thank heavens for thatOriginally Posted by El Salsero Gringo
Which is why I was talking explicitly about the marginal cost. You can look it up in Wikipedia if you can be bothered, but - undeniably - the marginal cost of production of software is to all intents and purposes, zero. The disparity betwen the cost model and the income model is a good indicator that the way we currently pay for software is quite simply, broken.Originally Posted by YlianderIf I had a theory that no-one should pay for software, then I would have a corresponding theory that no-one should pay for music. As it happens I don't hold either to be the case.Originally Posted by YlianderPart of the attraction of intellectual property for business is as something they can put on the balance sheet to fool investors. If the ridiculous IP protections that they've had built into case law were weakened then their balance sheets would plummet. To me that stinks of snake-oil peddling, not sound principles of accounting.Originally Posted by YlianderWe do indeed credit him with them, but we don't deny the rest of the planet the opportunity to know of them, or make equal use of them just because he thought of them first.Originally Posted by YlianderOn the side point about borrowing the car - if you could convince the jury that for eight years, you had always intended to return the car you had borrowed, then ipso facto you wouldn't be guilty of theft. No argument about whether the law defines the offence right or wrong - that is how it's defined. On the wider topic, that proves exactly what I've been saying. Let's decouple how we name the act from whether we consider it right or wrong. And let's do that from a neutral starting point by *not* calling it theft.Originally Posted by DavidFranklin
thank heavens for thatOriginally Posted by El Salsero Gringo
And what then to we call this wrong thing that involves people taking something that they have no legal right to?Originally Posted by El Salsero Gringo
The issue of car-theft, and "borrowing" versus stealing is covered by laws which prohibit "taking and driving away".
If you "borrow" a car without permission but return it, you're not "permanently depriving" the owner, so it's not theft, but you'll still get done for it.
Let your mind go and your body will follow. – Steve Martin, LA Story
I think 'copying' covers the ground quite nicely. Now, how would you convince a visitor from another planet that it's morally wrong and out to be unlawful? Who is it harming, and is that harm made up for by other benefits?Originally Posted by bigdjiver
Incidentally, I've just realised another huge hypocrisy in the Pigopolists attempts to hoodwink us into equating intellectual property and physical property by talking about copying being "theft": they've no compunction about turning things the other way around when it suits them.
If you 'buy' a piece of software, you haven't bought it at all; what you're paying for is simply a licence to use it. You certainly don't get any of the usual consumer rights that come with a purchase. It can have any number of faults, can fail to live up to it's purpose, can cause huge consequential damage and so. Try telling someone who buys a car that if the brakes fail and cause an accident that them manufacturer washes their hands of responsibility!
Originally Posted by El Salsero Gringo
Actually That's something a Agree with!! If I BUY the software then it should be MINE not just a licence to use it. it's the same reason I convert my DRM protected purchased WMA tracks into free to copy MP3 and CD's .. Not so I can share them around but so I can , if I wish, play them on any of my MP3 enabled devices without need for getting new DRM activations on devices.
I can also back them up on DVD should my PC crash (and being a windows box.. something it does with some frequency!!)
Whos stopping them?Originally Posted by bigdjiver
I would say the vast majority would not have paid for the software anyway - its a very small minority who are out to get anything and everything for free.And I have no doubt that the vast majority of software pirates want to permanently deprive the author of due payment for their services.
Call it "bob" if you like , but its not theftOriginally Posted by bigdjiver
When the contract programmer stole, (sorry, copied), my code and went to work for the client, who then reneged on the contract, I felt that I had lost £8,000. My business partner lost much more, especially as he sued and lost. Some on the forum think that because I still had the code, which was useless to anybody else, I had lost nothing.Originally Posted by El Salsero Gringo
In theory that harm to us was compensated by benefits to them. (In practise their project failed because they lost me.) That is the extreme example - 1 customer.
