5 ms·

You make an excellent point regarding IP, and in fact BG's letter likely set the foundation for the entire software industry as we know today. However, I belie

by felipe 14y ago

You make an excellent point regarding IP, and in fact BG's letter likely set the foundation for the entire software industry as we know today. However, I believe the point of the article was that Jobs, Woz and BG did something contrarian to the establishment, or an act of disobedience if you will. That is pretty much in line with Swartz's actions which were done as a dissent defending a belief, and not for profit like a pro-IP argument for example.

rayiner 14y ago
> You make an excellent point regarding IP, and in fact BG's letter likely set the foundation for the entire software industry as we know today. Indeed, the BSA was aggressively going after copyright infringement a decade before the RIAA ever thought to get in on the action. Our modern copyright enforcement regime, where the authorities go after infringers like they're hardened criminals, doesn't have its roots in RIAA lobbying, but rather the BSA's response to large-scale pirating of Windows, Photoshop, etc. Microsoft did and still does have what amounts to private police that bust into warehouses with copied Windows CD's, etc. If you want to know why the DOJ considers copying a few million copyrighted documents to be a crime worthy of jail time and enforcement as if you're mixed up with organized crime, you have to look no further than the tech industry itself.
- AnthonyMouse 14y ago
  >If you want to know why the DOJ considers copying a few million copyrighted documents to be a crime worthy of jail time and enforcement as if you're mixed up with organized crime, you have to look no further than the tech industry itself. To be more precise, the specific subset that sells proprietary software. I don't imagine Amazon or Canonical or Facebook are big BSA supporters.
  - rayiner 14y ago
    To be fair, that specific subset basically was the tech industry until relatively recently. The BSA was founded about 16 years before Canonical or Facebook. Microsoft, Oracle, Adobe, etc, are the giants on whose shoulders Facebook, etc, are now standing. They built this industry. Also, given that Amazon sells books, movies, music, and other IP products, I think their interests are aligned much more closely with those of the BSA member companies than with those of companies like Google, Facebook, etc, who make their money disseminating other peoples' content.
    - pyre 14y ago
      How is Amazon not disseminating other people's content? (Note: the word 'disseminate' doesn't preclude payment for what is being disseminated)
      - rayiner 14y ago
        To the extent that Amazon licenses the movies and music it sells, they've got a property interest in them and thus it is in a sense "their" content.
    - AnthonyMouse 14y ago
      >Amazon sells books, movies, music, and other IP products Amazon sells everything. Microsoft and Universal are very much affected if you use your money to buy a faster computer or a bigger television instead of a software license or a DVD. Amazon isn't, because they're just as happy to sell you either one. >Microsoft, Oracle, Adobe, etc, are the giants on whose shoulders Facebook, etc, are now standing. They built this industry. An ironic statement if you look at the technologies underlying Facebook et al: Almost to a one they're Linux servers running open source or custom in-house database software. And I don't think it would be a stretch to say that the newness of this is attributable in significant part to the steps Microsoft took in the 80s and 90s to thwart competition, if not for which the cracking of the Windows monopoly that we are only seeing now may have happened ten or twenty years ago. But more than that, I still think it's fair to say that the tech industry today is on the whole not supportive of these draconian penalties, and it is more appropriate to point the finger where it belongs, at the specific entities who actually were (and, barring any reversals as a result of recent events, still are).

by felipe 14y ago

rayiner 14y ago

> You make an excellent point regarding IP, and in fact BG's letter likely set the foundation for the entire software industry as we know today. Indeed, the BSA was aggressively going after copyright infringement a decade before the RIAA ever thought to get in on the action. Our modern copyright enforcement regime, where the authorities go after infringers like they're hardened criminals, doesn't have its roots in RIAA lobbying, but rather the BSA's response to large-scale pirating of Windows, Photoshop, etc. Microsoft did and still does have what amounts to private police that bust into warehouses with copied Windows CD's, etc. If you want to know why the DOJ considers copying a few million copyrighted documents to be a crime worthy of jail time and enforcement as if you're mixed up with organized crime, you have to look no further than the tech industry itself.

AnthonyMouse 14y ago
>If you want to know why the DOJ considers copying a few million copyrighted documents to be a crime worthy of jail time and enforcement as if you're mixed up with organized crime, you have to look no further than the tech industry itself. To be more precise, the specific subset that sells proprietary software. I don't imagine Amazon or Canonical or Facebook are big BSA supporters.
- rayiner 14y ago
  To be fair, that specific subset basically was the tech industry until relatively recently. The BSA was founded about 16 years before Canonical or Facebook. Microsoft, Oracle, Adobe, etc, are the giants on whose shoulders Facebook, etc, are now standing. They built this industry. Also, given that Amazon sells books, movies, music, and other IP products, I think their interests are aligned much more closely with those of the BSA member companies than with those of companies like Google, Facebook, etc, who make their money disseminating other peoples' content.
  - pyre 14y ago
    How is Amazon not disseminating other people's content? (Note: the word 'disseminate' doesn't preclude payment for what is being disseminated)
    - rayiner 14y ago
      To the extent that Amazon licenses the movies and music it sells, they've got a property interest in them and thus it is in a sense "their" content.
  - AnthonyMouse 14y ago
    >Amazon sells books, movies, music, and other IP products Amazon sells everything. Microsoft and Universal are very much affected if you use your money to buy a faster computer or a bigger television instead of a software license or a DVD. Amazon isn't, because they're just as happy to sell you either one. >Microsoft, Oracle, Adobe, etc, are the giants on whose shoulders Facebook, etc, are now standing. They built this industry. An ironic statement if you look at the technologies underlying Facebook et al: Almost to a one they're Linux servers running open source or custom in-house database software. And I don't think it would be a stretch to say that the newness of this is attributable in significant part to the steps Microsoft took in the 80s and 90s to thwart competition, if not for which the cracking of the Windows monopoly that we are only seeing now may have happened ten or twenty years ago. But more than that, I still think it's fair to say that the tech industry today is on the whole not supportive of these draconian penalties, and it is more appropriate to point the finger where it belongs, at the specific entities who actually were (and, barring any reversals as a result of recent events, still are).