Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!munnari.oz.au!metro!grivel!gara!pmorriso
From: pmorriso@gara.une.oz.au (Perry Morrison MATH)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Software piracy
Message-ID: <2023@gara.une.oz.au>
Date: 14 Jun 90 00:41:59 GMT
References: <3914@moondance.cs.uq.oz.au> <56447.2673B586@cmhgate.FIDONET.ORG> <9243@paperboy.OSF.ORG> <41882@apple.Apple.COM> <36990@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <55192@microsoft.UUCP>
Reply-To: pmorriso@gara.UUCP (Perry Morrison MATH)
Organization: Uni. of New England, Armidale, NSW.
Lines: 34

In article <55192@microsoft.UUCP> jamesth@microsoft.UUCP (James THIELE) writes:
>In article <36990@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> thom@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu.UUCP (Thom Gillespie) writes:
>>
>>I'm not replying to any particular reply to Chuck.Arelei's original posting but
>>I have some thoughts:
>>
>> 4) In the Media lab Stuart Brand suggests that in the future we won't buy
>> Microsoft Word so much as subscribe to it -- good service coming on a regular
>> basis with a good update policy. Wasn't this what made Red Ryder a success?
> 
>Enough on the advantages, who'll suggest what's wrong with the idea?
>

I think it's great idea- reminds of the one where doctors only get their fee
if they make you well- (but too bad if you're terminal ;-) ).

The weak link might be all the "information workers" out there and book
publishers who would poach or headhunt the best support people from the
software companies and bring out fat volumes that provide much of the
support that you would otherwise pay the software company for.

I imagine that under the proposed scheme software upgrades should also
be PD/free otherwise the motivation for piracy raises its head again.

The real issue we are grappling with here is the nature of information-
its transportability and reproducability. When information is copied an
ethereal thing called intellectual effort etc has been stolen and that's
hard to track down or even determine that it's happened. 

What happened to the old proposal for taxing the copying media itself,
placing it in a pool and coming up with (who knows what!) scheme to
fairly distribute it to software developers?

Perry Morrison