4 ms·

> I always figured the compromise solution was a (likely state-mediated) mandatory licensing board. The majority of your argument seems to be based on the prem

> I always figured the compromise solution was a (likely state-mediated) mandatory licensing board. The majority of your argument seems to be based on the premise that you do not have rights over your own work. That the perceived public benefit has priority over your will over your own work. The day that the state ceases to enforce copyright based on that premise is the day that many types of software businesses will cease to exist. The incentives just won’t be there to create software that thrives under business models that require enforcement of copyright. Microsoft, as the owner of Windows XP has the right to do with it as they see fit. It’s not anyone else’s concern whether they are not making the best use of Windows XP. Especially not a mandatory governmental board. It’s their property, it’s their choice.

hakfoo 4y ago
IMO, the rights from copyright are not "natural" rights so much as a negotiated deal with the rest of society. Ownership of physical assets derives from concepts like "scarcity" and "exclusivity". You can't have my widget because then I can't use it, and maybe, worst case, you damage it. This is more or less a universally understood risk and we have agreed as a society to build a legal system around it. Intellectual property has no such underpinning. Once the software exists, you can't unring that bell. There's no technical reason that anyone who wants Windows XP can't have a copy; it won't wear out. Instead of coping with a universal physical inevitability, we built copyright around a social tradeoff instead-- hacking around the natural economics of a finished product that has zero marginal cost or supply constraint. This lets rights-owners simulate scarcity and exclusivity and enables some business models-- usually the "front-loaded" model of "build the product first, the sell it later in an bulk undifferented manner". Society has accepted this tradeoff because it was considered a net positive. Hence language like the original Copyright Clause of the US Constitution-- "to promote the progress of science and the useful arts". It's not a natural right, it's a tradeoff where the rest of us expect to get something in return. I believe this means this deal is always subject to review, alteration, or cancellation if it no longer justifies its costs. Creativity will find a way. Music will be written for as long as "I'm in the band" is a viable pick-up line, commissioned art will exist as long as someone has more fursonae than artistic talent to draw them, and software will emerge from the millions of businesses who need it to function. Nobody's business model is sacred and guaranteed, and nobody is entitled to hold the rest of the world hostage to maintain it. Did we hold back the modern world because the steam locomotive and horse-whip manufacturers would go out of business? Why should the commercial-software industry have any more clout?
- CyberRabbi 4y ago
  In the grand scheme of things if you set a precedent that copyright ownership is highly conditional and subject to the will of people who seek to dismiss your ownership for their own purposes, that will disincentivize investment in producing software works. Perhaps people such as yourself who wish to see modders able to do what they wish with Windows XP think there is no commercial gain in Windows XP for Microsoft. In a different world there could have been. No one can predict the life expectancy of a copy protected work. This unpredictability and mere potential for long term value is part of what incentivizes corporations to innovate and produce. Remove their unconditional long-term right over their work and you will disincentivize the advancement of the arts and sciences. You may disagree but it’s simply true given that copyright protection has only increased over the history of the US, not decreased. > the rights from copyright are not "natural" rights so much as a negotiated deal with the rest of society. All “rights” are negotiated deals with the rest of society. Rights aren’t set in stone, they are essentially abstract constructs. They must be collectively believed in.
  - hakfoo 4y ago
    > No one can predict the life expectancy of a copy protected work. I'd argue that software, and in particular operating-system software is perhaps one of the most predictable categories. It inherently ages due to gradual drift on hardware support and growing burdens of security risks and unmet compatibility needs. A 20-year-old operating system is probably only interesting for academic, historic/nostalgic, or special-case legacy support reasons. For Windows XP in particular, it's interesting to remember that one of the motivations to cram Vista out the door was that they had to provide something new on a regular basis to justify the value of subscription-priced license agreements. Microsoft knew it had a finite shelf life from that perspective. > You may disagree but it’s simply true given that copyright protection has only increased over the history of the US, not decreased. I don't think you can draw conclusions from the behaviour of lawmakers, who are likely easily swayed by existing stakeholders who have a financial stake in expanded copyright. I think expanding copyright got a free pass from society as a whole, until the late 20th century, because copying and modification was technologically gatekept until then. There wasn't really the possibility of "remix" work as we know it, and aftermarket reproduction was likely to be clunky, expensive, and inferior in quality. The villian for copyright was an unsympathetic commercial player trying to sell you a crudely mimeographed reproduction under the table. It didn't matter in 1895 that we couldn't produce a remix of the top novel or song, because even if we wrote it out, most of us didn't have the facilities to make a commercial-quality printed product for mass sale. Now, with digital content, the gates are open. An XP-Delta ISO is of similar quality and usability to a "real" XP ISO, and can be brought to consumers just as easily. The pain-point moves to the legal restrictions instead. We also have a new era of more sympathetic copiers: the archivists trying to fight the forever-loss of DRM content, the hobbyists trying to preserve or expand a product they loved, the remixers who are expressing themselves with bits and pieces of a shared zeitgeist that happens to be privately owned.

