Now That’s Just Spiteful…

RMS believes no-one should buy Harry Potter books because of the Canadian injunction the publisher got to protect the book’s embargo before it’s launch date. Fine – he’s perfectly entitled to his opinion. But to post a massive spoiler at the bottom of his blog post, so even people who don’t agree with him, or who want to follow his suggested course of action and borrow the book, have it spoiled for them – that’s just nasty.

How can he argue for the right to private modifications in the GPL, and yet be opposed to the right of a release date for an artistic work? The publisher should be able to keep their work private if they wish, until they choose to release it – just as with the private modifications to GPLed code, or even completely private source code written from scratch.

11 thoughts on “Now That’s Just Spiteful…

  1. To be fair to Richard, the spoiler he mentions is fairly well known about and has been mentioned on uk national radio. His post doesn’t give it any more credibility than it already had.

  2. I believe that he did it on purpose as the article states:
    “The order states that anyone who discloses names of new characters or plot details will be in contempt of court. It applies even to books acquired in good faith.”

    I guess he is challenging this.

    Also he is very pissed off by this statement:
    ” There is no human right to read.�

    I am too.
    Aren’t you?

  3. I believe that he did it on purpose as the article states:
    “The order states that anyone who discloses names of new characters or plot details will be in contempt of court. It applies even to books acquired in good faith.”

    I do believe that this order was wrong and that the court overreacted. What is and should be possible is to restrain the resale of the books before the release date (just like stolen goods can’t be resold or like you can be ordered to stop selling software that violates the GPL even though you have bought it with good faith from another source). This is what happened someone who tried to sell it via ebay.

    Also he is very pissed off by this statement:
    ” There is no human right to read.�

    That statement was made by a lawyer *not* involved in the case and not something the publisher said.

    I still say he has overreacted. In cases like this he would achieve much more with a more thought out and subtle message. It diminishes his credibility at times when he rants rightfully.

  4. To be fair to Richard, the spoiler he mentions is fairly well known about and has been mentioned on uk national radio. His post doesn’t give it any more credibility than it already had.

    Yes, but I hadn’t heard it! And now it’s got me thinking, and I’d much rather have started the book without any preconceptions. And if it does happen, I’ll be very disappointed.

    If he wanted to protest the injunction, fine – he could have said “click here for my collection of facts I know about the book’s plot”.

  5. Personally, I think the court order is quite disturbing and would probably boycott the book if I was at all interested in Harry Potter. However, I do agree with you, Gerv, that posting the spoiler inline is really quite distasteful.

  6. RMS was at one point important and useful. That time is no more. Like any great revolutionary, the revolution they start grows bigger than them, and moves forward by the power of the masses they mobilized and becomes an entitiy in itself. Many times these people can not come to grips with this, and wind up relegating themselves to obsolescence. Their particular viosion was not realized exactly as they had dreamed, so they continue to rail on, despite a massive change already having happened. RMS is in this group now. The greater good of Free Software has been launched, and is an entity of itself without RMS. But his vision of ALL software being f/Free hasn’t been realized, so he continues to rant on, oblivious to the fact that compromise is the way of life. And as the years have gone on, he’s become crazy as a loon and about as sensible.

    You are 100% right about both his hypocrisy, and the right of the publisher to maintain control over their work. Those books were sold by mistake, against the publisher’s wishes. All they were aiming for is the opportunity for ALL readers to get the bokk at the same time, so that no one was left out. They even sent a copy to be translated into Braille so that it can start selling to the blind tomorrow or so. I think they deserve kudos for this, not a crazy old man’s wrath.

    I bet he’d wear a tinfoil beanie but only if the production machines ran on GPLed code.

  7. So you think it’s okay to deliver a book to someone and then order them not to read it? You think it’s okay to make innocents pay for the mistakes of business? These salient details are not pointed out in your blog entry and I’m curious why you don’t think they are that important.

    The shipping mistake was the bookstore’s, not the reader’s. Why should these 14 readers in Coquitlam on the west coast of Canada not be able to read the book they’ve legally acquired?

    It seems to me that RMS, yet again, has the right and proper reaction to the event. He is not “opposed to the right of a release date for an artistic work”, he’s opposed to the restriction imposed upon 14 innocent readers (as the article makes clear). These 14 readers are being punished for the mistake of a business and copyright law is trumping civil liberties. This strikes me as a human rights issue when viewed properly through the lens of history of oppressive regimes which prohibit reading certain texts. Now the Supreme Court of British Columbia is allowing a business to wield that power.

    Also, RMS has placed the spoilers on a separate webpage. Most readers will have to select a link to read them, not see them as they read the rest of Stallman’s homepage. That’s worth correcting on your blog entry.

  8. Just to be clear: I think RMS again has it right that whether details of the plot are revealed is not the interesting issue. “I do not share his worry that many people would be so angry at seeing the information in the home page that they would lose sight of the issue of human rights. Such a response would betoken an extreme lack of sense of proportion about their own interests. That must occur sometimes, but cannot be so frequent.” — this strikes me as putting things in a sane perspective; this issue ought to be dealt with on the level of being repressive to readers and what that means for our freedoms, not what’s inconvenient to your entertainment.

    I should have made that more clear in my previous post.

  9. J.B.: If I give you some code which subsequently turns out not to be mine to give (i.e. a copyright infringement), is it OK for you to keep it? After all, you received it in good faith.

    If the answer is no, then I think it’s reasonable for these people to be required to hand back the books temporarily.

    RMS had the plot details on the same page when I visited the site. I am glad that he has moved it now – I think he makes the same point, and will irritate fewer people.

  10. I happened to visit RMS’ site on this issue again and I noticed that he’s put up a new page describing why this issue is so important. I think he has written quite well on this, including keeping this situation in proper perspective by examining what this injunction means for government catering to business.

    As for your hypothetical scenario, I disagree with the comparison between works of utility such as reference works and computer software — works chiefly used to get a job done — and works made chiefly for entertainment including Harry Potter books. I think these kinds of works ought to have different default copyright powers attached to them and I would seriously consider granting blanket permission to non-commercially distribute verbatim copies of any published work (thus obviating the scenario in its entirety). In the US, at least, copyright is supposed to exist for the sake of readers, not authors or publishers. And it is readily apparent that copying and distributing verbatim copies of all sorts of published works is what readers (listeners, viewers, etc.) want to do. I also take seriously ethical problems with restricting people from doing the most natural things friends do with information — share it. I think taking away that right needs to be justified before the public gives it up (the onus is not on those who want to retain the right). Your hypothetical situation has more to do with why the free software movement exists than it has to do with the public policy issues raised by the Canadian injunction.

    Finally, as you can see when you read the RMS essay I linked to, revealing plot details is not the salient point here. He doesn’t give that side issue undeserved primacy. And I think he’s right not to do it.