Stewart Brand Quotes

In an economy where more and more value is in information - is in the bits, not the atoms, where bits can be copied essentially for free - any time you have that situation, economic schemes that rely on existing models of intellectual property laws for protection are going to do less and less well.

Information wants to be free. Information also wants to be expensive.

I believe our basic information, our 'software', should be free and open for everyone to play with, to compete with, to try and make products from. I do not believe it should be under the control of one person.

The unlimited replication of information is generally a public good.

I don't think Silicon Valley understands the power of Wikipedia, how it works, or the opportunities it represents.

It used to cost money to disclose and distribute information. In the digital age it costs money not to.

Organize all the world’s information and make it universally accessible whatever the consequences

You share things with people and I think information, and art, and ideas should be shared.

Make information free for all.

I'm trying to change the way people approach knowledge and information in general. I think that to try to own knowledge, to try to control whether people are allowed to use it, or to try to stop other people from sharing it, is sabotage.

It is an anomaly that information, the one thing most necessary to our survival as choosers of our own way, should be a commodity subject to the same merchandising rules as chewing gum.

Information doesn't want to be free. Information wants to be valuable.

The story of the next century is the transition from an industrial, resourced-based economy to a knowledge economy.

Overall, the world has never been better informed.

This whole phenomenon of the computer in a library is an amazing thing.

I actually think people generally have an awareness and feel like, 'Wow, these networks have a lot of information.'

There's no question there's enough information available to all of us in this society for darn near anything. The problem is the quality of the information, the presentation of it... You shouldn't have to be a lawyer.

If you think about it, the printing press allowed everyone to print books - it democratised the printing of information. For the first time, we could all print.

Providing free access to research papers on websites like Sci-Hub breaks so-called copyright law that was made to taboo free distribution of information on the Internet. That includes music, movies, documentaries, books, and research articles. Not everyone agrees that copyright law should exist in the first place.

The access to information the web provides is both daunting and exciting. Information that was once secreted away in library stacks is now so much more easily available.

The digital world is one that has sort of a unique characteristic, where it's a place in which it's very easy for the value of content to fall.

All content should be copied without restriction. But for education and research, copyright laws are especially damaging.

A governing ethos of the Internet has been that whatever flows through it - information, ideas - is up for grabs.

Customers have access to information that gives them much more control over their lives.