idea" or "put labor in your invention" as the reason why they own these ideas and inventions. They are wrong.
When we discuss copyrights and patents with others, there's always someone who insists that they are forms of property. They are not, and here's why.
Hint: if you get to keep the original, then you can't use the word "steal".