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Paul Graham has lost the plot

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Re: Paul Graham has lost the plot

#201

Post by Androsynth »

anonymoushn wrote: post #160
andylei wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you're totally missing the point. the question is whether the ability to charge money incentivizes programmers to produce code. androsynth argues that the app store shows that it does. there are hundreds if not thousands of apps that would not exist if all apps in the store had to be free.

The OP strongly implies that "The presence of copyright" is the same as "The ability to charge money," and much of the discussion here also assumes that. It is simply not true, though. I would rather discuss what the OP is actually about than the thing that the OP would prefer to substitute for its subject matter to make its case seem better than it is.

I agree. I view copyrights as unfair business practices, enforced by the government. My original comment was really in response to the open-source comment. I believe money is a bigger incentive than open-source development in the software engineering industry. Software certainly doesn't need to be copyrighted in order to sell it.

Re: Paul Graham has lost the plot

#202

Post by cynicalkane »

maratd wrote: post #145
citricsquid wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you're misunderstanding economics too. Just because you can get it for free that does not mean there is no market for people paying for it. > Just because there is a cost to produce something does not mean that it has market value. What shows market value is the desire for that product. The only reason that music is pirated now (when it used to be purchased) is because it's easy and without consequence. Let's say…

> People pirate music because it's free, consequence free (the reason they don't steal cars is consequence) and everyone spends all day every day justifying it. Please don't conflate tangible goods with intangible goods. Intangible goods are patterns. You can't steal a pattern, because a pattern can't be "owned" in any sense that a physical object can. Now, you can have rights to a pattern and that right stops others…

if you own a car, you own it forever and without limits.

No you don't; the car must be titled, road-legal, emissions tested, insured, and you must be licensed to drive. Those are some of the limits on owning and using a car. Physical possession doesn't constitute a natural right.

More generally, you shouldn't pretend like you can divine human law from physical constraints. Human law serves humans. Property law serves humans. Laws might want to take into account the nature of intellectual property as bits, or they might not, depending on what is practical and desirable; but the bits are an implementation detail.

Re: Paul Graham has lost the plot

#203

Post by bmelton »

angersock wrote: post #179
batista wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Market value is determined by scarcity and demand, right? Scarcity is finished for digital items. No, just demand. You can simulate scarcity with access provision. Else you don't get to have an economy in the digital age. People talk like this is something new, but it's not. Sun Records made Elvis's singles. Nothing even in that analog era prevented ANY OTHER COMPANY to reproduce and sell the same singles and not giv…

You are dancing around a point, here. You can't simulate scarcity with access provision. We've solved that. We wouldn't be having this same stupid tired runaround if access provision worked or could be made to work without being repugnant. As for the Elvis singles, those were physical goods, housed in physical places, with physical companies. This is vastly different from people giving away byte patterns to one anoth…

GPL restrictions don't come into play until the point of redistribution. That is at least true for GPLv2, and I'm pretty sure for v3, but I don't know it at all.

In short, I can modify the GPL source of an application all I like if it's an "in-house tool", and I am not required to resubmit my changes. It's only if I attempt to sell it or redistribute the application in some way that I am required to.

That is not an IP violation.

Re: Paul Graham has lost the plot

#204

Post by leon_ »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #27

I'll just cherry pick this gem here: "What would happen if creators couldn’t charge for their creations? The same as if you couldn’t charge for lines of computer code: there’d be less of it." Spotted the massive, gaping flaw in the argument yet? It's 2012, if you make this argument then I am done with you. Linux is how old? How much of the internet runs on it? Done. Edit: Wow, really? Why is this still a necessary ar…

> Linux

Only most lines of linux code are written by people who are paid for doing so. If it wasn't for companies that put money into linux development linux would be a lot less useful.

Re: Paul Graham has lost the plot

#205

Post by maratd »

cynicalkane wrote: post #202
maratd wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People pirate music because it's free, consequence free (the reason they don't steal cars is consequence) and everyone spends all day every day justifying it. Please don't conflate tangible goods with intangible goods. Intangible goods are patterns. You can't steal a pattern, because a pattern can't be "owned" in any sense that a physical object can. Now, you can have rights to a pattern and that right stops others…

if you own a car, you own it forever and without limits. No you don't; the car must be titled, road-legal, emissions tested, insured, and you must be licensed to drive. Those are some of the limits on owning and using a car. Physical possession doesn't constitute a natural right. More generally, you shouldn't pretend like you can divine human law from physical constraints. Human law serves humans. Property law serves…

> No you don't; the car must be titled, road-legal, emissions tested, insured, and you must be licensed to drive.

