I'm sorry I won't be able to join on March 8, 2004 but I want to say that :
I hate when some people tells me what to do, or what to avoid. As all other french people we have been fighting against this principle for a simple (but it seems that it is not so simple to understand) idea : Freedom.
I want to be free to use a software (Open source, freeware or anything else).
I want to be free to use file formats that are patented in America because American Laws are different there, and because we have be taught to use these kind of files in school, as there were no other possibility (currently) to use free file formats.
I want to be able to create some piece of software and not having to spend my money in checking if some patented it 2 days before. If I were a huge industrial company (and I am not, contrary to Mz Fourtou's husband), it would of course be a chance for me to patent my code, and I would be able to spend some money to check for existing patents or pay for using it. But I am free to give my work to others. Not in a public domain (to fit patent vocabulary), as I am also free to choose which of the rights I own could be offered, but in an Open Source License.
I want to be free to listen to free music, to hear from other free groups who drop on the Internet, their new album, legally with the Creative Common license, on Peer to peer networks. I don't even want to be a sheep, listening to the remixed old song soup on national and commercial radio and tv channels.
I could just say that if I will not be able to do this anymore, because someone patented the "one-click" buy technology (I can't understand the link with technology here, but that's a good example on the lack of seriousness of a patent organism), I will (as many other before me, who tell me about this a long time ago) switch to cyphered networks, and become another totally anonymous user, doing illegal thing such as not patenting his work, and using patented technology he never knew it was, listening to non "universal" music, watching non "allowed" tv show.
It's funny because when I watch national TV news, and they says that the french car market had had a 12% decrease last year, no one says that its due to P2P, but mainly to bad economical situation, etc... When I hear that P2P is "the" reason why music companies are loosing 10% of their income, I just can't remember who was the last "exciting" new artist selling CD in supermarket. Because of what ?
Because it is easy to investigate on an "evident" track people who are sharing, illegally, music, but also legally. Because it is not so evident to understand that people are now able to find a song they might have heard when they were 12 and they can't find anywhere in a supermarket. Because it is not evident at all to realize that the music market is evolving and morphing into a new system where songs are not individual piece of art anymore, but become a kind of glue that no one could afford.
Even if you have plenty of songs, you are not anymore paying attention to a particular song, (the one that is #1 on radio), but mainly to a ambience music. I think paying for each song is no more a viable solution, but that's my ideas, while I don't download any paying song anymore.
Please don't see your interest before european people interest, because once you will have this law voted, and realised that it was not the right struggle to do, it will be to late. You must let the last part of freedom (ie Internet) free, because even if It seems anarchic in a first view, each internaut is doing his/her own censure and finally, it is the last gate of the real liberty of thinking that allow us to be able not to fall in the controlled media trap (see the Iraq news from US and from France to understand what I mean). Intellectual property might be a good thing (I am not sure of that however), but software are made of recipes, like any mathematical demonstration, or our genome and are based on simple rules that are glued together. Genius is not in gluing them together (because many people can do that, even computer can do that : http://www.genetic-programming.com/humancompetitive.html(...) (this is so ironic that a computer could be sued for patent infringement)), genius is in finding how to solve an unresolved problem. It is evident that European patent office does not, and will never (because of money issues), have the knowledge to be able to make the difference between a real innovative algorithm and, for example, a file format.
I hope you'll consider my piece of opinion.
Best regards,
Cyril Russo
[^] # Voici un texte que je propose à envoyer, parce que j'en ai vraiment marre de ces histoires
Posté par XRyl669 . En réponse à la dépêche Madame Fourtou élabore un "argumentaire pour le compromis" au sujet de son projet de directive. Évalué à 4.
I hate when some people tells me what to do, or what to avoid. As all other french people we have been fighting against this principle for a simple (but it seems that it is not so simple to understand) idea : Freedom.
I want to be free to use a software (Open source, freeware or anything else).
I want to be free to use file formats that are patented in America because American Laws are different there, and because we have be taught to use these kind of files in school, as there were no other possibility (currently) to use free file formats.
I want to be able to create some piece of software and not having to spend my money in checking if some patented it 2 days before. If I were a huge industrial company (and I am not, contrary to Mz Fourtou's husband), it would of course be a chance for me to patent my code, and I would be able to spend some money to check for existing patents or pay for using it. But I am free to give my work to others. Not in a public domain (to fit patent vocabulary), as I am also free to choose which of the rights I own could be offered, but in an Open Source License.
I want to be free to listen to free music, to hear from other free groups who drop on the Internet, their new album, legally with the Creative Common license, on Peer to peer networks. I don't even want to be a sheep, listening to the remixed old song soup on national and commercial radio and tv channels.
I could just say that if I will not be able to do this anymore, because someone patented the "one-click" buy technology (I can't understand the link with technology here, but that's a good example on the lack of seriousness of a patent organism), I will (as many other before me, who tell me about this a long time ago) switch to cyphered networks, and become another totally anonymous user, doing illegal thing such as not patenting his work, and using patented technology he never knew it was, listening to non "universal" music, watching non "allowed" tv show.
It's funny because when I watch national TV news, and they says that the french car market had had a 12% decrease last year, no one says that its due to P2P, but mainly to bad economical situation, etc... When I hear that P2P is "the" reason why music companies are loosing 10% of their income, I just can't remember who was the last "exciting" new artist selling CD in supermarket. Because of what ?
Because it is easy to investigate on an "evident" track people who are sharing, illegally, music, but also legally. Because it is not so evident to understand that people are now able to find a song they might have heard when they were 12 and they can't find anywhere in a supermarket. Because it is not evident at all to realize that the music market is evolving and morphing into a new system where songs are not individual piece of art anymore, but become a kind of glue that no one could afford.
Even if you have plenty of songs, you are not anymore paying attention to a particular song, (the one that is #1 on radio), but mainly to a ambience music. I think paying for each song is no more a viable solution, but that's my ideas, while I don't download any paying song anymore.
Please don't see your interest before european people interest, because once you will have this law voted, and realised that it was not the right struggle to do, it will be to late. You must let the last part of freedom (ie Internet) free, because even if It seems anarchic in a first view, each internaut is doing his/her own censure and finally, it is the last gate of the real liberty of thinking that allow us to be able not to fall in the controlled media trap (see the Iraq news from US and from France to understand what I mean). Intellectual property might be a good thing (I am not sure of that however), but software are made of recipes, like any mathematical demonstration, or our genome and are based on simple rules that are glued together. Genius is not in gluing them together (because many people can do that, even computer can do that :
http://www.genetic-programming.com/humancompetitive.html(...) (this is so ironic that a computer could be sued for patent infringement)), genius is in finding how to solve an unresolved problem. It is evident that European patent office does not, and will never (because of money issues), have the knowledge to be able to make the difference between a real innovative algorithm and, for example, a file format.
I hope you'll consider my piece of opinion.
Best regards,
Cyril Russo