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Правото да четеш

от Ричард Столмън

Съдържние

• Бележка на автора
• Препратки
• Други текстове за четене

Тази статия се публикува за първи път във февруарския брой на списанието Communications of the ACM (том 40, брой 2).

(от Пътят към Тихо - сборник статии за причините за Лунарната революция, публикуван в град Луна през 2096 г.)

За Дан Халбърт пътят към Тихо започна в университета, когато Лиса Ленц го помоли да й услужи с компютъра си. Нейният се бе счупил и ако не заемеше друг, щеше да се провали с проекта си за семестъра. Нямаше никой друг, който тя да се осмели да помоли за това, освен Дан.

Това постави голяма дилема пред Дан. Той трябваше да й помогне, но ако й дадеше компютъра, тя можеше да прочете книгите му. Да оставим настрана факта, че да оставиш някой да ти чете книгите, значеше че можеха да те вкарат в затвора за дълги години -- самата идея да й услужи го шокира отначало. Както всички други и него му бяха повтаряли още от начлното училище, че да споделяш книги е нещо отвратително и лошо -- нещо, което правят само пиратите.

Нямаше и голям шанс да не бъде хванат от АЗС -- Агенцията за защита на софтуера. В лекциите по програмиране Дан научи, че всяка книга има датчик, който докладва кога, къде и от кого е била четена на Учреждението за централно лицензиране. (Те използвха тази информация, за да хващат четящите пирати, но и също така извличаха данни за личните интереси на хората и ги продаваха на търговците). Следващия път като влезеше в мрежат и Централното лицензиране щеше да разбере, а той като собственик на компютъра щеше да получи най-тежкото наказние, че не е направил всичко по силите му да предотврати престъплението.

Естествено, не беше сигурно, че Лиса искаше да чете от книгите му. Тя можеше просто да иска компютъра, за да си напише проекта. Дан обаче знаеше, че тя идваше от семейство от средната класа и едва съумяваше да си плати училищните такси, да не говорим за вноските за четене. Да чете от неговите книги може би беше единствения начин да завърши. Той много добре рзбираше положението й -- на него му се бе наложило да вземе кредит, за да може да плати за всички научни статии, които четеше. (10% от таксите за статиите отиваха за изследователите, които пишеха статиите. Понеже Дан също се стремеше към академична кариера, той се надяваше, неговите собствени изследвания да бъдат често цитирани и така евентуално да съумее да плати заема си.)

По-късно Дан щеше да научи, че е имало време, когто всеки е можел да отиде в библиотека и да чете статии от нучни журнали и даже книги без да му се налага да плаща. Имало е независими учени, които са чели хиляди страници, без да им се е налагало да имат държавни субсидии. Но през 90-те години на 20 век But in the 1990s, both commercial and nonprofit journal publishers had begun charging fees for access. By 2047, libraries offering free public access to scholarly literature were a dim memory.

Естестено имаше начини да заобиколиш АЗС и Централното лицензиране, но те бяха незаконни. Дан имаше състудент в лекциите по прогрмиране -- Франк Мартучи, който се бе сдобил с незаконен инструмент за изчистване на грешки -- дебъгер и го използваше да изключва код за следене на авторските права, когато четеше. Той беше казал на прекалено мноого приятели за това и един от тях го редаде на АЗС за награда (студентите, които са затънали в дългове лесно се изкушават да станат предатели). През 2047г. Франк бе в затвора, не заради пиратско четене, а заради притежанието на дебъгер.

По-късно Дан щеше да научи, че е имало време, когато всеки е можел да притежав инструменти за изчистване на грешки. Дори е имало свободни и безплатни подобни инструменти, които са били достъпни на CD или за изтегляне по мрежата. Някои от обикновените потребители били почнали да ги зиползват, за да деактивират кода за наблюдение на авторски права и най-накрая един съдия решил, че това на рактика се е оказала оснавната им употреба. Това означавало, че били незаконни, а разработчиците на дебъгери били пратени в затвора.

Прогрмистите продължавали д се нуждаят от инструменти за изчистване на грешки, което било в ред н нещата, но производителите на дебъгери през 2047г. разпространявали ограничен борй копия, всяко с идентификационенн номер и то само на официално лицензираните и официално заклети програмисти. Дебъгерът, който използваха в чсовете на Дан бе поставен зд специална защитна стена, за да бъде исползван единствено и само за упражненията в университета.

It was also possible to bypass the copyright monitors by installing a modified system kernel. Dan would eventually find out about the free kernels, even entire free operating systems, that had existed around the turn of the century. But not only were they illegal, like debuggers--you could not install one if you had one, without knowing your computer's root password. And neither the FBI nor Microsoft Support would tell you that.

Dan concluded that he couldn't simply lend Lissa his computer. But he couldn't refuse to help her, because he loved her. Every chance to speak with her filled him with delight. And that she chose him to ask for help, that could mean she loved him too.

Dan resolved the dilemma by doing something even more unthinkable--he lent her the computer, and told her his password. This way, if Lissa read his books, Central Licensing would think he was reading them. It was still a crime, but the SPA would not automatically find out about it. They would only find out if Lissa reported him.

