I haven't actually seen this language, so I can't say for sure, but I would argue that many programming concepts are easier to express in actual code, or at least pseudocode, than in anything truly resembling English.
On the other hand, there are concepts that are easy to express in English, but difficult to express in most programming languages.
For example, relative clauses showing the relationships between objects. Take a sentence like "if the Style menu contains a checked item corresponding to a font style which is not provided by the current font, uncheck the item". To translate that to code (say, C#), you'd probably have to write something like:
foreach (MenuItem item in styleMenu.Items)
if (item.Checked) {
bool found = false;
foreach (Style style in currentFont.ProvidedStyles)
if (style == item.CorrespondingStyle) {
found = true;
break;
}
if (!found) {
item.Checked = false;
break;
}
}
That's a lot more code, and its function is less obvious. Even using the SQL-like LINQ syntax, it's a bit unwieldy:
var query = from item in styleMenu.Items where item.Checked && !currentFont.ProvidedStyles.Contains(item.CorrespondingStyle) select item; foreach (var item in query)
item.Checked = false;
But in Inform 7, which resembles English and makes use of concepts (like relative clauses) found in English writing, you can use the sentence almost as written:
if the Style menu contains a checked item (called X) corresponding to a font style which is not provided by the current font, now X is not checked;
(Of course, Inform 7 is made for writing text adventures and isn't suitable for general-purpose programming... yet.)
Here is the issue of right and wrong. It takes effort to produce a work. It does not matter if that effort can be replicated infinitely, what you are stealing is the effort, the chain of money that leads back to someone paying their rent.
No, you aren't stealing the effort: it's already been performed, voluntarily. "Stealing the effort" would have to involve something like kidnapping an artist and forcing him into slavery.
If the artist wants to get paid for his effort, then why is he doing it before anyone has agreed to pay him?
In a wider context, once we have found a suitable replacement for capitalism itself then we can invalidate things that make it go such as copyright.
Capitalism works just fine in every other industry with no need for anything like copyright. People have been getting paid for the work they do for centuries. The secret is to not do any work until someone agrees to pay you for it.
There needs to be a reward for making things people want, limited in time/ownership maybe.
There already is a reward: it's called being paid to work. Copyright is unnecessary. An artist can be rewarded for making art in exactly the same way a carpenter is rewarded for making houses or an accountant is rewarded for doing your taxes.
Copyright holders have an entitlement complex: they expect to get paid over and over in the future for work they did decades in the past. They think one big hit entitles them to a free ride for the rest of their lives, and they think they're entitled to tell everyone else what they can or can't do with their own property.
Pirates only want to be able to freely exchange information. The only "entitlement" a pirate feels is the right to communicate. Pirates don't expect other people to change their behavior to benefit pirates; copyright holders do expect other people to change their behavior to benefit copyright holders.
It's the same as claiming that murder harms no one other than the person who decided to murder. Yes, it is that ludicrous.
Not quite. It's more like claiming that murder harms no one other than the person who decided to murder and the person who was murdered. In the case of smoking, those are the same person.
Let's build some gas chambers where people can go to smoke without affecting other people.
Excellent idea. In fact, we already have those: they're called houses, cars, private businesses (staffed and patronized by people who don't mind the smoke), and the great outdoors.
Then let's make them turn over any kids they might have to foster care or next of kin.
Fair enough. I don't think anyone has the right to force their kids to live in a smoky environment. (But then I feel the same way about religion.)
Also, have a lawyer on-hand to help them create a will and sign a form consenting to not having any medical care that they don't pay for directly out-of-pocket.
Sure, right after we force the same requirement on everyone who plays football, goes skiing, eats too much, exercises too little, spends too much time in the sun, drives a car, rides a bicycle, walks near a road, lives in a city with smoggy air, has unprotected sex, holds unpopular opinions that are likely to get them beaten up, or does anything else that puts them at any sort of risk. No medical insurance for anyone unless they wrap themselves in bubble wrap and never leave the safety of their own homes. Deal?
By the way, it's statements like yours that fuel the fears that universal health care will lead to an expansion of the "nanny state". I don't think those fears are well-founded, because I don't mind my tax dollars or premiums paying the medical bills of people who put themselves in harm's way, and I don't think most people do either -- because like most people, I do a few risky things myself. But apparently if you were in charge, those fears would be proved right.
Health insurance should give you peace of mind to live your life the way you want to live it, not force you to stay away from everything that might pose a risk for fear that you won't be covered.
It's a drug, it's deadly, it's harmful both directly and indirectly to both the people who do it and the people around them.
To the people who do it? Yes.
To the people around them? Only if those people are exposed for many, many hours. That basically means family members and employees.
The only reason it's not is because of the billions in blood money that have been paid to lobbyists to keep it as a special exception to regulation that is granted to no other drug.
Dude, I'm broke, and even if I had the money I couldn't be arsed to take legal action on anyone.
Not quite as strong a statement as I expected. If you really think you can sell copies of software without relying on copyright, why not put that theory to the test by making a clear, unambiguous statement: "I promise not to take any legal action against any person for redistributing or cracking my software"?
And you've completely missed the fact that software is a good. I know it sounds counter intuitive, but think about it, a book is a good, a DVD is a good, yet they're all information on a media, and could be made immaterial.
The moment they become immaterial, they stop being goods.
A book is a good, but the story is not. A DVD is a good, but the movie is not. A CD-ROM is a good, and arguably a digital download is a good, but the program is not. Only the physical forms are goods.
