🚀 go-pugleaf

An article in yesterday's Washington Post (25 Sep 92) mentions a bill
which has been passed by the US Senate (S.893) and is expected to be
passed soon by the House, which the article describes as "a bill to
move the willful copying of a computer program from a misdemeanor to
a felony."  Yes, you read right, a felony.  The article is not very
clear as to what sort of copying will be turned into a felony -- it
does say that this law "may not be invoked in small-scale violations,"
but I don't know if they mean "might not" or "cannot."  On their list
of "prime culprits" they include bulletin board operators, and they
also include individuals and schools as "potential lawbreakers."

The rest of the article talks about some recent efforts by the Software
Publishers Association to encourage people to obey copyrights.  They
have a new ad campaign containing encouragement like "If you copy
software that's protected by copyright, you could lose your job, face a
civil suit, pay a $100,000 fine and possibly be imprisoned."  They have
also released a rap video they want school teachers to show to students
(it comes complete with a _lesson plan_) explaining that copying
software is very bad.

It is apparent that our current copyright system, whatever its merits
as a framework for the development and dissemination of software,
suffers from a lack of cooperation from the consumer.  But let's face
some facts here.  First, most people attach no moral significance to
copying a floppy, and no music video or any other effort, no matter
how impressionable an audience it's aimed at, is likely to change that.
Second, although draconian legislation like S.893 may dissuade large
scale piracy, a person who copies a program for a friend knows he's
never going to be caught, so the law is no deterrent for this kind of
violation.  I would conclude that this kind of small scale copying
cannot possibly be stopped without some kind of systematic ongoing
search by the police -- the kind of thing we prefer to avoid.  Software
developers, and indeed everyone who relies on the copyright system,
face a choice between accepting this kind of individual copying, or
encouraging some very heavy-handed action by the government.

In any case, I think the FSF should help out the SPA here by producing
their own rap video (with lesson plan, of course) that reiterates
that if you copy programs like Lotus you will go to jail and be disowned
by your dog, but adds that if you avoid such software and stick to the
ones that are freely distributable, you will not run this terrible risk.
(Look for "freely distributable" on the label!)

 - Dave Cottingham
   dc@cobi.gsfc.nasa.gov