Richard Stallman is regularly identified as a "fair use" advocate in the press and online, but a post from Robin Good on his blog suggests that the label is off the mark, to say the least.  Sounds like Squealer has started editing the Seven Commandments, er, I mean, Four Freedoms…

According to Good:

Stallman wants YouTube or other video sharing sites not to publish video clips of his interviews or lectures as these video distribution services do not utilize video software and file formats that adhere to the Free Software Foundation principles.

Intelligent people can disagree over the scope of Fair Use, but there is NOTHING more clearly covered than public speeches and comments…it is the basis by which journalists and bloggers do their jobs.  Yet, Stallman is quite clearly arguing that Fair Use doesn’t apply to his speeches and he has the power to dictate how you can watch/listen to them. 

Come to think of it, his argument seems eerily similar to those of the MPAA on why people can’t watch DVDs on Linux;  "You can’t watch my DVDs on Linux because it doesn’t support DRM" and "You can’t watch my speeches on YouTube because it doesn’t support Free Software" follow the same basic logic.  In the end, it seems that Stallman is happy to sacrifice "Fair Use" at the altar of Free Software.

Good’s experience both hosting (at his home) and interviewing Stallman leads him to the following conclusions:

While I am fundamentally a supporter of Richard Stallman’s views on free software and democracy, I am also an independent reporter trying to spread and divulge his ideas, concepts and plans, which nonetheless his huge popularity are still completely unknown to the greater part of my readers.

But the moment the prince of liberties and open democracy imposes on me a prohibition to publish his own views and ideas in a format that, in my humble opinion, could reach 10000 times more people than going for the (yet) unknown, alpha-stage, and little supported video format he would want me to use, I feel that the genuine principles of free software and media democracy heralded by Stallman himself may be at risk. Religious advocacy of anything is in my personal view not good for anyone wishing to spread his message in a friendly and non-totalitarian fashion.

Good nails it on the head when he says that this behavior may put "the genuine principles of free software and media democracy heralded by Stallman himself may be at risk."

However, what Good is still somewhat reluctant to realize is that Stallman IS a totalitarian idealogue.  His passionate advocacy of Free Software and the Four Freedoms is mirrored by his passion for exterminating all non-free software.