A good doesn't magically become a service because it goes immaterial.
Right, it becomes information, which is neither service nor good. The number representing a program isn't a good any more than the number representing the speed of light is a good. You can charge someone for the act of coming up with that number (production service) or for telling them that number (distribution service), or you can write the number down and sell a physical copy (a good), but the number itself is just a number.
You wouldn't argue that a computer program isn't a good if it was sold as something like a ROM, and that the only way for someone else to duplicate it was to make a forged copy. But at that point the forged copy is no different than a forged Rollex, so you see, it's still all like a good, it's just easier to forge and distribute.
There's nothing "forged" about it. It's a perfect, identical copy, every bit as good as the copies you're trying to sell. The physical form or the delivery mechanism might be different, but the information itself is the same no matter where you get it.
So software itself isn't a service, cause if it was it couldn't be copied.
Likewise, software itself isn't a good, because if it were, it could only be in one place at a time, and you'd be able to detect when someone was "taking" it and stop them.
Making the software is a sort of service (although often enough done not for the end users but done for the distribution service), and you can't copy that. You can only copy the resulting good created by the service.
Yes, that's mostly right. Programming is a service, and a physical copy of the software is a good. But the software itself is neither.
You can't copy services, and that's precisely why selling the service is a more stable business model than selling copies.
(You can't copy goods either, you can only make new competing goods, but these particular goods are very easy for other people to make. In a fair market with no government-enforced monopolies, you wouldn't be able to sell copies for much more than the cost of making them, at least not for long.)
Actual program you get : immaterial goods, which is why you can copy them.
There is no such thing. If it can be copied like that, it's not a good.
The program is information: not an actual thing, just an attribute of a thing. It's no more a "good" than the speed of light or the color red. A red piece of paper is a good, but red itself is not, no matter how much work you put into mixing the perfect shade of red.
Oh God, when is this going to end. Just wondering, do you often make discussions drag the fuck on for like 20 replies, or are you doing something special for me? If stubbornness could win you arguments you'd have a shot at winning this one.
I'm not "making" anything happen. I'm replying to your messages and you're replying to mine.
And we've come full circle, so I'll have to repeat what I've said in my earlier posts. because they can't find it anywhere else.
Fair enough. You also said earlier that you don't think that will change: you don't think people will share your program once they buy it. Is that correct? You don't need copyright?
So your suggestion is, if you're not going to do things the ass backwards way I suggested of getting people to pay for the promise you might do something, then deprive yourself from making any money when you can make some?
Not at all. If you think you can make money selling copies of your software without relying on a government-enforced monopoly, go right ahead.
Can you do that? You say you don't rely on a government-enforced monopoly, but can you put your money where your mouth is? Because if you're willing to make a legally binding promise not to take any legal action against people who distribute or crack your software, I'll applaud your wise choice, and I just might buy a copy myself.
OK imagine you're that Ford guy. Who's gonna pay you to build cars?
People who want to travel faster than they can on horseback, I suppose. But that's beside the point, because...
First you build and market the cars and people decide whether or not they want to buy some and that's how it's worked for mostly anything since the dawn of time? Well what do you know!
... you've completely missed the distinction between goods and services.
A car is a good, a physical object. If you take a pile of metal and turn it into a car, you can hang onto that car and make sure no one else takes it, which means you can sell it: selling a car means taking money in exchange for letting go of it. If anyone else wants a car, they have to either pay you or find their own pile of metal.
A program is not a physical object. It can be copied at virtually no cost and without you even noticing, and there's nothing you can do to stop that. You can't hang onto it, so any business model based on being able to sell copies profitably is on shaky ground: you can sell discs or downloads, but you'll be competing with others. The best you can do is pray that no one will want to compete with you for distribution, or that your DRM system won't be cracked.
Sure, selling goods has been around since the dawn of time. But you know what else has? Providing services for money. The "world's oldest profession" is a service, not a good. The scarcity in services is in the labor, not the end result: just like the scarcity in software is in the programming labor, not in copies of the compiled program.
If everyone is allowed to use their own equipment, media, and internet connection as they see fit, selling copies will cease to be viable: why should anyone buy a copy from you when they can get a copy for free from someone who's willing to share?
Charging for your labor, on the other hand, will still work just fine: they can't copy what hasn't been written, so if they want new software and no one will write it for free, they have no choice but to pay a programmer to write it.
Again, no one is demanding that you do anything for free. If no one is paying you to write code, and you don't feel like writing code for free, then don't write it. One of three things will happen: they'll find someone else who does feel like writing code for free, or they'll pay you to write it, or they'll realize they don't need that code written after all.
6) The best and most commonly used VM for implementing higher level languages. (JRuby, Jython, etc are magnitudes faster than the C backends)
Most commonly used? Perhaps. It has been around longer, after all.
But best? Absolutely not! Just off the top of my head, the CLR supports value types, actual generics, pointers, typed varargs, and tail calls. You can compile C++ to the CLR (without hacks like allocating a huge array for all your memory). Is there anything you can do on JVM that you can't on CLR?
And I'm not outraged over potential loss of revenue, I'm 'outraged' (although that's not the best term) that people would demand everything for free for the sake that it's supposedly the thing to do.
Ah, I see. You're confused: no one is demanding anything for free. My only demand is that you don't tell me what I can or can't do with my own equipment and media, or what I can or can't send and receive over the internet. Beyond that, you can charge whatever you want for whatever you want.
You're just a cretin who because he gets paid to write code thinks that everything should work like this without any clue or regard for how things really work outside his tiny bubble. Clueless opinionated dumbass.
