Gates Elaborates on IP Communists 795
justin_w_hall writes "In part four of his interview with Gizmodo, big Bill Gates discusses his recent 'communist' labeling of supporters of free culture - and gets into detail about his rationale concerning Microsoft's position on DRM. Other parts of the interview: part 1, part 2, part 3."
So what is he? (Score:3, Insightful)
Boy does that make an interesting job title.
?Tzar of Intelectual Property?
RE: Required response. (Score:4, Insightful)
This is a refreshing contrast to the fascist model, where the state owns the code. In this case, the writers own the code.
If he says Linus is Stallin/lennin/marx, then he's Hitler by the same set of parameters.
Re:So what is he? (Score:3, Insightful)
Artists should be paid (Score:3, Insightful)
Rule of thumb, if the artist is deceased the songs should be automatically free. None of this 2pac-after-death-release bullshit. He's dead how does he make music?!
Gates and these millionaires never talk enough about these things. They mention artists should be paid. Blah, now back to DRM.
Wanting to get paid for work you did (Score:5, Insightful)
Wouldn't it be a bit more reasonable to put a time limiting factor on the copyright of songs ... after 20 years the song goes to the public domain, so that everyone can enjoy that music.
Musicians in China (Score:5, Insightful)
Open Source in fact more capitalistic (Score:5, Insightful)
In a regular corporation, much of the capital becomes wealth distributed to executives who put it into their yacht fund, which in essence is punishing shareholders who are better served by reinvestment in the firm.
The same can be said for many industries. I think Americans underestimate, for example, how much of their healthcare spending goes into executive compensation, which is worse in that industry than most others. It makes you wonder how efficient capitalism really is in the endgame when most competitors have been washed out and locked out of the market.
Why would he do this? (Score:4, Insightful)
And to Gizmodo? I'm surprised he even bothers to answer their phone calls at all!
The problem with Communism... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Artists should be paid (Score:1, Insightful)
Talk to Courtney Love, or any one of the beneficiaries of a famous artist about what happens after the artist dies.
dumbass
Wow, what utter load of ... Gates (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Here it is (Score:5, Insightful)
He wants to justify using DRM in music because its used for medical technologies. He's screwing up the point on purpose -- just because the OS knows about DRM for medical records doesn't mean MS has to acknowledge those "same bits" on music files at all.
If the laws in my country (Canada) allow me to make copies of the file, Windows had better let me.
Let me expound on that -- I work with a church [kawarthachurch.com] that frequently uses short video clips to back up or emphasize a point; several clips were used from Shrek when discussing relationships, etc.
Under CCLI rules, we're allowed to use those clips without specific permission, during service time. However, to rip those clips, we need to use software that falls on the "hey, that's bad" side of Copyright regulations. Luckily, we don't have a DMCA in Canada.
Re:Wanting to get paid for work you did (Score:4, Insightful)
> on the copyright of songs
> domain, so that everyone can enjoy that music.
Um, that's how copyrights were supposed to work, but since the US Congress decided to essentially violate the Constitution by simply extending copyrights indefinitely to protect Mickey Mouse, and no court has seen fit to call them on it, that notion of a limited protection is now apparently extinct.
Gates The Spinner (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing that stood out to me in the article was how billie seems to think people have no other incentive in innovating than profit. True innovators innovate for the challenge and because that's just what they LIKE doing. Profiting from it is just a side effect.
The part 3 interview, which is about XBox and everything evolving around that, has a bit of unintended humor in the first answer where Bill Gates appears to be championing for user choice and competition between vendors. Wow!
Just bits, huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah, but here is lies the classic folly. Currently, people have to decide if what they are doing is within the realms of fair use, such as copying a page from a book so they can cut out a favorite paragraph from the book and read it at presentation. DRM says that a machine has to decide if what I'm doing constitutes fair use. What happens when the computer doesn't understand my situation? Like with smart guns, if I'm wrestling with a criminal for their weapon and I manage to get it away from them, I won't be able to use it to defend myself! It's not just managing bits anymore Bill, it's managing our lives.
So whats wrong with a communist (Score:2, Insightful)
People have no clue what it means and use it as a slam. Guess 50 years of govt brainwashing worked.
Gates Misses the Point (Score:5, Insightful)
I believe many artists make art to add beauty to the world, and that they desire an audience, not money.
I believe that there are many artists willing to share their creative work for free, and they are compensated by the attention they get. I believe that the market is starting to demand this art. One of the great thing about this art, as with free software, is that it can be extended, collaborated with, and changed far beyond the scope of the original art. Perhaps this art isn't as good as commercial art, or as polished, but it has great advantages, the biggest one being that it is free.
Finally, having been a successful shareware author, I can say that people are very generous if you ask them for support. I could have never distributed my software through traditional channels, and would have never made any money even if I could have, but was quite successful freely distributing my work, and only asking for payment in the about box.
It is ironic that Bill Gates doesn't understand this. His operating system has started this revolution, that has removed the cost of distribution. What we are seeing now is a natural evolution of the personal computer.
Re:The problem with Communism... (Score:3, Insightful)
So in the end it's ok to call China Communist.
Gates is a communist (Score:3, Insightful)
Windows is built with a huge bunch of command line tools and perl scripts. There's not much difference between the philosphies and characters of Windows Developers and Free Software Developers -- except one: Windows people don't want *you* to have the rights *they* have.
Re:Artists should be paid (Score:3, Insightful)
Rule of thumb, if the artist is deceased the songs should be automatically free. None of this 2pac-after-death-release bullshit. He's dead how does he make music?!
I'm not at all defending the rip-off contracts, but you are forgetting that various people may have fronted/loaned the artist money. At the time of death that money may not have been repaid. All that drug money can really add up.
Re: Required response. (Score:5, Insightful)
You are a communist. To the average american this means you belong in jail. That's what he is after.
Re:So what is he? (Score:3, Insightful)
Communist states in practice create dictatorships. That's an historical fact that goes beyond being simple propaganda.
Great quote from the article (Score:1, Insightful)
Gates: Well, ignore DRM for a second. Should an artist that creates a great song be paid for that song? That's where you have to start. You don't start with DRM. DRM is just like a speed bump that reminds you whether you're staying within the scope of rights that you have or you don't. So you don't start with DRM. That's like saying, 'Do you believe in speed bumps?' You have to say, 'Should people drive at 80mph in parking lots?' If you think they should, then of course you don't like speed bumps.
Gizmodo: I think that's sort of disingenuous. Obviously people think that artists, or you know, whoever creates software should be paid...
Gates: No, no, no. That's not true! Many people don't believe that. [They] absolutely don't believe that.
Got to hand it to Bill, he had the interviewer backpedalling wit that one because he had a valid point -- there are too many extremists and extremist views in the Linux/OSS community. Take for instance RMS, who says not only should software be given away for $0, but if you charge money for software, you are committing an unethical act. Or, in his last interview publicized on
This extremism is what is being picked by the MSFT et al crowd. It's high time the OSS community seperates itself from such lunacy.
Re:So what is he? (Score:5, Insightful)
the pre-conditions for communism to arise are not met. there is not a surplus of necessities. we simply can not feed/cloth/house everyone. scarcity still exists, and as such, communism is an inefficient economic system.
and thats another point - communism is an economic system, not political.
Re:Musicians in China (Score:3, Insightful)
He is calling you a communist because he knows how the average american will react to that. To the average american communist means evil and harmful. If your neighbor was a communist you would move or burn his house down. If your kid is hanging around with communists you ground him.
To the average american communists belong in jail or ought to be kicked out of the country.
That's what he is doing here. In a very real and literal sense he is laying the groundwork for setting up the arrests of open source developers. It all starts by calling them communists.
Bill Gates, music agent for the beleaguered (Score:4, Insightful)
Poor Bill. He can't sleep at night thinking of impoverished Chinese musicians -- so he unleashes the Business Software Alliance to coerce entire nations to pony up more cash for Windows, all in the name of intellectual property. A regular advocate for the little guy, he is...
Re: Required response. (Score:2, Insightful)
To make the comparison of Gates/Hitler and Nazi Party/Microsoft (in terms of control and viciousness in their respective arenas) is both relevant and vaguely insightful as an extension of Gates' use of "communist" to describe Free Culture proponents.
Understand now?
