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1 Why Software Should Not Have Owners
3 by Richard Stallman
5 Digital information technology contributes to the world by making it
6 easier to copy and modify information. Computers promise to make this
7 easier for all of us.
9 Not everyone wants it to be easier. The system of copyright gives
10 software programs "owners", most of whom aim to withhold software's
11 potential benefit from the rest of the public. They would like to be
12 the only ones who can copy and modify the software that we use.
14 The copyright system grew up with printing--a technology for mass
15 production copying. Copyright fit in well with this technology
16 because it restricted only the mass producers of copies. It did not
17 take freedom away from readers of books. An ordinary reader, who did
18 not own a printing press, could copy books only with pen and ink, and
19 few readers were sued for that.
21 Digital technology is more flexible than the printing press: when
22 information has digital form, you can easily copy it to share it with
23 others. This very flexibility makes a bad fit with a system like
24 copyright. That's the reason for the increasingly nasty and draconian
25 measures now used to enforce software copyright. Consider these four
26 practices of the Software Publishers Association (SPA):
28 * Massive propaganda saying it is wrong to disobey the owners
29 to help your friend.
31 * Solicitation for stool pigeons to inform on their coworkers and
32 colleagues.
34 * Raids (with police help) on offices and schools, in which people are
35 told they must prove they are innocent of illegal copying.
37 * Prosecution (by the US government, at the SPA's request) of people
38 such as MIT's David LaMacchia, not for copying software (he is not
39 accused of copying any), but merely for leaving copying facilities
40 unguarded and failing to censor their use.
42 All four practices resemble those used in the former Soviet Union,
43 where every copying machine had a guard to prevent forbidden copying,
44 and where individuals had to copy information secretly and pass it
45 from hand to hand as "samizdat". There is of course a difference: the
46 motive for information control in the Soviet Union was political; in
47 the US the motive is profit. But it is the actions that affect us,
48 not the motive. Any attempt to block the sharing of information, no
49 matter why, leads to the same methods and the same harshness.
51 Owners make several kinds of arguments for giving them the power
52 to control how we use information:
54 * Name calling.
56 Owners use smear words such as "piracy" and "theft", as well as expert
57 terminology such as "intellectual property" and "damage", to suggest a
58 certain line of thinking to the public--a simplistic analogy between
59 programs and physical objects.
61 Our ideas and intuitions about property for material objects are about
62 whether it is right to *take an object away* from someone else. They
63 don't directly apply to *making a copy* of something. But the owners
64 ask us to apply them anyway.
66 * Exaggeration.
68 Owners say that they suffer "harm" or "economic loss" when users copy
69 programs themselves. But the copying has no direct effect on the
70 owner, and it harms no one. The owner can lose only if the person who
71 made the copy would otherwise have paid for one from the owner.
73 A little thought shows that most such people would not have bought
74 copies. Yet the owners compute their "losses" as if each and every
75 one would have bought a copy. That is exaggeration--to put it kindly.
77 * The law.
79 Owners often describe the current state of the law, and the harsh
80 penalties they can threaten us with. Implicit in this approach is the
81 suggestion that today's law reflects an unquestionable view of
82 morality--yet at the same time, we are urged to regard these penalties
83 as facts of nature that can't be blamed on anyone.
85 This line of persuasion isn't designed to stand up to critical
86 thinking; it's intended to reinforce a habitual mental pathway.
88 It's elemental that laws don't decide right and wrong. Every American
89 should know that, forty years ago, it was against the law in many
90 states for a black person to sit in the front of a bus; but only
91 racists would say sitting there was wrong.
93 * Natural rights.
95 Authors often claim a special connection with programs they have
96 written, and go on to assert that, as a result, their desires and
97 interests concerning the program simply outweigh those of anyone
98 else--or even those of the whole rest of the world. (Typically
99 companies, not authors, hold the copyrights on software, but we are
100 expected to ignore this discrepancy.)
102 To those who propose this as an ethical axiom--the author is more
103 important than you--I can only say that I, a notable software author
104 myself, call it bunk.
106 But people in general are only likely to feel any sympathy with the
107 natural rights claims for two reasons.
109 One reason is an overstretched analogy with material objects. When I
110 cook spaghetti, I do object if someone else takes it and stops me from
111 eating it. In this case, that person and I have the same material
112 interests at stake, and it's a zero-sum game. The smallest
113 distinction between us is enough to tip the ethical balance.
115 But whether you run or change a program I wrote affects you directly
116 and me only indirectly. Whether you give a copy to your friend
117 affects you and your friend much more than it affects me. I shouldn't
118 have the power to tell you not to do these things. No one should.
120 The second reason is that people have been told that natural rights
121 for authors is the accepted and unquestioned tradition of our society.
