Re: OMG!

["Sheldon Simms" <sheldon@interprice.com>]

Im Artikel <3af9a4cb.93948362@news1.on.sympatico.ca> schrieb "Jeff
Blakeney" <CUTjefbla@bconnex.net>:


> On Tue, 08 May 2001 10:10:02 +0200, "Sheldon Simms"
> <sheldon@interprice.com> wrote:
> 
>>Im Artikel <3af6f7b7.182938562@news1.on.sympatico.ca> schrieb "Jeff
>>Blakeney" <CUTjefbla@bconnex.net>:
>>
>>> If that is your attitude, you better stop buying stuff at any stores.
>>> The stores have already compensated the distributors who have
>>> compensated the publishers who either are the copyright holders or
>>> have compensated the copyright holders.  You buying something from a
>>> store only compensates the store and does nothing in the long run for
>>> the copyright holder.
>>Nonsense. A store is a distribution channel for rights holders, and
>>sales in a store translate directly into gain for the rights holders.
> No they don't.  Sales to the stores translates directly into gain for
> the rights holders.  What happens after the stores gets those items
> doesn't matter to the rights holder at all.

I misspoke. I should have said above "sales in a store translate
INdirectly into gain for the rights holders". But your last sentence
is completely false. When a product is being sold in a store, then
assuming the product sells well, the store will probably order more
copies. Whether or not a product sells well in stores is crucial to
the financial interest of the people producing the product.

When a product is available primarily in retail stores, then these
stores are a distribution channel for the product. For the producers
of the product, the stores are an interface to consumers, not the
consumers themselves. Producers know that stores only buy a product
because consumers will buy the product from the stores. When I buy
a product from a store, the store acts as an intermediary between
the producer and myself. I use the store to indirectly pay the producer
for the product, regardless of what the payment arrangement is between
the store and the producer.

>>None of that applies to second hand sales.
> If I, as an individual, were to buy 100 copies of a piece of software
> and sell them at a flea market, on eBay or at yard sales, how is that
> any different from what a store is doing?  Both the stores and I own the
> copies we have and the rights holder has been paid for those copies.

Assuming you bought the copies from the rights holder or his distributor,
it is the same.

> Admittedly, in this
> case, I wouldn't really be selling "used" copies but what difference is
> there between a store bought copy and a used copy?

There is a big difference. The difference as far as the rights holder
is concerned is the difference between distribution and redistribution.
The rights holder expects to get paid for distributed copies, but not
for redistributed copies. This is exactly why companies that earn money
with copyright keep trying to make their products non-redistributable.

-- 
sheldon@semanticedge.com  "The term (denotation t) denotes the object denoted
                           by the object denoted by t." -- KIF