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From: laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: What is property?
Message-ID: <5424@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 5-Apr-85 12:42:44 EST
Article-I.D.: utzoo.5424
Posted: Fri Apr  5 12:42:44 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 5-Apr-85 12:42:44 EST
References: <370@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP> <5252@utzoo.UUCP> <4985@ukc.UUCP> <836@ucbtopaz.CC.Berkeley.ARPA> <1853Re: What is property?
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 28

	To put the boot on the foot, can you justify using force on other
	other people so they won't give away (legally obtained) copies of your
	software, if you don't have a contract with them to prevent such
	action?

Mike, I don't use force on people to prevent them from doing things. I use
*threat* of force on people for this purpose. I get around to using force
on people *after* they get around to doing things that I find immoral, not
the other way around. . . .and not even in every case of people doing things
I find immoral.

When I write software I generally write only 2 kinds. The sort which I
comment as ``free to distribute everywhere, please *do* *not* keep my
name in this source if you modify it significantly'' and the sort which
I expect not to get distributed anywhere except where I have contracted to
do the work. I now put a distribution clause in contracts as a matter of
course, but I would like this to be the default -- just as by default 
you can't sell magazine articles I write or books that I write under your
own label. 

Defaults are important. Otherwise, when I sell a game to Apple, and they
put it on a hundred thousand hard floppies, and sell them, the first
100 people will buy them and the next thousand will make a bootleg copy.
At that rate I have to charge far too much money because I have to make
my initial investment back fast.

Laura Creighton
utzoo!laura