123 As a matter of history, the opposite is true. The idea of natural
124 rights of authors was proposed and decisively rejected when the US
125 Constitution was drawn up. That's why the Constitution only *permits*
126 a system of copyright and does not *require* one; that's why it says
127 that copyright must be temporary. It also states that the purpose of
128 copyright is to promote progress--not to reward authors. Copyright
129 does reward authors somewhat, and publishers more, but that is
130 intended as a means of modifying their behavior.
132 The real established tradition of our society is that copyright cuts
133 into the natural rights of the public--and that this can only be
134 justified for the public's sake.
136 * Economics.
138 The final argument made for having owners of software is that this
139 leads to production of more software.
141 Unlike the others, this argument at least takes a legitimate approach
142 to the subject. It is based on a valid goal--satisfying the users of
143 software. And it is empirically clear that people will produce more of
144 something if they are well paid for doing so.
146 But the economic argument has a flaw: it is based on the assumption
147 that the difference is only a matter of how much money we have to pay.
148 It assumes that "production of software" is what we want, whether the
149 software has owners or not.
151 People readily accept this assumption because it accords with our
152 experiences with material objects. Consider a sandwich, for instance.
153 You might well be able to get an equivalent sandwich either free or
154 for a price. If so, the amount you pay is the only difference.
155 Whether or not you have to buy it, the sandwich has the same taste,
156 the same nutritional value, and in either case you can only eat it
157 once. Whether you get the sandwich from an owner or not cannot
158 directly affect anything but the amount of money you have afterwards.
160 This is true for any kind of material object--whether or not it has an
161 owner does not directly affect what it *is*, or what you can do with
162 it if you acquire it.
164 But if a program has an owner, this very much affects what it is, and
165 what you can do with a copy if you buy one. The difference is not
166 just a matter of money. The system of owners of software encourages
167 software owners to produce something--but not what society really
168 needs. And it causes intangible ethical pollution that affects us
169 all.
171 What does society need? It needs information that is truly available
172 to its citizens--for example, programs that people can read, fix,
173 adapt, and improve, not just operate. But what software owners
174 typically deliver is a black box that we can't study or change.
176 Society also needs freedom. When a program has an owner, the users
177 lose freedom to control part of their own lives.
179 And above all society needs to encourage the spirit of voluntary
180 cooperation in its citizens. When software owners tell us that
181 helping our neighbors in a natural way is "piracy", they pollute our
182 society's civic spirit.
184 This is why we say that free software is a matter of freedom, not
185 price.
187 The economic argument for owners is erroneous, but the economic issue
188 is real. Some people write useful software for the pleasure of
189 writing it or for admiration and love; but if we want more software
190 than those people write, we need to raise funds.
192 For ten years now, free software developers have tried various methods
193 of finding funds, with some success. There's no need to make anyone
194 rich; the median US family income, around $35k, proves to be enough
195 incentive for many jobs that are less satisfying than programming.
197 For years, until a fellowship made it unnecessary, I made a living
198 from custom enhancements of the free software I had written. Each
199 enhancement was added to the standard released version and thus
200 eventually became available to the general public. Clients paid me so
201 that I would work on the enhancements they wanted, rather than on the
202 features I would otherwise have considered highest priority.
204 The Free Software Foundation, a tax-exempt charity for free software
205 development, raises funds by selling CD-ROMs, tapes and manuals (all
206 of which users are free to copy and change), as well as from
207 donations. It now has a staff of five programmers, plus three
208 employees who handle mail orders.
210 Some free software developers make money by selling support services.
211 Cygnus Support, with around 50 employees, estimates that about 15 per
212 cent of its staff activity is free software development--a respectable
213 percentage for a software company.
215 Companies including Intel, Motorola, Texas Instruments and Analog
216 Devices have combined to fund the continued development of the free
217 GNU compiler for the language C. Meanwhile, the GNU compiler for the
218 Ada language is being funded by the US Air Force, which believes this
219 is the most cost-effective way to get a high quality compiler.
221 All these examples are small; the free software movement is still
222 small, and still young. But the example of listener-supported radio
223 in this country shows it's possible to support a large activity
224 without forcing each user to pay.
226 As a computer user today, you may find yourself using a proprietary
227 program. If your friend asks to make a copy, it would be wrong to
228 refuse. Cooperation is more important than copyright. But
229 underground, closet cooperation does not make for a good society. A
230 person should aspire to live an upright life openly with pride, and
231 this means saying "No" to proprietary software.
233 You deserve to be able to cooperate openly and freely with other
234 people who use software. You deserve to be able to learn how the
235 software works, and to teach your students with it. You deserve to be
236 able to hire your favorite programmer to fix it when it breaks.
238 You deserve free software.
241 Copyright 1994 Richard Stallman
242 Verbatim copying and redistribution is permitted
243 without royalty as long as this notice is preserved;
244 alteration is not permitted.