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Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Copyfight: EFF Co-Founder Enters e-G8 ‘Lion’s Den,’ Rips Into Lions | Threat Level | Wired.com

Copyfight: EFF Co-Founder Enters e-G8 ‘Lion’s Den,’ Rips Into Lions | Threat Level | Wired.com: When Barlow had a chance to speak, he expressed his own surprise at being on the panel, “because I don’t think I’m from the same planet, actually.” He then proceeded to trash the foundational assumptions of everyone who had just spoken.

I may be one of very few people in this room who actually makes his living personally by creating what these gentlemen are pleased to call “intellectual property.” I don’t regard my expression as a form of property. Property is something that can be taken from me. If I don’t have it, somebody else does.

Expression is not like that. The notion that expression is like that is entirely a consequence of taking a system of expression and transporting it around, which was necessary before there was the internet, which has the capacity to do this infinitely at almost no cost.