<!--#include virtual="/server/header.html" --> <!-- Parent-Version:1.771.96 --> <!-- This page is derived from /server/standards/boilerplate.html --> <!--#set var="TAGS" value="essays cultural access" --> <!--#set var="DISABLE_TOP_ADDENDUM" value="yes" --> <title>The Right to Read - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation</title> <style type="text/css" media="print,screen"><!-- .announcement { text-align: center; box-sizing: border-box; background: #f5f5f5; border-left: .4em solid #5c5; border-right: .4em solid #5c5; border-top: .1em solid #5c5; border-bottom: .1em solid #5c5; margin: 2.5em auto; } #AuthorsNote ul, #AuthorsNote li { margin: 0; } #AuthorsNote li p { margin: 1em 0; } .emph-box { background: #f7f7f7; border-color: #e74c3c; } #AuthorsNote p.emph-box { margin: 1em 6%; } #BadNews li p { text-indent: -.8em; } #BadNews li p:before { content: "\021D2"; display: inline; position: relative; right: .5em; } #BadNews p.emph-box { margin: 2.5em 6% 1em; } @media (min-width: 55em) { #AuthorsNote .columns > p:first-child, #AuthorsNote li p.inline-block { margin-top: 0; } .update { font-style: italic; text-align: center; } .table { display: table; } .table-cell { display: table-cell; width: 50%; vertical-align: middle; } .left { padding-right: .75em; } .right { padding-left: .75em; } }--> <!--#if expr="$RTL_SCRIPT = yes" --> <!-- @media (min-width: 55em) { .left { padding-left: .75em; padding-right: 0; } .right { padding-right: .75em; padding-left: 0; } }--> <!--#endif --> </style> <!--#include virtual="/philosophy/po/right-to-read.translist" --> <!--#include virtual="/server/banner.html" --><h2>The<!--#include virtual="/philosophy/ph-breadcrumb.html" --> <!--GNUN: OUT-OF-DATE NOTICE--> <!--#include virtual="/server/top-addendum.html" --> <div class="article"> <h2 class="center">The Right to Read</h2><p><address class="byline center"> by <ahref="http://www.stallman.org/"><strong>Richard Stallman</strong></a></p> <blockquote class="note"> <p><a href="http://defectivebydesign.org/ebooks.html">Join our mailing list about the dangers of eBooks</a>.</p> </blockquote> <p> <em>This article appeared in the February 1997 issue of <strong>Communications of the ACM</strong> (Volume 40, Number 2).</em></p> <blockquote><p>href="https://www.stallman.org/">Richard Stallman</a></address> <p class="infobox c"> From <cite>The Road To Tycho</cite>, a collection of articles about the antecedents of the Lunarian Revolution, published in Luna City in 2096.</p></blockquote></p> <hr class="thin" /> <div class="columns"> <p> For Dan Halbert, the road to Tycho began in college—when Lissa Lenz asked to borrow his computer. Hers had broken down, and unless she could borrow another, she would fail her midterm project. There was no one she dared ask, except Dan.</p> <p> This put Dan in a dilemma. He had to help her—but if he lent her his computer, she might read his books. Aside from the fact that you could go to prison for many years for letting someone else read your books, the very idea shocked him at first. Like everyone, he had been taught since elementary school that sharing books was nasty and wrong—something that only pirates would do.</p> <p> And there wasn't much chance that the SPA—the Software Protection Authority—would fail to catch him. In his software class, Dan had learned that each book had a copyright monitor that reported when and where it was read, and by whom, to Central Licensing. (They used this information to catch reading pirates, but also to sell personal interest profiles to retailers.) The next time his computer was networked, Central Licensing would find out. He, as computer owner, would receive the harshest punishment—for not taking pains to prevent the crime.</p> <p> Of course, Lissa did not necessarily intend to read his books. She might want the computer only to write her midterm. But Dan knew she came from a middle-class family and could hardly afford the tuition, let alone her reading fees. Reading his books might be the only way she could graduate. He understood this situation; he himself had had to borrow to pay for all the research papers he read. (Ten percent of those fees went to the researchers who wrote the papers; since Dan aimed for an academic career, he could hope that his own research papers, if frequently referenced, would bring in enough to repay this loan.)