That is not true. All of those things are necessary to use a car, not to own one.

Re: Paul Graham has lost the plot

#206

Post by Tycho »

Is copyright the only way for content-creators to make money? No. Is it an honourable, respectful way and probably the best option we have? Yes.

(also the smells equivalent in music would be more like trying to charge people who happen to overhear music while going about some other activity)

Re: Paul Graham has lost the plot

#207

Post by angersock »

batista wrote: post #188
angersock wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look, the entire debate is/ought/mustbe centered around means of distribution, right? The person I was replying to was trying to contend that content is scarce. I showed that, no, it indeed is not. Had they put in your caveat that undistributed content might as well not exist, I would've cheerfully argued and perhaps ceded the point. But, their statement, as given? Wrong. Also, you claim (as does everyone else in thi…

>The person I was replying to was trying to contend that content is scarce. I showed that, no, it indeed is not. Had they put in your caveat that undistributed content might as well not exist, I would've cheerfully argued and perhaps ceded the point. But, their statement, as given? Wrong. It would be better if you spend some time to understand what they MEANT with by "content" in their statement, instead of attacking…

(thank you for a fuller response)

Re: your 3 assertions towards the end.

1) Agreed. However, the absolute amount of content being produced is increasing regardless as population grows and tool proliferate. We all know you can't count a decrease in growth the same way you count an actual cost.

2) Content creation becoming expensive can be a function just as much about expectations of what something should cost as it is actual production cost--so, no, I don't agree that creation costs what it actually needs to. Expensive things won't be made, sure, but what about ten cheap things instead? Or a hundred hobby things?

3) Agreed that time is used. However, how many people program in their free time if they do it as a job? How many people shoot movies in their free time as Best Boy Grip or whatever? Just because they do it as a day job doesn't mean that they'll do it as a hobby, too. Or that they wouldn't increase their hobby time now that they don't have to do it for a living.

Re: Paul Graham has lost the plot

#208

Post by cynicalkane »

maratd wrote: post #205
cynicalkane wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you own a car, you own it forever and without limits. No you don't; the car must be titled, road-legal, emissions tested, insured, and you must be licensed to drive. Those are some of the limits on owning and using a car. Physical possession doesn't constitute a natural right. More generally, you shouldn't pretend like you can divine human law from physical constraints. Human law serves humans. Property law serves…

> No you don't; the car must be titled, road-legal, emissions tested, insured, and you must be licensed to drive. That is not true. All of those things are necessary to use a car, not to own one.

I'm pretty sure you need a license to own a car in most jurisdictions, but that's not the point. (And you definitely need a title to own a car because that's how you own a car. In some jurisdictions merely possessing the physical copy of the title implies ownership of the car, which is why you always keep the title in a safe place.)

Actually, you made my point for me. The point is society limits the way people can use property for practical reasons. There's no reason you can't do that on intellectual property because "omg it's made of bits".

Re: Paul Graham has lost the plot

#209

Post by leon_ »

jes5199 wrote: post #105
J3L2404 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If I want to pay for music to be produced, I use Kickstarter. If I want to pay for software to be produced, I use kickstarter. Now I can download AutoCAD, Illustrator and Photoshop guilt free.

I actually have paid for software to be produced using Kickstarter. And I donate to open source projects, too. I happen to use the GIMP, Inkscape, and FreeCAD for free, and I don't feel guilty about that.

Great. You use the FOSS alternatives and let the greedy guys play business with commercial software.

But then ... tell me ... for what do we need the pirate bay?

Re: Paul Graham has lost the plot

#210

Post by prodigal_erik »

batista wrote: post #165
angersock wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Market value is determined by scarcity and demand, right? Scarcity is finished for digital items. Sorry, but that train has left. This very much follows economics. (and stop conflating utility with market value...argh....)

Market value is determined by scarcity and demand, right? Scarcity is finished for digital items. No, just demand. You can simulate scarcity with access provision. Else you don't get to have an economy in the digital age. People talk like this is something new, but it's not. Sun Records made Elvis's singles. Nothing even in that analog era prevented ANY OTHER COMPANY to reproduce and sell the same singles and not giv…

We don't get to have an economy based on paying per copy in the digital age. Ransom and work for hire are unaffected, because nobody can copy work that hasn't yet been created or released. This is a good thing; rationing copies has been reducing every work's overall use value for society.
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