Yes, that's what you tell yourself. But of course you know it's not true, which is why you've become so insecure that you're punctuating every sentence with an insult.
Yeah well, what else was I supposed to infer from your suggestion?
A real entrepreneur would've thought through the possibilities. You, on the other hand, are incapable of considering anything other than what you're used to: charging for distribution is all you know, so you assumed it must still be involved.
The point was that he didn't collect enough to make it worth his time to write more books, I don't think he'd care if only 10% paid if he was able to do well enough to encourage him to write more.
Well, he did care. The terms were that he would keep writing if 75% of readers paid a fixed price (first $1, then $2). He got over 75% for part 1, around 70% for part 2, 75% again for part 3, and finally 46% for part 4 after raising the price to $2.
There are a few problems with this model. One is that it doesn't map to reality: the proportion of readers who pay isn't really relevant, because people who read but don't pay pose no additional cost for the author (other than bandwidth). Setting a fixed price would accurately capture the value of the author's time.
Another problem is that this model doesn't give anyone much chance to influence the outcome. If I really like the work and am willing to pay more than my "fair share" to continue it, I'm still only one person. It's a lot easier for me to just write a big check toward a fixed goal than to influence the proportion of paying readers. Also, if there's a fixed goal, we all know how close we are to meeting it, and progress can only move toward that goal; if we're looking at the proportion instead, that number changes with every new reader, and it may move backward.
Who said anything about failing to deliver what he promised? Even good directors or authors make duds once in a while, which is part of the point.
Like I said, the same thing happens in every industry. When you pay people to do something for you, sometimes you'll be disappointed. Whether you get a refund depends on (1) whether they actually broke their promises or whether you just expected something different, and (2) how much they want your future business. People have been dealing with that situation for centuries, and it works just fine.
If your idea was workable, we'd be doing it already.
I don't think so. Playing the copyright lottery is more convenient and more exciting for authors, even if it's financially worse in the long run, and consumers likewise find it more convenient to buy a disc in a box than to pay for development directly. My idea isn't competing on a level playing field, because the current business model is effectively subsidized (by the money we spend enforcing copyright and by the rights we give up).
And who on Earth in my specific market would pay for that?
If your claims can be believed, there are at least 300 people who benefit from the existence of your software and have demonstrated a willingness to pay for its development, so you can start with them. Or did you just make up that number?
Let me guess, a software company that would then sell copies to individual users? Yeah, a middleman, that changes everything.
Heh, and to think you accuse me of putting words in your mouth just to argue against them.
The difference is illusory, because practically lower odds of a sale are the same as being paid less money. [...] Yep, dumbass rhetoric question that has no regard for net effects.
So you're just going to ignore the fact that bad reviews have the same "net effect" on your odds of a sale that piracy does? For someone who claims to only be interested in money, it's amusing how selective your outrage is over the potential loss of revenue.
You're misconstruing the law. If you buy OS X, you buy the physical media that contains software. You cannot make a second copy of the software without permission. This is textbook copyright law.
No, I'm applying a section of the law that you seem to be unaware of: 17 USC 117, which explicitly allows the owner of a copy of a software program to create copies or adaptations, or to have a third party make them on his behalf, as long as they are (1) for archival purposes or (2) necessary for using the software with a machine. This is also "textbook copyright law", unless your textbook is 30 years old.
So by that logic if the guy who writes your pay check writes $20 off your pay check you're not losing anything, but if he's stealing $20 from your wallet then you're losing something.
Correct. One makes me a little less rich than I should be, the other actually makes me poorer.
The difference between pay checks and software sales is that there actually is an answer to the question "how much should I be getting paid?", but there is no answer to "how many copies should I be selling?"
My pay check is set by the terms of my employment. Your sales, however, are set by the whims of your customers. If I work X hours, my employer is obligated to pay me $Y under the terms of our mutual agreement, but no one is obligated to pay you anything.
If they download your software but don't pay for it, you get $0. On the other hand, if they read a bad review and choose not to use your software at all, you also get $0. Are you "losing" money when they read that bad review? Is the reviewer stealing money out of your pocket? Of course not. The only difference is that the pirate gets a copy of your software -- which costs you nothing -- and the guy who read the bad review doesn't. It's different from his perspective, but not from yours.
So if you're going to compare the "net effect" of piracy to theft, then you'd better make the same comparison for bad reviews... and competing software... and economic downturn... and every other reason that someone might decide not to give you their money.
I didn't write an uncrackable DRM, actually my program can be cracked under a minute. The thing is, in order to get the program, you need a serial number appended to your download link, and to get this you need to send me money. Theoretically someone who would have bought it could crack it and release it or not crack it but release it along with his license, but no one's done it so far despite 300 sales, so even if one day someone eventually warezes it it's no big deal.
Heh. How do you think most software gets pirated? Someone buys a copy, cracks it if necessary, and shares it with the world. 300 sales is hardly a big enough sample to conclude that your customers are less inclined to share your software than, say, Adobe's customers.
And tell me, how am I supposed to be paid for my work when I haven't done any work yet, as you suggested? Oh wait, I already asked you for a real answer to that and you refused to answer under the pretence of apathy.
No, the question you asked before was about maximizing your profits. Now you're asking a different question, which I will happily answer.
The way you can be paid for your work when you haven't done any work yet is, quite simply, the same way everyone else does it. This is a business model that's been used for centuries. It's the same way you pay for haircuts, landscaping, day care, accounting, or any other service.
