From: phaedrus@halcyon.com (Mark Phaedrus)
Subject: Re: Why the Piracy? Here's why...
Organization: The 23:00 News and Mail Service
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1993 18:49:56 GMT

In article <freek.726615644@groucho.phil.ruu.nl> freek@phil.ruu.nl (Freek Wiedijk) writes:
>I would prefer a world in which there were no intellectual
>property laws.  I don't think it is unethical to copy
>something.  At least, not when the copying doesn't disturb
>the use of the original item.

     It is unethical to copy a commercial computer program because the
developers of that program put time, effort and money into developing it,
with the very reasonable expectation that they would be able to recover those
costs, and maybe even make a profit, from people who wanted to use it.  If
you believe that a product is overpriced, you have every right not to buy it.
You have no right to simply use it without paying for it.  Let me put it this
way; if you were an author of novels, who lived on the royalties from your 
work, and you found out that for every person who had actually bought your
work, four or five more people had copied it from their friends, or had bought
at all for, wouldn't you be more than vaguely pissed about that?  Would it make
you feel better to know that they were using a magic copy machine that copied
your books without damaging them in the slightest?

>My reasons for this are the following:
>1. It's the status quo.  Everyone _already_ copies everything
>   (from CD's on DAT, to software on disks, to books on
>   paper).

     Being the status quo doesn't make something right.  The status quo in
this country is a spiralling national debt, inadequate education in many areas,
etc.  That doesn't mean that those things are right, does it?

>2. I would like there to be a giant reservoir of knowledge
>   that's free for everyone to add to or take from (e.g., the
>   complete library of congress, digitalized, on the
>   Internet; can you say Xanadu? I knew you could!)  And I
>   mean that _everything_ should be in it (all science, all
>   literature, all music, all art, etc.).  The _main_
>   obstacle for this kind of enterprise is intellectual
>   property law.

     Massive problem here.  Like it or not, we're in a capitalistic society.
The reason why there's so much science, literature, music, art, etc. out there
in the first place is that the vast majority of the people creating it hoped
to make enough profit off of their creations to live on.  If you come along
and tell all programmers, all artists, etc., "Okay, all of your programs, your
art, etc. are now going to be free for everyone", how many of those people
will be willing to, and will be able to afford to, continue to produce?  It
sounds to me like rich philanthropists are going to be the only people able to
be full-time artists, scientists, programmers, etc. under your scheme.  I
think that production of new intellectual property would largely die under
these conditions, and your Xanadu would wind up with pretty bare "shelves".
In fact, all the Xanadu-type proposals for electronic distribution of
intellectual properties I've seen provided for automatic electronic payment
from your account to the author's when you downloaded the author's work.
Under *these* situations, I believe the production of art, programs, etc. could
flourish; the payment could be much smaller than it is today, and the authors
of quality works could still expect to make a substantial profit, since their
work would automatically be made available to tens or hundreds of millions of
potential buyers, without having to go through the expensive process of 
physical distribution.  Sort of like shareware would be today if people
actually paid. :) )

>3. If there was no restriction on copying, there would be a
>   much more `darwinistic' evolution in intellectual
>   products.  Inferior programs would stand a much smaller
>   chance of ever being used.  (Example: if Apple software
>   was not protected by copyright law, there would be cheap
>   Macintosh clones, and _no-one_ would use MS-DOS or
>   Windows.)

     Think about this for a minute.  If Apple software was not protected by
copyright law, there would be no cheap Macintosh clones, because there would
be no Macintosh.  Developing the Macintosh system software cost millions upon
millions of dollars' worth of labor; why on Earth would Apple ever make such an
investment, knowing that there was no way they could recover their development
costs, let alone show a profit?  Out of the goodness of their hearts?  I
repeat, we're in a capitalistic society.  If Apple spent that many millions of
dollars out of the goodness of their hearts, Apple's shareholders would have
every right to sue the board of directors into the ground.  We'd probably
still using MS-DOS, assuming it was ever developed at all either; I frankly
doubt that Windows would have even been developed, since it was largely a
response to the Macintosh.)

>4. The highest grade information that I know is `science'.
>   Try to imagine a world in which you had to _pay_ for each
>   scientific article that you need to look at for your
>   research or if you wanted to build on the results from
>   such an article.  In what state would science be in such a
>   world.  In other words: I prefer the way information is
>   handled in science to the way it's handled in the software
>   industry.

     Lots of scientific information is published, and lots of it isn't.  Lots
of computer science information is published, and lots of it isn't.  I don't
see a world-shaking difference here.  (Try asking Upjohn Pharmaceuticals if 
they'll kindly tell you the exact chemical formulations and manufacturing 
processes of all their drugs, and I doubt you'll get much farther than if you
asked Apple or Microsoft if they'd kindly share their MacOS or Windows source
code.)

>Of course, this whole article is just wishful thinking :-)

     With all due respect, as a programmer who would very rapidly be put on
the unemployment line by your wishes, I don't see much in them to smile about.

>Freek
>--
>Third theory of Phenomenal Dynamics:  The difference between
>a symbol and an object is quantitative, not qualitative.


-- 
\o\ Internet: phaedrus@halcyon.com  (Seattle, WA Public Access Unix)     \o\
 \o\ "How'd you like to move a few steps down the food chain, pal?"       \o\
  \o\ If you enjoy fantasy/SF stories with transformation themes, email me \o\
   \o\ for a copy of the Transformation Stories List.                       \o\
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer