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I'm against misuses of copyright, not against free speech.


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I always get uncomfortable when copyright issues are conflated into free speech issues. I feel it's generally used incorrectly to give more legitimacy basically to people wanting to distribute material they are not permitted to.

I have always championed the right to free expression, whether that is an individual hosting content or a company deciding what content it wants to host and how to display it. The government should play no part in either case.

Even though you are correct, this issue is still not a matter of free speech.

We've had copyright protections for some time, they're now being enforced.

I don't agree with it, but neither this is not about free speech or 'media spin' on the story.


Now tell me again how copyright is compatible with any reasonable idea of free speech?

Once you're done with that, tell me how I can tell what speech is legal and what speech isn't, without consulting a specialist lawyer.


yeah, well pirating software, music, and movies isn't free speech either.

Copyright infringement is not protected speech. Google is free to provide or not provide results however they see fit.

To me- freedom of speech is the right of citizens to criticize the government without reprisal.

This does not mean that adversaries have the right to flood our airwaves with propaganda, lies, and other bullshit under the guise of protected speech.


The existence of any copyright law means there are limits to free speech.

They're not, but that "free speech" thing is from a time when copyright didn't matter much.

copyright violates free speech, no? If I'm forbidden from singing happy birthday to you, isn't that censoring my speech?

But speech doesn't necessarily have to be protected by copyright.

That talk about freedom of speech is a nice way of defending large-scale copyright infringement.

What? Taking my copyrighted work and publishing it is somehow a matter of freedom of speech and expression?

Do you also consider vandalism a form of freedom of expression?


Free speech is about expression. It doesn't say anything about consumption. I think congress can ban the feeding of copyrighted content to AI. But IANAL.

So what it means is that copyright can not be used as a means to censor free speech? Well, that's what I understood anyway.

That's still interesting. And although I also found the wording very confusing, I upvoted it (I usually do this as a bookmarking method). Please, don't hate me!


Tell me again how "copyright"/"intellectual property" and free speech are somehow compatible?

I didn't posit the right to freedom of expression. It's been around a long time. And I don't pirate anything, and do produce work that would qualify for copyright, so how is it convenient for me?

As for your second point: I should support bad laws because otherwise I must be supporting anarchy? Is that seriously your argument? Perhaps you should give it more thought...


Free speech does not mean that anyone is required to host your content.

Fung was “fostering a community that encouraged — indeed, celebrated — copyright infringement.”

True. Too bad that's perfectly within his rights. "Free speech", have you heard of it?


I'm in favour of free speech, without censorship from government or private entities. Which is why I think censoring the laptop story was wrong.

So tell me, how is that anti free speech?

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