Marcel Legros - Play the Game of Life

Like love, an idea is useless unless you freely give it to others. Like truth, ideas and information will always find a way come out into the open.

Current copyright, trademark, and patent law simply do not work in the new digital age. Digital rights management and copy protection laws are completely ineffective vestiges of an aging legal system. Note to all corporate CEO’s, the RIAA, and the MPAA: “We’re not all pirates. We’re people, and we’re your customers. Work with us or we’ll work around you. Engage us and you will inherit the new economy.”

You Cannot Own an Idea

Ownership is a myth dependent on agreement for survival. If everyone agrees you own something, then you can say you are the owner. If people do not agree, you are either delusional or lying. It’s the same for value. If people agree a piece of paper has value, like money or investments, then you’re wealthy. But if the agreement changes or the paper isn’t valued any longer, you’re destitute. Because ownership is bound by agreement and agreement can change overnight, it’s clear you don’t really own anything at all. You can only borrow agreement and enjoy it while it lasts. This is why people generously give away their belongings when they die. It becomes clear the concept of ownership is just a big joke - the punch-line only makes sense at the end. This isn’t the same as socialism or communism, it’s a revolutionary shift in how we view ownership and individual rights to the world’s idea pool.

Everything is Derivative

Everything you’ve ever thought of is built upon previous ideas and information. That great idea sitting in front of you - your computer - didn’t just pop into an engineer’s head. Ideas are cumulative and derivative work results in new innovation. Even the term, ‘hacking’ is derivative. Before hackers there were tinkerers, inventors, and hobbyists - before them, alchemists, and sorcerers. Locking ideas and innovation into ownership trades revolutionary human progress for individual monetary gain. Hacking isn’t just our right, it’s our moral duty to the rest of mankind.

When the Whole Nation is Criminal, It’s Time to Change the Law

Laws are dependent upon agreement of the the majority and of elected representatives. They’re designed to protect us from harmful or abhorrent behavior. What happens though, when the majority engages in behavior the law deems criminal? This isn’t rhetorical, it’s a fact today. If current copyright laws were applied fairly to everyone violating it today, we’d almost all be fined or imprisoned. The law must change because it no longer reflects societal values. Moralists complain the young generation has no conscience - that we’re making excuses for petty theft, but we’re not. We’re changing the agreement of ownership, and the old guard doesn’t like the change. They don’t understand how to turn a profit using the new rules. It’s going to take some time for entrenched business leaders to realize that they cannot win a battle against their own customers.

Ideas Want to Be Free

It’s no longer a question of ownership or patent rights, it’s a question of human rights and the advancement of our society. Corporations are more than happy to make billions of dollars selling you products every day, but don’t like it when you take them apart, modify them, improve them, or share them.

They call it piracy and patent infringement; we call it our god given right. It’s not only your right, but your duty to be creative, improve ideas, and share information with other people.

It’s not about selling products anymore, it’s about creating value for your customer and providing the best services around open ideas.