You have a couple choices: you can get someone to promise you money beforehand, then you do the work, then you get the money. Or you can get someone to actually give you the money first, in exchange for your promise to do the work. Either way, if one of you holds up his side of the deal and the other doesn't, the other can sue for breach of contract.
So all the fuck you're doing is talking shit about what I do and insulting me and my work while you don't have any fucking clue what I could do better.
As you may recall, you're the one who started with the insults, and I'm not trying to "make things better" for you. I'm explaining a business model that eliminates the problem of piracy. If you don't think piracy is a problem, then feel free to ignore it.
Unfortunately for you, there are things called "licenses." You tend to agree to an expansive one when installing software, but not when buying a car. Accordingly, your analogy is fundamentally flawed.
A license is a legal agreement that grants you certain rights in exchange for certain terms. If you don't need or want those rights, you can decline the license and stick to the set of rights you were granted by copyright law. For example, you don't need a license to copy an OS onto your hard drive or into RAM, because as the owner of an original copy of the OS, you already have that right.
What legal precedent says that I can take a piece of software, modify it, and sell that modification?
According to 17 USC 117, you can do the same thing in a slightly different order: sell the original, then modify it for your customer.
Since that's legal, and ends up with the same result -- the same computer is shipped out, with the same data on its hard drive -- why does it really matter whether they copy OS X before or after they take the customer's money, or whether they patch OS X before or after they copy it onto the computer?
And how do wholesale modifications count as "patches" ? They're not. It's a derivative work and any precedent regarding copyright law says that this is strictly forbidden.
"Patch" isn't a legal term. The derivative work in this case is an "adaptation", and since it's necessary to make the software work with a particular machine, it's specifically allowed by section 117.
I think the problem comes in when you image dump it to a bunch of commodity hard disks and sell hundreds of machines from the one copy you bought on the single cheapo Apple computer you bought.
Yes - like I said, their error was doing things in the wrong order, using a slightly different process to arrive at the same end result.
This is what you think is "stupid." That I should be able to, say, delete one of the mediocre filler tracks off of that $16 dollar CD and sell it for $8.
Essentially, yes, but note that software and music aren't the same under copyright law. You have certain rights with software you buy that you don't with a CD, and vice versa.
It's copyright. You can't copy it for resale. You can't make a derivative work for resale if you don't have the consent of the rights holder.
Right, but you can make that derivative work for your customer after you sell them the original, because that derivative work is an adaptation allowed by 17 USC 117.
I won't go so far as to claim that they were "right," or "good," but if folks don't like this, then they need work to change the law, because that's what the law says.
They don't even need to change the law. They only need to change their process. Psystar could have used a different installation process to sell exactly the same thing, legally.
actually its not stupid, the car analogy is just flawed. We're talking about copyright, not strict property. Its not like adding a supercharger scoop on a car and then reselling it, its like replacing the first chapter of a book with a new and different one, then reselling it as the original That is different than selling that different first chapter as 'hey this makes the book way better, read it first'
No, Psystar didn't claim that they were shipping computers with unmodified copies of OS X. They were up-front about the fact that they were adapting OS X to run on the machines they sold.
by altering copyrighted code, pystar has created a derivative work, and the right of the copyright owner to distribute derivative works is not affected by fair use.
The right to distribute this particular type of derivative work -- an adaptation made to run OS X on a particular machine -- is affected by 17 USC 117. (Fair use is irrelevant to this case.)
Given that modification of software if it is necessary in order to use it is fair use for a non-distributing end-user, it may be that some future hackintosh business can exist if it merely facilitates the end-user making the modifications themselves.
First, it's not merely fair use (which is vaguely defined in law, and in practice defined by the courts), it's an explicit right granted by the legislature.
Second, that same law allows you to have a third party make the modifications on your behalf. If you buy a computer, and you buy a copy of OS X, and then you need OS X to be adapted so it'll work with your computer, you can have a company like Psystar adapt it for you.
Indeed, I see no reason why you couldn't buy the computer and the OS from that same company, and have them patch it after you pay but before they ship it to you. Psystar lost apparently because they did this in the wrong order.
Psystar *is* the initial owner of the copy. At that point, they can prepare a copy and adaptation as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with "a machine", and then they resell that machine in conjunction with the original copy.
But they wouldn't be able to resell the adapted copy of OS X: 117 says "Adaptations so prepared may be transferred only with the authorization of the copyright owner."
That last sentence is interesting. What would be "frivolous" about using 117 as a defense? It doesn't seem to be explained in the order. From what I can see, it looks like the failure can be blamed entirely on Psystar's absent-minded lawyers.
While the end result may be the same, disallowing the latter prevents Psystar from selling fully functional, turn-it-on-and-it-works machines. If the law forces the purchaser to perform the final step of modifying the software, that is a relatively large disadvantage in the marketplace.
But it doesn't - 17 USC 117 allows you to have someone else make the modifications for you. So all they'd have to do is clarify the order of the process: first you buy the computer, then you buy the copy of OS X, then you authorize them to adapt your new copy of OS X to run on your new computer. That would be slightly less inconvenient (thus more expensive), but achieve exactly the same thing, which is why it's stupid for the law to require these steps to be done in a certain order.
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I haven't actually seen this language, so I can't say for sure, but I would argue that many programming concepts are easier to express in actual code, or at least pseudocode, than in anything truly resembling English.
On the other hand, there are concepts that are easy to express in English, but difficult to express in most programming languages.
