[WSIS CS-Plenary] Re: [governance] [A2k] Re: [Wsis-pct] IP Justice Comment to IGF on Top Policy Issues forAthens

[Richard Stallman]

    I will illustrate with an example. People want to listen to music on
    their computer.  The music they want may be sold under condition that
    is controlled by a DRM system ... any other software that gives access
    to it without controlling restrictions is illegal (that is the law of
    the country).

Those are the only lawful choices, but what society really needs
is for someone to break the copy lock.

		   Now we have a choice of making free software that will
    control the restrictions, or not making any ...  that is the only
    choice.

That choice will not be open to us if Hollywood has any say about the
question.  The latest proposals prohibit all free software capable of
accessing the data, even if *as written* it implements the same
restrictions.  For instance, this is what the WIPO Broadcast Treaty is
designed to do.

The people who seek to impose DRM have the goal of restricting the
public.  If the users can get free software which implements the
restrictions, users can modify it to remove the restrictions.  The
perpetrators of DRM do not want this to be possible.  This is why they
frequently seek to tivoize the software so that users can't run
modified versions.  Practically speaking, that is not really free.

    So, since I do want to enable people to use these platforms, I will
    use a free software licence that does not preclude the implementation
    of DRM (thus not the GPLv3 licence).

GPLv3 does not preclude the implementation of DRM.  GPLv3 will allow
you to modify the program to implements technical restrictions,
whichever technical restrictions you like.

What GPLv3 prohibits is the usual next step: to tivoize the program
so that the user cannot effectively run changed versions.

That's the usual next step for Hollywood.  You, as a supporter of free
software, might not want to take that step.  If you don't, the GPLv3
would be just fine for you.

    if we choose not to make any, then it is likely that no one will make
    it for free software platforms, thus making them less appealing to the
    many people who want to listen to the restricted music.  That probably
    does not help popularizing these platforms.

It won't help anyway.  You see, the perpetrators of DRM want to make
damned sure that users can't change the software.  So they want to
tivoize the kernel and all the other system facilities that your
application depends on.

Which means that your application won't be allowed to run on GNU/Linux
systems in general.  It will only be allowed to run on systems whose
binaries have been signed by some multinational company--and which the
user can't really change.  In other words, they won't really be free
platforms.