Hacker 2/HACKER2.mdf/cud/cud443b.txt

Text File | 1995-01-03 | 7KB | 127 lines

Date: Fri, 11 Sep 92 15:16:56 JST
From: "Robert J. Woodhead" <[e-mail]>
Subject: File 2--Re: Piracy/Social Context (#4.42)

With regards the following article, I have some comments.

>Date--Tue, 1 Sep 1992 10:22:44 -0700
>From--James I. Davis <[e-mail]>
>Subject--Software Piracy--The Social Context

In CUD 4.42, James I. Davis argues that property rights in information
are a bad idea.  I would like to argue the opposite.

First of all, I believe we can take it as a given that information has
value.  Ask any stockbroker, bookie or 5-star General if you don't
believe me.  Whenever commodities of value exist, so does the
possibility of trade; buying and selling.  In a free-market economy,
prices are set based on supply and demand, with sellers attempting to
maximize the equation of (# of copies sold)*(profit per copy).

The fundamental difference between the sale of information and the
sale of breakfast cereal (or any other physical commodity) is that
when information is sold, nothing physical is transferred.  Once you
have a bit of information, you can sell it zillions of times, and
what's more, anyone you sell it to can do likewise, if they were so
inclined.

Wherein lies the problem - if everyone can sell every bit of
information they buy from another, the value of information, and thus
the incentive to create it, plummets.  Which is why it is only very
rarely that information is actually sold - what you buy is the right
to USE the information for your own benefit.

Information industries have always been with us - book publication for
example.  There have been many analogies made between book and
soft-ware publishers, but there is a fundamental difference; whereas
it costs more to Xerox a book than to buy an original, the digital
nature of software reverses the relationship.  Why buy an original
when you can get an identical copy much cheaper?

My answer to the above is that when you make a copy, you are stealing
from two groups of people : the people who create and distribute the
software, and the people who legitimately buy it.  In the first case,
you are showing a lack of respect for the creative efforts of other
people; in the second, you are forcing the legitimate customers to
shoulder a larger share of the development expenses than they would
otherwise have to.  Mr. Davis totally misunderstands this
relation-ship, as he demonstrates in his final paragraphs where he
attempts to show that even with "24 billion" in piracy the software
industry is still profitable.  Most of that 24 billion came out of the
pockets of legitimate users.

Mr. Davis also misunderstands the meaning of the "Fair Use Doctrine,"
which applies to how information that has legally been acquired may be
redisseminated.  FUD has little or nothing to do with the concept of
software piracy.  What FUD does say is what the purchaser or recipient
of information (eg: a computer game or a TV program) can do with the
information - for example, it says you can make as many backup copies
as you want, but not give them away.

He then goes on to state that the enforcement of property rights in
information would require a police state.  Nonsense.  What it requires
is the proper application of contract law, something we have hundreds
of years experience with.  When you buy the right to use some
infor-mation, you agree to abide by the restrictions placed upon you
by the seller.  If you don't like the restrictions, don't buy.  If you
decide to say "Screw You!" to the seller and steal it, expect to get
censured it.

He further argues that enforcing property rights impedes the proper
dissemination of the storehouse of knowledge.  I would argue the
opposite.  By placing value on particular types of information, such
property rights guide the employment of human ingenuity in the
direction of providing the most valuable and needed information, and
the rewards given to those who create, or who have the wisdom to cause
to be created, the most valuable information, encourage others.  He
bemoans the problems of schools and software, yet in fact the major
reason why tons of wonderful software isn't available cheaply is due
to the fact that schools are notorious for buying 1 copy for the
entire school system (I speak from personal experience here).  Very
few companies specialize in educational software for schools for this
reason.  And his textbook example (sorry) is specious because it has
nothing to do with software and everything to do with the cost of
printing books.

Lastly, Mr. Davis, after arguing that property rights = police state,
advocates that we entrust to the government the duty of deciding who
is to be paid for creating what information.  Anyone who has actually
seen how much time and money is wasted due to infighting about grants
from the NSF would never make such a suggestion.  He also brings up
the red herring of "it isn't the creators who get the money, but the
entrepreneurs."  Hell, they risked the money to pay the creators, they
deserve the rewards.  Having been on all sides of the equation, I can
tell you, in general everyone gets what they deserve.  If a creator is
truly that, and not just a hack programmer who can code a module, he
can negotiate a % of the profits - just like in the movies.  (except
computer firms usually aren't as sneaky accounting-wise)

Finally, he argues that property rights aren't needed to ensure
software production.  My answer is, yes and no.  While many people
create for the heck of it (me included), the fact is, there needs to
be a way for people to protect the fruits of their labors if they
choose to protect them.  If the GNU approach is better than
Micro-softs, then the marketplace will decide.  The fundamental
difference between myself and Mr. Davis (and the GNU folks) is that
they feel that the government should make everyone do things the way
they want, and I think that contract law and private agreements are
all that are needed.

I'll quote his last paragraph:

   >(4) But but but, how will software get written, who will finance it?
   >Knowledge is a _social_ treasury, and should be funded socially.
   >Public competitions, grants, a social fund supported by users,
   >whatever. We >have som>e models already: the university and federal
   >research model; the arts funding model; the GNU experiment; the
   >freeware and public domain experience. We're a creative and energetic
   >group -- we can figure it out.

Welfare for Hackers.  What a wonderful idea.  (heavy sarcasm)  Any
hacker worthy of the name would spurn it.

------------------------------


Downloaded From P-80 International Information Systems 304-744-2253