In Accordance with the Telecomix Internaut Act of 2010.
Dear Mr. Pagrotsky of the Social Democrats of Sweden,
this is an open letter sent by the Werebuild.eu and Telecomix organizations.
It has come to our knowledge that you are planning to have a dialogue with certain companies of the so called “Creative Industries”. One among them is Voddler, a streaming video provider, which recently has been running into some trouble with the Internet community. Being forced to close by the media industry only a few days ago, Voddler today opens again, running new software. Now is the time to protect the openness on the internet, once again.
We understand your will to promote “legal alternatives”. However, we must inform you that some of these companies are a threat to both intellectual property and to the openness of the Internet as a whole. Voddler breaks the rules of the internet and the laws of copyright.
The fantastic growth and development of the Internet has been made possible by the use of open software licenses and open standards and protocols. Even the simplest data transmission in the networks is dependent on protocols that are in the public domain. Without this, we would not have Internet as we know it today, only closed corporate networks. The future does not lie in previous century copyright, but in community licenses and open standards.
One of these open licenses is the GNU General Public License (GPL). By using GPL-licensed source code you commit to sharing any improvements to that code in the same manner, and sharing the very code you actually use in your own program. As it was revealed that Voddler broke these very fundamental principles of the GPL, the Internet community protested loudly. It is rather ironic when corporations, backed up by conglomerates who file innumerable complaints concerning intellectual property infringements also perpetrate the very same act.
Violations to Free Software licenses have been on the rise in recent times. During the 2005 CeBit conference, 13 companies were served with injunctions regarding their abuse of Free Software licenses.
Because of the large capital required to push an infringement case through court, these violations are seldom punished. The corporations, hungry for ever more quick money from the stock market investors, will not respect the openness needed for the Internet to flourish and benefit human communication.
Market actors who only demand respect for copyright when it suits their purposes can not be tolerated as political visionaries.
Mr. Pagrotsky – You should invite actors from the communities of the Internet, not only its corporations. There is a fantastic world of open software and culture out there, just waiting to enrich our daily lives.
From 15:00 CET we will today answer questions in our Press Room.
Best regards,
/ werebuild.eu and telecomix.org
Further references
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voddler#Source_Code_Copyright_Violation_Concerns
http://getsatisfaction.com/voddler/topics/gpl_and_voddlerplayer_exe
http://darkreverser.wordpress.com/
