a copy is a copy and not the original thing. so did person A have the original thing or the copy and thus the copy was stolen and not the original thing or the original thing was stolen but your calling it a copy of the original thing or…
So. What.
So there is no point in debating the legality of actions that are not possible, unless one wants to pretend that certain criminal acts may have been achieved through impossible means that were deemed beyond recourse in some philosophical argument.
Again, you refuse to answer my questions. Let me know when you are interested in a genuine discussion.
But who–other than yourself–is talking about such things?
The judge.
Judge: The plaintiff claims that you violated his copyright on media in order to release your CD compilation of the greatest hits of Metallica.
KoB: Well, I actually recoded the CDs based on listening to them at my friend’s house, so I did not violate any copyright.
Judge: But that’s impossible.
KoB: So. What.
Judge: You’re guilty.
Nope. Try again. Tell us who–other than yours–is talking about such things.
Can we just declare this mangled and twisted wreckage of a thread over and done with already? Man, I haven’t read a single original thought here in some time, which is interesting in a discussion with the pro-IP forces who disingenuously compare making a copy of a book with grand theft, and who (intentionally?) don’t understand simple analogies when the analogy breaks down, or situations designed to make a point. The various “Crusoe economics” examples would likely also be tossed out because, well, those specific examples did not actually occur.
Bump for I, Ryan.
Also this thread has the other refutations, but it has been locked.
They would simply move towards a business model that would charge for support and updates rather than trying to sell as many individual units as possible. If there were no IP laws that wouldn’t stop Microsoft (for example) from continuing to require you to activate their product online to gain access to Windows updates. Plenty of people, especially businesses, will be willing to pay for that quality control even if there were other ways to get the software freely.
Then there are other issues in regards to the extreme amount of legal fees and rights fees that software developers having to go through when developing, the amount of legal red tape they have to tip-toe through is absurd, and the more successful your company becomes the more you have to worry about this kind of thing. If your developers create code from scratch and in-house, there is still a good chance the functions of that code are already patented and you will have to pay off whoever holds the patent. Even if it’s not patented, you have to pay a legal team to make sure it is not patented.
You really have to keep in mind that software developers would be cutting cost by using code freely just as much, if not more so, than their customers would be.
I am confident that if all IP laws were removed we would see a drastic increase in the the quality of software while also seeing prices drop. The people who would lose out are the ones who sit on their ass and collect a paycheck for an “idea” that they have put little to no work into.
What would stop another business from redistributing the windows updates for one dollar a year per subscriber?
They would always be two steps behind, some people would buy it and some wouldn’t but in a business environment a second hand update simply wouldn’t cut it.
They can also be installed in a way that makes them very difficult to redistribute when not accessed directly from the original companies servers.
If you are downloading an update that is modifying OS files on the fly, rather than downloading an update on one chunk and then installing it, it is very difficult to redistribute. Not impossible, but even if you do the work and make it happen, there is no quality control or guarantee that you received all of the update or that it is all functioning properly. Only the creator of the update can say “yep, you got it all and it is working properly”.
Unless they are very incompetent, a software dev who is intimately aware of their product (because they created it from scratch) is always going to be able to use that as a seal of approval for their updates and support as a strong selling point. You really have to understand how ANAL businesses are right now about cyber-security, and they do not look to the government for that security, they are looking towards tech companies to have the skill and knowledge to provide it.
Are you telling me that a company like IBM could not take the windows updates and redistribute them on their own servers in less than one minute?
As they exist right now, yes they could do that. They can do it because Microsoft allows you to download in one chunk, save it, then install it.
Microsoft could easily change the format so that the update downloads and installs at the same time, with no single update file to save and redistribute. To redistribute this format you would have to reverse engineer the update, find out what files had been changed and to what extent, and then repackage those files - this takes time and quality control is lost.
I have worked in IT for almost 10 years, I have never met a single IT manager who was more concerned about the legal problems of pirated software vs. the security problems of pirated software. The dead giveaway is that most of them do in fact pirate software to at least a small degree, but only when it comes from a copy they have purchased and copied themselves. Even right now it is considered “best practice” to only download windows updates directly from Microsoft servers.