Of course, if the school ever found out that he had given Lissa his own password, it would be curtains for both of them as students, regardless of what she had used it for. School policy was that any interference with their means of monitoring students' computer use was grounds for disciplinary action. It didn't matter whether you did anything harmful--the offense was making it hard for the administrators to check on you. They assumed this meant you were doing something else forbidden, and they did not need to know what it was.

Students were not usually expelled for this--not directly. Instead they were banned from the school computer systems, and would inevitably fail all their classes.

Later, Dan would learn that this kind of university policy started only in the 1980s, when university students in large numbers began using computers. Previously, universities maintained a different approach to student discipline; they punished activities that were harmful, not those that merely raised suspicion.

Lissa did not report Dan to the SPA. His decision to help her led to their marriage, and also led them to question what they had been taught about piracy as children. The couple began reading about the history of copyright, about the Soviet Union and its restrictions on copying, and even the original United States Constitution. They moved to Luna, where they found others who had likewise gravitated away from the long arm of the SPA. When the Tycho Uprising began in 2062, the universal right to read soon became one of its central aims.

Бележка на автора

This note was updated in 2002.

The right to read is a battle being fought today. Although it may take 50 years for our present way of life to fade into obscurity, most of the specific laws and practices described above have already been proposed; many have been enacted into law in the US and elsewhere. In the US, the 1998 Digital Millenium Copyright Act established the legal basis to restrict the reading and lending of computerized books (and other data too). The European Union imposed similar restrictions in a 2001 copyright directive.

Until recently, there was one exception: the idea that the FBI and Microsoft will keep the root passwords for personal computers, and not let you have them, was not proposed until 2002. It is called "trusted computing" or "palladium".

In 2001, Disney-funded Senator Hollings proposed a bill called the SSSCA that would require every new computer to have mandatory copy-restriction facilities that the user cannot bypass. Following the Clipper chip and similar US government key-escrow proposals, this shows a long-term trend: computer systems are increasingly set up to give absentees with clout control over the people actually using the computer system. The SSSCA has since been renamed to the CBDTPA (think of it as the "Consume But Don't Try Programming Act").

In 2001 the US began attempting to use the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas treaty to impose the same rules on all the countries in the Western Hemisphere. The FTAA is one of the so-called "free trade" treaties, actually designed to give business increased power over democratic governments; imposing laws like the DMCA is typical of this spirit. The Electronic Frontier Foundation asks people to explain to the other governments why they should oppose this plan.

The SPA, which actually stands for Software Publisher's Association, has been replaced in this police-like role by the BSA or Business Software Alliance. It is not, today, an official police force; unofficially, it acts like one. Using methods reminiscent of the erstwhile Soviet Union, it invites people to inform on their coworkers and friends. A BSA terror campaign in Argentina in 2001 made veiled threats that people sharing software would be raped in prison.

When this story was written, the SPA was threatening small Internet service providers, demanding they permit the SPA to monitor all users. Most ISPs surrender when threatened, because they cannot afford to fight back in court. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 1 Oct 96, D3.) At least one ISP, Community ConneXion in Oakland CA, refused the demand and was actually sued. The SPA later dropped the suit, but obtained the DMCA which gave them the power they sought.

The university security policies described above are not imaginary. For example, a computer at one Chicago-area university prints this message when you log in (quotation marks are in the original):

"This system is for the use of authorized users only. Individuals using this computer system without authority or in the excess of their authority are subject to having all their activities on this system monitored and recorded by system personnel. In the course of monitoring individuals improperly using this system or in the course of system maintenance, the activities of authorized user may also be monitored. Anyone using this system expressly consents to such monitoring and is advised that if such monitoring reveals possible evidence of illegal activity or violation of University regulations system personnel may provide the evidence of such monitoring to University authorities and/or law enforcement officials."

This is an interesting approach to the Fourth Amendment: pressure most everyone to agree, in advance, to waive their rights under it.

Препратки

• The administration's "White Paper": Information Infrastructure Task Force, Intellectual Property and the National Information Infrastructure: The Report of the Working Group on Intellectual Property Rights (1995).
• An explanation of the White Paper: The Copyright Grab, Pamela Samuelson, Wired, Jan. 1996
• Sold Out, James Boyle, New York Times, 31 March 1996
• Public Data or Private Data, Washington Post, 4 Nov 1996. We used to have a link to this, but Washinton Post has decided to start charging users who wishes to read articles on the web site and therefore we have decided to remove the link.
• Union for the Public Domain--an organization which aims to resist and reverse the overextension of copyright and patent powers.

This essay is published in Free Software, Free Society: The Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman.

Други текстове за четене

• Philosophy of the GNU Project
• Copy Protection: Just Say No Published in Computer World.

The author's note talks about the battle for the right to read and electronic surveillance. The battle is beginning now; here are links to two articles about technologies now being developed to deny you the right to read.

• Electronic Publishing: An article about distribution of books in electronic form, and copyright issues affecting the right to read a copy.
• Books inside Computers: Software to control who can read books and documents on a PC.