</p> </div> <div class="column-limit"></div> <div class="columns"> <p> Later on, Dan would learn there was a time when anyone could go to the library and read journal articles, and even books, without having to pay. There were independent scholars who read thousands of pages without government library grants. But in the 1990s, both commercial and nonprofit journal publishers had begun charging fees for access. By 2047, libraries offering free public access to scholarly literature were a dim memory.</p> <p> There were ways, of course, to get around the SPA and Central Licensing. They were themselves illegal. Dan had had a classmate in software, Frank Martucci, who had obtained an illicit debugging tool, and used it to skip over the copyright monitor code when reading books. But he had told too many friends about it, and one of them turned him in to the SPA for a reward (students deep in debt were easily tempted into betrayal). In 2047, Frank was in prison, not for pirate reading, but for possessing a debugger.</p> <p> Dan would later learn that there was a time when anyone could have debugging tools. There were even free debugging tools available on CD or downloadable over the net. But ordinary users started using them to bypass copyright monitors, and eventually a judge ruled that this had become their principal use in actual practice. This meant they were illegal; the debuggers' developers were sent to prison.</p> <p> Programmers still needed debugging tools, of course, but debugger vendors in 2047 distributed numbered copies only, and only to officially licensed and bonded programmers. The debugger Dan used in software class was kept behind a special firewall so that it could be used only for class exercises.</p> <p> It was also possible to bypass the copyright monitors by installing a modified system kernel. Dan would eventually find out about the free kernels, even entire free operating systems, that had existed around the turn of the century. But not only were they illegal, like debuggers—you could not install one if you had one, without knowing your computer's root password. And neither the<abbr title="Federal Bureau of Investigation">FBI</abbr>FBI nor Microsoft Support would tell you that.</p> </div> <div class="column-limit"></div> <div class="columns"> <p> Dan concluded that he couldn't simply lend Lissa his computer. But he couldn't refuse to help her, because he loved her. Every chance to speak with her filled him with delight. And that she chose him to ask for help, that could mean she loved him too.</p> <p> Dan resolved the dilemma by doing something even more unthinkable—he lent her the computer, and told her his password. This way, if Lissa read his books, Central Licensing would think he was reading them. It was still a crime, but the SPA would not automatically find out about it. They would only find out if Lissa reported him.</p> <p> Of course, if the school ever found out that he had given Lissa his own password, it would be curtains for both of them as students, regardless of what she had used it for. School policy was that any interference with their means of monitoring students' computer use was grounds for disciplinary action. It didn't matter whether you did anything harmful—the offense was making it hard for the administrators to check on you. They assumed this meant you were doing something else forbidden, and they did not need to know what it was.</p> <p> Students were not usually expelled for this—not directly. Instead they were banned from the school computer systems, and would inevitably fail all their classes.</p> <p> Later, Dan would learn that this kind of university policy started only in the 1980s, when university students in large numbers began using computers. Previously, universities maintained a different approach to student discipline; they punished activities that were harmful, not those that merely raised suspicion.</p> </div> <div class="column-limit"></div> <div class="columns"> <p> Lissa did not report Dan to the SPA. His decision to help her led to their marriage, and also led them to question what they had been taught about piracy as children. The couple began reading about the history of copyright, about the Soviet Union and its restrictions on copying, and even the original United States Constitution. They moved to Luna, where they found others who had likewise gravitated away from the long arm of the SPA. When the Tycho Uprising began in 2062, the universal right to read soon became one of its central aims.