Re: OMG!

["**** ****" <***@***.com>]

Jeff Blakeney wrote in message

>The copyright holder should have $150 in his bank account (because
>there are three copies out there) but he only has $100.  The copyright
>holder has lost $50.


I should be a millionaire. Since my bank account is significantly less, does
that mean I have lost money? No, because made up money DOES NOT COUNT.

>Here is an analogy for you:
>
>I buy a cupcake directly from a baker for $.50, some else buys a
>cupcake directly from a baker for $.50, you come along and take a
>cupcake without paying for it.


I have deprived him of $.50 worth of flour and labor and whatnot. His loss
is not that I have one, or else buying from someone else or making my own
causes him loss. If my nanobots microscopically sneak up to the cupcake, and
copy one without using any of his resources, is he then out $.50 also? Don't
use the "there is no such technology" defense, it's a weasels way out. Too
many retards in public office don't have the brains to see things coming,
and because of that we get all kinds of bonehead legislation, such as
copyright, for instance.

>The baker should have $1.50 in his bank account (because there are
>three cupcakes out there) but he only has $1.00.  The baker has lost
>$.50.
>
>Please don't nit pick this to death.  I realize there are some
>differences between the two situations, that is why I say they are
>analogous and not exactly the same, but the differences do not affect
>the point I was making.


It's hardly nitpicking. It's knocking holes through your argument with a
sledgehammer.

>There really is no difference between you making of copy of a
>copyrighted work or actually physically stealing an original copy of
>that work.  In either case, there will be a copy in existence that has
>never been paid for which therefore results in a loss to the copyright
>holder.


Very much so a difference. If someone can copy my sports car, without
harming my own, this is a good thing. They didn't rip me off. Stealing my
sports car deprives me of it. The world is wealthier as a whole, because now
there are 2 sports cars, where once there was only one.

>>Now, if they spend money producing a physical item... a sculpture, a
house,
>>a custom car, with the intent to sell it at profit, and someone steals it,
>>or vandalizes it to the point that it is totaled, this is "losing money".
>>They invested money, and that money is forever unrecoverable. They lost
>>money because someone deprived them of ever selling it at profit.
>
>Exactly.  By making a copy of a program you have almost certainly
>deprived the copyright holder of ever being able to sell you a copy.


Not almost certainly. There is no way to tell what caused his missed
opportunity to sell it to me. By that logic, depriving him of the
opportunity by any means is a loss. If I talk you out of buying a copy of
the crummy software, did he lose money?

>>Not
>>because the criminal actually gained. (Depending on what he did, he may
not
>>have).
>
>I'm not exactly sure what you are talking about here.


If an arsonist burns down my house, I lose my house. He gained nothing of
value. I still lose. Loss and gain don't necessarily go together, and
someone else's loss is not always someone else's gain.

>>On the other hand, a person can invest money in authoring software. There
>>are real costs associated with producing it, and on top of that, there is
>>the author's time. A professional programmer's time is highly valued, I
>>would say. So, when he is ready to sell this software, it can be sold to
>>multiple persons simultaneously. When you do that with physical stuff, it
>>usually means you are a scam artist.
>
>No, a programmer cannot sell their software to multiple people
>simultaneously.  You still have to produce copies of IP stuff just
>like you do with physical stuff.


Those copies aren't necessarily physical. He may choose to do that, but
often times he need not press cd's or whatever. His one work, that of
authoring, can be sold multiple times. I thought this was obvious.


>>Now, when he sells it to people (should
>>I say license?), he is earning back the money/time he invested, and
>>hopefully at a profit. At least hopefully for the good programmers, I'd
like
>>to see them encouraged. But he is in a position that the vendor of
physical
>>stuff isn't. With very rare exceptions, no thief or vandal can deprive him
>>of selling his software.
>
>Excuse me?  If you give away copies of a program I'm selling, then
>those people aren't likely to buy my program, are they?  That would be
>depriving me of sales.


Haha. You astound me. Short of kidnapping the programmer, and literally
restraining him from doing so, it can't deprive you from selling your
software. There are always more people to sell to, do you have any idea how
big a number 6 billion is? Since those people weren't going to buy it in the
first place, did God deprive you of sales, for setting the universe in
motion such that they were destined to never buy it?

>>Those that do pirate his software, were almost
>>certainly never potential customers.
>
>If they weren't potential customers then they were people that had no
>interest in the software at all and therefore would not even want a
>pirated copy.  If they wanted a copy of the program but were unwilling
>to pay the asking price for it, then they definitely are still
>potential customers as they do want the program.


