Path: utzoo!dptcdc!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!apple!desnoyer
From: desnoyer@Apple.COM (Peter Desnoyers)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: New Communicational Morality
Keywords: software, copyright, society
Message-ID: <29140@apple.Apple.COM>
Date: 17 Apr 89 20:39:14 GMT
References: <754@infovax.lan.informatik.tu-muenchen.dbp.de> <3687@ficc.uu.net> <1672@orion.cf.uci.edu> <1038@afit-ab.arpa>
Distribution: na
Organization: Apple Computer Inc, Cupertino, CA
Lines: 27

In article <1038@afit-ab.arpa> wbralick@blackbird.afit.af.mil (William A. Bralick) writes:
>
>
>In article <1672@orion.cf.uci.edu> dlawyer@balboa.eng.uci.edu.UUCP (David Lawyer) writes:
>>
>> [some material deleted ...]
>>
>>.  The purpose should be (he claims and I agree) to balance
>>the right of the author of a program to reasonable compensation for his
>>efforts with the "right" of the public to use the software.
>
> [long comment by Will Bralick to the contrary]

What people may be forgetting here is that intellectual property is
"created" by the legal system. Without laws governing intellectual
property, it is worth little to nothing.* I fail to see any way in
which these laws can be fairly developed without taking into account
the effect on all parties affected by intellectual property laws -
such as creators, consumers, the government (national security
considerations), etc.

				Peter Desnoyers

[* There are other ways to recoup investment without using the concept
of intellectual property, mostly based on making the cost to steal
higher than the cost to buy - e.g. copy protection or low-cost
production. That is beside the point.]