</p><h3 id="AuthorsNote">Author's</div> <div class="announcement reduced-width comment" role="complementary"> <hr class="no-display" /> <p><a href="https://www.defectivebydesign.org/ebooks.html"> Join our mailing list about the dangers of e-books</a>.</p> <hr class="no-display" /> </div> <div id="AuthorsNote"> <h3>Author's Notes</h3><ul> <li>This<ul class="no-bullet"> <li> <div class="reduced-width"> <p>This story is supposedly a historical article that will be written in the future by someone else, describing Dan Halbert's youth under a repressive society shaped by theenemiesunjust forces that use “pirate” as propaganda. So it uses the terminology of that society. I have tried to project itfrom today so as to sound evenforwards into something more visibly oppressive. See <a href="/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Piracy">“Piracy”</a>. </p> </div> <div class="column-limit"></div> </li> <li> <div class="reduced-width"> <p>Computer-enforced restrictions on lending or reading books (and other kinds of published works) are known as DRM, short for “Digital Restrictions Management.” To eliminate DRM, the Free Software Foundation has established the <a href="https://www.defectivebydesign.org/">Defective by Design</a> campaign. We ask for your support.</p> <p>The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a separate organization not related to the Free Software Foundation, also campaigns against DRM.</p> </div> <div class="column-limit"></div> </li> </ul> <p class="update"> The following note has been updated several times since the first publication of the story.</p> <ul class="no-bullet"> <li> <div class="columns"> <p> The battle for the right to read isa battlealready beingfought today.fought. Although it may take 50 years for ourpresent way of lifepast freedoms to fade into obscurity, most of the specific repressive laws and practices described above have already been proposed;manysome have been enacted into law in the US and elsewhere. In the US, the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)established the legal basisgave explicit government backing torestrictthereading and lending of computerized books (and other workscomputer-enforced restrictions known aswell).DRM, by making the distribution of programs that can break DRM a crime. The European Union imposed similar restrictions in a 2001 copyrightdirective. In France, under the DADVSI law adopteddirective, in2006, mere possession of a copy of DeCSS, the free program to decrypt video on a DVD, is a crime.</p> <p> In 2001, Disney-funded Senator Hollings proposed a bill called the SSSCA that would require every new computer to have mandatory copy-restriction facilities that the user cannot bypass. Following the Clipper chip and similar US government key-escrow proposals, this showsalong-term trend: computer systems are increasingly set up to give absentees with clout control over the people actually using the computer system. The SSSCA was later renamed to the unpronounceable CBDTPA, which was glossedform not quite asthe “Consume But Don't Try Programming Act”. </p>strong.</p> <p> TheRepublicans took control of the US senate shortly thereafter. They are less tied to Hollywood than the Democrats, so they did not press these proposals. Now that the Democrats are back in control, the danger is once again higher.</p> <p> In 2001 theUSbegan attempting to use the proposed “Free Trade” Area of the Americas (FTAA) treatycampaigns to imposethe samesuch rules onallthecountries in the Western Hemisphere. The FTAA is onerest of the world through so-calledfree trade treaties, which“free trade” treaties. <a href="https://stallman.org/business-supremacy-treaties.html"> Business-supremacy treaties</a> is a more fitting term for them, since they areactuallydesigned to give businessincreased powerdominion over nominally democraticgovernments; imposing laws like the DMCAstates. The DMCA's policy of criminalizing programs that break DRM istypicalone ofthis spirit. The FTAA was effectively killed by Lula, Presidentmany unjust policies that these treaties impose across a wide range ofBrazil, who rejected the DMCA requirement and others.</p>fields.