FW: More ethics... (long, of course)

[KMcLauchlan -at- chrysalis-its -dot- com]

Damn, it seems extra hard to get this point 
across...

Andrew Plato [mailto:intrepid_es -at- yahoo -dot- com] said:

>Kevin wrote...

>> Copyright is irrelevant in that 
>> situation. The same applies to people writing 
>> prospectus documents, annual reports and other 
>> one-time or special-purpose or supersedable documents.
>> What's the point or value of copyright when the 
>> text is not worth stealing and will soon be 
>> outdated?  

>That's not the point. Your company holds a copyright to that work. They
>pay you to do that work because it adds value to the product. If people
>could freely steal your documentation and your company's products, your
>company would soon go out of business and fire you. 

Once again. For documents that describe 
the use and abuse of a *product*, copyright is 
IRRELEVANT. The fact that some law says our 
customers must not give away copies of my fabulous 
user manuals is irrelevant, because unless the 
people they GIVE them to also have our encryption 
token devices, our encryption accelerator systems, 
etc., the documents are just paper with ink on 'em.

My docs will not tell you how to build one of our 
systems. They tell you how to USE it, or how to 
develop your own software to make our systems work 
within your products.  While I can't officially 
speak for them, I'm sure my employer would not bother 
pursuing somebody who made a million copies of one of 
my docs. If, on the other hand, somebody were to 
modify one of our docs and use it to misrepresent 
us, then I'm sure we'd jump on 'em with both feet.


>> Copyright, as a "right" is different in kind from 
>> the fundamental rights that people need in order 
>> to live in peace and engage in commerce. At some 
>> level, even the most uneducated or uninterested 
>> people recognize this, which is ONE large reason 
>> why so many of them ignore it, and why I suggested 
>> that the paradigm is in the process of failing and 
>> will be replaced.

>So what are we going to replace the current system of 
>intellectual propery
>protections? The "hey everybody, lets smoke pot and steal 
>things off the
>Internet" paradigm? I mean what are we going to do - stop protecting
>intellectual rights. This would devalue ALL intellectual work 
>and remove
>ALL incentive. 

>Its not going to happen no matter how hard you want it to. 

There you go, attributing stupid exaggerations to 
me again.  May I publicly question your motives, 
please?

If you've been following, I've already noted that 
certain other models are already being promoted, 
one of which is the service-support model for 
complex software and systems. You sell (or give 
away) the product at cost, and you make your money 
on the support contracts.

Another model is the ASP (Application Service Provider) 
model, where you KEEP the software to yourself and 
give the customer only a thin-client app that lets 
them connect remotely and use the software while 
that software and the customer's data resides on 
your server-farm. You charge them rent for the space 
their data occupies, for the security you provide, 
and for the use of the software running on your 
servers (that they are accessing via the free client 
app).  They get the advantages of low overhead (they 
don't need to keep multiple application programs on 
their own computers, just a skinny client) and total 
portability (they can connect from anywhere with any 
machine that's able to run the skinny client, and have 
all their programs and data available.

I'm sure there are others I haven't noticed, but 
these are two that are already making inroads, and 
that do not rely on copyright.  What's so hard to 
grasp?

Just because YOU have a vested interest does not 
divinely confer rightness and sacrosanctity onto 
the copyright/intellectual-property model.

SURE things would work differently in the absence 
of those laws. SURE, that would be a bad thing for 
some people. But just as surely, it would be just 
fine for plenty of other people. The same thing 
happens every time there's a paradigm shift across 
an industry or society.

Long live capitalism!  I'm just saying it doesn't 
need be implemented via the artificial limitations 
of "intellectual property" law.

I understand that if you have a vested interest, then 
you have strong motivation to sow Fear Uncertainty and 
Doubt.  You also have some talent for it. I have some 
small talent for poking holes in assumptions.

