Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 beta 3/9/83; site callan.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!mcnc!decvax!harpo!seismo!hao!hplabs!intelca!proper!callan!geoff From: geoff@callan.UUCP (Geoff Kuenning) Newsgroups: net.legal,net.flame Subject: Re: Copyright Violations - how can software people do this Message-ID: <141@callan.UUCP> Date: Sat, 31-Mar-84 18:34:41 EST Article-I.D.: callan.141 Posted: Sat Mar 31 18:34:41 1984 Date-Received: Fri, 6-Apr-84 00:59:31 EST References: <76@utastro.UUCP> Organization: Callan Data Systems, Westlake Village, CA Lines: 104 > From: nather@utastro.UUCP (Ed Nather) > It is...the common perception that if you can make a copy > of something for $5 that is indistinguishable from the original, that > copy is worth maybe $5, but not $5,000 no matter what anybody else > tells you. > I agree with the common perception. The scream that "...it took me > two years to write and debug that program, I wanna be paid!" is no > different from the scream of the novelist or textbook writer under > similar circumstances, and many of them get no real return on the > time invested if their product is not bought by a large number of > people. There is more than one theory of value in the world. For example, there is the "it's worth what it saves the buyer" theory of value, which is frequently applied in the real world. An example is market research newsletters. Many of these go for subcription prices in the thousands of dollars, and are quite successful in selling subscriptions because the subscribers save tens of thousands based on information in those newsletters that cannot be gotten any other way. You may object on the grounds that the newsletter is worth only research and printing costs, but this is a personal value judgement on your part. The logical extension of that point of view is that newsletter publishers should reduce the price by an appropriate fraction whenever they get a new subscriber (since the fixed research costs are now distributed across a larger customer base). *THAT* violates the common perception that a person who has a good idea that takes off should make out like crazy. As usual, common perceptions, are not consistent or logically thought out. It happens that many software authors also get no real return on the time invested. That's one reason software prices are higher than reproduction costs--somebody has to pay for all of those failed attempts, just like with movies and novels. (The price of a John Le Carre novel includes a pretty hefty premium to cover the money the publisher lost by taking a flyer on Joe Bozo's novel that didn't sell. Is that a "ripoff" too?) > Once the original software author is paid for his work -- at > reasonable wages, let's assume -- then his program is worth just > about the reproduction and distribution costs, and no more than that. What is a "reasonable" wage? VisiCalc has saved the world millions of dollars. Does the author of that program deserve the industry-standard $15-20/hr? > In my view, the software industry is itself seriously guilty of > piracy, and I bitterly resent it. I don't think *any* program should > cost more than $100 and any higher price is a rip-off. That's a pretty strong statement. There are programs for sale in this world which comprise hundreds of thousands of lines of code, and have a very limited market. At $100/copy, it is pretty hard to win back the cost of developing such a program. The extreme case of this is the custom program. I once did a custom highway simulator for the FHWA. It sold exactly one copy--by design. You want me to charge them $100 for that? > There's a simple, direct answer to "software piracy" -- give the > customer the benefit of "cost reductions" after you've paid off the > original development cost of the program. Sell it to them for the > cost of the copy and handling, plus a sensible ( <25%) profit. Then > there would be no real incentive for anybody to steal a copy. This would seem to imply that you want price reductions when a program sells more than your original market estimates. (Market estimate * original price == development cost + "reasonable" profits). That actually happens, and frequently people who bought the product at the original price scream "ripoff" at *THAT*. Or maybe you want us to send out rebates? It certainly could be done (at a large overhead), but I for one wouldn't do that unless you also allowed me to send out supplementary invoices to people who bought products that sold LESS than the original market estimates... > Better yet, do a decent job on the documentation, publish it as a > (copyrighted) book, and *give* the program away. Then you won't look > quite so much like Ebeneezer Scrooge. Now this really shows the bankruptcy of your logic. What do you care if I sell a program cum documentation for $24.95, copyrighting the whole package, or give the program away and sell the documentation for $24.95? (You certainly can't expect me to sell it for less because the program isn't included; my prices are based on what it cost me to develop the program, not what some customer thinks it costs me to reproduce what I sell). The fact of the matter is that we have a whole bunch of ways in our legal system to protect the originator of an idea and give him a way to charge a high, monopolistic price for it. That's all a patent is, and I don't hear any complaints about the high price of (for instance) patented drugs. The name of the game is risk/reward, and most of us won't take risks if we don't have some chance of rewards. Expected values (in the probabilistic sense) actually are quite low; people who violate copyrights and ownership lower them still further and increase the chance that people like Dick Pick and Gene Amdahl won't bless us with major new advances. If you object to our capitalistic society, that's certainly your right. I happen to disagree. I think that the real issue here is that there are people who are frantically seeking to justify their crimes. (Yes, crimes. Even if you think copyrights are wrong, they are the law. And to most of us, law or no law, it is a crime to steal). If it should be OK to steal software because it's easy to copy, then why shouldn't it be OK to steal from a jewelry store? After all, all I have to do is break their shop window. That's pretty easy... Geoff Kuenning Callan Data Systems ...!ihnp4!sdcrdcf!trwrb!wlbr!callan!geoff Vax? Is that a 68000 with the bytes going the other way?