From: jgl7@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Andrew T. Kim)
Subject: Re: Software copyrights
Reply-To: jgl7@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Andrew T. Kim)
Organization: Columbia University
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 17:09:12 GMT

In article <1k4s6sINN7op@emx.cc.utexas.edu> btlee@emx.cc.utexas.edu (Byungtae Lee) writes:
>I wish my name in this group does not mean any flame war again.

Unless you want to.  :)

>I'd like to ask your opinion regarding this.
>(1)  Considering Korean economy status, is it really beneficial 
>    to have severe protection on the knowledge properties? 
>    So far, R&D means in Korea imitating (or copying) R&D.

There is a difference between copying and imitating.  You may learn
something out of imitating, but blatant copying does not help anything.
You need some kind of protection, and Korea hardly has any.

>(2)  If yes, why did Korean government resist agaist it when USA demanded it?

You are asking government to be rational. :) 
Korean policy makers are not known for their long-term view.

>(3) How can we change our mind set regarding knowledge properties?
>    Traditional value system does not give much credit to any individual.
>   When I finsihed some books at my traditional old chinese-teaching school
>   (Seo-Dang), my grand mother prepared some cakes and wine for my teacher and
>    class mates. That's all what my family paid for my learning.
>   My late teacher (or principal of that school because he was only one
>   teacher) believed that the truth belonged to the heaven not to any
>   individual.  
>   Therefore, according to him (them), we can not get any materialistic
>    benefits from what belongs to the heaven.  He was just happy because
>    he had still smart pupils while whole nation already abandoned that old
>    studies.

It could have worked out before, and still might for some people.  What you
are mentioning above is about some people's philosophy or view on morality.
If you are talking about the economics, it *is* about materialism and
money.  Money may not everything, but is the major instrument to measure
the value of something.  Even if truth belongs to heaven, the service
rendered to convey that truth belongs to human and should be properly
rewarded.  That way we encourage more people to participate in the healthy
exchange of information.

>My explanation went like this for IBM marketing representatives.
>  "The benefit from computer investment can be measured easily by savings of
>    labor inputs. If a PC can save one person, it generated $10,000 a year in

[Side Note:  This is off the topic, and you probably know it too, but it is
not that easy to measure the investment value of computer systems.  You
have to take various costs for new professionals, educations etc into account]

>     Korea provided a college-graduated earns that amount while it gave
>     40K dollars in USA. With the same amount of efforts or value added from
>    computer, in USA computer or information system investment can be easily
>   justified while we are not. How can IBM Korea expect 4 times more 
>    productivies from Korean information workers (MIS department)?
>    Therefore, in order to help Korean economy and your customers who work 
>    so long and so hard to justify their investment, you should let me copy
>    as many software applications as possible." 

Well, it worked for *you* and saved your money, so it's fine with me, but I
cannot agree it helped Korean economy.  

First of all, how much IBM charges for their service is their problem.  If
I were IBM, I will try to charge as much as I possibly could.  The problem
is the lack of competition that would have created a fair market.  It is
understandable that Korean government has been loose about it, because
Korean companies are not strong enough to compete with such big companies,
but it should really be controlled through Trade Laws, Anti-Trust Laws or
something like that.  

The lack of proper copy-protection laws won't hurt IBM much, but it will
discourage many small startup companies to write innovative softwares.
It probably didn't matter much before, but it's a time to change.

>As long as they present the justification of investment which has been 
>developed in USA, I insisted the above logic.  Many patriotic(?)
>marekting representatives had to accept my reasoning. 

They probably wanted to keep you happy so that they can sell you more
computers in the future.

>-- 
>Byungtae Lee (btlee@emx.cc.utexas.edu)  
>Tel. 512)471-1679(O), 478-3779(H)  Fax. 512) 471-0587
>------------------------------------------------------

Andy Kim