Winner Take All Does Not

Money Corrupts The Process Of Reasoning.

If There Were Two Candidates, A Democrat And A Republican, Who Each Committed To The Same Kind Of Fundamental Reform, Then The Election Would Be An Election Between The Vice Presidential Candidates. It'd Be Just Like The Regular Election, Except It Would Be One Step Down.

While The Creative Works From The 16th Century Can Still Be Accessed And Used By Others, The Data In Some Software Programs From The 1990s Is Already Inaccessible. Once A Company That Produces A Certain Product Goes Out Of Business, It Has No Simple Way To Uncover How Its Product Encoded Data. The Code Is Thus Lost, And The Software Is Inaccessible. Knowledge Has Been Destroyed.

A Free Culture Supports And Protects Creators And Innovators. It Does This Directly By Granting Intellectual Property Rights. But It Does So Indirectly By Limiting The Reach Of Those Rights, To Guarantee That Follow-on Creators And Innovators Remain As Free As Possible From The Control Of The Past. A Free Culture Is Not A Culture Without Property, Just As A Free Market Is Not A Market In Which Everything Is Free. The Opposite Of A Free Culture Is A "permission Culture" -- A Culture In Which Creators Get To Create Only With The Permission Of The Powerful, Or Of Creators From The Past.

This Does Not Mean That Every Copyright Must Prove Its Value Initially. That Would Be A Far Too Cumbersome System Of Control. But It Does Mean That Every System Or Category Of Copyright Or Patent Should Prove Its Worth.