[OT] - does IP exist?

[downs]

Jb wrote:
> "Yigal Chripun" <yigal100 at gmail.com> wrote in message 
> news:g83na1$8jb$1 at digitalmars.com...
>> Robert wrote:
>>> Anyways, music is a pretty bad example, since most online music sites
>>> are crap, record companies don't pay artists well, etc., etc. Let's
>>> restrict our domain to software, since we're both creators of software
>>> (I'm guessing) and it's our work that's being ripped off. Say you quit
>>> your day job, took out a loan, and spent two years, 10 hours a day
>>> developing a Photoshop-killer. Would you think people had the right to
>>> use it without paying you?"
>> Yes, people do have the right to use any software I create and put out
>> in the open. The question you should have asked is this: "_what_ is you
>> business model for such a situation?"
> 
> Why do they have a right to use my work but I dont have a right to say how 
> its used, or a right to be rewarded for my work.
> 
> Why do their rights trump mine?
> 
> 
>> I know we are developers and all we want to do is just write code and
>> get paid for it but unless you have a viable business model that's just
>> wishful thinking.
> 
> In pramatic terms yes, you have to accept that people will steal / pirate 
> your work. So you need a business model that will suceed in spite of that.
> 
> But it doesnt stop piracy being what it is. An illegal violation of the 
> authors rights.
> 

Sure, I agree with that. And as long as you call it "piracy", and "copyright violation", I'm on your side.

I really only start getting pissed off when you try to call it "stealing" and claim that every single infringement equals a lost sale.

> 
>> next point: you talked about online alternatives like netflix, itunes,
>> etc. I'll assume you live in the US, and as such you live in a bubble.
>> all those services are limited to the US and Canada. I live in Israel
>> and none of those sites will let me in. Last I checked I tunes only
>> recently allowed for people from Israel to get in and to a very limited
>> subset of stuff (only software, I think). Therefore those are not
>> alternatives for me. Most of the piracy doesn't come from the US where
>> those services are available but from other countries where the "legal"
>> options are much more expensive and no viable "legal" solutions exist.
> 
> Yes better services / busniness models will help reduce piracy. But that 
> isnt the main reason for it, the main reason, as it has always been, and 
> always will be, is because people will avoid paying for somthing if they 
> dont have to. And moreso if they can mentaly reconstruct the act as a 
> victimless crime.
> 
> It's the same reason people are more likely to pocket the change if the are 
> overchanged in WalMart than if they were overchanged in small local store 
> ran by a guy they know.
> 
> It's the same with music / film / software piracy. Most people see it as a 
> victimless crime, they wouldnt pay for most of the stuff they have pirated 
> anyway so what difference does it make?
> 

I wouldn't pay for the stuff I pirate. I pirate english movies because I don't like watching German movies. Take Dark Knight. I want to watch it. But I don't want to watch it enough to see the German version, or enough to go and import a DVD. If there were no P2P networks, I would _never_ watch it.

So the fact that I'm probably going to pirate it in half a year or so does _not_ equate to a lost sale.

FWIW, I pay for many of the games I play. And I have a legitimate reason to download them first - Linux :) There's a high chance that the game won't work anyway.

> Well there's still some percentage of what they pirate that they probably 
> would have paid for. So it does still hurt developers / producers.
> 

But less than is commonly claimed.

> I know quite a few developers in the pro audio industry who have seen their 
> sales fall through the floor as soon as their software turns up on bit 
> torrent / rapidshare ect. And I really mean dropped by 80%. It's why so many 
> pro audio companies are adopting hardware dongles.
> 
> I offer an open challenge to any of freeloaders to put a possitive communist 
> spin on that.
> 

I'd like to see the numbers on that.

Specifically, number of IPs that downloaded the software, as compared to precise sales figures.

It sounds like somebody saw their sales going down, and went out to find a reason.

> 
>> To address Mike's post:
>> Your entire post is based on the wrong assumption that software is a
>> product and not a service (of free information). hence, your business
>> model is wrong.
> 
> You can have a business model that treats it more or less as one or the 
> other but that doesnt actualy make it fundamentaly one or the other. So it's 
> a completely irelevant disnction to make imo.
> 
> Sure say "a service based business model" is more pragmatic.
> 
> But its wrong, and of little illumination to say software is a service, and 
> not a product. Actualy if you want to be pedantic you would say a product is 
> a "product of labour", a service is a "supply of labour", so tehcincaly 
> software is more the former than the later.
> 
> And not to mention that vast amounts of companies still survive and prosper 
> with a product based business model.
> 

I agree with you here. Software is a product if only by virtue of people being ready to buy into the concept that it is. :)

But that doesn't change the fact that "software is a product" is an artificial concept, a marketplace model being adapted to sell something it was not intended to sell.

Just saying.

> 
> 
>> When the dinosaurs lived 65 billion years ago, there was plenty of
>> oxygen in the atmosphere, when that went down a notch they couldn't
>> breath and got extinct and replaced by more efficient breathers
>> (mammals). The fact is that the level of oxygen were reduced. the choice
>> was to either breath more efficiently or die. same goes here - you need
>> to adapt to the environment not the other way around. you want to make
>> money from your software? than come up with a viable business model. Do
>> not expect everyone to bend over for you. the free market isn't that
>> much different from nature. you don't adapt, you get extinct.
>>
>> I'll say it one more time: "The customer is always right". that's the
>> gist of it.
> 
> You could use the same analogy to reason away protection rackets, or drug 
> running, or most illegal enterprise. It's just a fact of life, you cant 
> change it, so get on with it.
> 
> Which to some extent is true, but it doesnt mean we should stop calling 
> those things for what we are.
> 

We agree on this. :)

However, mainly due to the massive scale of casual copyright violation today, it may be that the era of "software as a product" is quite simply coming to an end.

After that point, it would be a shame if people were still put into lifelong debt over laws that have lost all relevance.

Well, we'll see where things lead.