For a start, you're asking the general public to pay for a commodity product that they can't specify or examine in any detail in advance.
Isn't this exactly what publishing houses do everyday? If you like an author, you're likely to want to read more by him. Simple. Easy to understand. If you want to read more by him, you will patronize him. If you don't like his work, you wont.
In this case you actually have better control over the quality of work. In the current model you have to trust the publisher's marketing hype to judge the quality of a work before you buy it... which is often misleading. Using your own judgement of past work is a much better system....because anyone who wanted to could just take it without any sort of compensation at all...
This is where the laws governing Trademark and Attribution would apply instead of copyright. If someone prints your work and sells lots of copies, you'd be overjoyed. It would mean that you'd soon have enough patrons to write your next work while being paid for it.
One plausible result...
While it's possible for large donation patrons to hire authors to create works, they would not have a lock on the works once they were published. Anyone could make cheaper versions of the work, selling a paperback version for example.
The bottom line issue, I feel, is that copyright attempts to treat ideas like property, which is foolish.
OK, that sounds reasonable enough in principle, but how is that going to work in practice? You'd need thousands of people to be interested in a particular random paperback novel being written in order to get enough money to pay the rent for the author during the months it takes to write it, yet still have each individual pay the same price they pay today for the pleasure of reading it.
Patronage of this type (by the masses) would work based on reputation. First I'll explain how it would work for an established author:
Neil Gaimen announces that he would like to write a new book and gives a brief synopsis on his blog. Those who would like the first copies of the work are welcomed to contribute and become patrons. If enough money comes from the synopsis, Neil begins writing. If not, then he may abandon the project and find one that his fans are willing to fund. Assuming he does write the novel, the patrons get the first nice hardbound copies (and Neil may even get money from the printer for allowing them to print the first batch of books). Attribution of the work MUST be given by law, but anyone could then print the book in any form they wished (paperback, digital, etc). So it's illegal to print the work without attribution, but there are no requirements to pay Neil for making copies of a finished work.
For the non-established author (musician, game designer,...), it would be upon you to draw interest in your work by creating something that created a fan base. Just as most writers never get the attention of publishers, most writers will live their lives producing text that no one reads, but the best will be found and by word of mouth (or advertising if the writer can afford it), they will grow a fan base. Creators would have to create something before any patron would be willing to pay them to create more.
So do you believe everyone should have to pay every time they want to read the same book, or do you believe nothing should be created for mass markets?
I believe there are better systems for rewarding the creation of information than charging a fee per "use."
My suggestion is a return to patronage but instead of works created at the behest of a Nobleman or Publisher, those interested in the authors work would pay for the service of creation.
The principle of copyright is sound: to encourage those with the ability to produce useful and/or entertaining works to share what they create for the benefit of others.
Actually that is not as sound as it might appear. The creation of useful and entertaining works is a service, and should be paid for as a service, not through an artificial lock on the reproduction of the results of that service.
What's needed is attribution and trademark. Copyright is an outdated form of censorship that inhibits and hampers the masses.
You can't own information. The very concept of intellectual property is antiquated. Idea's can not be owned because they fail some key elements of property.
Elements of property that do not fit information (ideas).
* Exclusivity. Property use is restricted. If I own a chair, only one person can reasonable use that chair at one time. Information is not exclusive, and is functionally infinite in usage.
* Defensible. Ownership of property means you can defend it's use from others. If I want to keep others from using my chair, I can protect the chair. The last defense being violence. Information is not defensible once it has been released.
* Physical. Property has a geographic location. A chair takes up physical space. Information does not hold a specific physical space. If released, information defies physical definition.
* Limited reproduction. It takes significant time and resources to make another chair. It takes more resources to distribute a chair. Information requires trivial resources to reproduce and distribute. Once an idea is released, it's reproducibility is nearly infinite. (A wonderful trick is convincing consumers that your information is a physical item. Put your information on a shiny media, put it in a nicely packaged box, and pretend it's property. This is called "productizing".)
The very concept of intellectual property is to give incentive for creation, but the act of limiting access to information retards intellection growth. In a capitalist system it's to your advantage to have information that your competition does not have.
