| 1 | Why Software Should Not Have Owners |
| 2 | |
| 3 | by Richard Stallman |
| 4 | |
| 5 | Digital information technology contributes to the world by making it |
| 6 | easier to copy and modify information. Computers promise to make this |
| 7 | easier for all of us. |
| 8 | |
| 9 | Not everyone wants it to be easier. The system of copyright gives |
| 10 | software programs "owners", most of whom aim to withhold software's |
| 11 | potential benefit from the rest of the public. They would like to be |
| 12 | the only ones who can copy and modify the software that we use. |
| 13 | |
| 14 | The copyright system grew up with printing--a technology for mass |
| 15 | production copying. Copyright fit in well with this technology |
| 16 | because it restricted only the mass producers of copies. It did not |
| 17 | take freedom away from readers of books. An ordinary reader, who did |
| 18 | not own a printing press, could copy books only with pen and ink, and |
| 19 | few readers were sued for that. |
| 20 | |
| 21 | Digital technology is more flexible than the printing press: when |
| 22 | information has digital form, you can easily copy it to share it with |
| 23 | others. This very flexibility makes a bad fit with a system like |
| 24 | copyright. That's the reason for the increasingly nasty and draconian |
| 25 | measures now used to enforce software copyright. Consider these four |
| 26 | practices of the Software Publishers Association (SPA): |
| 27 | |
| 28 | * Massive propaganda saying it is wrong to disobey the owners |
| 29 | to help your friend. |
| 30 | |
| 31 | * Solicitation for stool pigeons to inform on their coworkers and |
| 32 | colleagues. |
| 33 | |
| 34 | * Raids (with police help) on offices and schools, in which people are |
| 35 | told they must prove they are innocent of illegal copying. |
| 36 | |
| 37 | * Prosecution (by the US government, at the SPA's request) of people |
| 38 | such as MIT's David LaMacchia, not for copying software (he is not |
| 39 | accused of copying any), but merely for leaving copying facilities |
| 40 | unguarded and failing to censor their use. |
| 41 | |
| 42 | All four practices resemble those used in the former Soviet Union, |
| 43 | where every copying machine had a guard to prevent forbidden copying, |
| 44 | and where individuals had to copy information secretly and pass it |
| 45 | from hand to hand as "samizdat". There is of course a difference: the |
| 46 | motive for information control in the Soviet Union was political; in |
| 47 | the US the motive is profit. But it is the actions that affect us, |
| 48 | not the motive. Any attempt to block the sharing of information, no |
| 49 | matter why, leads to the same methods and the same harshness. |
| 50 | |
| 51 | Owners make several kinds of arguments for giving them the power |
| 52 | to control how we use information: |
| 53 | |
| 54 | * Name calling. |
| 55 | |
| 56 | Owners use smear words such as "piracy" and "theft", as well as expert |
| 57 | terminology such as "intellectual property" and "damage", to suggest a |
| 58 | certain line of thinking to the public--a simplistic analogy between |
| 59 | programs and physical objects. |
| 60 | |
| 61 | Our ideas and intuitions about property for material objects are about |
| 62 | whether it is right to *take an object away* from someone else. They |
| 63 | don't directly apply to *making a copy* of something. But the owners |
| 64 | ask us to apply them anyway. |
| 65 | |
| 66 | * Exaggeration. |
| 67 | |
| 68 | Owners say that they suffer "harm" or "economic loss" when users copy |
| 69 | programs themselves. But the copying has no direct effect on the |
| 70 | owner, and it harms no one. The owner can lose only if the person who |
| 71 | made the copy would otherwise have paid for one from the owner. |
| 72 | |
| 73 | A little thought shows that most such people would not have bought |
| 74 | copies. Yet the owners compute their "losses" as if each and every |
| 75 | one would have bought a copy. That is exaggeration--to put it kindly. |
| 76 | |
| 77 | * The law. |
| 78 | |
| 79 | Owners often describe the current state of the law, and the harsh |
| 80 | penalties they can threaten us with. Implicit in this approach is the |
| 81 | suggestion that today's law reflects an unquestionable view of |
| 82 | morality--yet at the same time, we are urged to regard these penalties |
| 83 | as facts of nature that can't be blamed on anyone. |
| 84 | |
| 85 | This line of persuasion isn't designed to stand up to critical |