Bill Should Just STFU (Score:3, Insightful)
For instance, he was wrong about the impact of the internet. He has also been wrong in forcasting technology trends, 14 YEARS IN A ROW.
I admire the fact that Bill has been able to become rich and successful. To his credit, he drove his company to take risks and challenge his competitors. If it weren't for the principles of Microsoft fighting for their market share, the industry might look much less inviting than it is today. Competition is a good thing, and Microsoft is nothing if not competative.
But when Bill wanders off the reservation, he gets himself in trouble. His ideas about world health are noble, but I don't think US pharma companies look too kindly at his dumping millions of dollars into areas where they could be raking in profits.
Free medicine? Ask Big Pharma what they thing that political philosophy constitutes.
Bill should keep his discussion focused on Microsoft and his competition. That is what he is best at. Commenting on open source products, not the philosophy that creates them, is probably a whole lot safer and let prone to embarrass His Highness.
Bill Gates is as clueless about open source as Nicolas II was about his peasantry.
Re:The problem with Communism... (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure OSS represents communism (Score:4, Insightful)
Microsoft, on the other hand, represents the "Central planning enforced via coercion from an unaccountable monopoly" aspect of communism.
If Gates & co. are going to try and keep the communism analogy alive, this more precise view ought to be brought up to reporters at every opportunity. I can't speak for everyone, but I know all my negative associations with Communism come from its relation to totalitarianism, not its relation to sharing.
Re:Just bits, huh? (Score:4, Insightful)
That's the law, if you don't like it, tough shit.
The law is wrong. It is as wrong as not letting women and blacks vote. It is as wrong as imprisoning people whose ancestors are from a country you are at war with. I will not obey it. If you don't like it, tough shit.
supporters of free culture (Score:2, Insightful)
Public domain is free.
Gates Gets Confused and Stuff... (Score:3, Insightful)
Funny, my Dad is an Episcopal priest and one of the things he taught during his sermons was the value of good works. These are (for those who skipped Church) the kind of things where you expect no reward, payment, etc.
Most people consider "good works" to be doling out food to the poor. But I would argue that writing something that a) seems useful to others and b) gives one some joy is also a good work.
After all, how many people went "thank god" when their system DIDN'T crash because some 13 year old decided to create the Windows worm du jour?
Re:Here it is (Score:3, Insightful)
We didn't put the DRM on the content, the provider did, what we are doing is providing the way to get to the content.
Microsoft didn't put the DRM on your Shrek video, but they did give you the software to get at it.
Open source is capitalist, DRM is a communist tool (Score:4, Insightful)
I am a worker (In my case an intellectual worker, but that doesn't matter) under both capitalism & communism I would be creating a product.
Under capitalism I create something, and I can sell it or give it away as I wish. It doesn't matter if that something is a wooden table or a computer program. It's my choice what I do with it.
The person I sell/gift it to can do with it as he or she wishes.
In other words, my product is covered by a BSD licence.
Under communism everything (including the fruits of my labours) belongs to "the people", in other words "the state". I make something, the state pays me a wage and it determies how and by whom the product is used.
Under capitalism (as described by Marx) competitive pressure forces the price of commodity goods down towards the cost of production. The producers can only make a profit by reducing their cost of production, including wages, to a minimum.
What's the true commodity cost of software? The cost of downloading and perhaps the cost of burning it to a CD.
Under communism, the state restricts competition, and interferes in the market, thus keeping the price of commodities high enough to ensure a decent wage for the workers.
The exact mechanism for how it restricts competition isn't that relevant. It could be "5 year plans" stating exactly how many will be produced, it could be limiting the number of people permitted to make the product, or it could be changing the patent rules to permit patenting the product rather than the old "patenting the process" model.
Under communism you have the state creating or enforcing monopolies on the production of commodity items. It doesn't matter if those items are cornflakes or software, the prices are kept artificially high to permit "the workers" to keep more of the wealth.
Looking to the USSR experiment, "the workers" that retained the wealth weren't so much the ones on the factory floor as the managers & the communist functionaries that replaced the former owners, but no-one can argue that the upper echelons of the society of the USSR were wealthy.
