Avoiding LispWorks Personal annoyances
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From: gnubeard on 1 Oct 2009 04:18 On Oct 1, 3:37 pm, Tim Smith <reply_in_gr...(a)mouse-potato.com> wrote: > Stealing is not the best analogy for what you are doing. You're right. +1 points. > This is very similar to polluters dumping trash and waste in, say, a > public park or forest or lake. If only a few do it, it might annoy a few > people who see it happening, and it will raise costs to the rest of us. > But if a lot of people do it, it can destroy the park. > > That's the analogy for what you are: an intellectual polluter. Except my trash is kept in my own home, and I've put it in no public space. Thats what everyone seems to overlook, here. I've made no copies for others, distributed no "cracks" or "patches" - all I did was to discuss how to do it. So, you're wrong. -1 points. Total score: 0.
From: Alessio Stalla on 1 Oct 2009 05:18 On Oct 1, 7:37 am, Tim Smith <reply_in_gr...(a)mouse-potato.com> wrote: > In article > <e4d6dd55-54f9-4079-bed5-022428eb1...(a)j9g2000prh.googlegroups.com>, > > gnubeard <gnube...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > > I don't steal. > > Stealing is not the best analogy for what you are doing. > > A pure free market doesn't work well for intellectual goods, such as > books, music, software, and so on, because the marginal cost of making a > copy is close to zero. In a pure free market (which means there would be > no legal restrictions on making and distributing copies) you'd only get > books and music from artists who are independently wealthy or otherwise > find a patron, because trying to make money actually selling books and > CDs wouldn't work. As soon as you published, the copies would start, and > they would undercut you enough that you'd just never make back your > initial costs. > > There are three ways to fix this. > > #1. Say "Oh well...that's life" and get by with only those who can find > patronage or who make a lot of money in some non-creative endeavor > producing artistic works. The result is that artistic works would > essentially be free to consumers, but we would have far fewer new works > produced. I don't think it would end up like this. I think there would be far fewer artists which don't make art seriously, or that make art primarily for money. I'm a music lover, and I would happily pay (or $$$) - even on a subscription basis - to my favourite bands to allow them to continue making good music. I think many other people would. Maybe I'm being too optimistic, who knows. > #2. Say "OK, so we won't use the free market to deal with deciding what > art gets produced and how much artists get paid". Instead, have some > kind of bureaucracy handle it. The government collects money to support > artists (probably via a tax on something that roughly correlates with > consumption of art, such as a media tax), and divvies it up among > artists based on what consumers are consuming. So, the government would > run the bittorrent trackers or the music stores, and keep track of how > many times each work is downloaded, and split the tax accordingly. In a > way this is a patronage system like #1, but we are all the patrons, > indirectly through the government. That's an option too, it could be used in conjunction with #1 if #1 wasn't enough. > #3. Artificially, by force of law, imbue intellectual goods with some of > the characteristics of real property so as to make it work like a > regular good in the free market. In particular, make it so that people > can't make copies--if they want a copy, they have to get it from the > artist. > > The approach most societies nowadays take is #3. But note that #3 is a > legal fiction. It only works out fairly if we all follow the rules. It doesn't work fairly. Making laws to artificially force a phenomenon into working in an unnatural way is generally a huge mistake. Force of law is not a divine force; you cannot say "this song in mp3 format shalt be real property from now on" and hope everything works. Because it is not real property, no matter what. It has been said countless times: I steal from you your car, you don't have a car anymore; I copy your CD, you still have the CD. I don't return a book you have lent to me, you don't have the book anymore; I copy your ebook, you still have the ebook. That someone is making money now on the assumption that a song or a software is like a physical object, and would not make money if laws were changed to be more in accordance with how things really are, is not an excuse for keeping a bad law. > Pirates aren't following the rules, and if enough people pirate, it will > snowball. People will notice and think "I've got a few thousand dollars > spend on my CDs and DVDs...my pirate neighbor didn't have to spend that > money on DVDs, so was able to instead build a better home theater to > watch his movies...why the hell I'm I spending all this money when these > people are getting it or free?". > > This is very similar to polluters dumping trash and waste in, say, a > public park or forest or lake. If only a few do it, it might annoy a few > people who see