Avoiding LispWorks Personal annoyances
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From: Dave Searles on 2 Oct 2009 10:23 Tim Smith wrote: > In article > <b23f2b5f-f0f5-423f-bac3-4a5756682c55(a)a7g2000yqo.googlegroups.com>, > Alessio Stalla <alessiostalla(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> 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 > > It depends on the amount and nature of the trash, doesn't it? Suppose > people are obeying the law, and not dumping trash. I ignore this, and > dump napkins and paper plates, after enjoying a pleasant picnic in the > park. Not being a total jerk, I dump them out of sight. Also, as part of > not being a total jerk, I use biodegradable napkins and plates. If my > trash breaks down before anyone discovers it, is it still wrong for me > to dump it, since I haven't damaged public property. > > I'd say yes, it was wrong, even though there was no measurable harm to > the park or to any other users of the park. The reason I say this is > that if everybody did it, it would destroy the park. > > The same things happens with piracy. It does not. > We, as a society, have picked a solution to the problem of free markets > not leading to the optimal use of resources when it comes to intellectual > goods. "We" have not. Perhaps YOU have. I do not even agree that there IS a "problem of free markets not leading to the optimal use of resources when it comes to intellectual goods". > When someone decides to ignore the rules, they very likely cause no > measurable harm by their particular action. But if everyone did it, it > would destroy the system. When it comes to music "piracy", we are at a point resembling "everyone did it", yet the music industry is thriving. Musicians are making as much money as ever. Oh, a few companies in the RIAA are not doing so hot, but that seems attributable to many other factors -- people buy fewer plastic discs now, but that's attributable to having other entertainment options like video games and DVDs than in the past; many of these companies are wasting huge sums of money on legal action that results in (by their standards) relatively small amounts of money in uncollectable judgments; and numerous structural and strategic blunders. Smart musicians, on the other hand, are thriving and despite the general economic downturn of recent months. > So I think the pollution analogy stands up well. It does not.
From: Dave Searles on 2 Oct 2009 10:31 Alessio Stalla wrote: > On Oct 1, 10:08 pm, Dave Searles <sear...(a)hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> wrote: >> Alessio Stalla wrote: >>> Still, what troubles me is that we are able to deal with bytes much >>> more easily than with atoms. I cannot copy a chair or modify an ATM by >>> messing with it at the atomic level. >> Yet. >> >> It's called molecular nanotechnology, and it's coming Real Soon Now. >> When it does, maybe before 2030, the upheavals recently observed in the >> music industry will look like a minor puff of warm breeze besides the >> Category 5 howler that will rattle the timbers of the major >> manufacturing industries at that time. > > We'll see. > >>> Does this mean that when you reach the technical level necessary to >>> copy something almost freely, and to change it at the level of its >>> basic constituents, private property naturally ceases to exist? >> No, it just means that after copyright goes the way of the dodo, patent >> law will follow it into extinction (or maybe just irrelevance) in due >> course. > > But if I can cheaply copy your chair, no one will sell chairs anymore, > don't you agree? Most likely. However, someone skilled in the art will surely be able to sell their time and expertise at creating the templates for novel chairs. Look how the fashion industry thrives in the presence of rampant copying! In fact, everyone wearing something is the spur for someone to make, and people to buy, something new that isn't widely copied yet. Competition is what drives innovation, not the promise of monopoly rents. The latter only prompts someone to work hard until they get a single "hit", and then rest on their laurels collecting royalty cheques. That so many creative people that CAN do so still DON'T, and continue creating new stuff, also evidences that the urge to create is sometimes a drive unto itself that needs no encouragement-by-legislative-fiat. > Or more likely they'll sell complex, beautiful, > carefully designed chairs - whose design is the true value people will > spend for. Aha. That's it -- or perhaps not the chairs, but the ability to custom-design them for the rich and famous or whatever. Time and expertise remain scarce even if the material goods become non-scarce. >> And there's another huge upheaval coming sooner: the death of privacy. >> Hopefully it will cause the birth of a new era of unprecedented >> tolerance and understanding, rather than, as I fear, everyone being >> smeared by everyone else and looking really bad. > > Why the death of privacy? I think privacy is important. It appears to be unsustainable. Google, Amazon, etc. furnish one reason. Look at the controversy over the new Netflix prize, and