Blogcritics: Comments on iTunes DRM System Cracked

Comment by Eric Olsen

Tue, 6 Apr 2004 12:14:57 EDT

Thanks for the info! I don't think any copyrighted material should be "free," but at this point it should "feel" a lot closer to free than the copyright industry wants. AND, "copyright" has become something far too akin to "in perpetuity" - it's time for the pendulum to swing back the other way.

Comment by Hal Pawluk

Tue, 6 Apr 2004 12:08:44 EDT

I dropped that in simply as an interesting side-light, no ax to grind. The transition to using only part of the latter half of the original statement happened pretty quickly, and by 1990 you were hearing "Information wants to be free" used as a stand-alone phrase and concept with some regularity. I do wonder why music should be free while books shouldn't and drug companies can extend their copyrights almost indefinitely by slightly tweaking a drug and giving it a new name. But that's an entirely different discussion :-)

Comment by Eric Olsen

Tue, 6 Apr 2004 11:35:01 EDT

I'm just passing the news on - I think it's interesting that this quote has been appropriated by those who would remove barriers to information, whether that was its original context or not.

Comment by Hal Pawluk

Tue, 6 Apr 2004 11:30:19 EDT

Information wants to be free TANGENTIAL TRIVIA: The original concept was that information wants to be expensive because of its value but costs were getting lower and lower. Here's what the originator, Stewart Brand, said about it in 1999:

"In fall 1984, at the first Hackers' Conference, I said in one discussion session: "On the one hand information wants to be expensive, because it's so valuable. The right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information wants to be free, because the cost of getting it out is getting lower and lower all the time. So you have these two fighting against each other." That was printed in a report/transcript from the conference in the May 1985 *Whole Earth Review*, p. 49.

It had nothing to do with intellectual property rights. FYI.