Whilst developing my machine software I visited some of our British customers. All of them said that there was software on the market to do most features already, and all but one gave me cracked copies of various packages to prove it. There was a network of "I'll give you a package that is not mine, if you will give me a package that is not yours." I had very good reason to believe that if our package was cracked we would sell very few. As I said before, it ended up with profits from my software keeping the company afloat, at least for a time. There were very few British companies selling CNC machines to the far East. In our case pirating, (sorry copying) would have harmed individuals and the British economy.
Your arguments about marginal cost are drivel. The marginal cost of the design of the Dyson cyclone design is zero. According to your logic Hoover would have done no harm by copying the first one. The marginal cost of many drugs is very low, after the costs of clinical trials have been met. Who would pay those costs if their competitors could copy and avoid them?
Ask your visitors from another planet if you can copy their technology, the marginal cost is zero.
Enough of this - I have realised that I have sigs disabled, and I now remember yours.
I don't have a signature.Originally Posted by bigdjiver
You clearly don't understand the point about the marginal cost of software, so I'm going to explain it again.
The marginal cost of drugs is low - but not zero. When you buy a drug you buy a physical product. The formula for a drug is of no use because we don't each have our own drug manufacturing plant.
The marginal cost of the design of a dyson is zero - but Dyson don't sell the design, they sell you the physical product instead - whose marginal cost is *not* zero. And which is yours to dispose of as you please.
When you buy/licence software you aren't obtaining a physical product in any important sense. The marginal cost of software *is* zero - which makes the difference.
If someone writes a book then I can order it from my library - and at no cost to myself I can borrow it, read it, enjoy it and make use of the intellectual property contained in it. All for free. The author gets about a half-penny in public lending rights, a pretty derisory sum in view of the fact that it's virtually certain that I won't buy the book once I've read it. Why aren't these same people up in arms about that? Examine your prejudices about what's acceptable and what isn't, and then see how distorted this debate is.
If anything, the more you tell about this whole sorry business, the more convinced I am that the whole Intellectual Property arena that we're involved is completely broken and needs to be rethought from scratch. All sorts of existing stiff penalties for breach of copyright, contract law and so on it clearly didn't help you did they? Time to do things different.Originally Posted by bigdjiver
So. We've established that bigdjiver and Beowulf1970 are both advocates of strong IP protection in law, and favour the software-as-product idea. Which is ironic, because they're the only people on this thread to have really suffered under this inane model. Clearly if their own experiences don't convince them that this concept is broken, nothing I or anyone can say in this thread is going to convince them.
Is anyone interested in discussing some better ways for for software engineers to earn money in return for their considerable talents and hard work?
Starts a new Website..Originally Posted by Dreadful Scathe
Software Developers Against Bob !
Maybe also anyone who designs products and then finds the market is being flooded by cheap counterfeit copies made in China.Originally Posted by El Salsero Gringo
It is a shame if people stop producing products because they feel they don't get rewarded for their work. If someone hacked something I wrote maybe I'd be slightly pleased as it would say it was worth it, and maybe added to the productivity of the human race if more people are using it. Maybe it would motivate me to keep on releasing better versions, available from me, to get people to realise it is eaiser to buy it from me and get a bug free/better version.
ESG-what do you do for a living, so maybe someone could think of some example which would relate to affecting your living etc?
What he does for a living is hardly relevant to what we discuss in this thread. Unless you want to create analogies to further confuse the issue and lead us round in circlesOriginally Posted by PJH
I do a variety of things, none of which lends involves IP at the moment, which is just as well because I've never felt that that "How would you feel if you..." was a good method of argument.Originally Posted by PJH
When letters patent were created (17 century, wasn't it?) it was society's way (the monarchy's way, at that time) of encouraging both innovation and the *sharing* of intelectual property by granting a stricly limited monopoly for the exploitation of that knowledge.
But reading back through this thread I detect a hint (ok, more than a hint) of "I work hard and therefore society owes me a living." Well, sorry, buddy, but society doesn't owe anybody any such thing - and there's nothing personal or judgemental about that. I can create as much intellectual property as I like - I take photos, I write software, I could write songs or books - but unless I can exploit them commercially, I won't earn a penny from them.
