Although that functionality might be cool or useful, I think we do need it, lots of smart people who would be happy to come here from substack if we offered them a paywall and self hosted ownership for some of their content...
I'm mostly just curious about the legal argument that the signature of a document implies the right to reproduction in public. The signature verification seems key and what I was missing, is what gives confidence to a new unorginal recipient.
It's very easy to copy the contents of paid substack articles and publish them elsewhere.
Ease aside. I think civil disobedience to promote open access should be scaled based on the urgency of information. Not everything on substack has societal benefit, some is fictional entertainment or simply of personal expression. To me to distribute personal expression intended for a specific audience, else where, devalues the message of the urgency to information when those who do choose civil disobedience to distribute scientific or journalistic publications illegally, and suggests the belief that personal expression doesn’t hold value be it paywalled or in the form of a zap in an open distribution model.
