Information Wants to Be Free

To: ils310@listserv.oit.unc.edu
Subject: Information Wants to Be Free
From: jsenat@nr.infi.net (Joey Senat)
Date: Mon, 20 Jan 1997 20:36:39 -0500 (EST)
Reply-To: ils310@listserv.oit.unc.edu
Sender: owner-ils310@listserv.oit.unc.edu

In 1987, Stewart Brand wrote, "Information wants to be (politically) free,"
(p. 211) and "Information wants to be free" (p. 202).

"Information wants to be free" -- minus the parenthetical "politically" --
was made in the economic context of information:

"Information wants to be free because it has become so cheap to distribute,
copy, and recombine -- too cheap to meter. It wants to be expensive because
it can be immeasurably valuable to the recipient."

Stewart Brand, The Media Lab: Inventing the Future at M.I.T. (New York:
Viking Penguin Inc., 1987).

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*       Joey Senat                                          *
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