> No, you have completely failed to understand the nature of software.
> Software is intellectual property. There are various means of exchanging
> money for software, but the most common form is to sell a *license to use*
> the software.
"Intellectual property" is really just another man-made concoction to
maximize profits. It really has no meaningful purpose other than to secure
one's greed for money. If money were to completely disappear off the face
of the earth, there would be no need for "intellectual property." The term
would become meaningless.
Consider an example: a person has some clever invention, and so he files a
patent so that no one else can use his ideas, or come up with a similar
idea, and profit from it.
The very notion that a person's idea can be patented is ridiculous because a
patent on an idea is in effect the loss of philosophical freedom. A patent
is effectively saying, 'person x has thought of this, therefore no one else
can make use of this idea unless person x is paid some money.' If person y
has come up with the same idea as person x, why should y be deprived of
making profits, just because x filed his patents first?
See, the people who invented "intellectual property" are the same people who
say that piracy is stealing. :)
Of course, greed piles on like snowballs. Intellectual property blooms
other ideas like "license to use" and within license you have "license per
seat" or "license per connection", et cetera et cetera.... All of these
'ideas' are self-generated (i.e. builds on previous definitions) in order to
maximize profit.
To say that, 'piracy is not stealing' is a moral argument because one has to
define what 'stealing' means. Terms like 'intellectual property' can't be
used against a moral argument because it has no moral basis. The idea of
"intellectual property" is an economic stance, not a moral one.
> (In exchange for $x.xx, I grant you the non-exclusive right
> to use software yyyy under specified conditions.) Software piracy is
theft
> because an unauthorized person (the pirate) is making and distributing
> (possibly modified) copies of the software.
The idea of intellectual property is created SO THAT piracy becomes theft.
:)
The problem with intellectual property is that it has no well-defined
boundaries. For example, I can patent the way I walk, or the way I dance,
so that no one else can walk or dance the way I do unless they have a
license from me to do so.
If I'm greedy, I can easily argue that those people who walk the way I do,
and not sending me money, are stealing from me. The whole idea is utterly
ridiculous. By defining intellectual property, you are indirectly
redefining the word "theft" without any moral foundation.
Therefore, I don't agree with your statements on intellectual property.
> copyright. If the same "logic" is applied to software, soon nobody will
be
> able to make any money creating software unless we all deliberately write
> crap that no one can use and then make our money by selling services to
> people who want to use our crappy free software. No one really benefits
> from that scenario.
I disagree. Useful software constantly evolve. Evolution requires
support. If you write a piece of software such that it does not evolve, and
requires no support, then the software really isn't worth paying over and
over for. (i.e. don't expect to lean back and watch the money roll in
continuously for a piece of code that you wrote only once). You'll get paid
only for the profileration of the software-- i.e. the time it takes for your
software to be distributed to paying customers, and to those pirates who
distribute your software for free. The pirates encourages non-evolving
piece of software to saturate the market quickly. In other words, piracy
promotes software evolution.
This has its bad points. Some companies artificially evolve their software
so that they can continue to make money, regardless of diminishing returns.
Look at CuteFTP, for example. It's currently on version 4. How many
useful improvements can you possibly make to an FTP client so that it goes
through 4 major version changes? Obviously, the improvements are marginal,
whose purpose is only to create a new version so that existing users can
"upgrade" or new users would register. CuteFTP is fighting an uphill
battle. Piracy encourages that non-evolving pieces of software die
quicker.
I've seen several messages in this mailing lists, for example, who say that
Metrowerks push version 6 just so that people can upgrade, even though there
are no significant changes that warrants a major version change. That's
another example of artificial evolution.
Fact is, technology constantly evolve. Software that is on the edge of
technology evolve at the same rate, and are invulnerable to piracy, because
they are _useful_.
Herry
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