Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!fluke!kurt
From: kurt@tc.fluke.COM (Kurt Guntheroth)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Free Free Flow (was: Re: Intellectual property/copyrights)
Message-ID: <4312@fluke.COM>
Date: 5 Jul 88 16:06:00 GMT
References: <9160@cisunx.UUCP> <1801@uhccux.UUCP> <807@netxcom.UUCP> <1804@looking.UUCP> 
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> In article <1804@looking.UUCP>, brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) writes:
>> It is often said, "I don't like copyrights because they interfere with
>> the free flow of information."
>
So BOB (webber@athos.rutgers.edu) replies
> If the first 20 people who think up the idea of the spreadsheet
> decide they are not going to go thru with it because once they make
> one anyone could and they figure that they couldn't recover their development
> costs, is it going to be the ruin of civilization?  Like we wait for the
> 21st person who not only has the idea but needs one enough to build it
> for themself.  Then they pass it on as part of a barter for someone else's
> software.  Maybe they make some money helping other people use the software.
> Maybe they make some money thru consulting for a firm that specializes in
> software maintenence.  The software is needed to make the computers useful.
> It will get written, one way or another, sooner or later.  Gee, hardware
> vendors might even give away development systems to people who give away
> useful software for their machines.

Oh, so maybe they do hope to get some value out of their intellectual
property, by consulting on it...And how user friendly do you suppose a piece
of software will be if the only revenue you can derive from it is consulting?
If you ever had an image of programming as a priesthood, with arcane rituals
and an occasional sacrifice at midnight, this would become an image of the
future.

Hmmm.  "The software is needed to make the computer useful."  And when it
becomes difficult to get software, what will happen to computers?  Maybe
what will happen instead is a decline in the use of computers, and an
increase in cost, and a stifling of development, since much economic
incentive has suddenly been removed from the industry.  Remember,
intellectual property, in the form of design patents, protects a lot of
hardware too.

> You will forgive me while I sit here and contemplate how nice it would
> be if instead of Star Wars, Friday 13th part 99, etc., we only had movies
> made by people who were in it for the joy of making movies.

Gag.  Choke.  It would be like watching those very early live TV shows.  They
look pathetic and primitive compared even to mediocre TV of today.  The whole
(motion picture) medium would probably not have developed if it hadn't
been profitable.  I certainly would not expect any advances in the
technology to occur.  We might revert to much more live acting, since this
medium has absolute control over how many people see each performance.
Wouldn't that change the "viewing habits" of a bunch of people.  Imagine all
those people with VCR's, HBO, and a satellite dish, and suddenly there was
NO new programming.  Wouldn't they all be pissed.

>> After all this, there's a third factor, namely stagnation.  Imagine
>> the software world with the ownership of I.P. removed.  Say you write a
>> better operating system, or spreadsheet.  Is it going to zoom out and
>> replace what's there?  Hah.  If people didn't have to pay anything for
>> Lotus 1-2-3, nobody would ever get the chance to give their product an
>> edge through a lower price.  

> You mean that the only way they could beat out lotus is to make a better
> product.  Gee, shucks, wouldn't want them to have to do that.

And what incentive would there be to make a better product?  After all,
Lotus is "pretty good".  Lotus is out there.  People are used to lotus.
As an artist, I'd concentrate my efforts on a newer and obscurer area,
hoping to be the first with a creative breakthrough.  ("Eureka," you say,
"We would have more innovation.")  But only the first halfway decent 
spreadsheet, editor, compiler, stat package, or whatever would ever become
used.  Pretty soon the all the "commercial" categories would be filled, and
us artists would be concentrating more energy on works of software fiction;
games, demos, and conventional "art" on the computer medium.

Finally, if the only way to profit from information is to keep it
proprietary (since once it is public, anyone can use it), what happens to
freedom, knowledge, and advancement.  Goodbye books.  Then goodbye learning.
Then goodbye civilization.  Hello wizards and alchemists, gentry and
pesants, priests, monks, acolytes, and peons.  We have seen this pattern,
and intellectual property laws were enacted to INSURE THE SPREAD OF
INFORMATION.  Patents have a term of exclusive license.  Copyrights expire
if not maintained carefully.  They represent a demonstrable improvement over
what came before.