[WikiEN-l] Watch out Wikipedia, here comes Britannica 2.0

[Jussi-Ville Heiskanen]

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
> Gwern Branwen wrote:
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>> On Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 12:20 AM,   wrote:
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>>   
>>> In a message dated 1/21/2009 9:17:31 PM Pacific Standard Time,
>>> larsen.thomas.h at gmail.com writes:
>>>
>>> What evidence do you have that an encyclopedia must be free?
>>>
>>> Society has existed for a few thousand years without a free  encyclopedia.
>>>     
>>
>> A statement trivially true. Society has also existed for a few
>> thousand years without copyright, period.
>>
>>   
>

No, not period. There is much more to be said on this
subject.

For instance that simian society has always had ways
of restricting access to intellectual property, not
limited to intentional obfuscation, initiatory methods
of knowledge access, and going all the way to the level
of intentionally making the information transmitted
faulty, just so you would have to make the leap of
intellectual discovery as to what precise way the
mechanism in question worked. Copyright *did* in fact
enable people to spell out in full detail what they had
discovered, because they had a reasonable expectation
that even if they didn't only pass on their knowledge to
their apprentices, somebody would protect their ability
to milk it for all it was worth...

Not arguing the ethics at all, but look at what you are
doing at the moment. Are you willing to give all you have
...


Yours,

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen