after all that, I gave into the tempation and posted away myself. since nobody’s going to read it (I’m like #123124 on the list of posters), I’m putting it here too, where lots and lots and lots of people will read it.

for reference, the article that generated all the heat was this blog post knocking Xeni Jardin’s posting of the “creative commies” copyleft flag I blogged about earlier.

ok, here’s what I said:

• first, the creative commies meme was done in fun and on the spur of the moment, obviously. if we start stressing about being spontaneous and fun, even if it is in a public place like a blog, then we will all get bored and go home. copyright reform will not benefit. or worse, we will all be boring. no amount of copyright reform is worth that.

  secondly, while I greatly appreciate Charlie Stross’s comments on the necessity for some minimal level of professionalism in the PR approach of copyright reformists, I think he is ignoring or at least undervalueing the possibility that we will not succeed by out-suiting the suited on the suits-only stage. this is a movement that stands to gain a lot by informal, friend to friend, colleague to colleague growth. possibly, by the time we are debating it on stage, the debates will only be a formality, given that we will have the weight of public opinion and behaviour at our backs regardless. perhaps.

  third, the fact that Rush Limbaugh points to this meme as evidence of our literal communism doesn’t greatly worry me. I have no hope of converting his audience.

  fourth (wow, that’s a lot), if enough mainstream folk point in Rush’s manner, then the cumulative effect might be to gradually shift those folks out of the mainstream in the opinion of the public, as attacking our social benefit proposition by pointing at our tshirts doesn’t look so hot as a debating strategy to anyone with sense. I am assuming the public has sense, and I’m not sure that I’m wrong.