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Is information really free? Or does it come with a hidden charge? When I first heard the question I thought about the information that the internet provides for no charge. But is information really free? I do not think so. The fact is our current system entitles us to some free information, and it requires us to purchase or license other information. America Online is an example of the current system, it's a service that provides all types of free information, but you still have to pay in order to receive these services. Another example is Kazaa, an mp downloading provider, which allows users to download music at no charge, but all this information still has to be licensed. So is information really free? In my opinion, information is not free.

Free information is just an illusion. For information to seem free, someone has to pay for it. Free information is part of business, which is not to imply that producing the information was free or that it has no value because businesses do not charge for it. Also, colleges and universities put out a lot of free information. So does the government. The funding for free information comes from tuition and income taxes. Some of the money is used to create free information. The fact is we pay all the time, even if we personally do not use the information. Every product that we buy bears both an overt and a hidden tax for information. Some portion of every consumer sale is going into advertising, which is in turn financially supporting free information. Every dollar that we earn gives a portion to federal, state and local taxes, some of which goes to subsidizing free information. All membership fees, subscriptions, licenses and use charges all contribute to the subsidizing of free information. If information wants to be free, then everybody pays indirectly.

I am pretty sure that almost everybody thinks that information should be free and I know a couple of reasons why people may think this. For example, when you go to the library, you expect to check out a book for free. When you listen to the radio, you expect to hear music for free. When you turn on your television, you expect to watch all the programs for free. These examples can encourage you to believe that information is free. But what if you wanted to personally own a copy of that book you checked out of the library, wouldn't you be willing to pay for a copy? I bet you would! Or if you wanted to personally own a copy of that song you heard on the radio, you would be willing to pay for the CD. If you wanted to own a copy of the movie you just watched, you would be willing to buy the video. Even though people may think that information should be free, they are also willing to pay for the same free information. Therefore I believe that we pay for the medium, not the message. As a society, we perceive that the value exists in the copy, not in the content....which is free.

After a little research on Stewart Brand and his famous quote that reads, "Information wants to be free - because it is now easy to copy and distribute casually - and information wants to be expensive - because in an Information Age, nothing is so valuable as the right information at the right time," I now truly believe that information wants to be free. Quite a lot of information is available on the web for free, but consumers should be careful. Many organizations post valuable information as a public service. Other legal information is offered on commercial web sites as an inducement to buy other products or services.

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For media companies, the early days of the Web resembled a land grab, as they fought for the online audience. But today, the people running major content sites are

more like geologists hoping to strike oil in uncertain terrain. (ABC News)

Two years after the dot-com mania began to fade, web executives are still trying to reconcile one of the mediums best-known dictums - "that information wants to be free" - with the fact that businesses exist to make money, and that most Web sites have not.

The spread of mp files, and their centrality to Kazaa, mislead the debate over free and copyrighted content. Lots of people are willing to download free music files from strangers, because they find out if the sampling quality is lousy or the song breaks off halfway through, nothing has been lost. They can go back to Kazaa and try another site. The music from Kazaa would not be available unless you license this information. You may not like the fact that some information must be licensed, but thats how it is. Those who want information to be free as a matter of principle should create some information and make it free. What they shouldnt do is license or buy existing information that is not free and then cut it loose without permission. Thats just plain wrong, and it demonstrates what they are interested in, it's not free speech at all but getting stuff without paying for it.

This is the problem I have with Kazaa. Kazaa is a fine technology that could be put to good use but so far the controversy over Kazaa doesnt seem to be about free speech. Its about downloading free information. Its about a technology that makes it possible to circumvent the intent of publishing music on CDs. And the controversy persists only because, so far, few people have suffered severe consequences. If you want the system to change, then change it the way Linux has changed the complexion of software. Change it by recording new music with musicians who buy in to your new way of distributing music and then give their music away.

If people want music to be free, they should create free music and distribute it. We all have the right and opportunity to create new ways of doing things. Linux demonstrates that such efforts can be highly successful. But we do not have a right to subvert existing systems in the name of free speech just because we have the technology to do so.

Long before the commercial explosion on the Web, an early mantra of the Internet elite was that information wants to be free, noted Susannah Fox, Director of Research at the Pew Internet Project. We are now seeing that belief embraced by many of those who use the Internet to get music. We dont know yet if this technology is actually influencing peoples values, but we know that the struggle over who controls the rights to music is the first big moral and legal challenge that the Internet has raised in the 1st century.

Even such empty philosophical inanities as "nobody really owns anything" and "information wants to be free" breed confusion on the information superhighway. As Winn Schwartau puts it, "The 'information wants to be free' cliche makes a great sound bite, but it really means nothing. Information has no persona. And lots of information can - and does - belong to people."

The Internet eased consumer access to information and dramatically increased choice of information sources. Most information is no longer scarce. Its becoming a quantity that is much larger than needed. Publishers who distribute information are economically compelled to charge increasingly less.

Just in economics and the laws of supply and demand. You can charge a lot for something scarce or otherwise hard to obtain, but you must charge less if that something is surplus or otherwise easy to obtain. The price of online information hasn't even actually hit zero, but it has fallen to a level where it can be easily transacted.

In conclusion, information wants to be free because it has become so cheap to distribute, copy, and too cheap to meter. It wants to be expensive because it can be immeasurably valuable to the recipient. Information wants to be available to anyone who seeks it. It wants to be thrown into the faces of even people who don't want to see it. Information wants to motivate actions by people and wants to exercise free will.

1) ABC News.com

) The Atlantic.com

) D-Lib Magazine May 001

4) "Information wants to be free, or does it?" Article by Vin Crosbie

5) Pew Internet Press Releases

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