http://educate-yourself.org/lte/freedomofknowledge21oct04.shtml

----- Original Message -----
From: Daniel Connolly <daniel.connolly@anu.edu.au>
To: Editor@educate-yourself.org
Sent: Thursday, October 21, 2004 12:50 AM
Subject: freedom of knowledge?

Do you find your website motto "The Freedom of Knowledge, The Power of Thought ©" a little ironic having that copyright symbol tacked on the end? If you were truly about freedom of knowledge wouldn't you oppose the idea of copyright? It is almost rather funny to say "we believe in freedom of knowledge, but you can't use this slogan we've just made up because we own it..." It seems a little conflicting.
just a thought....

----- Original Message -----
From: Editor
To: Daniel Connolly
Sent: Thursday, October 21, 2004 9:18 AM
Subject: Re: freedom of knowledge?

Dear Daniel,

Really? Have you ever had an original idea stolen from you? I've had plenty stolen from me and I'm getting a little tired of it.

See how YOU feel when you hatch an original idea, take a few weeks to polish a presentation into a carefully written article and then a while later, come upon a web site or newsletter that has stolen every word you wrote-verbatim, eliminated your name and web site, and took credit for the piece as if it was their own creation. You have people in New Zealand who have a habit of doing that with my material.

It's easy for armchair philosophers to wax poetically about freedom when they are immune from the consequences of their suggestions.

It's also easy to confuse freedom with unlimited behavior. For example, you COULD argue that you are entitled to the 'freedom' to shoot your neighbor, but society would have something to say about your expression of 'freedom' and rightfully punish you. Same goes for plagiarism. It's thievery to steal someone's else's original ideas. Copyrighting your material is the only legal manner in which you can establish protection of your claim to original authorship. It does NOT prevent you from reading the material, an elementary consideration that you have obviously overlooked.

Preach to me after you've gone through the experience of being robbed of your original material a few times and then let's see how your opinion holds up.

Sincerely, Ken