The Death of D. (Was Tango vs Phobos)

Adam D. Ruppe destructionator at gmail.com
Sun Aug 17 14:02:25 PDT 2008


On Sun, Aug 17, 2008 at 06:58:13PM +0100, Jb wrote:
> I think the mistake you and Yigal are making is assuming that it should all 
> be done in the same way.

My own position is may be a little weird. As far as rights to information
goes, there are a two:

1) You cannot force someone to divulge anything.

Thus, he is free to charge someone for a piece of information if he wants.

2) You cannot force someone /not/ to divulge something.

Thus, once you tell someone something, he is free to resell it if he wants.

In short, I'm saying a person can choose to tell or not tell whatever he
wants.


We are definitely in agreement on point #1. Copyright directly restricts
point #2 - it forces people to not divulge something they know, lest they
face undesirable consequences.

Use of force to modify people's behaviour needs to be justified. This
is where the disagreement really lies, and as you read on, you'll see that
you and I don't really disagree as much here as it might look at first glance :)


> Well the system should allow people as much freedom as possible to work on 
> whichever business model best suits their enterprise.

If my business model was to murder all my competitors, you surely wouldn't
allow that.

Clearly, people aren't free to pick which ever business model best suits
them - there are restrictions on what they can do, especially when it comes
to using force on other people.

As I said above, copyright law is using force on other people to modify
their behaviour. It seems like it, by default, shouldn't be permitted.

Unlike most human rights which prevent you from using force on people
except in extreme circumstances (people have a right to life, thus murder
is wrong, etc.), copyright permits you to use force on people. This is
backward. The burden of proof is on the pro-copyright side.

> But if you take away that right the range of options open to them is far 
> smaller.
> 
> And you would see far less enterprise because of it.

They don't have the option to send armed thugs to their competitor's
office to prevent him from manufacturing other objects, and that doesn't
hurt business - quite the opposite, it helps business.

Copyright might not be sending armed thugs, but it is the same idea: you
are forcing someone else out in favor of yourself.

I would argue that in an ideal world, there would be no copyright, and
this is something that would allow art to flourish.


Consider a world without copyright for a moment. Say you find a software
library on the Internet that is perfect for your needs and would shave
weeks off your development time.

With copyright, you have to adhere to its license, which wastes your time.
Without copyright, you just take it and use it.

Your project is now completed weeks ahead of schedule and is of higher
quality than if you had to reimplement that library yourself.

This lets you move on to another project more quickly. The world gets
more and better creations since you weren't restricted in what you could
do in creating it.

Later on, someone could do the same to your project, using it or pieces of
it to shave time off his own project, adding more and more quantity and
quality of creations to the world.

This would be ideal. Art would flourish.


But the real world isn't ideal as it is right now. This is where you might
be able to justify a copyright law. In the real world, if you devote
several months to creating something, you have bills that need to be
paid during those months.

You have two options:
1) Work another job to pay the bills. This eats into the time you would
otherwise spend on the creation of your project, meaning you can't create
as much nor as high quality as you could by devoting more time to it.

Or 2) Make some money off that project in some way. This lets you devote
all your time to the creation of the art while still paying the bills.


There are a few ways to accomplish that. One is to sell originals of the
work to people later. Musicians can do this by selling tickets to live
performances. Painters can do this by selling their painting.

Software developers can't do this directly. The best hope they have is
selling support, which IMO isn't a very attractive option...

Another is to work on commission. You create a custom work for someone
who pays you ahead of time to create something just for him. This
is actually how I make money off my software right now in the real world;
I write extremely boring, but highly specialized applications to specific
customers. They pay me for a custom fitted program, which I cannot control
at all when it is done (the copyright is assigned to the customer.)

That is how artists worked through most of history. It's a fairly good model
for various kinds of artists, including software developers. Even without
copyright, people will probably still want custom-tailored solutions to
their own problems and will be willing to pay for it.


Another way to pay the bills while being an artist is to be sponsored by
someone. This is comparatively rare, so it isn't something on which to bet
the farm.


Finally, you have the copyright option: using force to shape the market
in such a way where it is profitable to you. If none of the above options
are workable, this lets the artist still pay the bills while working on
his art full-time. Thus, most everyone is happy: the art is created, letting
people have it and the artist doesn't have to starve to death.



That result is the only thing that justifies copyright. It isn't about
the rights of the creator - he doesn't have the right to use force on people
under normal circumstances, so that argument is right out. It is about
the end result.

In an ideal world, copyright would be an evil. It would do only harm and
no good. (As you can probably tell, the definition of the ideal world
I'm using here is simply one where bills /don't/ have to be paid. Other
than that difference, all things are equal with the real world. I strongly
believe that the real world could be adjusted to fit this definition in the
near future, if only we had the political will to make some changes.)

In the ideal world, the only restriction I'd place on 'intellectual property'
is basically what several of the phobos source licenses say: you may not
misrepresent the source of the work. Otherwise, do whatever you want with it.


In the real world, it serves a useful purpose - letting artists work full
time without selling originals or working on commission, permitting things
to be created that otherwise would be neglected in favor of the artist paying
his bills. Thus it is allowed to exist.


That's it.

-- 
Adam D. Ruppe
http://arsdnet.net



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