An example of how such a system retards the general good of society is the "60 year light bulb". There is absolutely no reason for anyone to create a 60 year light bulb. In fact, you want to create light bulbs that only last a year or two, because you want people to continue to buy them from you. If you created a 60 year light bulb, you would go out of business within a few years. The technology to create 60 year light bulbs exist. Clearly it's in the best interests of society to have a 60 year light bulb, but in a capitalist system the information for creating such a bulb is more profitably kept from the public than used for the public good.
The retardation of long term systems is not limited to lighting. Cars are designed for short life cycles, roads a built to last one year, and electronics are designed to last two to three years. Quality and longevity are not the friend of the capitalist.
To sum up:
Information is not property. Intellectual Property is more often used in defense of profits than for the public good. You can't own an idea. Intellectual Property is more likely to retard innovation than foster it.
I started using 'neo' in 1985 on BBSs. How do you think I felt when The Matrix came out and I couldn't get my nic on anything, ever again. I made another nick. In fact I think this is the last place I still have it.
Besides, Commander Taco... is just not a very good name for a fantasy world. As a DM I'd tell you to change it too.
Suppose you're on a game show, and you're given the choice of three doors: Behind one door is a car; behind the others, goats. You pick a door, say No. 1, and the host, who knows what's behind the other doors, opens another door, say No. 3, which has a goat. He then says to you, 'Do you want to pick door No. 2?' Is it to your advantage to take the switch?
I can pretty much gaurantee >5.32 hours of access to Office over three years from problems with Office.
The points here is that Office isn't worth $399 and in three years you'd have to buy at least one Office related upgrade and one OS related upgrade just to keep using it. Now you're in the $700 range. If I can get a reasonable office suite online for $15 a year AND it gives me remote access to my files (add MS File Server) and it allows other's to collaborate (add MS collaboration software)... well I'd rather use the web office suit. Thanks.
Sun was right when they said the network is the computer... and soon the network will be everywhere. You're plane flight example makes my point rather than breaks it. Don't you think you can store the files locally too? Don't you think that AJAX works even if you unplug the network?
They have distribution and a little bit of marketing sense (hey, they got slashdotted), but they are missing the feedback loop. What they need to hear from their new patrons is what the patrons want to hear from Harvey Danger. "Flagpole Sitter was great. Do more songs like that." Once you've mastered marketing your service, feedback is the key to getting people to pay for it.
Great logic there, buddy. If you take this a bit further, you find out that you cannot actually own ANYTHING, since all consumer objects break down and many things are, in fact, infinitely reproducable, from a rational perspective. So you really can not own anything, you just buy a privilege to use the object as you see fit. Does this ring a bell? It's called communism.
Your logic was so idiotic I had to reply.
Objects can be owned. By owning, one normally means that you have governship over the object. For example if I own a chair, I can move the chair, sit in the chair, defend the chair if someone attempts to take it from my possession. No one else can use the chair while I'm using it. A chair is functionally finite because it takes some resource to make a chair and all physical resources are finite. Building a chair takes time as well, where copying software is trivial.
Data can not be owned. By owning, one normally means that you have governship over the data. For example I can't own software, I can move it, I can use it, but I can't defend the software if someone else attempts to take possession of it. While I'm using the code, I'm not restricting anyone else from using the code. Software is functionally infinite, in that nothing is lost when another copy is made. There is almost no overhead in copying software. The resourced used in software is programmer's services and when the software is done you have nothing but profit from selling their services as a "product".
And Communism has so little to do with this that it's retarded you even bring it up.
Office is already dead, it just doesn't know it yet. When I can edit documents online from a web page and it looks and feels like an application then you know no one is going to buy MS Office ever again. The real question is who is going to build the AJAX suite and what pricing model will they use.
We've all known for years that "Applications Are Not Possessions". You can't own "Word". You can have a CD with a copy of Word on it, but you can't own it. You can put that CD in a nice shiney box and fool people into thinking they can own data... but they can't. No one can own data.
For year's MS has fooled people into thinking they were buying products when they were actually buying data. Software building is and will always be a service. Let me repeat that for those who don't get it. You can't own data, making data is a service. There's even a word for making a service look like a possession, it's called "Productizing." MS got rich by taking something that was infinately reproducable and selling it like a commodity. Great marketing.
AJAX will kill that. When people realize they can pay $15 a year for the service of word processing online, Word dies and the people who make $15 a year on a million customers win. Send me the royalty checks.
