Date: Fri, 11 Sep 92 15:16:56 JST From: "Robert J. Woodhead" 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 >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