Wouldn’t it be nice to have all the knowledge in the world accessible right in your hands? Too bad that nothing really in today’s society is free. Someone always owns property to a source you want so you have to pay your rights to use it. Richard Stallman believed in a free software movement which included the four freedoms of software: the freedom to run a program for any purpose, freedom to study how the program works and change it to make it do what you wise, freedom to redistribute copies to neighbors, and freedom to improve a program. Microsoft and ITunes goes against these programs. Ben Franklin invented a lot of cool stuff and never patented any of it this way he could share it with all man kind. We know many things today about Plato, Aristotle, etc. because copyright did not exist; we had the freedom to learn. Stallman’s idea was you deserve to be punished if they restrict the use of these programs. Back to having all the knowledge in the world, what is one source you can think of where this exists? That’s right, Wikipedia. Wikipedia is an example from the digital media revolution; idea of crowd sourcing. With a large group of people you will get better results rather than two to three experts. Lots of people know lots of stuff. Ideas are improved and get better when they are freely expressed. You can remove information and control of ideas from elites that make things more accurate and better. This is why Wikipedia is great! This made it seem like the authority of experts was undermined. Because Wikipedia is a collection of millions of people, we can’t cite it. It goes against this idea. The point of Wikiepedia was to envision an encyclopedia as an open document for anyone to fix with millions of people as the audience to have better sources to get the best knowledge. Information wants to be free. Wikipedia is better than most textbooks. It’s revolutionized access to information. It’s what Busch imagined. One more example of crowd sourcing is recommendations on Amazon. Have you ever ordered let’s say a book on Amazon and then below on the screen, recommendations of other books people have also bought with the book you’re purchasing? It is crowd sourcing. They’re showing other people like you with similar interests. They are freely expressed. You should not be able to charge for information but distribute it, like a software. But then who pays for the workers? NOVA (as a city example) does because they like it. LINUX was Stallman’s free software he made to be shared with everybody.  No one believes in this idea of free software though, it goes against what they think they know.

In another topic about copyright, did you know singing happy birthday to someone at a party or even playing music in a club is technically illegal? You have to pay your rights to the owner to play the song. But why has no one ever been in trouble for it before? They just haven’t been caught/ it’s a smaller issue to worry about. It’s like owning property. You do not own the property so you have to buy your rights to “borrow” it.

What is a corporation? A corporation is defined as a disembodied immortal being, a fictitious person. The entity is created in law as if it were a natural person. It is about transcending time or being immortal. Lets say we start a town called AngelinaVille and it’s run by five families that originally landed there. It has legal entity to buy land, the ability to sign contracts, etc. How does AngelinaVille still have legal existence after the people who have founded it died? They legally find another partner to run. The corporation goes on forever. It has a lot of rights similar to a person because a corporation is understood as a “natural” person. This is so weird!! George Mason University is a corporation. If the president dies the university still exists just under a different law. A corporation can also raise money, like selling shares to raise them money. The best part is, if something bad happens involving the corporation, not a single individual could be responsible. The whole corporation is responsible.

Maybe in the future free software will exist for everyone to use, or is that wishful thinking? I would like to see it happen.