The Right to Read
Richard M.Stallman
This article first appeared in the issue of
Communications of the ACM, Vol. 40, #2. � Feb, 1997.
(from "The Road To Tycho",
a collection of articles
about the antecedents of the Lunarian Revolution,
published in Luna City in 2096)
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 to ask, except Dan.
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 some-
one else read your books, the very idea shocked him at first. Li-
ke everyone, he had been taught since elementary school that sha-
ring books was nasty and wrong � something that only pirates
would do.
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 the computer owner, would receive the harshest
punishment � for not taking pains to prevent the crime.
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 af-
ford the tuition, let alone her reading fees. Reading his books
might be the only way she could graduate. He understood this sit-
uation: he himself had had to borrow to pay for all the research
papers he read. (10% 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 referen-
ced, would bring in enough to repay this loan.)
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.
There were ways, of course, to get around the SPA and Cent-
ral Licensing. They were themselves illegal. Dan had had a class-
mate in software, Frank Martucci, who had obtained an illicit de-
bugging 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 a betrayal). In 2047 Frank
was in prison, not for pirate reading, but for possessing a de-
bugger.
Dan would later learn that there was a time when anyone
could have debugging tools. There were even free debugging tools
available on CDs 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.
Programmers still needed debugging tools, of course, but de-
bugger 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.
It was also possible to bypass the copyright monitors by in-
stalling 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 nei-
ther the FBI nor "Microsoft" support would tell you that.
Dan concluded that he couldn't simply lend Lissa his compu-
ter. 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.
Dan resolved the dilemma by doing something even more un-
thinkable � 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 Lis-
sa reported him.
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 stu-
dents' computer use was grounds for a 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 assu-
med this meant you were doing something else forbidden, and they
did not need to know what it was.
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.
Later, Dan would learn that this kind of university policy
started only in the 1980s, when university students in large num-
bers began using computers. Previously, universities maintained a
different approach to student discipline: they punished activiti-
es that were harmful, not those that merely raised suspicion.
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.
Author's Note
(This note was updated in 2002.)
The right to read is a battle being fought today. Although
it may take 50 years for our present way of life to fade into ob-
scurity, most of the specific laws and practices described above
have already been proposed; many have been enacted into law in
the US and elsewhere. In the US, the 1998 "Digital Millenium Co-
pyright Act" (DMCA) established the legal basis to restrict the
reading and lending of computerized books (and other data too).
The European Union imposed similar restrictions in a 2001 copy-
right directive.
Until recently there was one exception: the idea that the
FBI and "Microsoft" will keep the root passwords for personal
computers and not let you have them was not proposed until 2002.
It is called "Trusted Computing" or "Palladium".
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 by-
pass. Following the "Clipper" chip and similar US government key-
escrow proposals, this shows a long-term trend: computer systems
are increasingly set up to give absentees with clout control over
the people actually using the computer system. The SSSCA has
since been renamed to the CBDTPA (think of it as the "Consume But
Don't Try Programming Act").
In 2001 the US began attempting to use the proposed "Free
Trade Area of the Americas" (FTAA) treaty to impose the same ru-
les on all the countries in the Western Hemisphere. The FTAA is
one of the so-called "free trade" treaties, actually designed to
give business increased power over democratic governments; impo-
sing laws like the DMCA is typical of this spirit. The "Electro-
nic Frontier Foundation" (EFF) asks people to explain to the oth-
er governments why they should oppose this plan.
The SPA, which actually stands for "Software Publisher's As-
sociation", has been replaced in this police-like role by the BSA
or "Business Software Alliance". It is not, today, an official
police force; unofficially, it acts like one. Using methods rem-
iniscent of the erstwhile Soviet Union, it invites people to in-
form on their coworkers and friends. A BSA terror campaign in Ar-
gentina in 2001 made veiled threats that people sharing software
would be raped in prison.
When this story was written, the SPA was threatening small
Internet service providers demanding they permit the SPA to moni-
tor all users. Most providers surrender when threatened, because
they cannot afford to fight back in court [Atlanta Journal-Con-
stitution, D3. � Oct 1, 1996]. At least one provider, "Community
ConneXion" in Oakland, CA, refused the demand and was actually
sued. The SPA later dropped the suit, but obtained the DMCA which
gave them the power they sought.
The university security policies described above are not im-
aginary. For example, a computer at one Chicago-area university
prints this message when you log in:
"This system is for the use of authorized users only. Indi-
viduals 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 re-
veals 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".
This is an interesting approach to the VI Amendment: pressure
most everyone to agree, in advance, to waive their rights under
it:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons,
houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches
and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall
issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affir-
mation, and particularly describing the place to be search-
ed, and the persons or things to be seized".
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References:
* The administration's "White Paper": Information Infrastructure
Task Force, Intellectual Property and the National Information
Infrastructure: The Report of the Working Group on Intellectual
Property Rights. � 1995.
* Pamela Samuelson. An explanation of the White Paper: The Copy-
right Grab. � Jan 1996.
* James Boyle. Sold Out // New York Times. � Mar 13, 1996.
* Public Data or Private Data // Washington Post. � Nov 4, 1996.
* "Union for the Public Domain" � an organization which aims to
resist and reverse the overextension of copyright and patent
powers.
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This essay is published in "Free Software, Free Society: The Se-
lected Essays of Richard M.Stallman".