5 ms·

> The difficulty I see with the current and future legal landscape is that there's no clear distinction between right-to-modify and right-to-distribute. In the

by baddox 12y ago

> The difficulty I see with the current and future legal landscape is that there's no clear distinction between right-to-modify and right-to-distribute. In the context of entering a contract, I don't see either as "rights." If you sign a contract saying that you will pay a certain amount to use a tractor without modifying its internals or distributing copies of its source code, I am fine with a legal system enforcing that contract.

ethbro 12y ago
You're fine with the legal system enforcing the contract? Or the legal and technical systems enforcing the contract? If it's only legal, I'd argue that's a slippery slope towards a legal system of convenience and loss of absolute respect for the rule of law. In other words "Yes, this action is illegal, but everyone does it anyway by necessity." If it's both, then the technical methods for doing so become frightening pretty fast.
- baddox 12y ago
  > Or the legal and technical systems enforcing the contract? Both. > If it's only legal, I'd argue that's a slippery slope towards a legal system of convenience and loss of absolute respect for the rule of law. Well, as you might have guessed by my references to contract law, I'm not a huge fan of statutory law. "Rule of law" is only good if the laws are good. > In other words "Yes, this action is illegal, but everyone does it anyway by necessity." If people want to modify their products, then that should be a competitive advantage for firms that offer products with terms allowing modification. > If it's both, then the technical methods for doing so become frightening pretty fast. Why?
  - ethbro 12y ago
    >> If it's only legal, I'd argue that's a slippery slope towards a legal system of convenience and loss of absolute respect for the rule of law. > Well, as you might have guessed by my references to contract law, I'm not a huge fan of statutory law. "Rule of law" is only good if the laws are good. > If people want to modify their products, then that should be a competitive advantage for firms that offer products with terms allowing modification. > Why? [do the technical methods for preventing modification become frightening] I'm getting the sense that we have fundamentally different opinions of the way the way the market works. In my view, it's entirely reasonable that the following chain of events unfolds: a) Company A builds product that prevents users from making modifications (legally and technically) b) The product captures a substantial market share (variety of means: maybe exclusive content, advertising, etc.) c) Because the product prevents users from making modifications, it can extract higher profit-per-user than competitors (by taking advantage of revenue streams unavailable to sellers of a more open product) d) Those higher profits can then be leveraged into a more dominant market position (regulatory capture, buying budding competitors, etc.) I have a feeling you would say "(b) would not happen because the market would correct in favor of consumers and away from Company A." My opinion is the market only self-stabilizes within certain bounds: once things get too out of whack, there is no guaranteed correction.

by baddox 12y ago

ethbro 12y ago

You're fine with the legal system enforcing the contract? Or the legal and technical systems enforcing the contract? If it's only legal, I'd argue that's a slippery slope towards a legal system of convenience and loss of absolute respect for the rule of law. In other words "Yes, this action is illegal, but everyone does it anyway by necessity." If it's both, then the technical methods for doing so become frightening pretty fast.

baddox 12y ago
> Or the legal and technical systems enforcing the contract? Both. > If it's only legal, I'd argue that's a slippery slope towards a legal system of convenience and loss of absolute respect for the rule of law. Well, as you might have guessed by my references to contract law, I'm not a huge fan of statutory law. "Rule of law" is only good if the laws are good. > In other words "Yes, this action is illegal, but everyone does it anyway by necessity." If people want to modify their products, then that should be a competitive advantage for firms that offer products with terms allowing modification. > If it's both, then the technical methods for doing so become frightening pretty fast. Why?
- ethbro 12y ago
  >> If it's only legal, I'd argue that's a slippery slope towards a legal system of convenience and loss of absolute respect for the rule of law. > Well, as you might have guessed by my references to contract law, I'm not a huge fan of statutory law. "Rule of law" is only good if the laws are good. > If people want to modify their products, then that should be a competitive advantage for firms that offer products with terms allowing modification. > Why? [do the technical methods for preventing modification become frightening] I'm getting the sense that we have fundamentally different opinions of the way the way the market works. In my view, it's entirely reasonable that the following chain of events unfolds: a) Company A builds product that prevents users from making modifications (legally and technically) b) The product captures a substantial market share (variety of means: maybe exclusive content, advertising, etc.) c) Because the product prevents users from making modifications, it can extract higher profit-per-user than competitors (by taking advantage of revenue streams unavailable to sellers of a more open product) d) Those higher profits can then be leveraged into a more dominant market position (regulatory capture, buying budding competitors, etc.) I have a feeling you would say "(b) would not happen because the market would correct in favor of consumers and away from Company A." My opinion is the market only self-stabilizes within certain bounds: once things get too out of whack, there is no guaranteed correction.