Eben Moglen at Harvard

[trochee]

My brother points out the following:

this speech is a little bit long, but you read fast. and the issues are weighing on my mind these days. Moglen thinks well, and has some good insights. i thought you might be interested.

Groklaw transcripts

Moglen is full of useful thoughts on copyright, free software, SCO, and the future of copyright and patent:

Musicians got paid by people who heard music, because they had a personal relationship to musicians. This is what you mean by going on tour or the Grateful Dead or anybody who uses the non-zero marginal cost of the theatre seat as a way of getting back, just as people merchandise as a way of getting back.

Think for a moment about the coffee house folk musician, the singer/songwriter. The simplest case in a way of the transformation of the music business. Here are people who are currently on tour 40, 45, 50 weeks a year. What happens is, they go to places and they perform and at the back, CDs are on sale, but people don't buy those CDs as a kind of, you know, I would otherwise be stealing the music; they buy it the way they buy goods at a farmers market or a crafts fair, because of their personal relationship to the artist.