Bill Gates: Freedom is communism

Matt Stoller of iPac (join!) sends a note to members including this quote from Microsoft chairman Bill Gates :

Question: In recent years, there's been a lot of people clamoring to reform and restrict intellectual-property rights. It started out with just a few people, but now there are a bunch of advocates saying, "We've got to look at patents, we've got to look at copyrights." What's driving this, and do you think intellectual-property laws need to be reformed?

Answer: No, I'd say that of the world's economies, there's more that believe in intellectual property today than ever. There are fewer communists in the world today than there were. There are some new modern-day sort of communists who want to get rid of the incentive for musicians and moviemakers and software makers under various guises. They don't think that those incentives should exist.

I take it personally when people like Gates try to speak for artists. Gates is speaking as the chairman of a corporation, but notice how he mentions "musicians and moviemakers" first? He doesn't represent musicians and moviemakers, yet he tries to speak for us. The RIAA and MPAA pull this deceitful trick, too. All the more reason to support groups like Creative Commons, which really do represent artists.

According to Mr. Gates, as an activist for intellectual-property reform I am a) a "modern-day sort of communist," and b) working against the interests of filmmakers. And all this time I thought I was myself a filmmaker and entrepreneur. Am I a filmmaker working against my own interest? Am I a communist entrepreneur?

(This is in a different area of politics, but does Bill Gates think his father is a communist, too? After all, Gates Sr. has some pretty crazy ideas about taxation. What about his pal Warren Buffett? Still, in the area of copyright, Gates is going to have to step things up a bit to break the record for overstatement. The bar has been set pretty high.)

UPDATE: Ooh, T-shirts.