</p> <p>Since then, theThe US has imposedsimilarDMCA requirements oncountries such as AustraliaAustralia, Panama, Colombia andMexicoSouth Korea through bilateral“free trade”agreements, and on countries such as Costa Rica through another treaty, CAFTA.Ecuador's President Correa refused to sign a “free trade” agreementObama has escalated the campaign with two new proposed treaties, theUS, but I've heard Ecuador had adopted something likeTPP and theDMCATTIP. The TPP would impose the DMCA, along with many other wrongs, on 12 countries on the Pacific Ocean. The TTIP would impose similar strictures on Europe. All these treaties must be defeated, or abolished.</p> <p> Even the World Wide Web Consortium has fallen under the shadow of the copyright industry; it is on the verge of approving a DRM system as an official part of the web specifications.</p> </div> <div class="column-limit"></div> </li> <li> <div class="table"> <div class="table-cell left"> <p class="emph-box"> Nonfree software tends to have <a href="/proprietary/">abusive features of many kinds</a>, which lead to the conclusion that <a href="/philosophy/free-software-even-more-important.html">you can never trust a nonfree program</a>. We must insist on free (libre) software only, and reject nonfree programs.</p> </div> <p class="table-cell right"> With Windows Vista, Microsoft admitted it had built in2003.</p>a back door: Microsoft can use it to forcibly install software “upgrades,” even if users consider them rather to be downgrades. It can also order all machines running Vista to refuse to run a certain device driver. The main purpose of Vista's clampdown on users was to impose DRM that users can't overcome. Of course, Windows 10 is no better.</p> </div> <div class="column-limit"></div> </li> <li> <div class="columns"> <p> One of the ideas in the story was not proposed in reality until 2002. This is the idea that the<abbr>FBI</abbr>FBI and Microsoft will keep the root passwords for your personal computers, and not let you have them.</p> <p> The proponents of this schemehave given itgave early versions names such as “trusted computing” and“Palladium”. We call it <a href="/philosophy/can-you-trust.html">“treacherous computing”</a> because the effect is to make your computer obey companies even to the extent of disobeying and defying you. This was implemented in 2007“Palladium,” but aspart of <a href="http://badvista.org/">Windows Vista</a>; we expect Apple to do something similar. In this scheme,ultimately put into use, it isthe manufacturer that keeps the secret code, but the <abbr>FBI</abbr> would have little trouble getting it.</p>called “secure boot.”</p> <p> What Microsoft keeps is not exactly a password in the traditional sense; no person ever types it on a terminal. Rather, it is a signature and encryption key that corresponds to a second key stored in your computer. This enables Microsoft, and potentially any web sites that cooperate with Microsoft, the ultimate control over what the user can do onhisper owncomputer.</p> <p> Vista also gives Microsoft additional powers; for instance,computer. Microsoftcan forcibly install upgrades, and it can order all machines running Vista to refuse to run a certain device driver. The main purpose of Vista's many restrictionsis likely toimpose DRM (Digital Restrictions Management)use thatusers can't overcome. The threatcontrol on behalf ofDRM is why we have establishedthe FBI when asked: it already <ahref="http://DefectiveByDesign.org"> Defective by Design</a> campaign.</p>href="/proprietary/malware-microsoft.html">shows the NSA security bugs in Windows</a> to exploit.</p> <p>WhenSecure boot can be implemented in a way that permits the user to specify the signature key and decide what software to sign. In practice, PCs designed for Windows 10 carry only Microsoft's key, and whether the machine's owner can install any other system (such as GNU/Linux) is under Microsoft's control. We call this <em>restricted boot</em>.</p> </div> <div class="column-limit"></div> </li> <li> <div class="columns"> <p> In 1997, when this story was firstwritten,published, the SPA was threatening small Internet service providers, demanding they permit the SPA to monitor all users. Most ISPs surrendered when threatened, because theycannotcould not afford to fight back in court. One ISP, Community ConneXion in Oakland, California, refused the demand and was actually sued. The SPA later dropped the suit, butobtainedtheDMCA, whichDMCA gavethemit the powertheyit sought.</p> <p> The SPA, which actually stands for Software Publishers Association, has been replaced in its police-like role by the Business Software Alliance. The BSA is not, today, an official police force; unofficially, it acts like one. Using methods reminiscent of the erstwhile Soviet Union, it invites people to inform on their coworkers and friends. A BSA terror campaign in Argentina in 2001 made slightly veiled threats that people sharing software would beraped.