"Our challenge requires the delivery of a solution that will allow an MS-XP compatible application to install and run under Linux using x.org and open source WINE by October 5, 2005."
So theoretically if I can get any one MS-XP compatible application to install and work on Linux I get $10000. The easiest would probably be a screensaver. Who's with me?
Did you even read the article you quoted. Two shells from 1988 is not "Weapons of Mass Destruction." It's more a curiosity than a motive for war, or a nuke attack.
"Poland said in a statement from Iraq that "beyond doubt the shells were from the 1980-1988 period, of the type used against Kurds and during the Iraq-Iran war."
In Baghdad, the U.S. military issued a statement saying that two 122 mm rockets found by Polish forces had tested positive for sarin gas and confirmed that they were left over from the Iran-Iraq war, but said they posed little danger."
"The first example for potential nuclear weapon use listed in the draft is against an enemy that is using "or intending to use WMD" against U.S. or allied, multinational military forces or civilian populations."
It takes time to write a decent mac virus because you have to make it user friendly and it has to look good.
The gui interface has to be just right and when they switched from the candy buttons to the more metalic look I had to start over from scratch.
But I promise, this time next year I'll have the mac virus you've all been waiting for and I just can't wait to release it into the wild. Probably debut at MacWorld.
Don't dismiss this out of hand. I'm willing to bet that Google would licence the technology they use for private corporations, and you already know it can handle over a million users. Google is in the business of making money... (or that's what I've heard).
I would certainly give them a call and see what they are asking for a private version of Gmail.
Since I quit my job and started playing poker full time. I thought for sure I had what it took to beat the average bot or low level player, but I came to realize that I chase flushes and straight draws, over-value suited connectors, miscalculate pot-odds, and always over bet big pairs.
But I'm still a pro player. I used to just be a consultant.
Slashdot Mirror
For a start, you're asking the general public to pay for a commodity product that they can't specify or examine in any detail in advance.
...because anyone who wanted to could just take it without any sort of compensation at all...
...
Isn't this exactly what publishing houses do everyday? If you like an author, you're likely to want to read more by him. Simple. Easy to understand. If you want to read more by him, you will patronize him. If you don't like his work, you wont.
In this case you actually have better control over the quality of work. In the current model you have to trust the publisher's marketing hype to judge the quality of a work before you buy it... which is often misleading. Using your own judgement of past work is a much better system.
This is where the laws governing Trademark and Attribution would apply instead of copyright. If someone prints your work and sells lots of copies, you'd be overjoyed. It would mean that you'd soon have enough patrons to write your next work while being paid for it.
One plausible result
While it's possible for large donation patrons to hire authors to create works, they would not have a lock on the works once they were published. Anyone could make cheaper versions of the work, selling a paperback version for example.
The bottom line issue, I feel, is that copyright attempts to treat ideas like property, which is foolish.
OK, that sounds reasonable enough in principle, but how is that going to work in practice? You'd need thousands of people to be interested in a particular random paperback novel being written in order to get enough money to pay the rent for the author during the months it takes to write it, yet still have each individual pay the same price they pay today for the pleasure of reading it.
Patronage of this type (by the masses) would work based on reputation. First I'll explain how it would work for an established author:
Neil Gaimen announces that he would like to write a new book and gives a brief synopsis on his blog. Those who would like the first copies of the work are welcomed to contribute and become patrons. If enough money comes from the synopsis, Neil begins writing. If not, then he may abandon the project and find one that his fans are willing to fund. Assuming he does write the novel, the patrons get the first nice hardbound copies (and Neil may even get money from the printer for allowing them to print the first batch of books). Attribution of the work MUST be given by law, but anyone could then print the book in any form they wished (paperback, digital, etc). So it's illegal to print the work without attribution, but there are no requirements to pay Neil for making copies of a finished work.
For the non-established author (musician, game designer,...), it would be upon you to draw interest in your work by creating something that created a fan base. Just as most writers never get the attention of publishers, most writers will live their lives producing text that no one reads, but the best will be found and by word of mouth (or advertising if the writer can afford it), they will grow a fan base. Creators would have to create something before any patron would be willing to pay them to create more.
So do you believe everyone should have to pay every time they want to read the same book, or do you believe nothing should be created for mass markets?
I believe there are better systems for rewarding the creation of information than charging a fee per "use."
My suggestion is a return to patronage but instead of works created at the behest of a Nobleman or Publisher, those interested in the authors work would pay for the service of creation.
The principle of copyright is sound: to encourage those with the ability to produce useful and/or entertaining works to share what they create for the benefit of others.
Actually that is not as sound as it might appear. The creation of useful and entertaining works is a service, and should be paid for as a service, not through an artificial lock on the reproduction of the results of that service.
What's needed is attribution and trademark. Copyright is an outdated form of censorship that inhibits and hampers the masses.
You can't own information. The very concept of intellectual property is antiquated. Idea's can not be owned because they fail some key elements of property.
Elements of property that do not fit information (ideas).
* Exclusivity. Property use is restricted. If I own a chair, only one person can reasonable use that chair at one time. Information is not exclusive, and is functionally infinite in usage.
* Defensible. Ownership of property means you can defend it's use from others. If I want to keep others from using my chair, I can protect the chair. The last defense being violence. Information is not defensible once it has been released.
* Physical. Property has a geographic location. A chair takes up physical space. Information does not hold a specific physical space. If released, information defies physical definition.
* Limited reproduction. It takes significant time and resources to make another chair. It takes more resources to distribute a chair. Information requires trivial resources to reproduce and distribute. Once an idea is released, it's reproducibility is nearly infinite. (A wonderful trick is convincing consumers that your information is a physical item. Put your information on a shiny media, put it in a nicely packaged box, and pretend it's property. This is called "productizing".)
The very concept of intellectual property is to give incentive for creation, but the act of limiting access to information retards intellection growth. In a capitalist system it's to your advantage to have information that your competition does not have.
An example of how such a system retards the general good of society is the "60 year light bulb". There is absolutely no reason for anyone to create a 60 year light bulb. In fact, you want to create light bulbs that only last a year or two, because you want people to continue to buy them from you. If you created a 60 year light bulb, you would go out of business within a few years. The technology to create 60 year light bulbs exist. Clearly it's in the best interests of society to have a 60 year light bulb, but in a capitalist system the information for creating such a bulb is more profitably kept from the public than used for the public good.
The retardation of long term systems is not limited to lighting. Cars are designed for short life cycles, roads a built to last one year, and electronics are designed to last two to three years. Quality and longevity are not the friend of the capitalist.
To sum up:
Information is not property.
Intellectual Property is more often used in defense of profits than for the public good.
You can't own an idea.
Intellectual Property is more likely to retard innovation than foster it.
I started using 'neo' in 1985 on BBSs. How do you think I felt when The Matrix came out and I couldn't get my nic on anything, ever again. I made another nick. In fact I think this is the last place I still have it.
Besides, Commander Taco... is just not a very good name for a fantasy world. As a DM I'd tell you to change it too.
I do. Do you know the meaning of "Common Usage"?
Suppose you're on a game show, and you're given the choice of three doors: Behind one door is a car; behind the others, goats. You pick a door, say No. 1, and the host, who knows what's behind the other doors, opens another door, say No. 3, which has a goat. He then says to you, 'Do you want to pick door No. 2?' Is it to your advantage to take the switch?
I don't need that stuff in my brain. I have things I want to think about... why should I allow someone to stick their marketing in my head?
Whoa there straw man.
I can pretty much gaurantee >5.32 hours of access to Office over three years from problems with Office.
The points here is that Office isn't worth $399 and in three years you'd have to buy at least one Office related upgrade and one OS related upgrade just to keep using it. Now you're in the $700 range. If I can get a reasonable office suite online for $15 a year AND it gives me remote access to my files (add MS File Server) and it allows other's to collaborate (add MS collaboration software)... well I'd rather use the web office suit. Thanks.
Sun was right when they said the network is the computer... and soon the network will be everywhere. You're plane flight example makes my point rather than breaks it. Don't you think you can store the files locally too? Don't you think that AJAX works even if you unplug the network?
It could cost a fraction of what Office costs.
It would also move software out of pretending to be a product and back to being a service, where software belongs.
They have distribution and a little bit of marketing sense (hey, they got slashdotted), but they are missing the feedback loop. What they need to hear from their new patrons is what the patrons want to hear from Harvey Danger. "Flagpole Sitter was great. Do more songs like that." Once you've mastered marketing your service, feedback is the key to getting people to pay for it.
