3 ms·

It probably has something to do with the investment that would be required if the original item didn’t exist. Suppose it costs you 10 million dollars to make p

It probably has something to do with the investment that would be required if the original item didn’t exist. Suppose it costs you 10 million dollars to make product X, and you are able to make that money back barely (say 11 million). Then, someone else comes along and builds something quickly on top of your expensive investment and is able to make 5 million of their own. Wouldn’t you be mad? They’ve essentially found a low-effort way to make returns without taking any of the risk you did. Without you, they wouldn’t be able to do what they did unless they came up with the whole original item on their own and then built on top of it. Therefore, in essence they are profiting off of your investment. The law may be significantly more complex and nuanced than this but it’s not hard at all to imagine scenarios where the original producer of a product does not want to enable profits of spin-offs from their work. Edit: This is one reason patents exist. You are allowed to protect your massive investment for a period of time, no matter how much society may benefit from building on it immediately.

gdhbcc 8y ago
That argument never made sense. If a farmer sells some rice to someone else, who then turns around and sells it for profit, the farmer doesnt get to dictate what the trader can do with the rice. Copyright has no legitimate economic or technological grounds.
- weberc2 8y ago
  Copyright refers to copying an innovation. First sale refers to reselling a product. You’re conflating the two.
whatshisface 8y ago
Maybe you'd be mad, but would that anger be justified? We all benefit from each other's work in society. The person building on your work wouldn't be harming you in any way (except perhaps by competing with you, which we all agree is a good thing for everyone in the world except for you), and they would be beneficial to their customers by a significant $5M. Only a foolish society would subtract that from itself because for some reason a platform supplier got "mad."
belltaco 8y ago
I don't think it works like that, you can buy whatever you want and resell while adding value. Just like a printing press that buys paper and then makes millions from it by printing books. Also, just because something cost you a lot doesn't mean you get to claim protection over it. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweat_of_the_brow#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweat_of_the_brow#United_State...
bko 8y ago
> Suppose it costs you 10 million dollars to make product X, and you are able to make that money back barely (say 11 million). Then, someone else comes along and builds something quickly on top of your expensive investment and is able to make 5 million of their own. Wouldn’t you be mad? That's a terrible analogy. Practically everything is built on using materials built from others. That's essentially specialization.
stevew20 8y ago
What you've described is called "capitalism", and "progress". Epic Games did not invent GPUs, which are way more expensive than their product; however, try running Fortnite without one. 1FPS and unplayable.

gdhbcc 8y ago

That argument never made sense. If a farmer sells some rice to someone else, who then turns around and sells it for profit, the farmer doesnt get to dictate what the trader can do with the rice. Copyright has no legitimate economic or technological grounds.

weberc2 8y ago
Copyright refers to copying an innovation. First sale refers to reselling a product. You’re conflating the two.

whatshisface 8y ago

Maybe you'd be mad, but would that anger be justified? We all benefit from each other's work in society. The person building on your work wouldn't be harming you in any way (except perhaps by competing with you, which we all agree is a good thing for everyone in the world except for you), and they would be beneficial to their customers by a significant $5M. Only a foolish society would subtract that from itself because for some reason a platform supplier got "mad."

belltaco 8y ago

I don't think it works like that, you can buy whatever you want and resell while adding value. Just like a printing press that buys paper and then makes millions from it by printing books. Also, just because something cost you a lot doesn't mean you get to claim protection over it. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweat_of_the_brow#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweat_of_the_brow#United_State...

bko 8y ago

> Suppose it costs you 10 million dollars to make product X, and you are able to make that money back barely (say 11 million). Then, someone else comes along and builds something quickly on top of your expensive investment and is able to make 5 million of their own. Wouldn’t you be mad? That's a terrible analogy. Practically everything is built on using materials built from others. That's essentially specialization.

stevew20 8y ago

What you've described is called "capitalism", and "progress". Epic Games did not invent GPUs, which are way more expensive than their product; however, try running Fortnite without one. 1FPS and unplayable.