Dwarfs Giants Shoulders Carried – Discovering truth by building on previous discoveries – As Newton said: “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”
The Vision
Information – communication, knowledge, ideas, books, software, music, etc. – forms the basis of the economy and our prosperity. Illiteracy causes discrimination, crime and terrorism. Knowledge contributes to the development of humanity. Stimulating this progress must be our highest goal. Freedom of information offers opportunities for prosperity for those who are now dominated by despair.
If the disadvantaged of today are developed and if we open the locks on knowledge – and forbid the locks – then we can work together with the entire world population with unprecedented intensity on the progress of humanity.
You could see it this way: we develop medicines faster so that we don’t die from the disease. Working on progress is not only social but also everyone’s self-interest. That awareness must be cultivated socially.
On the other hand, there are companies that lobby – in The Hague, Brussels and everywhere – to place locks on knowledge, in order to promote their own interests at the expense of the community. This practice has a name: “rent seeking”. Information is deprived of its usefulness through DRM, patents and excessive copyright. This is at the expense of the progress of humanity, which is harming all of us. Sometimes the lobbyists are naively selfish, sometimes they deliberately use lies to mislead politicians and officials. The practices of these organizations must become more public and politicians must also hear the other side of the story.
Free market forces and fierce competition based on price and quality – within the limits of the law and within the limits of the social – is the proven concept of prosperity. Both copyright and patents by definition disrupt free market forces – after all, you get a monopoly from the government – and should be limited to proportions that serve society to the maximum .
(source: Kevin Carter)