But I don't want a Microsoft legal system (tm) (Score:3, Insightful)
I also don't have much of an issue with artists being compensated somehow for their work. There are already laws to govern that, although some of the laws are bad, people often break those laws, and the legal system hasn't yet caught up with how best to deal with it.
The problem here is that Microsoft has taken things upon itself to become the judge, jury and executioner of intellectual property disputes. Even worse, Microsoft's algorithm for determining correctness is a direct interpretation of whatever the distributer of given content happens to say. Microsoft accomodates those who claim ownership by stripping the rights of everyone else to dispute that claim.... at least without paying unaffordable mountains of legal bills.
I think it's mostly a question of whether Microsoft should be allowed to act as some kind of international legal system to enforce disputes between parties. Effectively it's enforcing things through a vigilante system with no intelligent arbitration about what's correct.
For instance, in New Zealand (where I am), some copyrighted materials enter public domain earlier than the USA. It becomes legal to reproduce them regardless of what the original content owner says. (Content owners aren't always authors, by the way.) But if I were to try and take advantage of that, Microsoft would jump in and tell me that I can't, unless the entity that claims ownership says it's okay.
Bill's trying to distance himself from accusations of this type of thing in the interview for obvious reasons, but it's exactly what Microsoft is doing. I don't particularly want a Microsoft-determined legal system.
Re:So what is he? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you attempt to replace that, you only end up creating new kinds of wealth to accumulate, new social strata to which the ambitious will strive.
The industrialized world has worked out a basically mixed system with social safety nets to (theoretically) catch the most vulnerable members of society, without trying to make wealth accumulation some sort of wicked vice. It's far less than perfect, but then again, to expect perfection, to even theorize it, is just plain silly. Any economic theory that ignores our basic nature is doomed to either quick failure or to be taken over by people of less-than-pure motives.
Quite frankly I simply don't buy into the class struggle nonsense. I don't have any jealousy of Gates' billions, I just want a legal system that can clamp down on his gaining it via shady means. I don't want to pick the Rockefellers' pockets, but I think as a society we can do more to help those in economically vulnerable positions. But I don't think that means throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
I see nothing in Communism that is so desirable that I should see it as a reasonable alternative to a mixture of free market capitalism and socialistic safety nets.
Re:Here it is (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Here it is (Score:4, Insightful)
We didn't put the DRM on the content, the provider did, what we are doing is providing the way to get to the content.
Microsoft didn't put the DRM on your Shrek video, but they did give you the software to get at it.
That is totally Mr. Gates' point and I think he makes it well. I don't love his company or his business practices, however I agree with him here. He is not putting the DRM on the content. He is not suing people for getting around it. He is simply implementing the tool.
Re:Why would he do this? (Score:3, Insightful)
He knows exactly what he's doing. It's the same thing that conservatives have successfully done with words like "liberal" and "terrorism". You may not really understand what they are, but you know they're bad, and you know that anything they're stuck to must be bad, as well.
What's the big deal? (Score:2, Insightful)
To sum up what Gates says: 1) There is a need for DRM that comes from the idea that artists should get paid for what they do. 2) M$ get money to wrap content up in that DRM. 3) See you later, I'm going to buy a few more houses.
Re:So what is he? (Score:2, Insightful)
first, i think that you mean pre-lenin'ist, or more correctly, pre-trotsky'ist when you said pre-stalinist. lenin/trotsky drastically improvised in their implementation, and stalin was just a plain old insane, paranoid power-mad dictator. (and the rest of that line were just buffoons)
of course, in the real world, pure communism is just as untenable as pure capitalism, and both extremes are inefficient in their distribution of goods.
a motivation factor, such as greed, does play an important part in human motivation. in a world without scarcity, you can hope that humans could find better motivation than fear of not being able to survive.
as for the "class struggle nonsense", of course there is a class struggle, and there always will be.
the best that you can hope for is to keep the class struggle solely to non-violent tactics, and the way you do this is the social safety nets high enough that the proles are just comfortable enough that they will never consider dying for their economic benefit.
Social Safety nets are, at their core, an insurance policy against violent revolution by the lower classes. Talk of dismantling them, or weakening them to the point where they are no longer effective is foolish and self-destructive.
I have no use for any extreme economic or political system. Rand leads to as many problems as Marx, both are as foolish as the other, and yet both have value to add to any economic discussion.
the answer lies somewhere in the middle, and will constantly be changing.
peace out.