For example, relative clauses showing the relationships between objects. Take a sentence like "if the Style menu contains a checked item corresponding to a font style which is not provided by the current font, uncheck the item". To translate that to code (say, C#), you'd probably have to write something like:
foreach (MenuItem item in styleMenu.Items)
if (item.Checked) {
bool found = false;
foreach (Style style in currentFont.ProvidedStyles)
if (style == item.CorrespondingStyle) {
found = true;
break;
}
if (!found) {
item.Checked = false;
break;
}
}
That's a lot more code, and its function is less obvious. Even using the SQL-like LINQ syntax, it's a bit unwieldy:
var query = from item in styleMenu.Items where item.Checked && !currentFont.ProvidedStyles.Contains(item.CorrespondingStyle) select item;
foreach (var item in query)
item.Checked = false;
But in Inform 7, which resembles English and makes use of concepts (like relative clauses) found in English writing, you can use the sentence almost as written:
if the Style menu contains a checked item (called X) corresponding to a font style which is not provided by the current font, now X is not checked;
(Of course, Inform 7 is made for writing text adventures and isn't suitable for general-purpose programming... yet.)
Piracy is not the answer. There is a place for copyright that is not todays distorted parameters. Boycotting in the mean time is the answer
Piracy: producer doesn't get money, consumer gets to enjoy content.
Boycott: producer doesn't get money, consumer doesn't get to enjoy content.
They're both the same for the producer, but one is worse for the consumer. Why is lose-lose a better "answer" than lose-win?
Here is the issue of right and wrong. It takes effort to produce a work. It does not matter if that effort can be replicated infinitely, what you are stealing is the effort, the chain of money that leads back to someone paying their rent.
No, you aren't stealing the effort: it's already been performed, voluntarily. "Stealing the effort" would have to involve something like kidnapping an artist and forcing him into slavery.
If the artist wants to get paid for his effort, then why is he doing it before anyone has agreed to pay him?
In a wider context, once we have found a suitable replacement for capitalism itself then we can invalidate things that make it go such as copyright.
Capitalism works just fine in every other industry with no need for anything like copyright. People have been getting paid for the work they do for centuries. The secret is to not do any work until someone agrees to pay you for it.
There needs to be a reward for making things people want, limited in time/ownership maybe.
There already is a reward: it's called being paid to work. Copyright is unnecessary. An artist can be rewarded for making art in exactly the same way a carpenter is rewarded for making houses or an accountant is rewarded for doing your taxes.
Pirates already have an entitlement complex.
No, you've got it backwards.
Copyright holders have an entitlement complex: they expect to get paid over and over in the future for work they did decades in the past. They think one big hit entitles them to a free ride for the rest of their lives, and they think they're entitled to tell everyone else what they can or can't do with their own property.
Pirates only want to be able to freely exchange information. The only "entitlement" a pirate feels is the right to communicate. Pirates don't expect other people to change their behavior to benefit pirates; copyright holders do expect other people to change their behavior to benefit copyright holders.
It's the same as claiming that murder harms no one other than the person who decided to murder. Yes, it is that ludicrous.
Not quite. It's more like claiming that murder harms no one other than the person who decided to murder and the person who was murdered. In the case of smoking, those are the same person.
Let's build some gas chambers where people can go to smoke without affecting other people.
Excellent idea. In fact, we already have those: they're called houses, cars, private businesses (staffed and patronized by people who don't mind the smoke), and the great outdoors.
Then let's make them turn over any kids they might have to foster care or next of kin.
Fair enough. I don't think anyone has the right to force their kids to live in a smoky environment. (But then I feel the same way about religion.)
Also, have a lawyer on-hand to help them create a will and sign a form consenting to not having any medical care that they don't pay for directly out-of-pocket.
Sure, right after we force the same requirement on everyone who plays football, goes skiing, eats too much, exercises too little, spends too much time in the sun, drives a car, rides a bicycle, walks near a road, lives in a city with smoggy air, has unprotected sex, holds unpopular opinions that are likely to get them beaten up, or does anything else that puts them at any sort of risk. No medical insurance for anyone unless they wrap themselves in bubble wrap and never leave the safety of their own homes. Deal?
By the way, it's statements like yours that fuel the fears that universal health care will lead to an expansion of the "nanny state". I don't think those fears are well-founded, because I don't mind my tax dollars or premiums paying the medical bills of people who put themselves in harm's way, and I don't think most people do either -- because like most people, I do a few risky things myself. But apparently if you were in charge, those fears would be proved right.
Health insurance should give you peace of mind to live your life the way you want to live it, not force you to stay away from everything that might pose a risk for fear that you won't be covered.
It's a drug, it's deadly, it's harmful both directly and indirectly to both the people who do it and the people around them.
To the people who do it? Yes.
To the people around them? Only if those people are exposed for many, many hours. That basically means family members and employees.
The only reason it's not is because of the billions in blood money that have been paid to lobbyists to keep it as a special exception to regulation that is granted to no other drug.
You forgot alcohol.
Dude, I'm broke, and even if I had the money I couldn't be arsed to take legal action on anyone.
Not quite as strong a statement as I expected. If you really think you can sell copies of software without relying on copyright, why not put that theory to the test by making a clear, unambiguous statement: "I promise not to take any legal action against any person for redistributing or cracking my software"?
And you've completely missed the fact that software is a good. I know it sounds counter intuitive, but think about it, a book is a good, a DVD is a good, yet they're all information on a media, and could be made immaterial.
