4 ms·

IP is an obsolete idea of a bygone century it arose from a legitimate answer to material scarcity, but it's nonesense in the digital space people who advocate

IP is an obsolete idea of a bygone century it arose from a legitimate answer to material scarcity, but it's nonesense in the digital space people who advocate for IP and DRM and all such thing are in the end advocating for scarcity.

MaxBarraclough 2y ago
What do you say to people who want to stop using Open Source software licences and instead use 'Fair Source' licences intended to prevent cloud companies monetising the works of others? For instance, here's discussion about a blog post titled So you want to compete with or replace open source https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40993787 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40993787 With no copyright, it would be akin to using permissive BSD-style licensing, which is by no means everyone's preference.
- boltzmann-brain 2y ago
  Good for them. Free Software is much too easy to abuse, and we need something that provides additional protections.
  - MaxBarraclough 2y ago
    Sounds like you believe copyright can serve a legitimate purpose then. I presume you don't hold that IP is an obsolete idea of a bygone century, as ysofunny put it.
snapcaster 2y ago
I don't agree with them, but i haven't seen the argument being pro scarcity. To steelman it, the argument is that without these protections the incentive to create is lower so we actually will have more scarcity
- boltzmann-brain 2y ago
  Without the ability to use asbestos, the incentive to build houses is lower, so we actually will have less houses.
  - snapcaster 2y ago
    That analogy doesn't map because asbestos wasn't part of the incentive structure just one of many materials
Wytwwww 2y ago
So your position is that almost nobody who sells their content should be able to make a living doing that? You either must be able to fund it through ads, host it on platform which make piracy effectively impossible and/or impractical like Apple's App Store, YouTube etc. or be independently wealthy and just do it as a hobby? e.g. screw all the authors who are writing books, Amazon should just be able to distribute (or sell for some "convenience" fee) books to everyone who has a Kindle without paying anything to them? That (which would be the logical outcome of nothing having no IP protection) certainly sounds like a reasonable opinion..
- toolz 2y ago
  In practice I agree with your points, but it's also important to consider that the open source model is alive, well and is directly and indirectly at the heart of employing many people. I won't make the argument that society is willing or could switch to that model successfully, but I also wouldn't be willing to say it couldn't work, either.
  - Wytwwww 2y ago
    > consider that the open source model is alive Not everything revolves around software. Also even then OSS generally seems to only be universally successful in areas where software is a "cost centre" i.e. companies are willing to invest into it when it makes it cheaper for them run their business than building/buying proprietary stuff or they build their products on top of it (A but almost never when it's the actual end product targeted at consumers. And if we extend the definition of software to video games, OS is not even a thing there (besides middleware of course which falls into the previous category).
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    >t's also important to consider that the open source model is alive, well and is directly and indirectly at the heart of employing many people... I also wouldn't be willing to say it couldn't work, either. I would. Many people who contribute to FOSS either already or proceeded to work on proprietary technology which makes money. Like Nintendo. The FOSS work in good times is a passion hobby, not a means to live. It'd be nice, but charity for most ventures has never ventured to be a way for the charity giver to sustain a liveable wage. If it could do that then I'd be more on board for FOSS being a model to follow. Instead, just like when you list a couch on Craigslist, you want to charge even a small price (and maybe not even collect the money) just to filter out the most unhinged customers who somehow become even more unhinged over literal free stuff.
deleted 2y ago
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MaxBarraclough 2y ago

What do you say to people who want to stop using Open Source software licences and instead use 'Fair Source' licences intended to prevent cloud companies monetising the works of others? For instance, here's discussion about a blog post titled So you want to compete with or replace open source https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40993787 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40993787 With no copyright, it would be akin to using permissive BSD-style licensing, which is by no means everyone's preference.

boltzmann-brain 2y ago
Good for them. Free Software is much too easy to abuse, and we need something that provides additional protections.
- MaxBarraclough 2y ago
  Sounds like you believe copyright can serve a legitimate purpose then. I presume you don't hold that IP is an obsolete idea of a bygone century, as ysofunny put it.

snapcaster 2y ago

I don't agree with them, but i haven't seen the argument being pro scarcity. To steelman it, the argument is that without these protections the incentive to create is lower so we actually will have more scarcity

boltzmann-brain 2y ago
Without the ability to use asbestos, the incentive to build houses is lower, so we actually will have less houses.
- snapcaster 2y ago
  That analogy doesn't map because asbestos wasn't part of the incentive structure just one of many materials

Wytwwww 2y ago

So your position is that almost nobody who sells their content should be able to make a living doing that? You either must be able to fund it through ads, host it on platform which make piracy effectively impossible and/or impractical like Apple's App Store, YouTube etc. or be independently wealthy and just do it as a hobby? e.g. screw all the authors who are writing books, Amazon should just be able to distribute (or sell for some "convenience" fee) books to everyone who has a Kindle without paying anything to them? That (which would be the logical outcome of nothing having no IP protection) certainly sounds like a reasonable opinion..

toolz 2y ago
In practice I agree with your points, but it's also important to consider that the open source model is alive, well and is directly and indirectly at the heart of employing many people. I won't make the argument that society is willing or could switch to that model successfully, but I also wouldn't be willing to say it couldn't work, either.
- Wytwwww 2y ago
  > consider that the open source model is alive Not everything revolves around software. Also even then OSS generally seems to only be universally successful in areas where software is a "cost centre" i.e. companies are willing to invest into it when it makes it cheaper for them run their business than building/buying proprietary stuff or they build their products on top of it (A but almost never when it's the actual end product targeted at consumers. And if we extend the definition of software to video games, OS is not even a thing there (besides middleware of course which falls into the previous category).
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  >t's also important to consider that the open source model is alive, well and is directly and indirectly at the heart of employing many people... I also wouldn't be willing to say it couldn't work, either. I would. Many people who contribute to FOSS either already or proceeded to work on proprietary technology which makes money. Like Nintendo. The FOSS work in good times is a passion hobby, not a means to live. It'd be nice, but charity for most ventures has never ventured to be a way for the charity giver to sustain a liveable wage. If it could do that then I'd be more on board for FOSS being a model to follow. Instead, just like when you list a couch on Craigslist, you want to charge even a small price (and maybe not even collect the money) just to filter out the most unhinged customers who somehow become even more unhinged over literal free stuff.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]