</p>raped in prison.</p> </div> <div class="column-limit"></div> </li> <li> <div class="reduced-width"> <p> The university security policies described above are not imaginary. For example, a computer at one Chicago-area university displayed this message upon login:</p> <blockquote><p> This system is for the use of authorized users only. Individuals using this computer system without authority or in the excess of their authority are subject to having all their activities on this system monitored and recorded by system personnel. In the course of monitoring individuals improperly using this system or in the course of system maintenance, the activities of authorized user may also be monitored. Anyone using this system expressly consents to such monitoring and is advised that if such monitoring reveals possible evidence of illegal activity or violation of University regulations system personnel may provide the evidence of such monitoring to University authorities and/or law enforcement officials. </p></blockquote> <p> This is an interesting approach to the Fourth Amendment: pressure most everyone to agree, in advance, to waive their rights under it.</p> </div> </li> </ul><h3 id="BadNews">Bad<div class="column-limit"></div> </div> <div id="BadNews"> <h3>Bad News</h3><p><p class="reduced-width"> The battle for the right to read isalready in progress,going against us so far. The enemy is organized,whileand we arenot, so it is going against us. Here are articles about bad things that have happened since the original publication of this article.</p> <ul> <li>Today'snot. </p> <div class="columns"> <p>Today's commercialebookse-books <a href="/philosophy/the-danger-of-ebooks.html"> abolish readers' traditionalfreedoms.</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.nature.com/nature_education/biology.html"> A "biology textbook" web site</a> that you can access onlyfreedoms</a>. Amazon's e-book reader product, which I call the “<a href="/philosophy/why-call-it-the-swindle.html">Amazon Swindle</a>” because it's designed to swindle readers out of the traditional freedoms of readers of books, is run bysigning asoftware with several demonstrated <ahref="http://www.nature.com/principles/viewTermsOfUse"> contract not to lendhref="/proprietary/malware-kindle-swindle.html">Orwellian functionalities</a>. Any one of them calls for rejecting the product completely:</p> <ul class="no-bullet"> <li><p>It spies on everything the user does: itto anyone else</a>,reports which book the user is reading, and which page, and it reports when thepublisheruser highlights text, and any notes the user enters.</p></li> <li><p>It has DRM, which is intended to block users from sharing copies.</p></li> <li><p>It has a back door with which Amazon canrevoke at will.</li> <li><a href="http://www.zdnet.com/news/seybold-opens-chapter-on-digital-books/103151">Electronic Publishing:</a> An article about distributionremotely erase any book. In 2009, it erased thousands ofbooks in electronic form,copies of 1984, by George Orwell.</p></li> <li><p class="inline-block">In case all that isn't Orwellian enough, there is a universal back door with which Amazon can remotely change the software, andcopyright issues affectingintroduce any other form of nastiness.</p></li> </ul> <p>Amazon's e-book distribution is oppressive, too. It identifies therightuser and records what books the user obtains. It also requires users toreadagree to an antisocial contract that they won't share copies with others. My conscience tells me that, if I had agreed to such acopy.</li> <li><a href="http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/press/1999/Aug99/SeyboldPR.aspx">Books inside Computers:</a> Softwarecontract, the lesser evil would be tocontrol who can read booksdefy it anddocuments on a PC.</li> </ul> <p>Ifshare copies anyway; however, to be entirely good, I should not agree to it in the first place. Therefore, I refuse to agree to such contracts, whether for software, for e-books, for music, or for anything else.