The War Against Free Information
Settings The Stage In 1997 Richard Stallman, free software advocate, wrote The Right to Read, a short story in which he describes the year 2047. It is a dystopian society, where the Software Protection Authority (SPA) in conjunction with Central Licensing controls all knowledge in the world. “Each book had a copyright monitor that reported when and where it was read, and by whom” (Stallman). Violations of the copyright policy led to serious jail time and heavy fines....