Since it would make it legitimate to copy and resell any piece of software, it will seriously cut into profits of larger software giants. The entire line of thinking that you are a licensee of the software handed to you, and not the owner of it through the physical property that contains this intangible property, would no longer be valid.
It is often said by men like Sowell and Friedman that losses are more important than profits. Losses are crucial in ensuring the allocation of resources to their best possible uses, and they thus determine the pattern of investment and development of ventures in society. The amazing thing about loss is that it tells us a very specific and important information about the venture that would let all its stakeholders, especially employees and managers, know its worth to them. No one likes to work in a sinking ship, give money to it, continue operating it, or enter into contracts with it.
If these software giants found themselves in a situation where they can no longer earn the supernormal earnings guaranteed to them by protection of their IP, would they be forced to find better busines models? Or would they come crashing down, and the software industry would kill all large competition by bringing cost of providing software services to ZERO? And all in all, how would the parties other than software companies benefit from this? Would they be guaranteed increased quality of service, despite a zero price environment where no one would gain more money by offering more quality?
“A software license agreement is a contract between the “licensor” and purchaser of the right to use computer software. The license may define ways under which the copy can be used, in addition to the automatic rights of the buyer including the first sale doctrine and 17 U.S.C.§ 117 (freedom to use, archive, re-sale, and backup). These documents often call themselves end-user license agreements (EULAs).”
say when were contracts banned in this IP-free period?
You see, the license defines the way the copy may be used, but in an IP free environment, one can simply take the exact same code and distribute it as their own software.
That would mean hundreds of homogenous imitators, and software companies won’t be able to sue them for it.
The structure of production would change. That is all. Software is a profitable industry, with or without IP. If you’ve followed the software industry you know several prominent open source firms grew substantially during the recession, while closed source firms shrunk.
[edit] TO add:
Lots of business’s can form under the blanket of extreme protectionism. Just because those firms have lasted and profited due to the existence of those protectionist measures does not validate the protectionist measures nor does it validate those firms using such measures.
my friend comes over and without asking me copies the software. he has used my property , the physical disk, without pwermission, but I decide to forgive him and not to press charges. the company has no claims on his copy, since he didnt buy it from them and made no agreement with them. all they can claim is that they have a copyright, which no longer exists.
As opposed to what? Your question is confusing? What has Windows innovated?
Linux currently runs on almost every
Cell phone, TV, Router, Switch, MediaPlayer, game console, and just about every electronic device you use probably has an inmeded form of linux.
From that platform several extremely drastic industry changing technologies have been developed. A few of those involve,
Collaboration
Virtualization
Cloud Computing in general (Your not going to run S3 in Windows)
Not to mention how many hosted solutions are provided on Linux.
The latest windows OS’s are only adding features that the MAC OS’s and various Desktop Environments, like KDE, have provided for years now.
Is there something you can pull out of left field that Microsoft has innovated? The one thing Microsoft has d one well is offered a completed stable platform consistently. They slipped up on Vista but saved themselves with 7. Microsoft’s innovation didn’t come in the form of technology but in distribution and quality. However, to pose a question, ‘what has linux innovated’ makes you look very ignorant in the software industry. Unless I misunderstood what your point was.
The entire IT industry’s technologies are built from open source tools first. It’s been this way for quiet a while.
I embraced it for ease of programming and security. Knowing how to set it up on a server is very useful, too. These are all strong points that Microsoft tried to emulate. The only thing I use windows for now is video games.