
                (K) All Rites Reversed
                ======================

I, Peter Hartley, wrote this program, InterGif Viewer. Under the
laws of England and every other country I know of, this gives me
the right to put my name to it, and withholds that right from
everyone else unless I choose to bestow it. If someone else made
a copy of InterGif Viewer, removed my name from all over it,
replaced it with theirs, and distributed the program further as
an example of how cool *they* were, they'd be doing a wrong thing
-- and I think most people would agree with the law on that one.


        When restrictions make no sense
        -------------------------------

But the laws of England and many other countries give me an
additional, unrelated right. They would allow me to give you -- or
even *sell* you -- a copy of the program, and yet prohibit you from
giving further copies away to your friends! This "copy right" can, and
does, lead to the absurd situation in which a simple copy command -- a
command built into every sensible operating system -- can become a
criminal act. Some even speak of this act as a "theft" from the
program's authors, even though it has removed from them no physical
property (the act can take place hundreds of miles from their homes,
and without them even noticing) and no intellectual property either
(the new copy still contains the original authors' names).
    I believe it would be morally untenable to exercise this "copy
right", in just the same way as I choose for moral reasons not to
exercise another right English law gives me: that of killing foxes for
fun.
    This piece of software does not have the "" or "(C)" symbol or
any other invocation of copy right attached to it. It contains instead
the (K) symbol and the words "All Rites Reversed", indicating that no
unrealistic restrictions are placed on your use and your friends' use
of it. Copy what you like; use it for what you like. Just give me due
credit. (As I understand it, you're in fact *legally obliged* to give
me due credit. But that shouldn't be *why* you're doing it!)


        When restrictions do make sense
        -------------------------------

No information in this program is of a personally damaging (to
me) or nationally damaging (to England) nature. These two cases
(and the latter only dubiously) are the only ones I can think of
where a restriction on copying would make sense -- but of course,
I would only reveal personally damaging information to
individuals I personally trusted anyway, whether in an electronic
or oral form. If I didn't personally trust them, I'd make them
sign a contract saying they wouldn't pass on the information, and
I think they'd appreciate the reason for that.
    If, on the other hand, I was making someone I didn't know sign
such a contract regarding a certain piece of information for the sole
reason that I could then make more money by signing similar contracts
with other people I didn't know, then I'd hope that person would be a
little disgusted. Perhaps not too disgusted to refuse to sign,
exclaiming that the information wasn't worth that (some information,
sadly, just isn't available in other ways) -- but, I hope, left with a
nagging nasty taste anyway.


        "But how can you be sure of me?"
        --------------------------------

Now, I have your signature on no contract; for some readers of
these words, I haven't even ever met you. I'm having to trust you
anyway not to thieve my intellectual property from me by passing off
these words or programs as your own. It would be logistically
extremely difficult to ensure, whether by legal or technical means,
that intellectual property rights were not infringed.
    But on the whole, I *do* trust you. You might turn out to be a
rogue, but at least I've acquitted myself: by trusting you, I've not
made myself a rogue. Trusting people is not necessarily the Correct
Answer (some people, such as John Lennon, have had worse crimes than
theft committed against them because of it) but it is at least the
Right Answer.
    Having read this document, you get no prizes for working out
that I've read the GNU Manifesto. But I believe that exercising
copyright means war, and in any war (to "copy" shamelessly the
conclusion to the film War Games) the only winning move is not to
play.