hakfoo 4y ago

IMO, the rights from copyright are not "natural" rights so much as a negotiated deal with the rest of society. Ownership of physical assets derives from concepts like "scarcity" and "exclusivity". You can't have my widget because then I can't use it, and maybe, worst case, you damage it. This is more or less a universally understood risk and we have agreed as a society to build a legal system around it. Intellectual property has no such underpinning. Once the software exists, you can't unring that bell. There's no technical reason that anyone who wants Windows XP can't have a copy; it won't wear out. Instead of coping with a universal physical inevitability, we built copyright around a social tradeoff instead-- hacking around the natural economics of a finished product that has zero marginal cost or supply constraint. This lets rights-owners simulate scarcity and exclusivity and enables some business models-- usually the "front-loaded" model of "build the product first, the sell it later in an bulk undifferented manner". Society has accepted this tradeoff because it was considered a net positive. Hence language like the original Copyright Clause of the US Constitution-- "to promote the progress of science and the useful arts". It's not a natural right, it's a tradeoff where the rest of us expect to get something in return. I believe this means this deal is always subject to review, alteration, or cancellation if it no longer justifies its costs. Creativity will find a way. Music will be written for as long as "I'm in the band" is a viable pick-up line, commissioned art will exist as long as someone has more fursonae than artistic talent to draw them, and software will emerge from the millions of businesses who need it to function. Nobody's business model is sacred and guaranteed, and nobody is entitled to hold the rest of the world hostage to maintain it. Did we hold back the modern world because the steam locomotive and horse-whip manufacturers would go out of business? Why should the commercial-software industry have any more clout?

CyberRabbi 4y ago
In the grand scheme of things if you set a precedent that copyright ownership is highly conditional and subject to the will of people who seek to dismiss your ownership for their own purposes, that will disincentivize investment in producing software works. Perhaps people such as yourself who wish to see modders able to do what they wish with Windows XP think there is no commercial gain in Windows XP for Microsoft. In a different world there could have been. No one can predict the life expectancy of a copy protected work. This unpredictability and mere potential for long term value is part of what incentivizes corporations to innovate and produce. Remove their unconditional long-term right over their work and you will disincentivize the advancement of the arts and sciences. You may disagree but it’s simply true given that copyright protection has only increased over the history of the US, not decreased. > the rights from copyright are not "natural" rights so much as a negotiated deal with the rest of society. All “rights” are negotiated deals with the rest of society. Rights aren’t set in stone, they are essentially abstract constructs. They must be collectively believed in.
- hakfoo 4y ago
  > No one can predict the life expectancy of a copy protected work. I'd argue that software, and in particular operating-system software is perhaps one of the most predictable categories. It inherently ages due to gradual drift on hardware support and growing burdens of security risks and unmet compatibility needs. A 20-year-old operating system is probably only interesting for academic, historic/nostalgic, or special-case legacy support reasons. For Windows XP in particular, it's interesting to remember that one of the motivations to cram Vista out the door was that they had to provide something new on a regular basis to justify the value of subscription-priced license agreements. Microsoft knew it had a finite shelf life from that perspective. > You may disagree but it’s simply true given that copyright protection has only increased over the history of the US, not decreased. I don't think you can draw conclusions from the behaviour of lawmakers, who are likely easily swayed by existing stakeholders who have a financial stake in expanded copyright. I think expanding copyright got a free pass from society as a whole, until the late 20th century, because copying and modification was technologically gatekept until then. There wasn't really the possibility of "remix" work as we know it, and aftermarket reproduction was likely to be clunky, expensive, and inferior in quality. The villian for copyright was an unsympathetic commercial player trying to sell you a crudely mimeographed reproduction under the table. It didn't matter in 1895 that we couldn't produce a remix of the top novel or song, because even if we wrote it out, most of us didn't have the facilities to make a commercial-quality printed product for mass sale. Now, with digital content, the gates are open. An XP-Delta ISO is of similar quality and usability to a "real" XP ISO, and can be brought to consumers just as easily. The pain-point moves to the legal restrictions instead. We also have a new era of more sympathetic copiers: the archivists trying to fight the forever-loss of DRM content, the hobbyists trying to preserve or expand a product they loved, the remixers who are expressing themselves with bits and pieces of a shared zeitgeist that happens to be privately owned.