“They frame this as a massive battle to stop theft, to protect property. … They extend copyrights perpetually. They don't get how that in itself is a form of theft. A theft of our common culture.”
OSCON 2002
Context: J. C. Watts is the only black member of the Republican Party in leadership. He's going to resign from Congress. He's been there seven and a half years. He's had enough. Nobody can believe it. Nobody in Washington can believe it.... In an interview two days ago, Watts said, Here's the problem with Washington: "If you are explaining, you are losing." If you are explaining, you're losing. It's a bumper sticker culture. People have to get it like that, and if they don't, if it takes three seconds to make them understand, you're off their radar screen. Three seconds to understand, or you lose. This is our problem. Six years after this battle began, we're still explaining. We're still explaining and we are losing. They frame this as a massive battle to stop theft, to protect property.... They extend copyrights perpetually. They don't get how that in itself is a form of theft. A theft of our common culture. We have failed in getting them to see what the issues here are and that's why we live in this place where a tradition speaks of freedom and their controls take it away.
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Lawrence Lessig 71
American academic, political activist. 1961Related quotes
“Property isn't theft: it's nothing.”
Ibid.
The Book of Disquiet
Original: A propriedade não é roubo: não é nada.
“Exclusive property is a theft against nature.”
Original: (fr) La propriété exclusive est un vol dans la nature.
Quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 615.
As quoted in "Lincoln's Nuanced View of Slavery Explained By Renowned Historian" https://www.registercitizen.com/news/article/Lincoln-s-nuanced-view-of-slavery-explained-by-12077170.php, by Michelle Merlin, The Register Citizen (9 August 2012)
2010s
Referring to a famous statement by the French anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon that "Property is theft!", as quoted in The Man Who Loved Only Numbers (1998) by Paul Hoffman, p. 7
“Give your goods to the poor: Christ.
Property is theft - as long as it's not mine: Marx.”
Verteile Dein Gut an die Armen: Christus.
Eigentum ist Diebstahl – solange es nicht mir gehört: Marx.
Michael: a German fate in diary notes (1926)
“How great his theft, who robs himself!”
"Pleasure"
Visions in Verse
[Borenstein, Nathaniel S., Programming as if people mattered : friendly programs, software engineering, and other noble delusions, 1991, Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J., 9780691087528, 53, 4. print.]
Attributed
