The coming civil war over general purpose computing

Even if we win the right to own and control our computers, a dilemma remains: what rights do owners owe users?

Liberatory Computing

We live under a capitalist mode of computing. The tools, languages, techniques, and assumptions of digital systems are structured by economic forces that shape not just what we can do, but what we can imagine doing. By separating production from use, producing inflexible software, and slicing up computing into siloed apps, your agency is held back by a tech industry that profits from a population rendered computationally passive.

Liberatory Computing

We live under a capitalist mode of computing. The tools, languages, techniques, and assumptions of digital systems are structured by economic forces that shape not just what we can do, but what we can imagine doing. By separating production from use, producing inflexible software, and slicing up computing into siloed apps, your agency is held back by a tech industry that profits from a population rendered computationally passive.

CONTU Revisited: The Case against Copyright Protection for Computer Programs in Machine-Readable Form

Professor Samuelson casts a critical eye on the Final Report of the National Commission on New Technological Uses of Copyrighted Works (CONTU) which recommended that copyright protection be extended to machine-readable versions of computer programs. CONTU appears to have misunderstood computer technology and misinterpreted copyright tradition in two significant respects. The Commission failed to take into account the historical importance of disclosure of the contents of protected works as a fundamental goal of both the copyright and patent laws. It also erroneously opined that the utilitarian character of a work was no bar to its copyrightability when both the statute and the case law make clear that utilitarian works are not copyrightable. Since computer programs in machine-readable form do not disclose their contents and are inherently utilitarian, copyright protection for them is inappropriate. Congress acted on CONTU's recommendation without understanding the significance of these conceptual flaws. Professor Samuelson recommends the creation of a new form of intellectual property law specifically designed for machine-readable programs.

CONTU Revisited: The Case Against Copyright Protection for Computer Programs in Machine-Readable Form

Professor Samuelson casts a critical eye on the Final Report of the National Commission on New Technological Uses of Copyrighted Works (CONTU) which recommended that copyright protection be extended to machine-readable versions of computer programs. CONTU appears to have misunderstood computer technology and misinterpreted copyright tradition in two significant respects. The Commission failed to take into account the historical importance of disclosure of the contents of protected works as a fundamental goal of both the copyright and patent laws. It also erroneously opined that the utilitarian character of a work was no bar to its copyrightability when both the statute and the case law make clear that utilitarian works are not copyrightable. Since computer programs in machine-readable forms do not disclose their contents and are inherently utilitarian, copyright protection for them is inappropriate. Congress acted on CONTU's recommendation without understanding the significance of these conceptual flaws. Professor Samuelson recommends the creation of a new form of intellectual property law specifically designed for machine-readable programs.

Programmer Power

prying open “software freedom”

The Anti-Capitalist Software License

A software license towards a world beyond capitalism.

Reclaim Control | over your technology, your devices, your data, your digital life.

You have the right to control your data, devices, and services. We coordinate, develop and foster communities of Reclaimers who want digital independence. Together, let's reclaim the right to a technical future of data sovereignty, digital autonomy, responsible governance, and collective care online for all.

Power in the Age of the Feudal Internet - CoLab

PROPOSITION

Mx. Aria Stewart (@aredridel@kolektiva.social)

I knew it was this way but it's really hitting me today how much the Open Source movement and copyright maximalism supplanted the idea of free software, and again how much the Free Software movement turned from a close ideological cousin of the remix and open culture movement into a culture of legalism. At the same time, copyright law itself has been extended to be near-immortal copyrights rather than brief monopolies to spur creation by enabling profit from creating works.

Understanding the Cryptographic Autonomy License

Why crypto software licenses need to protect user’s control of their keys.

The Definitive Story of “Information Wants To Be Free”

The most famous phrase in “Hackers” wasn’t in the book.

Decentralizability

What makes software decentralizable? Immutable data, universal IDs, user-controlled keys.

Reclaiming the Computing Commons

Hunter writes: The commodification and exploitation of nature; the enclosure of the intellectual and informational commons in medicine, agriculture, and other areas of technical knowledge; the expropriation of public space to secure profit-all define an economic system supposedly premised on freedom.