>> There are accredited SCHOOLS that teach people how 
>> to open locks without using the keys. Let's arrest 
>> all the locksmith instructors.
>
>Its not the same. You and others keep trying to slightly bend 
>the analogy
>to get the argument into the desired moral comfy zone.

Um, I'll merely point you back to your spurious and 
irrelevant comments about "smoking pot", and we'll 
leave that method of argument in the dust, shall we?

>I am going to say this again, now for the 20th time... Sklyrov provided
>not only the instructions, but tools for breaking copyright laws to a
>crowd of people who are reknown for committing copyright violations. 
>
>Aiding people to commit a crime is just as illegal as 
>commiting the crime.

Say it all you want. It's even true.
I've been pointing out that those laws aren't working 
as well as they used to, because technology and other 
trends are bringing it home to the ordinary people 
that they don't have that much of a stake in those 
laws, that they're easy to break, that they're hard 
to enforce on a mass scale, and that things could 
be done differently.

Sklyarov probably won't be the last person nailed 
by those laws, just as people will continue to be 
nailed by drug laws, even though only pinheads and 
the corrupt still support prohibition. Inertia will 
ensure that the change for either set of laws is not 
abrupt.

I draw the parallel not to smear anybody, but to 
show that the workings of bad law occur in many 
areas.  So do the unworkings.

>> Maybe it works differently where you live, but MY 
>> employer wants his customers to have a happy and 
>> profitable experience using our product, so he pays 
>> me to tell those customers how to do so. We really 
>> don't CARE if somebody else tells them the same 
>> things in a third-party document... as long as nobody 
>> misrepresents...

>A copyright allows you to control that information. 
>Misrepresentation is
>one of the benefits of a copyright. I encourge you to go duplicate and
>illegally distribute copyrighted documentation from other 
>documentation.
>You will probably get away with it for a while until somebody 
>with money
>becomes angry and has you arrested. 


>> Copyright has nothing to do with it. The documents are 
>> of no earthly use to anybody who isn't using our 
>> products. They will be of MARGINAL use to somebody 
>> who buys the next version of our product -- but 
>> of course, I'll have produced revised docs by then.
>> Nobody in his right mind would want to copy my 
>> docs. They're useless without the product.

>That is irrelevant. THere are many books that are so stupid the authors
>should be shot. But, their works are still protected from unauthorized
>distribution, etc.  Just because it isn't useful, does not 
>mean it isn't
>protected. 

Again, we are arguing past each other. 
So what if such things are protected? 
It's not very good law, and it is beginning to 
show the strains. It worked for certain people 
for decades and decades -- letting some make 
vast fortunes -- and didn't impinge much on 
Joe Average. Now that so much of the world is 
connected, Joe is becoming more empowered by 
all kinds of technology. The holes in the 
copyright model are becoming more generally 
visible, partly because actions are becoming 
possible and ordinary on the part of Joe and 
all his brethren and cistern <g> that finally 
run up against those laws.

It used to be that those laws were no big deal 
to the public because the public didn't encounter 
them very often. Now, they are no big deal to 
the public (overtly) because it is so easy 
-- and getting rapidly easier -- to get around 
those laws.

When everybody's a criminal, it finally becomes 
obvious to enough people that there's something 
wrong with the law (see USA, 1923 to 1933 and 
General Prohibition, for an earlier example).

>> Let me just observe that Napster (which I 
>> never used -- I'm just not that interested 
>> in music...) has been replaced by more 
>> peer-to-peer arrangements and the volume of 
>> file trading has only increased since Napster 
>> took it on the chin.

>And its still illegal. 

Misses the point.

>> By the way, would you like to arrest the various 
>> folks who have broken the various PKI encryption 
>> algorithms over the years?  Certainly, companies 
>> like RSA and others have been considerably 
>> inconvenienced when individuals and groups have 
>> stood up before cryptography conventions, and in 
>> other venues, to announce that they had either 
>> finessed or brute-forced the encryption standards 
>> of the day.  What sort of torture would you 
>> recommend for those people?  