| 86 | thinking; it's intended to reinforce a habitual mental pathway. |
| 87 | |
| 88 | It's elemental that laws don't decide right and wrong. Every American |
| 89 | should know that, forty years ago, it was against the law in many |
| 90 | states for a black person to sit in the front of a bus; but only |
| 91 | racists would say sitting there was wrong. |
| 92 | |
| 93 | * Natural rights. |
| 94 | |
| 95 | Authors often claim a special connection with programs they have |
| 96 | written, and go on to assert that, as a result, their desires and |
| 97 | interests concerning the program simply outweigh those of anyone |
| 98 | else--or even those of the whole rest of the world. (Typically |
| 99 | companies, not authors, hold the copyrights on software, but we are |
| 100 | expected to ignore this discrepancy.) |
| 101 | |
| 102 | To those who propose this as an ethical axiom--the author is more |
| 103 | important than you--I can only say that I, a notable software author |
| 104 | myself, call it bunk. |
| 105 | |
| 106 | But people in general are only likely to feel any sympathy with the |
| 107 | natural rights claims for two reasons. |
| 108 | |
| 109 | One reason is an overstretched analogy with material objects. When I |
| 110 | cook spaghetti, I do object if someone else takes it and stops me from |
| 111 | eating it. In this case, that person and I have the same material |
| 112 | interests at stake, and it's a zero-sum game. The smallest |
| 113 | distinction between us is enough to tip the ethical balance. |
| 114 | |
| 115 | But whether you run or change a program I wrote affects you directly |
| 116 | and me only indirectly. Whether you give a copy to your friend |
| 117 | affects you and your friend much more than it affects me. I shouldn't |
| 118 | have the power to tell you not to do these things. No one should. |
| 119 | |
| 120 | The second reason is that people have been told that natural rights |
| 121 | for authors is the accepted and unquestioned tradition of our society. |
| 122 | |
| 123 | As a matter of history, the opposite is true. The idea of natural |
| 124 | rights of authors was proposed and decisively rejected when the US |
| 125 | Constitution was drawn up. That's why the Constitution only *permits* |
| 126 | a system of copyright and does not *require* one; that's why it says |
| 127 | that copyright must be temporary. It also states that the purpose of |
| 128 | copyright is to promote progress--not to reward authors. Copyright |
| 129 | does reward authors somewhat, and publishers more, but that is |
| 130 | intended as a means of modifying their behavior. |
| 131 | |
| 132 | The real established tradition of our society is that copyright cuts |
| 133 | into the natural rights of the public--and that this can only be |
| 134 | justified for the public's sake. |
| 135 | |
| 136 | * Economics. |
| 137 | |
| 138 | The final argument made for having owners of software is that this |
| 139 | leads to production of more software. |
| 140 | |
| 141 | Unlike the others, this argument at least takes a legitimate approach |
| 142 | to the subject. It is based on a valid goal--satisfying the users of |
| 143 | software. And it is empirically clear that people will produce more of |
| 144 | something if they are well paid for doing so. |
| 145 | |
| 146 | But the economic argument has a flaw: it is based on the assumption |
| 147 | that the difference is only a matter of how much money we have to pay. |
| 148 | It assumes that "production of software" is what we want, whether the |
| 149 | software has owners or not. |
| 150 | |
| 151 | People readily accept this assumption because it accords with our |
| 152 | experiences with material objects. Consider a sandwich, for instance. |
| 153 | You might well be able to get an equivalent sandwich either free or |
| 154 | for a price. If so, the amount you pay is the only difference. |
| 155 | Whether or not you have to buy it, the sandwich has the same taste, |
| 156 | the same nutritional value, and in either case you can only eat it |
| 157 | once. Whether you get the sandwich from an owner or not cannot |
| 158 | directly affect anything but the amount of money you have afterwards. |
| 159 | |
| 160 | This is true for any kind of material object--whether or not it has an |
| 161 | owner does not directly affect what it *is*, or what you can do with |
| 162 | it if you acquire it. |
| 163 | |
| 164 | But if a program has an owner, this very much affects what it is, and |
| 165 | what you can do with a copy if you buy one. The difference is not |