So we invent this concept of copyright - invent, mind you - it didn't fall out of the sky - to assist people to benefit from the intangible results of their endeavour. And we parcel it up with all sorts of rules, laws, cultural mores, punishments for breaking those rules and so on. Then we riddle those rules with exceptions, like holes in a swiss cheese: fair use, private study, parody, public lending rights for instance.
But we have to remember that these are rules that we created. The vast quantities of money flowing into the software industry flow only because of those rules and laws. And those rules and laws are now creaking at the seams, ready to burst, even, because they are completely out of alignment with the economics of intellectual property in the 21st century. The rules don't fit. Evidence? You've got it here on this thread: first hand accounts of how despite best efforts, software gets cracked, shared and copied. There are plenty of laws against it - plenty of federations, and lawyers dedicated to preventing it - but do they make a ha'porth of difference? No.
So, uncomfortable as it might be to some - particularly those already earning, or trying to earn a living by exploiting the existing rules - it seems entirely appropriate to ask if there isn't a different and better way. There was no absolute rule that said that men with flags had to walk in front of the motor-car so they wouldn't frighten the horses. And the blacksmith trade would have been quite right to feel threatened by this new invention. "I'm a blacksmith - I work bloody hard, and this mechanical monster is going to prevent me from earning a living - and that's wrong" - I can hear the arguments now.
Finally (because this is turning in to a bit of an essay) don't let anyone pretend that changing the rules will reduce the quantity of innovation and invention. I'm sure there's much we could do to encourage new software authors, new composers and new authors with a bit of thought.
I don't expect this thread is going to change the world, but it is an interesting subject to talk about. Or at least it would be if we could keep our toys inside the pram, avoid strops and temper tantrums, and keep clear of anonymous negative rep. Anyone up for that challenge?
Well yes and no.. Yes I think my software is a product. you disagree So we can agree to disagree on that point.Originally Posted by El Salsero Gringo
I don't however think that all software should be licenced and tied up in red tape. I have done a lot of freeware open source coding. I've learnt a lot from others open source coding and I don't mind if someone see's my software and thinks to themselfs "I can make that better" I'm always learning.
Even if I've not released the source code.. if they take my ideas and develop them from scratch then I'm fine with that too. I mean, I've done it when I couldn't find an affordable program I liked, I'd look at a commercial app, see how it worked (without dissasembly of the code just looking at its functionallity) and then set about writing my own version.
Now I know that is really no different from me ripping off my software and removing any copy protection I may have added. the author of that software has lost potential income from me (I wrote my own software) and anyoen else who downloads my own software .. It may be better .. it may be worse, but either way he's not getting a POTENTIAL sale because I've done this.
What i am against is people who use / abuse my work with little or no effort on their behalf. in the example above I'm writting a computer application from scratch using my skills and my time. in the case of hackers/crackers they are mearly stripping off any software protection I may have added to use my software without limitation.
I would LOVE more software to be free / open source. but programmers need to earn a living SOMEHOW. if they cannot do this by selling their skills then I , for one, don't know a solution.
ok I got heated earlier.. guilty as charged. And rest assured I've never neg repped anyone anonymous or otherwise.. I'd rather say I Like someone than go around saying I didn't.I don't expect this thread is going to change the world, but it is an interesting subject to talk about. Or at least it would be if we could keep our toys inside the pram, avoid strops and temper tantrums, and keep clear of anonymous negative rep. Anyone up for that challenge?
Last edited by Beowulf; 6th-July-2006 at 01:25 PM.
They're using their skills and their time. And then sharing the fruits of their efforts. Don't you think they deserve some recompense?What i am against is people who use / abuse my work with little or no effort on their behalf. in the example above I'm writting a computer application from scratch using my skills and my time. in the case of hackers/crackers they are mearly stripping off any software protection I may have added to use my software without limitation.
Let your mind go and your body will follow. – Steve Martin, LA Story
hahaha watch it you.. where's my neg rep buttonOriginally Posted by ducasi
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