[Foundation-l] Baidupedia copyvio collections

[Ray Saintonge]

Robert Stojnic wrote:
> Dan, your comment about infringement as theft is relevant only for 
> western societies. AFAIK, in China, there is a booming internet market, 
> that is both aggressive and in search for its own identity and market 
> share. Copyright is seen as one of those bad western thingies, that west 
> nicely uses to drain China even more (lets not forget - the reason why 
> you can buy stuff so cheaply in US is that some Chinese guy is working 
> his butt off). So, it is controversial who steals what and from whom. My 
> personal POV is that we steal from China far much more than they manage 
> to steal from us. I personally think we should respect the specificities 
> of the Chinese situation, and help create free knowledge and build 
> cooperation, instead of trying to enforce western laws.
If you are going to build an analysis on the notion of theft and law 
enforcement, you also need to acknowledge that the concepts of "market" 
and "market share" are also a part of western capitalist thought. 

My aim is not to enforce western laws as an end in themselves, but I 
have no compunctions about using those laws as a tool. Free licences can 
also be viewed as tools for achieving free knowledge.  If we really want 
knowledge to be free we have to stop treating it as a market commodity. 
Once it belongs to everybody it's no longer stealable.

Ec