The moment they become immaterial, they stop being goods.
A book is a good, but the story is not. A DVD is a good, but the movie is not. A CD-ROM is a good, and arguably a digital download is a good, but the program is not. Only the physical forms are goods.
A good doesn't magically become a service because it goes immaterial.
Right, it becomes information, which is neither service nor good. The number representing a program isn't a good any more than the number representing the speed of light is a good. You can charge someone for the act of coming up with that number (production service) or for telling them that number (distribution service), or you can write the number down and sell a physical copy (a good), but the number itself is just a number.
You wouldn't argue that a computer program isn't a good if it was sold as something like a ROM, and that the only way for someone else to duplicate it was to make a forged copy. But at that point the forged copy is no different than a forged Rollex, so you see, it's still all like a good, it's just easier to forge and distribute.
There's nothing "forged" about it. It's a perfect, identical copy, every bit as good as the copies you're trying to sell. The physical form or the delivery mechanism might be different, but the information itself is the same no matter where you get it.
So software itself isn't a service, cause if it was it couldn't be copied.
Likewise, software itself isn't a good, because if it were, it could only be in one place at a time, and you'd be able to detect when someone was "taking" it and stop them.
Making the software is a sort of service (although often enough done not for the end users but done for the distribution service), and you can't copy that. You can only copy the resulting good created by the service.
Yes, that's mostly right. Programming is a service, and a physical copy of the software is a good. But the software itself is neither.
You can't copy services, and that's precisely why selling the service is a more stable business model than selling copies.
(You can't copy goods either, you can only make new competing goods, but these particular goods are very easy for other people to make. In a fair market with no government-enforced monopolies, you wouldn't be able to sell copies for much more than the cost of making them, at least not for long.)
Actual program you get : immaterial goods, which is why you can copy them.
There is no such thing. If it can be copied like that, it's not a good.
The program is information: not an actual thing, just an attribute of a thing. It's no more a "good" than the speed of light or the color red. A red piece of paper is a good, but red itself is not, no matter how much work you put into mixing the perfect shade of red.
Oh God, when is this going to end. Just wondering, do you often make discussions drag the fuck on for like 20 replies, or are you doing something special for me? If stubbornness could win you arguments you'd have a shot at winning this one.
I'm not "making" anything happen. I'm replying to your messages and you're replying to mine.
And we've come full circle, so I'll have to repeat what I've said in my earlier posts. because they can't find it anywhere else.
Fair enough. You also said earlier that you don't think that will change: you don't think people will share your program once they buy it. Is that correct? You don't need copyright?
So your suggestion is, if you're not going to do things the ass backwards way I suggested of getting people to pay for the promise you might do something, then deprive yourself from making any money when you can make some?
Not at all. If you think you can make money selling copies of your software without relying on a government-enforced monopoly, go right ahead.
Can you do that? You say you don't rely on a government-enforced monopoly, but can you put your money where your mouth is? Because if you're willing to make a legally binding promise not to take any legal action against people who distribute or crack your software, I'll applaud your wise choice, and I just might buy a copy myself.
OK imagine you're that Ford guy. Who's gonna pay you to build cars?
People who want to travel faster than they can on horseback, I suppose. But that's beside the point, because...
First you build and market the cars and people decide whether or not they want to buy some and that's how it's worked for mostly anything since the dawn of time? Well what do you know!
... you've completely missed the distinction between goods and services.
A car is a good, a physical object. If you take a pile of metal and turn it into a car, you can hang onto that car and make sure no one else takes it, which means you can sell it: selling a car means taking money in exchange for letting go of it. If anyone else wants a car, they have to either pay you or find their own pile of metal.
A program is not a physical object. It can be copied at virtually no cost and without you even noticing, and there's nothing you can do to stop that. You can't hang onto it, so any business model based on being able to sell copies profitably is on shaky ground: you can sell discs or downloads, but you'll be competing with others. The best you can do is pray that no one will want to compete with you for distribution, or that your DRM system won't be cracked.
Sure, selling goods has been around since the dawn of time. But you know what else has? Providing services for money. The "world's oldest profession" is a service, not a good. The scarcity in services is in the labor, not the end result: just like the scarcity in software is in the programming labor, not in copies of the compiled program.
Indeed it is. Glad you're finally catching on.
If everyone is allowed to use their own equipment, media, and internet connection as they see fit, selling copies will cease to be viable: why should anyone buy a copy from you when they can get a copy for free from someone who's willing to share?
Charging for your labor, on the other hand, will still work just fine: they can't copy what hasn't been written, so if they want new software and no one will write it for free, they have no choice but to pay a programmer to write it.
Again, no one is demanding that you do anything for free. If no one is paying you to write code, and you don't feel like writing code for free, then don't write it. One of three things will happen: they'll find someone else who does feel like writing code for free, or they'll pay you to write it, or they'll realize they don't need that code written after all.
6) The best and most commonly used VM for implementing higher level languages. (JRuby, Jython, etc are magnitudes faster than the C backends)
Most commonly used? Perhaps. It has been around longer, after all.
But best? Absolutely not! Just off the top of my head, the CLR supports value types, actual generics, pointers, typed varargs, and tail calls. You can compile C++ to the CLR (without hacks like allocating a huge array for all your memory). Is there anything you can do on JVM that you can't on CLR?
And I'm not outraged over potential loss of revenue, I'm 'outraged' (although that's not the best term) that people would demand everything for free for the sake that it's supposedly the thing to do.
Ah, I see. You're confused: no one is demanding anything for free. My only demand is that you don't tell me what I can or can't do with my own equipment and media, or what I can or can't send and receive over the internet. Beyond that, you can charge whatever you want for whatever you want.
You're just a cretin who because he gets paid to write code thinks that everything should work like this without any clue or regard for how things really work outside his tiny bubble. Clueless opinionated dumbass.
Yes, that's what you tell yourself. But of course you know it's not true, which is why you've become so insecure that you're punctuating every sentence with an insult.
Yeah well, what else was I supposed to infer from your suggestion?
A real entrepreneur would've thought through the possibilities. You, on the other hand, are incapable of considering anything other than what you're used to: charging for distribution is all you know, so you assumed it must still be involved.
The point was that he didn't collect enough to make it worth his time to write more books, I don't think he'd care if only 10% paid if he was able to do well enough to encourage him to write more.
Well, he did care. The terms were that he would keep writing if 75% of readers paid a fixed price (first $1, then $2). He got over 75% for part 1, around 70% for part 2, 75% again for part 3, and finally 46% for part 4 after raising the price to $2.
There are a few problems with this model. One is that it doesn't map to reality: the proportion of readers who pay isn't really relevant, because people who read but don't pay pose no additional cost for the author (other than bandwidth). Setting a fixed price would accurately capture the value of the author's time.
Another problem is that this model doesn't give anyone much chance to influence the outcome. If I really like the work and am willing to pay more than my "fair share" to continue it, I'm still only one person. It's a lot easier for me to just write a big check toward a fixed goal than to influence the proportion of paying readers. Also, if there's a fixed goal, we all know how close we are to meeting it, and progress can only move toward that goal; if we're looking at the proportion instead, that number changes with every new reader, and it may move backward.
Who said anything about failing to deliver what he promised? Even good directors or authors make duds once in a while, which is part of the point.
Like I said, the same thing happens in every industry. When you pay people to do something for you, sometimes you'll be disappointed. Whether you get a refund depends on (1) whether they actually broke their promises or whether you just expected something different, and (2) how much they want your future business. People have been dealing with that situation for centuries, and it works just fine.
If your idea was workable, we'd be doing it already.
I don't think so. Playing the copyright lottery is more convenient and more exciting for authors, even if it's financially worse in the long run, and consumers likewise find it more convenient to buy a disc in a box than to pay for development directly. My idea isn't competing on a level playing field, because the current business model is effectively subsidized (by the money we spend enforcing copyright and by the rights we give up).
And who on Earth in my specific market would pay for that?
If your claims can be believed, there are at least 300 people who benefit from the existence of your software and have demonstrated a willingness to pay for its development, so you can start with them. Or did you just make up that number?
Let me guess, a software company that would then sell copies to individual users? Yeah, a middleman, that changes everything.
Heh, and to think you accuse me of putting words in your mouth just to argue against them.
The difference is illusory, because practically lower odds of a sale are the same as being paid less money. [...] Yep, dumbass rhetoric question that has no regard for net effects.
So you're just going to ignore the fact that bad reviews have the same "net effect" on your odds of a sale that piracy does? For someone who claims to only be interested in money, it's amusing how selective your outrage is over the potential loss of revenue.
You're misconstruing the law. If you buy OS X, you buy the physical media that contains software. You cannot make a second copy of the software without permission. This is textbook copyright law.
No, I'm applying a section of the law that you seem to be unaware of: 17 USC 117, which explicitly allows the owner of a copy of a software program to create copies or adaptations, or to have a third party make them on his behalf, as long as they are (1) for archival purposes or (2) necessary for using the software with a machine. This is also "textbook copyright law", unless your textbook is 30 years old.
So by that logic if the guy who writes your pay check writes $20 off your pay check you're not losing anything, but if he's stealing $20 from your wallet then you're losing something.
Correct. One makes me a little less rich than I should be, the other actually makes me poorer.
The difference between pay checks and software sales is that there actually is an answer to the question "how much should I be getting paid?", but there is no answer to "how many copies should I be selling?"
My pay check is set by the terms of my employment. Your sales, however, are set by the whims of your customers. If I work X hours, my employer is obligated to pay me $Y under the terms of our mutual agreement, but no one is obligated to pay you anything.
If they download your software but don't pay for it, you get $0. On the other hand, if they read a bad review and choose not to use your software at all, you also get $0. Are you "losing" money when they read that bad review? Is the reviewer stealing money out of your pocket? Of course not. The only difference is that the pirate gets a copy of your software -- which costs you nothing -- and the guy who read the bad review doesn't. It's different from his perspective, but not from yours.
So if you're going to compare the "net effect" of piracy to theft, then you'd better make the same comparison for bad reviews... and competing software... and economic downturn... and every other reason that someone might decide not to give you their money.
I didn't write an uncrackable DRM, actually my program can be cracked under a minute. The thing is, in order to get the program, you need a serial number appended to your download link, and to get this you need to send me money. Theoretically someone who would have bought it could crack it and release it or not crack it but release it along with his license, but no one's done it so far despite 300 sales, so even if one day someone eventually warezes it it's no big deal.
Heh. How do you think most software gets pirated? Someone buys a copy, cracks it if necessary, and shares it with the world. 300 sales is hardly a big enough sample to conclude that your customers are less inclined to share your software than, say, Adobe's customers.
And tell me, how am I supposed to be paid for my work when I haven't done any work yet, as you suggested? Oh wait, I already asked you for a real answer to that and you refused to answer under the pretence of apathy.