Same old Bill (Score:4, Insightful)
His argument is the same as it always is: If you don't give me your money, you won't be able to do what you want. It's hard to pull that out of that rambling BS piece, but the argument is there. In a nutshell it is, you must accept my DRM or "authors" (I think he really means big media publishers) won't let you have their content. In this case he further's his argument by telling you that you never had the rights you thought you did if the "author" decides you don't have it. Once again, he pretends he wishes to reward others for their work. As usual, he tries to shore it all up with insults, "communist" this time but he's always called his customers "theives". You can see the same arguments from him all the way back in 1976 [blinkenlights.com]
The key quotes are:
What we want is to have as much content as possible available. ... an envelope ... in order to get authors to be willing to put an ever broader range of content on our platform ... there's content that can only be there if it's rights protected ...
DRM is just like a speed bump that reminds you whether you're staying within the scope of rights that you have or you don't.
This is an astoundingly dishonest position at every level. The fact of the mater is that authors ARE putting their work up on the Creative Commons for everyone to use without restrictions. They don't want Mr. Gate's "protection". They want to compete on their merits and publish in a normal, and easy to use way. Surely, authors have enough sense to know that the control they pass onto big publishers through DRM will be lost to them forever. Right now the RIAA can threaten to keep your work off air and out of stores. Can you imagine the power music publisher would have if they could throw a few bits in their database and prevent your music from working anywhere? Not even the big publisher's believe that they will remain in control of their rights if they lend Microsoft their trust.
Mr. Gates and his DRM scheme are not "enablers" of any sort. His and big media's expansion of copyright and other forms of government granted exclusive franchises are the reason we have more consolidated and stagnant media than ever. When you give your money to this man, you hurt your rights in every way. If you use his software, he owns your system. Now he wants to own your media too. No thanks, I do just fine without him or his software.
Re:Here it is (Score:3, Insightful)
I think that Bill Gates was drawing a line and saying in effect "This is a group I am not aligned with. I do many things for many people, but I will never please this group because we are too different.". That idea, I think really put the interview back on target, and Bill didn't sit there trying to pretend that he could make communists like him.
At most I think he was implying that the FSF had a significant element of communists, which may be true considering the involvement of China and India (I know neither of those are communist, but they are pretty far to the left of Americans). I didn't see any evidence that he thinks that using free software implies that you're a communist.
Re:Here it is (Score:1, Insightful)
Did anyone else find that example number to be extremely ridiculous? Speed bumps aren't there to keep you from going 80MPH; they're to screw up your car and jar you to reality if you drive faster than 5MPH. Any faster than that and your car will likely be airborne.
That seem to me more in-line with what DRM is about. Don't want people to listen to your song more than once? No problem! It'll render itself useless after the first listening.
DRM is totalitarianism for the masses. The iron fist for the digital age.
Gates' Problem (Score:3, Insightful)
You have to understand how the proprietary software market works, and why it is fundamentally impossible for a small player to compete with MS, IBM, Oracle, etc. in this environment to understand why Microsoft is so heavily against open source--- the inherent economy of scale of software development inhibits competition.
Free/Open Source Software is partly about liberty, but it is also about a more flexible software development pricing and payment model than one can have with proprietary software. In FOSS, payment for software development is made on demand, while in proprietary software, it is made in arrears to all users whether they want the feature or not. So in both cases, there is economic incentive to create great work. While there are those who believe that intellectual property law is inherently bad, I think that we need to see patent and copyright law for what it is: a temporary lease of public property in return for contribution of the property to the public. Gates seems to understand this in the interview and seems to advocate long terms and large protections as if the value of these contributions demanded it.
However, his viewpoint is nothing compared to the entertainment industry who is unwilling to let any copyrights lapse. They (the content providers, which Microsoft is getting into bed with) are even categorized by Mr. Gates as extremists! This does not give me much hope for Microsoft.
Re:Musicians in China (Score:3, Insightful)
Gates is still out to lunch. I do believe that musicians such as Mozart, Shopin, etc, actually made music without any copyright protections at all! Imagine! The greatest music in the world that has lasted through the ages and not a single bit of it had copyright protection nor DRM. These artists didn't starve either. Imagine that Gates, you candyassed greedy snotnosed bastard.