| 166 | just a matter of money. The system of owners of software encourages |
| 167 | software owners to produce something--but not what society really |
| 168 | needs. And it causes intangible ethical pollution that affects us |
| 169 | all. |
| 170 | |
| 171 | What does society need? It needs information that is truly available |
| 172 | to its citizens--for example, programs that people can read, fix, |
| 173 | adapt, and improve, not just operate. But what software owners |
| 174 | typically deliver is a black box that we can't study or change. |
| 175 | |
| 176 | Society also needs freedom. When a program has an owner, the users |
| 177 | lose freedom to control part of their own lives. |
| 178 | |
| 179 | And above all society needs to encourage the spirit of voluntary |
| 180 | cooperation in its citizens. When software owners tell us that |
| 181 | helping our neighbors in a natural way is "piracy", they pollute our |
| 182 | society's civic spirit. |
| 183 | |
| 184 | This is why we say that free software is a matter of freedom, not |
| 185 | price. |
| 186 | |
| 187 | The economic argument for owners is erroneous, but the economic issue |
| 188 | is real. Some people write useful software for the pleasure of |
| 189 | writing it or for admiration and love; but if we want more software |
| 190 | than those people write, we need to raise funds. |
| 191 | |
| 192 | For ten years now, free software developers have tried various methods |
| 193 | of finding funds, with some success. There's no need to make anyone |
| 194 | rich; the median US family income, around $35k, proves to be enough |
| 195 | incentive for many jobs that are less satisfying than programming. |
| 196 | |
| 197 | For years, until a fellowship made it unnecessary, I made a living |
| 198 | from custom enhancements of the free software I had written. Each |
| 199 | enhancement was added to the standard released version and thus |
| 200 | eventually became available to the general public. Clients paid me so |
| 201 | that I would work on the enhancements they wanted, rather than on the |
| 202 | features I would otherwise have considered highest priority. |
| 203 | |
| 204 | The Free Software Foundation, a tax-exempt charity for free software |
| 205 | development, raises funds by selling CD-ROMs, tapes and manuals (all |
| 206 | of which users are free to copy and change), as well as from |
| 207 | donations. It now has a staff of five programmers, plus three |
| 208 | employees who handle mail orders. |
| 209 | |
| 210 | Some free software developers make money by selling support services. |
| 211 | Cygnus Support, with around 50 employees, estimates that about 15 per |
| 212 | cent of its staff activity is free software development--a respectable |
| 213 | percentage for a software company. |
| 214 | |
| 215 | Companies including Intel, Motorola, Texas Instruments and Analog |
| 216 | Devices have combined to fund the continued development of the free |
| 217 | GNU compiler for the language C. Meanwhile, the GNU compiler for the |
| 218 | Ada language is being funded by the US Air Force, which believes this |
| 219 | is the most cost-effective way to get a high quality compiler. |
| 220 | |
| 221 | All these examples are small; the free software movement is still |
| 222 | small, and still young. But the example of listener-supported radio |
| 223 | in this country shows it's possible to support a large activity |
| 224 | without forcing each user to pay. |
| 225 | |
| 226 | As a computer user today, you may find yourself using a proprietary |
| 227 | program. If your friend asks to make a copy, it would be wrong to |
| 228 | refuse. Cooperation is more important than copyright. But |
| 229 | underground, closet cooperation does not make for a good society. A |
| 230 | person should aspire to live an upright life openly with pride, and |
| 231 | this means saying "No" to proprietary software. |
| 232 | |
| 233 | You deserve to be able to cooperate openly and freely with other |
| 234 | people who use software. You deserve to be able to learn how the |
| 235 | software works, and to teach your students with it. You deserve to be |
| 236 | able to hire your favorite programmer to fix it when it breaks. |
| 237 | |
| 238 | You deserve free software. |
| 239 | |
| 240 | |
| 241 | Copyright 1994 Richard Stallman |
| 242 | Verbatim copying and redistribution is permitted |
| 243 | without royalty as long as this notice is preserved; |
| 244 | alteration is not permitted. |