No, the question you asked before was about maximizing your profits. Now you're asking a different question, which I will happily answer.
The way you can be paid for your work when you haven't done any work yet is, quite simply, the same way everyone else does it. This is a business model that's been used for centuries. It's the same way you pay for haircuts, landscaping, day care, accounting, or any other service.
You have a couple choices: you can get someone to promise you money beforehand, then you do the work, then you get the money. Or you can get someone to actually give you the money first, in exchange for your promise to do the work. Either way, if one of you holds up his side of the deal and the other doesn't, the other can sue for breach of contract.
So all the fuck you're doing is talking shit about what I do and insulting me and my work while you don't have any fucking clue what I could do better.
As you may recall, you're the one who started with the insults, and I'm not trying to "make things better" for you. I'm explaining a business model that eliminates the problem of piracy. If you don't think piracy is a problem, then feel free to ignore it.
Unfortunately for you, there are things called "licenses." You tend to agree to an expansive one when installing software, but not when buying a car. Accordingly, your analogy is fundamentally flawed.
A license is a legal agreement that grants you certain rights in exchange for certain terms. If you don't need or want those rights, you can decline the license and stick to the set of rights you were granted by copyright law. For example, you don't need a license to copy an OS onto your hard drive or into RAM, because as the owner of an original copy of the OS, you already have that right.
What legal precedent says that I can take a piece of software, modify it, and sell that modification?
According to 17 USC 117, you can do the same thing in a slightly different order: sell the original, then modify it for your customer.
Since that's legal, and ends up with the same result -- the same computer is shipped out, with the same data on its hard drive -- why does it really matter whether they copy OS X before or after they take the customer's money, or whether they patch OS X before or after they copy it onto the computer?
And how do wholesale modifications count as "patches" ? They're not. It's a derivative work and any precedent regarding copyright law says that this is strictly forbidden.
"Patch" isn't a legal term. The derivative work in this case is an "adaptation", and since it's necessary to make the software work with a particular machine, it's specifically allowed by section 117.
I think the problem comes in when you image dump it to a bunch of commodity hard disks and sell hundreds of machines from the one copy you bought on the single cheapo Apple computer you bought.
Yes - like I said, their error was doing things in the wrong order, using a slightly different process to arrive at the same end result.
This is what you think is "stupid." That I should be able to, say, delete one of the mediocre filler tracks off of that $16 dollar CD and sell it for $8.
Essentially, yes, but note that software and music aren't the same under copyright law. You have certain rights with software you buy that you don't with a CD, and vice versa.
It's copyright. You can't copy it for resale. You can't make a derivative work for resale if you don't have the consent of the rights holder.
Right, but you can make that derivative work for your customer after you sell them the original, because that derivative work is an adaptation allowed by 17 USC 117.
I won't go so far as to claim that they were "right," or "good," but if folks don't like this, then they need work to change the law, because that's what the law says.
They don't even need to change the law. They only need to change their process. Psystar could have used a different installation process to sell exactly the same thing, legally.
actually its not stupid, the car analogy is just flawed. We're talking about copyright, not strict property. Its not like adding a supercharger scoop on a car and then reselling it, its like replacing the first chapter of a book with a new and different one, then reselling it as the original That is different than selling that different first chapter as 'hey this makes the book way better, read it first'
No, Psystar didn't claim that they were shipping computers with unmodified copies of OS X. They were up-front about the fact that they were adapting OS X to run on the machines they sold.
by altering copyrighted code, pystar has created a derivative work, and the right of the copyright owner to distribute derivative works is not affected by fair use.
The right to distribute this particular type of derivative work -- an adaptation made to run OS X on a particular machine -- is affected by 17 USC 117. (Fair use is irrelevant to this case.)
Given that modification of software if it is necessary in order to use it is fair use for a non-distributing end-user, it may be that some future hackintosh business can exist if it merely facilitates the end-user making the modifications themselves.
First, it's not merely fair use (which is vaguely defined in law, and in practice defined by the courts), it's an explicit right granted by the legislature.
Second, that same law allows you to have a third party make the modifications on your behalf. If you buy a computer, and you buy a copy of OS X, and then you need OS X to be adapted so it'll work with your computer, you can have a company like Psystar adapt it for you.
Indeed, I see no reason why you couldn't buy the computer and the OS from that same company, and have them patch it after you pay but before they ship it to you. Psystar lost apparently because they did this in the wrong order.
Psystar *is* the initial owner of the copy. At that point, they can prepare a copy and adaptation as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with "a machine", and then they resell that machine in conjunction with the original copy.
But they wouldn't be able to resell the adapted copy of OS X: 117 says "Adaptations so prepared may be transferred only with the authorization of the copyright owner."
That last sentence is interesting. What would be "frivolous" about using 117 as a defense? It doesn't seem to be explained in the order. From what I can see, it looks like the failure can be blamed entirely on Psystar's absent-minded lawyers.
While the end result may be the same, disallowing the latter prevents Psystar from selling fully functional, turn-it-on-and-it-works machines. If the law forces the purchaser to perform the final step of modifying the software, that is a relatively large disadvantage in the marketplace.
But it doesn't - 17 USC 117 allows you to have someone else make the modifications for you. So all they'd have to do is clarify the order of the process: first you buy the computer, then you buy the copy of OS X, then you authorize them to adapt your new copy of OS X to run on your new computer. That would be slightly less inconvenient (thus more expensive), but achieve exactly the same thing, which is why it's stupid for the law to require these steps to be done in a certain order.