Great logic there, buddy. If you take this a bit further, you find out that you cannot actually own ANYTHING, since all consumer objects break down and many things are, in fact, infinitely reproducable, from a rational perspective. So you really can not own anything, you just buy a privilege to use the object as you see fit. Does this ring a bell? It's called communism.
Your logic was so idiotic I had to reply.
Objects can be owned. By owning, one normally means that you have governship over the object. For example if I own a chair, I can move the chair, sit in the chair, defend the chair if someone attempts to take it from my possession. No one else can use the chair while I'm using it. A chair is functionally finite because it takes some resource to make a chair and all physical resources are finite. Building a chair takes time as well, where copying software is trivial.
Data can not be owned. By owning, one normally means that you have governship over the data. For example I can't own software, I can move it, I can use it, but I can't defend the software if someone else attempts to take possession of it. While I'm using the code, I'm not restricting anyone else from using the code. Software is functionally infinite, in that nothing is lost when another copy is made. There is almost no overhead in copying software. The resourced used in software is programmer's services and when the software is done you have nothing but profit from selling their services as a "product".
And Communism has so little to do with this that it's retarded you even bring it up.
Office is already dead, it just doesn't know it yet. When I can edit documents online from a web page and it looks and feels like an application then you know no one is going to buy MS Office ever again. The real question is who is going to build the AJAX suite and what pricing model will they use.
We've all known for years that "Applications Are Not Possessions". You can't own "Word". You can have a CD with a copy of Word on it, but you can't own it. You can put that CD in a nice shiney box and fool people into thinking they can own data... but they can't. No one can own data.
For year's MS has fooled people into thinking they were buying products when they were actually buying data. Software building is and will always be a service. Let me repeat that for those who don't get it. You can't own data, making data is a service. There's even a word for making a service look like a possession, it's called "Productizing." MS got rich by taking something that was infinately reproducable and selling it like a commodity. Great marketing.
AJAX will kill that. When people realize they can pay $15 a year for the service of word processing online, Word dies and the people who make $15 a year on a million customers win. Send me the royalty checks.
What would be required to make this version of Civ Massively Multiplayer, with expansive lands and server hooks for 10,000 players per game?
Now show me the money!
I put the money here.
Thanks!
"Our challenge requires the delivery of a solution that will allow an MS-XP compatible application to install and run under Linux using x.org and open source WINE by October 5, 2005."
So theoretically if I can get any one MS-XP compatible application to install and work on Linux I get $10000. The easiest would probably be a screensaver. Who's with me?
Neither is 37... oh f*ck. I'm middle aged.
.menalto.com/" /
Seems their site's working just fine.
Did you even read the article you quoted. Two shells from 1988 is not "Weapons of Mass Destruction." It's more a curiosity than a motive for war, or a nuke attack.
"Poland said in a statement from Iraq that "beyond doubt the shells were from the 1980-1988 period, of the type used against Kurds and during the Iraq-Iran war."
In Baghdad, the U.S. military issued a statement saying that two 122 mm rockets found by Polish forces had tested positive for sarin gas and confirmed that they were left over from the Iran-Iraq war, but said they posed little danger."
"The first example for potential nuclear weapon use listed in the draft is against an enemy that is using "or intending to use WMD" against U.S. or allied, multinational military forces or civilian populations."
GW was sure they had WMDs.
I can tell you that the computer system is the least of their problems.
It takes time to write a decent mac virus because you have to make it user friendly and it has to look good.
The gui interface has to be just right and when they switched from the candy buttons to the more metalic look I had to start over from scratch.
But I promise, this time next year I'll have the mac virus you've all been waiting for and I just can't wait to release it into the wild. Probably debut at MacWorld.
Don't dismiss this out of hand. I'm willing to bet that Google would licence the technology they use for private corporations, and you already know it can handle over a million users. Google is in the business of making money... (or that's what I've heard).
I would certainly give them a call and see what they are asking for a private version of Gmail.
Since I quit my job and started playing poker full time. I thought for sure I had what it took to beat the average bot or low level player, but I came to realize that I chase flushes and straight draws, over-value suited connectors, miscalculate pot-odds, and always over bet big pairs.
But I'm still a pro player. I used to just be a consultant.