Re:Here it is (Score:1, Insightful)
Microsoft didn't put the DRM on your Shrek video, but they did give you the software to get at it.
Re:Here it is (Score:4, Insightful)
Ya, I know I can rip DVD's using DVDShrink. However, would that have been possible if someone hadn't cracked the CSS on the disks? Do you think that the authors of the DVDShrink program recieved a license from the controlling organization of that system in order to distribute, for free, a program that lets you rip movies from an encrypted disk? Do you think the movie industry wants to let you backup your disks, or do you think they'd rather have you destroy/rebuy the movie every time something bad happens?
Perhaps I'm not thinking of the program you're refering to. Maybe we're talking about the Movie Maker program in XP? Didn't think that one would let you sample a DVD for inclusion in another presentation, but I haven't tried. How about something else?
For what it's worth, it's my belief that such programs as DVDShrink violate the DMCA as they break the encryption that is intended to protect the content. Frankly, I don't care as I see the DMCA as an overreaching law that forbids fair use and blocks content that is encrypted from ever being brought into the public domain (how can you get it out if cracking the encryption is a crime?). That's another argument, though.
No, Microsoft didn't tell the member of the MPAA that they needed to use CSS encoded DVDs to distribute such movies as Shrek. However, they did their part in implimenting that standard. As I understand, they are also seeking to encourage the music industry right now that the WMA format with it's DRM (a feature available before the content is encoded in it) is a secure way to distribute their content. Know what that means? Microsoft is leading that push, not the content creators.
Microsoft certainly cannot encourage companies that it's implimentation of DRM is safe and effective if they provide programs that enable fair use (which they don't). It sure would be nice if they would, but I won't hold my breath waiting for the computer industry and the content industry to come to an agreement regarding the proper implimentation of the conflicting notions of software-enforced copyright protection and fair use.
Re:So what is he? (Score:3, Insightful)
the pre-conditions for communism to arise are not met. there is not a surplus of necessities. we simply can not feed/cloth/house everyone. scarcity still exists, and as such, communism is an inefficient economic system.
I'm not sure that this is a given. Much of the scarcity in the U.S. is artificial. We pay farmers not to grow crops. Much of can also be attributed to inefficient distribution of resources. 20% of the wealth is in the hands of 1% of the populace. If the world were to devote it's resources to feeding, clothing, housing, and educating every man woman and child I have little doubt that there would sufficient resources for the task.
This is, however, very unlikely to happen. Individuals covet power over others, and personal benefits over helping others and fairness. I think it is important to note that a balance of capitalism and socialism is probably the ideal productive environment. The difference between the communist and capitalism models is basically the difference between competition and collaboration. Competition drives people to prove themselves, but collaboration allows the sharing of resources and brain-power. The trick is finding the right balance of the two for any given goal.
My personal guess is that collaboration to provide the basics for survival and collaboration within small groups that compete with each other for more scarce resources is probably the most harmonious yet still productive combination. It may be, however, that collaboration on the scale of communities, or even countries is more manageable, or efficient for larger projects. Pretty much anyone who lectures me about the virtues of either capitalism or communism over the other strikes me as the kind of polarized thinker that would assert that either competition or collaboration is always the best. Extremists always get a little blinded by their convictions if for no reason other than to defend their egos.
Re:So what is he? (Score:3, Insightful)
> scientific theory, which carries a lot more weight
> than the common man's definition of "theory."
> Presenting it as just some unproven concept is
> absurd.
And reflects the core problem with science education in much of the Western world, as Joe Average doesn't even seem to know what is meant by the term "scientific theory" and is thus easily duped by what should be obvious Fundementalist Christian stunts like placing such stickers on textbooks.
> nfortunately, the neocons have clearly
> demonstrated their ability to market to the
> proles. The direction the US is going scares
> me..
I'll take a wait and see attitude. The US has been down this sort of road before, and managed to some degree to come to its senses. If the US continues to pursue its current domestic and international strategies, then I think the end result will be the eroding of its power, and since nature abhors a vacuum, other powers will accumulate what the US loses.
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Musicians in China (Score:3, Insightful)