vedana.net

On Stealing

Aaron Swartz goes under the iron:

"The law about what is stealing is very clear. Stealing is taking something away from someone so they cannot use it. There’s no way that making a copy of something is stealing under that definition."

"If you make a copy of something, you’ll be prosecuted for copyright infringement or something similar — not larceny (the legal term for stealing). Stealing, like piracy and intellectual property, is another one of those terms cooked up to make us think of intellectual works the same way we think of physical items. But the two are very different."

Also:

"However, I think that easy small donations, perhaps optional, are probably the way to go, along with making money off of ancillary things like T-Shirts and CDs and DVDs. For example, Homestar Runner doesn’t charge or ask for donations but they’ve been incredibly successful through selling merchandise. Wikipedia’s raised an incredible amount of money, probably $50,000 all together, simply from donations. So I think we should try all these ways, but I’m optimistic that if you provide something people really like, and you make it easy for them to pay you for it, that you’ll do fine."

Yes! I convinced Ottmar to put up a tip jar; I hope he'll keep us posted on how it's going. I suspect he'll make more $ by encouraging people to copy his music and donate, than by dup'ing cds and selling them.