how hard it proves to be to truly anonymize data. Consider also the practical problem of sustaining it and enforcing it as cameras, wireless networking gadgets, and the like get smaller and easier to conceal. Last, but not least, consider that biotechnology and nanotechnology will increase the destructive power potentially accessible by an individual or a small organization. Heavy surveillance is the only apparent defense. So we wind up at a trichotomy: everyone watches everyone; Big Brother watches everyone; or nearly everyone dies. The last is obviously bad, and the middle item leads to Orwell's 1984 in a pretty much straight line, and so is bad. What does that leave? >> Probably the latter will happen, then the former, and a fairly elaborate >> almost Victorian system of politeness norms will arise regarding what >> one is permitted to call attention to and discuss in public about other >> people without it being considered very rude, or at least gauche and >> gossipy. Mostly we already have such norms but they'd have to strengthen >> enormously to compensate the inability to keep things secret. > > I hope this never happens. Hope away, for all the good it will do. >> We'd also have to acknowledge and accept a lot of truths about ourselves >> as a species; for instance, that we are not naturally monogamous, >> contrary to popular and semi-legislated myth. > > You have my complete approval here. > > -- Alessio
From: Dave Searles on 2 Oct 2009 10:46 Madhu wrote: > My allegation is that by providing this information you are causing loss > of value to the owner of F (in point 2). Causing "loss of value", where that represents a drop in expected FUTURE revenue rather than a loss of actually-owned property, is not criminal or even wrong. If I sell my shares in Google, Google's stock loses a bit of value. If I sell my shares and advise lots of other people to sell theirs, it could lose some more. Technically, Google is deprived of nothing; they still have however many shares they have, but simply can't expect to get as much from selling one as before. So the sale value is down, strictly analogously to the (unsubstantiated) assertion being made about LW, as a result of someone "providing information". Yet we'd all agree that I'm well within my rights to, say, try Google's new browser, decide it sucks, decide on that basis that Google has jumped the shark, dump my stock, and tell everyone I know this or post it to a newsgroup. It's free speech. We'd also all agree that if Google's browser (or stock!) came with an attached note claiming to forbid me from talking about how much it sucks, that that could not possibly be considered to be legally binding, right? Non-negotiated, simply asserted after the fact of the transaction, no witnesses or other evidence that anyone "agreed" to it, and purports to restrict freedom of speech merely by being VIEWED while providing no compensation? Legally speaking, that's not a contract, it's a joke. > 2. proved it by making the detailed workings of the product available to > others (this is no longer personal), with an intent to destroy value of > the product. Prove intent.
From: Dave Searles on 2 Oct 2009 10:48 Tim Smith wrote: > In article <ha31j7$tsk$1(a)news.eternal-september.org>, > Dave Searles <searles(a)hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> wrote: >>> #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. >> They already would "work like a regular good in the free market"; they >> work like a regular good in the free whose marginal cost happens to be >> approximately zero. > > [says I'm a liar] No, you are. > such goods do not work, in the sense that a free market, responding > to supply and demand, does not result in the optimal allocation of > resources for intellectual goods. It doesn't? Do you have proof or is this just you repeating an oft-heard myth?
From: Dave Searles on 2 Oct 2009 10:50
Tim Bradshaw wrote: > On 2009-09-27 01:54:45 +0100, gnubeard <gnubeard(a)gmail.com> said: > >> Circumventing limitations in a >> piece of software that I am able to download freely, and which - after >> circumvention - in no way affects the ability of anyone else to use >> the software > > Why do you think that is true? If everyone did what you are describing, > do you think that LispWorks would continue to provide a personal edition > for no charge? I would not if I was them. So what you are doing is > only denying the ability of others to use the product Bollocks. If LispWorks decides to discontinue the personal edition, that's on LispWorks's head, not gnubeard's. Gnubeard isn't responsible for anyone else's choices but his own. Furthermore, even if they did so, the personal edition installer is out there and people can copy it off one another. That might be copyright infringement, but the possibility proves that even LW discontinuing it would not "deny the ability of others to use the product"; it just might make it more difficult (and deprive them of updates and bugfixes). > A similar argument would say that if I only take a very small amount > of money from you, that's not theft. That analogy has been shot down in flames multiple times already. |