it happening, and it will raise costs to the rest of us. > But if a lot of people do it, it can destroy the park. > > That's the analogy for what you are: an intellectual polluter. No, it's not a fair analogy. Dumping trash in a park is naturally wrong; it damages a public property without giving any benefits to society. It's more like if someone charged you money for walking in the street, and someone discovered that, ooh, you can walk in the street without paying! Because the street is not someone's private property. How will the poor street-lending companies survive now that everyone walks in the street freely? I say, screw them! I don't want policemen arresting me if I walk in the street without paying. And who will build new streets now? People who need them will. Alessio
From: Kaz Kylheku on 1 Oct 2009 10:48 On 2009-10-01, Tim Smith <reply_in_group(a)mouse-potato.com> wrote: > In article ><e4d6dd55-54f9-4079-bed5-022428eb1de8(a)j9g2000prh.googlegroups.com>, > gnubeard <gnubeard(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> >> I don't steal. > > Stealing is not the best analogy for what you are doing. > > A pure free market doesn't work well for intellectual goods, such as > books, music, software, and so on, because the marginal cost of making a > copy is close to zero. In a pure free market (which means there would be > no legal restrictions on making and distributing copies) you'd only get > books and music from artists who are independently wealthy or otherwise > find a patron, because trying to make money actually selling books and > CDs wouldn't work. As soon as you published, the copies would start, and > they would undercut you enough that you'd just never make back your > initial costs. Copying isn't the best analogy for what he is doing. He has a legal copy of the software. Having obtained a legal copy of a work, all he is doing is flipping the bits of a storage device which he owns. I.e. doing as he pleases with private property.
From: Pascal J. Bourguignon on 1 Oct 2009 11:02 Kaz Kylheku <kkylheku(a)gmail.com> writes: > On 2009-10-01, Tim Smith <reply_in_group(a)mouse-potato.com> wrote: >> In article >><e4d6dd55-54f9-4079-bed5-022428eb1de8(a)j9g2000prh.googlegroups.com>, >> gnubeard <gnubeard(a)gmail.com> wrote: >>> >>> I don't steal. >> >> Stealing is not the best analogy for what you are doing. >> >> A pure free market doesn't work well for intellectual goods, such as >> books, music, software, and so on, because the marginal cost of making a >> copy is close to zero. In a pure free market (which means there would be >> no legal restrictions on making and distributing copies) you'd only get >> books and music from artists who are independently wealthy or otherwise >> find a patron, because trying to make money actually selling books and >> CDs wouldn't work. As soon as you published, the copies would start, and >> they would undercut you enough that you'd just never make back your >> initial costs. > > Copying isn't the best analogy for what he is doing. He has a legal copy of the > software. Having obtained a legal copy of a work, all he is doing is flipping > the bits of a storage device which he owns. I.e. doing as he pleases with > private property. Would this analogy do: He's at an ATM, and there's a lamppost nearby. He noticed that when drawing money from the ATM, if he kicks the lamppost that sends a pulse in the ATM that prevents it to debit his account. -- __Pascal Bourguignon__
From: Alessio Stalla on 1 Oct 2009 11:05
On Oct 1, 5:02 pm, p...(a)informatimago.com (Pascal J. Bourguignon) wrote: > Kaz Kylheku <kkylh...(a)gmail.com> writes: > > On 2009-10-01, Tim Smith <reply_in_gr...(a)mouse-potato.com> wrote: > >> In article > >><e4d6dd55-54f9-4079-bed5-022428eb1...(a)j9g2000prh.googlegroups.com>, > >> gnubeard <gnube...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > >>> I don't steal. > > >> Stealing is not the best analogy for what you are doing. > > >> A pure free market doesn't work well for intellectual goods, such as > >> books, music, software, and so on, because the marginal cost of making a > >> copy is close to zero. In a pure free market (which means there would be > >> no legal restrictions on making and distributing copies) you'd only get > >> books and music from artists who are independently wealthy or otherwise > >> find a patron, because trying to make money actually selling books and > >> CDs wouldn't work. As soon as you published, the copies would start, and > >> they would undercut you enough that you'd just never make back your > >> initial costs. > > > Copying isn't the best analogy for what he is doing. He has a legal copy of the > > software. Having obtained a legal copy of a work, all he is doing is flipping > > the bits of a storage device which he owns. I.e. doing as he pleases with > > private property. > > Would this analogy do: > > He's at an ATM, and there's a lamppost nearby. He noticed that > when drawing money from the ATM, if he kicks the lamppost that > sends a pulse in the ATM that prevents it to debit his account. He doesn't own the ATM, the bank does, so he's not allowed to fiddle with it. Alessio |