At SXSW I met my nemesis: the number one "Ernie" on Google. And the meeting was captured on film. I have to say, he was very nice, and I think he deserves the Google status. Of course, I think that Ernie's House of Whoopass, which is now like fifth or sixth, is pretty cool too. One day, if all goes right, we will have a picture of the three of us togther.
I wasn't there for his speech, and neither was Cory Doctorow. But he knows someone who was and offers this post. Gist of the speech? The original copyright bargain was (1) public gives up right to freely copy, but (2) gets benefit of more output from people who will produce. Public wasn't giving up that much under part (1) because copying wasn't easy to do anyway (very few homes had printing presses in the late 1800s and early 1900s).
But computers make copying easy and now everyone can copy. Except that the government pressure is all about locking down what's easy. Stallman says it's time to renegotiate the deal.
Oh, wait, much better analysis by David Weinberger here. Dr. Weinberger is giving the opening remarks for SXSW today at 2 pm.