Why isn’t Microsoft doing that already if it is the superior model?
Without IP we’re no longer dealing with black market pirated software, but direct copy by highly sophisticated capitalist enterprise. They wouldn’t have security issues.
They don’t do it now because the legal climate makes the current businesses model the best one.
You are not understanding the current black market of software. It is not viable because you don’t know who has touched it or what has changed. The current piracy methods are also currently very sophisticated, but the real concern is about getting the software directly from a trusted source. IBM would have more credibility than your average crack groups that exist now, but they still would not have anywhere near they level of credibility as the developer - and if they pursued your idea they would be at the mercy of how often their developer releases updates.
Seems like you are trying to get me to prove that a IP-less business model can be viable, this has already been proven to a small degree as there have been plenty of free software products that have made money. I think it is just as fair for you to try to prove that your $1 dollar a year redistribution of Windows updates could be viable. Not to mention you are focusing on the update side of my idea rather than the support side, which is where most of the money is.
In other words, IP makes possible the best business models for both consumers and producers. Given other legal alternatives, both consumers and producers rely on those built upon IP.
In what way would Microsoft and its consumers benefit from the abolition of IP? They would have to opt for inferior alternatives. It seems the only people who benefit from the abolition of IP are the counterfeiters.
IBM is already in the support business and has a very good reputation of it. They would no doubt be even more reliable than Microsoft for the support side.
Of course, building the entire industry on support introduces a severe conflict of interest, in that no one has an interest in making software that doesn’t need support and is both reliable and user-friendly, which the consumer software market does. Hence, the abolition of IP would hurt the consumer the most.
They do not really have legal alternatives when it comes to IP. Sure they could choose to release their software for free and not use IP in that regard, they would still have to pay patent fees and legal fees to develop that software. This would make IP a net loss for them, as it would be enforced on them but not on others. By enforcing IP on others as it is enforced on them, it comes closer to breaking even for Microsoft. Realistically Microsoft probably loses more to IP than they gain from it, I think IP generally goes against the top dogs in the market. You should look into how often Microsoft has been forced to change/add/remove features which is costly both in labor and time lost in releasing a product that already was ready for the market.
IBM has a good reputation in supporting hardware that they design and create, they would not be able to support an ever-changing Windows environment that Microsoft creates. It is simply impossible to provide the same high level quality support for software when you do not have access to the source code, if IP was abolished companies like Microsoft will continue to to go great lengths to keep their code secure. Loss of IP does not mean all software becomes open-source.
Software has been an ever-changing landscape where updates and learning are constantly required. To think that only poor quality software needs support is very ignorant of how the software industry operates IMO. Realistically even the best software still needs support, unless it is extremely simple which means it could easily be included in a bigger software package.
IP actually encourages developers to support their product less, because they already have your money once you buy it, if it doesn’t work for you too bad. If you want to try it before you buy it, it’s illegal.
IP is really not great for either the consumer or the producer, IP is best for lawyers, the court system, and people who sit on patents without using them. The money that you think companies are making off IP is simply funneled back into the court/legal system and towards other patent holders.
On the note of IP being good for consumers, just the other day an end user asked me for help because he had to take an online training course that required java. He didn’t know this, but I installed java for him and got it work. After I explained what happened, he asked me “why doesn’t the computer just come with java? How is a layman like me supposed to know I need java”.
The short answer is Microsoft tried to include it and got slapped by the legal system for doing so.
IP is horrible for consumers in so many different ways.
Open source companies do not pay such fees.
That is incorrect. In fact if IP were abolished Microsoft would have to go to even greater expense to keep its code secure, as the use of the justice system would not be available to protect their property (we are agreeing that their code is property since you agree that Microsoft can legitimately keep it secure). They would have to physically defend the code themselves and self-produce their security instead of engaging in a division of labor with a security producer, hence it would mean higher costs for Microsoft and by necessity also for Microsoft consumers.
That is a grave misinterpretation of capitalism. No capitalist enterprise will void their warranty just because they have already been paid by their customer.
The anti-capitalist mentality of intellectual communists is exposed once again. Do we really need more evidence?