Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!csd4.csd.uwm.edu!srcsip!roe!jclark From: jclark@SRC.Honeywell.COM (Jeff Clark) Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss Subject: Re: Copywrongs Message-ID: <28386@srcsip.UUCP> Date: 18 Aug 89 16:17:27 GMT References: <8908181535.AA08568@cheops.cis.ohio-state.edu> Sender: news@src.honeywell.COM Lines: 45 In-reply-to: RAMO%AC.DAL.CA@OHSTVMA.IRCC.OHIO-STATE.EDU's message of 18 Aug 89 14:18:00 GMT In article <8908181535.AA08568@cheops.cis.ohio-state.edu> RAMO%AC.DAL.CA@OHSTVMA.IRCC.OHIO-STATE.EDU (Richard Outerbridge) writes: I have been a computer analyst and programmer for many years. I am paid to create information. Information which is needed by those who hire me. Information which they can use to help them with their chosen activities. I am paid matter pellets in direct proportion to the time I spend in creating the information. If a third party approaches me and requests a copy of the same information I have already been paid to create, why should I demand money of this third party as well? Is this anything less than greed? The dream of getting something for nothing? Unfortunately, you fail to see the obvious consequences of your freely giving the information you have created to the third party. Eventually, your employers will discover that they are paying you a princely sum in "matter pellets" to develop information that their competitors are able to obtain for free. Obviously, your employer's cost of doing business will be higher than their competitor's costs. Eventually your employers will be unable to compete in the marketplace and, perhaps, go out of business --- leaving you unemployed. Alternatively, your employers might take the attitude, "Why should we pay Mr. Outerbridge to develop this information which he then gives away freely to our competitors? Let us put Mr. Outerbridge in the unemployment line, and perhaps one of our competitors will be foolish enough to hire him. Then we can obtain this information from Mr. Outerbridge for free, as our competitors are currently doing." Either way, you end up unemployed. Now, perhaps you object that this is too self-centered a viewpoint: that it does not take into account the "larger picture, the good of society", etc. Why should your profession (the production of "information pellets") be subjected to special rules which do not apply to those involved in the production of "matter and energy pellets", simply because information pellets are more easily duplicated (not *created*, just duplicated). Do you think the guys/gals working on the assembly line building those hard-to-duplicate Fords and Chevys are doing it for the good of society? No, they are trying to feed, clothe, and house their families, send their kids to college, and maybe take a vacation to the beach once a year. Why should you (or I) be expected to do any differently, just because we happen to be skilled at producing a different kind of pellet? Jeff Clark Honeywell Systems and Research Center Minneapolis, MN inet: jclark@src.honeywell.com tel: 612-782-7347 uucp: jclark@srcsip.UUCP fax: 612-782-7438 DISCLAIMER: If you think I speak for my employer, you need serious help ...