4 ms·

Let's be rational. Lets say that it is instantaneous and free to copy 37Signal's design, whereas to recreate it from scratch it costs the labor of a designer X

by jaekwon 15y ago

Let's be rational. Lets say that it is instantaneous and free to copy 37Signal's design, whereas to recreate it from scratch it costs the labor of a designer X units of dollar-time. For the sake of simplicity lets say that Curebit and 37Signals are competing for customers in a zero sum game. True, by copying 37Signals, Curebit has taken away some unknown X dollar-time worth of customers away from 37Signals during that 1 hour. However, even though the customer space of 37Signal's and Curebit's enterprise may be zero-sum, the dollar-time measure of work is non-negative (and not zero-sum). It would make more sense for the industry as a whole to allow the copying of design, because overall it saves on design work time. What Curebit did appears to be wrong because it appears as though they are outright cheating. However, if you understand that designers gain their chops by reverse-engineering the productions of others, and that this happens routinely in the real world, perhaps it's time to accept copying as a legitimate part of the equation. In this case, 37Signals was given free rein to track Curebit's customers. Sounds like a good deal to me.

jtheory 15y ago
To understand the reasons why many people who will argue strongly for fair use, etc., still find this wrong, you have to look two steps ahead. Let's say 37 signals has done the extensive work to create a page design that really converts. And we live in the world where anyone else who wants to lift their carefully-researched design can do so in 10 minutes, and reap the same benefits. Unfortunately, that would put 37 signals at a serious disadvantage -- assuming that customers don't know who first created something really good, the actual creator always loses. All of the copycats get the same benefit with a cost of 10 minutes vs. 10 days. So the only way 37 signals can benefit from their work is to find a way to make it more work to copy than to recreate. To do that, they'd need, what -- some kind of heavily-obfuscated Flash? I'm sure if the need were there, we'd find a way to really lock down web UIs. > In this case, 37Signals was given free rein to track Curebit's customers. Sounds like a good deal to me. Unrelated to my points above, but never mind tracking... a hotlinked image is the perfect invitation to tweak your own layout, then change the original image files. Sadly, it looks like 37 signals missed their opportunity to paper over Curebit's page with animated penises.
- jaekwon 15y ago
  Yes, they are at a disadvantage, but they would still be at a local and global advantage. Local because they are first to put the innovation out, and they will naturally gain attention. Global because this system lifts everybody up overall. There is this midway hump that people can't seem to see over, but if what I say is true, the barrier will be broken and stay broken one day. Plenty of good innovators (and artists) innovate for the joy of innovating, and this "protection" gets in their way. DRM and obfuscation hurts everyone involved.
  - jtheory 15y ago
    This is days old now, but I don't cycle back often, unfortunately.... This doesn't add up, though. They're only at a very local advantage, because if their competitors have the same feature the next day, only very few folks will realize who had it first. And globally, everyone gets the same advantage (everyone is lifted up), but the creators who put in X months of work have paid X months for that advantage, and everyone else paid nothing. So, add that up and you get red, for the creators only. Everyone else can thus charge pennies for whatever service, while the creators need to recoup their costs, so they can't... so they go out of business. Or they change their strategy. It gets pretty clear that to "win" in this game, you need to either be the #2 site with any new feature (be ready to snap it up as soon as the competition brings it out), or find some contorted way you can innovate without anyone else nicking it.

by jaekwon 15y ago

jtheory 15y ago

To understand the reasons why many people who will argue strongly for fair use, etc., still find this wrong, you have to look two steps ahead. Let's say 37 signals has done the extensive work to create a page design that really converts. And we live in the world where anyone else who wants to lift their carefully-researched design can do so in 10 minutes, and reap the same benefits. Unfortunately, that would put 37 signals at a serious disadvantage -- assuming that customers don't know who first created something really good, the actual creator always loses. All of the copycats get the same benefit with a cost of 10 minutes vs. 10 days. So the only way 37 signals can benefit from their work is to find a way to make it more work to copy than to recreate. To do that, they'd need, what -- some kind of heavily-obfuscated Flash? I'm sure if the need were there, we'd find a way to really lock down web UIs. > In this case, 37Signals was given free rein to track Curebit's customers. Sounds like a good deal to me. Unrelated to my points above, but never mind tracking... a hotlinked image is the perfect invitation to tweak your own layout, then change the original image files. Sadly, it looks like 37 signals missed their opportunity to paper over Curebit's page with animated penises.

jaekwon 15y ago
Yes, they are at a disadvantage, but they would still be at a local and global advantage. Local because they are first to put the innovation out, and they will naturally gain attention. Global because this system lifts everybody up overall. There is this midway hump that people can't seem to see over, but if what I say is true, the barrier will be broken and stay broken one day. Plenty of good innovators (and artists) innovate for the joy of innovating, and this "protection" gets in their way. DRM and obfuscation hurts everyone involved.
- jtheory 15y ago
  This is days old now, but I don't cycle back often, unfortunately.... This doesn't add up, though. They're only at a very local advantage, because if their competitors have the same feature the next day, only very few folks will realize who had it first. And globally, everyone gets the same advantage (everyone is lifted up), but the creators who put in X months of work have paid X months for that advantage, and everyone else paid nothing. So, add that up and you get red, for the creators only. Everyone else can thus charge pennies for whatever service, while the creators need to recoup their costs, so they can't... so they go out of business. Or they change their strategy. It gets pretty clear that to "win" in this game, you need to either be the #2 site with any new feature (be ready to snap it up as soon as the competition brings it out), or find some contorted way you can innovate without anyone else nicking it.