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Influential cypherpunk and crypto-anarchist Tim May dies aged 67

cornetman Silver badge

> Another legacy of May's work is the legitimisation of a worldview so radical – even for many libertarians – that a consensus that produces workable laws remains elusive. This has been taken to heart by Google and Facebook, corporations arguably more powerful than any government. Google adopted the Manifesto's call to embrace "wire clippers which dismantle the barbed wire around intellectual property" –

You do realise that if we abandoned copyright and patents, then what Google et all are doing would not be wrong?

Laws only embrace what the public find acceptable and should reflect the society in which they are created otherwise they will be ignored. I'm not sure that I agree that "many libertarians", *true* libertarians, would consider the dismantling of the laws that lead to the DMCA, or copyright of author + 70 years at all radical. Indeed, outside of a fairly blinkered and closeted media community, I suspect that view is fairly mainstream.

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