My, you have finally come to the realization that ML is deluded and very often, dishonest. You took your time.
I gathered this before I was an official member of the forum. [:P] I tried to play fair and act as if I had not made any previous assumptions though. Arguing with him directly was as grueling as it seemed to be simply through observation.
I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt. Same thing with Ruben. Maybe I am naive.
I just can’t stand people who quote one thing, and then make a strawmen implying something different was said. I won’t be judged by someone’s subjective impression of me, judge my positions precisely and exactly on what I write.
I can’t figure out if people do this maliciously or not. It’s so blatantly dishonest. If it is -=NOT=- malicious, that is scary. It means there are a lot of people who are fundamentally illogical and irrational.
I’ll admit that I’ve seen the word “strawman” appear more times in this one topic than every other time throughout the course of my life thus far.
Again, I’m not suggesting this is an ideal solution, only that the market may use these types of third-party mechanisms. We really don’t know because some of these mechanisms are impossible right now because of government antitrust and anticompetitive laws. But what do we say to statists when it comes to funding public roads, education, defense? We argue that where there’s demand and resources, the market will find a way. We get frustrated when they nitpick solutions instead of trying to improve on them or come up with alternatives.
It’s really not hypothetical at all. This type of thing goes on every day, the software is even offered for free much of the time. I’m just highlighting the fact that without any protection, the original creator is at a disadvantage. The copycat inherently has less expenses, unless you think copying something without protection is more difficult than creating that same thing from scratch. But it seems like we both agree that having no protection is a bad idea. And it seems like we both agree that too much protection drives customers away. The question really is where that sweet spot is, and that’s something for the market to decide. My personal opinion is you’ll have a harder time getting your hands on pirated software in a free market than you would now.
Libertarianism cannot come down to utilitarian concerns such as this. Other than that I don’t know what to say, there are many more people on this forum who can answer that for you, I cannot even begin to.
Anyway, thank you for the politeness you’ve shown.
Not necessarily. I have yet to see a copy-cat who is as competitive as the original creator. Copy-cats are usually lazy and rely less on marketing and incentive than the original creator. Marketing and incentive is an important factor… if it was not, we would see much less of it, even in a statist environment. In a stateless environment, one could assume that the original creator would be even more creative in regard to marketing and incentive than the copy-cat.
Yeah, I think the term is somehow being abused…
Thank you, but it was not uncalled for.
I agree with you to an extent, without offering too much merit to those who I’ve opposed thus far, of course [:p]
Oh that’s rich Juan. Rich. lol
I think what LS is trying to get at is inalienability; for example, you can’t make a slavery contract because your ownership of your mind and body is inalienable. You cannot transfer that to anyone, even if you wanted to. The same applies to IP; you are claiming ownership of something that can exist in someone else’s mind, which would logically imply that you can own part of someone’s mind, when in fact you can’t.
Here’s an article that explains it much better than I can, in addition to other arguments against IP.
Sorry if I’m butchering your argument LS [:P]
One company I worked for created plastics. Their “competitive advantage” was in being able to produce a product to exacting customer specifications faster than anyone else.
And they charged a premium for it. A huge premium. Only customers that needed such speed came to them, but they got what they paid for.
In about one year, some competitor would make the same product cheaper, and gear up to produce it in quantity. The customer would then move on to the cheaper producer.
But for that year, they made bundles of money. There was no lack of customers willing to pay for what this company could offer that no one else could.
It was one of the real-world examples that began my questioning the need for copyright and patent.
Remember though, solutions are supply side. Demand drives the need for solutions.
I meant the actual figures and conditions. It is hard to debate it when the material is hypothetical. 20 times selling price, pirates selling for $5, $100,000 in capital investment, none of it is based on a real scenario. This it’s hard to see how the #s and facts correlate.
In general, yes what you talk about happens. But look at how online companies like Jelsoft manage their businesses.
And I would agree. For different reasons. You seem to believe we will find a sweet spot. I believe we will see the existing norms change. I can see a world where more people run Openoffice than MS Office. It is very hard to sell something, when you can get something similar or the same for free.
There is a whole market out there for the price of free, and it’s not the same as the market that wants to or will pay, a cost. They have to be monetized and targeted differently. The free market will provide for developers who want to make money, and it will provide for developers who want to give away their content. And likewise it will provide for people who expect the benefits of private commercial development, and for the people who do no require those value added scenarios.
Have fun. I don’t own my arguments. [:)]
In any discussion, it’s possible to jump to conclusions, or try to infer something from what’s being said. This may be done on purpose, or not. And the inferences may be correct…or not.
Already there. But, as CurtHowland said in his last post, MS had a few years where they were able to sell MS office a premium. The times have changed and now MS needs to compete with upgrades, incentive, and/or price drop.
Edit: OR, maybe something that none of us have yet to think of… something that we would only see materialize in free market competition.
Edit 2: This is on top of the fact that every each version since the initial MS Office has had considerably less R&D costs. They have just been refining their refining their program over the years, while Open Office may have yet to refine it to the point of MS… I use neither program enough to give my opinion as to which is more advanced. If MS is not more advanced, it is their own fault.
The contract is not designed to control your mind it is designed to limit what actions you can take with the information you have been given. I have pointed to non-compete and non dislcosure agreements as excellent examples that are created by the market and not affected by IP laws at all. I can find no reason that a person is not allowed to make an agreement where he agrees not to disclose certain information. No one has even attempted to explain how this violates the rights of that individual let alone a third party.
Can you honestly say your rights are violated because someone else refuses to share information with you?
One more point, all contracts restrict and limit activity. So again this is where we disagree, I believe contracts can restrict your activity and you can be held accountable for the breech of this contract. By your definition, all contracts are slave contracts because they are limiting your permissable activity.
Again, this is the familiar assault on contracts in this forum.
You saying something is irrelevant doesn’t make it so. If open source software were providing for the wants and needs of the market then no one would be voluntarily paying for commercial solutions. The fact that people are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on software is undeniable. Again, I’m not knocking open source. I think it’s great, but it often lacks the development incentives of commercial software, and that will be true in a free market as well.
Actually, I do know a bit about your question. As I’ve said before, I work in the software industry and know a lot of others with their own companies. Almost universally, they use various protection schemes (non-governmental), and almost universally they have found it to be more profitable than leaving their product unprotected. Here’s a forum of software vendors I visit regularly. Feel free to ask them questions about their experiences and emperical findings: http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/?biz
I never said open source needs to make as much money as commercial software. I’m just asking why commercial software is so successful if open source is the optimal solution.
I agree that current laws do restrict competition in general, and I don’t like them either, but when we talk about specific industries and products (as we’ve done with software and Photoshop vs. Gimp), you have to talk about the specific laws you’re referring to and how they apply to the subject. Can you tell me why people willingly pay for Photoshop over using Gimp for free? Can you tell me what laws are preventing Gimp (or any other product) from outcompeting Photoshop?
Nothing I said was out of anger. Those were all facts and you still haven’t shown anything to the contrary. If you’re frustrated that we haven’t had a meeting of the minds, fine, but there’s no need to lash out. Seriously, it’s not helping anyone.