</p> <p class="emph-box"> If we want to stop the bad news and create some good news, we need to organize and fight.TheSubscribe to the FSF's <ahref="http://defectivebydesign.org">href="https://www.defectivebydesign.org/"> Defective by Design</a> campaignhas made a start; subscribe to the campaign's mailing listto lend a hand.AndYou can <ahref="http://www.fsf.org/associate">joinhref="https://www.fsf.org/associate">join the FSF</a> tohelp fundsupport our work more generally. There is also a <a href="/help/help.html">list of ways to participate in ourwork.work</a>. </p> </div> </div> <div class="column-limit"></div> <h3id="References">References</h3>class="footnote">References</h3> <ul> <li>The administration's “White Paper”: Information Infrastructure Task Force, Intellectual Property [<a href="/philosophy/not-ipr.html">sic</a>] and the National Information Infrastructure: The Report of the Working Group on Intellectual Property [sic] Rights (1995).</li> <li><ahref="http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.01/white.paper_pr.html">Anhref="https://www.wired.com/1996/01/white-paper/">An explanation of the White Paper: The Copyright Grab</a>, Pamela Samuelson,Wired, Jan. 1996</li><cite>Wired</cite>, January 1st, 1996.</li> <li><ahref="http://www.law.duke.edu/boylesite/sold_out.htm">Soldhref="https://law.duke.edu/boylesite/sold_out.htm">Sold Out</a>, James Boyle,New<cite>New YorkTimes, 31Times</cite>, March1996</li>31, 1996.</li> <li><ahref="http://web.archive.org/web/20130508120533/http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/199611/msg00012.html">Publichref="https://web.archive.org/web/20130508120533/http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/199611/msg00012.html">Public Data or Private Data</a>,Washington Post, 4 Nov 1996. </li>Dave Farber, <cite>Washington Post</cite>, November 4, 1996.</li> <li><ahref="http://www.public-domain.org/">Unionhref="https://web.archive.org/web/20151113122141/http://public-domain.org/">Union for the Public Domain</a>—an organization which aims to resist and reverse the overextension of copyright and patent powers.</li> </ul> <div class="infobox extra" role="complementary"> <hr /><blockquote id="fsfs"><p class="big">This<p>This article appeared in the February 1997 issue of <cite>Communications of the ACM</cite> (Volume 40, Number 2).</p> </div> <div class="edu-note c"><p id="fsfs">This essay is published in <ahref="http://shop.fsf.org/product/free-software-free-society/"><cite>Freehref="https://shop.fsf.org/product/free-software-free-society/"><cite>Free Software, Free Society: The Selected Essays of Richard M.Stallman</cite></a>.</p></blockquote> <h5>Other Texts to Read</h5> <ul> <li><a href="/philosophy/philosophy.html">Philosophy of the GNU Project</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/49358/Copy_Protection_Just_Say_No" id="COPYPROCTECTION">Copy Protection: Just Say No</a>, Published in Computer World.</li> </ul>Stallman</cite></a>.</p></div> </div> </div><!-- for id="content", starts in the include above --> <!--#include virtual="/server/footer.html" --> <divid="footer">id="footer" role="contentinfo"> <div class="unprintable"> <p>Please send general FSF & GNU inquiries to <a href="mailto:gnu@gnu.org"><gnu@gnu.org></a>. There are also <a href="/contact/">other ways to contact</a> the FSF. Broken links and other corrections or suggestions can be sent to <a href="mailto:webmasters@gnu.org"><webmasters@gnu.org></a>.</p> <p><!-- TRANSLATORS: Ignore the original text in this paragraph, replace it with the translation of these two: We work hard and do our best to provide accurate, good quality translations. However, we are not exempt from imperfection. Please send your comments and general suggestions in this regard to <a href="mailto:web-translators@gnu.org"> <web-translators@gnu.org></a>.</p> <p>For information on coordinating andsubmittingcontributing translations of our web pages, see <a href="/server/standards/README.translations.html">Translations README</a>. --> Please see the <a href="/server/standards/README.translations.html">Translations README</a> for information on coordinating andsubmittingcontributing translations of this article.</p> </div> <!-- Regarding copyright, in general, standalone pages (as opposed to files generated as part of manuals) on the GNU web server should be under CC BY-ND 4.0. Please do NOT change or remove this without talking with the webmasters or licensing team first. Please make sure the copyright date is consistent with the document. For web pages, it is ok to list just the latest year the document was modified, or published. If you wish to list earlier years, that is ok too. 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