I have several friends that are interested in 3D rendering and related
endeavors. I can guarantee that they are not potential customers for 3D
Studio Max, or SoftImage. Guaranteed. So, when they download a rip, without
service or support, or even a full unaltered install set, they are depriving
softco's how? This is not potential. Potential means that there is some
slight chance that it will happen. They could never pay for the software,
ever. Yet they are possibly customers?

Ok, lets talk about software closer to home. Say they are interested in
vintage a2 software. In particular a discontinued rare program. Even if they
are willing to buy it, they are not potential customers. They can't buy it,
so it will never happen. And if they are lucky enough to see it used, but
still decide to download an "illegal" copy, just how has that deprived the
author of sale? Please tell me. Since I don't think you are bright enough to
use the one possible argument in your defense, I'll do it for you, then
rebutt...

Well, John (that's me, being spoken to from you), when the original
purchaser  bought this software, they were influenced by the fact that they
software would have high resell demand. As such, it was even more valuable
to them, and when people pirate they undermine this "system" so that the
value as a whole, is altered in way unfair to the author. His subsequent
works may be valued less, because people are aware that piracy will hurt
resell value.

Loads of stinking bull****. If anyone here can honestly claim that future
resell value influenced their purchase decisions 20 years ago, I invite them
to tell their tale. But IMO, this is contrived and bares little resemblance
to reality.

>>The customers that he counted on,
>>before embarking on the endeavor, will still pay. They get support, they
get
>>manuals, lots of benefits that warez kiddies just can't pirate. He is not
>>losing money.
>
>The number of sales that you figure you can get from doing market
>research is primarily used to determine whether it is worth the time,
>effort and money to produce something.  It has no bearings on the
>amount that you actually sell, whether you make a profit or loss or
>whether people are stealing from you.


And I will be the first to condenm the shoplifter palming software off the
racks. So, if they don't profit, it's because piraters didn't cough up the
money? As opposed to poor market research on their part?

>There is no requirement that because a programmer only figured on
>selling 10,000 copies of his software that they can't sell more.  If
>they can sell 100,000 then congratulations to them.  But if 1,000
>people still pirate the program, then the programmer has lost out on
>1,000 potential sales.


Again and again. They were not potential, they were illusory.

>>But let's consider this a bit more. Suppose that every single potential
>>customer, no matter the probability of them buying, is counted on, when
>>producing the software. And any event or action that dissuades them from
>>buying (such as them getting a free pirated copy) is considered a loss.
Now,
>>warez kiddies cause vendors to lose money. But the same can be said of
>>critical reviews. If I convince a friend not to buy something, because it
is
>>poorly written, am I not causing them just as much loss as the software
>>pirate does? Is this immoral too? It just doesn't hold up.
>
>Yes, bad reviews can result in losses but they are not illegal.
>Pirating the product will result in losses and is illegal.


So it has nothing to do with loss? You admit this?

>As to the morality of giving a bad review, it can go either way (which
>is why I don't try to argue morals, remember? :-).  If the bad review
>was done because the reviewer had a personal dislike for the producer
>of the product, that would be, in my mind, immoral.  However, if the
>bad review was done because the program had a number of nasty bugs
>that had the potential to destroy data on a users system, then, in my
>mind, that would be moral.
>
>To help bring home my point about trying to keep morals and legality
>separate, here is the same situations from a piracy point of view.  If
>someone pirates a product because they have a personal dislike for the
>producer, that would be illegal.  If someone pirates a product because
>they feel it isn't worth paying for because it has a number of nasty
>bugs, that would still be illegal.

What a confused little brain of yours.

>>There might be need of IP law, I am still undecided. But the current
>>implementation of it sucks, REALLY SUCKS, and you attempting to justify it
>>with this bull*** is disgusting.
>
>There is as much need for intellectual property law as there is for
>physical property law.  Property is property regardless of its
>tangibility.


Property is some notion dreamt up by tyrannical alpha males.

>The current implementation of intellectual property law may not be the
>best but it is what is currently in place.  It can be changed.  If you
>don't like it, try to get it changed instead of just complaining about
>how bad it is, ignoring it and trying to justify why you are breaking
>the law.  More importantly, don't encourage other people to ignore the
>law because you don't like it.


It can't be changed. Now you're lying to me like I were a 5 yr old? Politics
is a game designed so that I can't win it.

>I'm not trying to justify intellectual property law.  I'm just
>pointing out to people that what they are doing or promoting is
>illegal.


Big deal.

>--
> Jeff Blakeney - Dean of the Apple II Unversity on A2Central.com