[ Thanks to Paul
Eggert for this link. ]
“The excesses of copyright law were never better illustrated
than by U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel’s ruling last week
on Napster, the music-swapping Internet service.”
“The Napster case is only the latest example of a troubling
trend: The hijacking of copyright law by vested interests to the
detriment of the general public.”
“For that matter, the thriving creativity on the Internet,
flourishing in a culture dominated by principles of free sharing,
calls into question the basic constitutional rationale for having
copyright laws. Do these laws really ‘promote the progress of
science and useful arts,’ or do they sometimes hinder progress?
Did copyright laws motivate the thousands of computer
enthusiasts who shared in developing the open-source Linux
operating system? Did these laws motivate the young people who have
written so much freeware in recent years?“