>Most of the more savvy hackers aren't stupid enough to get up at
>conventions and blab this to the world. They either reveal the issue to
>the company first or they merely reveal that they broke the codes - not
>the methods used to break those codes. 


>> If you leave it lying around in public and somebody 
>> figures out the puzzle in which you wrapped it... 
>> well, more power to 'em.

>COOL - then I will be taking your car this week. Since the 
>locks on it are
>merely a puzzle, and you did park it in a public place. 
>Therefore, I have
>a God given right to steal it, use it, lend it to friends, and never
>return it. Thanks Kevin, you're a pal! Make sure you keep making those
>payments on the car - its mine now to enjoy!  

Er, you would probably enjoy it less than your 
vaunted Mercedes. 
Besides, if you'd care to turn down the thickness, 
you'd be able to see that by taking my car, you 
are physically breaking into my physical property 
and then physically depriving me of the use of that 
property.

I and my fellow sentient beings will see immediately 
that you have broken/denied/reneged-on reciprocity 
with respect to property. We CARE that our physical 
property, premises, persons are not safe from you.

By contrast, if one of a million copies of your coded 
message is lying around (or perhaps I bought a copy 
from you...) and I decipher the code, then I have some 
information that I didn't have before... but YOU still 
have the information you had before, and you still have 
the use of it. I have not deprived you of the use of 
that information.  By deciphering it, I don't suck it 
out of your head (or your hard disk).

Additionally, if you did not include the source code, 
then I still can't make new *whatevers*. Presumably, 
you PHYSICALLY protected the source code, by keeping 
close control of it on your physical premises and 
by entrusting it directly to only the most trusted, 
contract-bound persons.

AHA, I say.  Because you physically protect your 
source code, I must conclude that you value that 
source code lots more than the stuff that you gave 
out under flimsy protection.  

>Kevin, your arguement is totally absurd. Just because 
>something is put on
>the Internet does not mean you can break it and steal it. 

Well, Andrew, just because I unravel a code at my 
location does not mean that I have "broken" it 
in the usual sense of "break"... which is to 
render unusable, or incable of performing its 
operation.  

That, in fact, is the key distinction, here, and 
the reason why copyright, as a concept, is enjoying 
less and less support where it counts, in everyday 
public usage.

You take or break my car, and it doesn't function 
for me anymore. I can't drive to where I need to 
be... or want to be.

You "break" an algorithm and all you've done is 
gotten a peak at what was hidden. The algorithm 
still works just as it always did, for anybody 
who cares to employ it.

>This is the problem with many Internet technologies these days. The "I
>WANT EVERYTHING FOR FREE" mentality of the Internet is simply 
>impractical.
> You're seeing a change right now.  If you want goods and services over
>the Internet - you have to pay for them. Just as if you went to a store
>and purchased a can of tomatoes. 

Was there *ever* a time when you could use 
the internet to get FREE goods and services?
Or was it only information and software (shareware
and freeware) that you could get for "free"?

You keep making these bizarre attributions, 
instead of keeping to calm, reasoned discussion. 
That makes me think that you are seeing something 
unravel... go with it.  :-)

>Even supposed "freeware" usually has restricted usage until 
>you purchase
>the product. In any event, you cannot steal the inventor's 
>technology just
>because you crack the password he used to protect it. 

It's not stolen. He still has the use of it.
If he hasn't included the source, you still can't 
directly use his technology. You can do a lot of 
work to reverse-engineer or imitate, but so what? 
He's already in the market and, presumably, making 
money. By the time you can figure out what he did, 
he should be in his next revision, with more 
bells and whistles.

There's a company in my town called MOSAID.
They've specialized in reverse-engineering 
ICs. Gonna have 'em arrested?
>
>> As I suggested in a previous post, the model is 
>> changing. The vested interests may in fact 
>> prevail, but the tide is against them. People 
>> do recognize a difference between physical assault, 
>> theft, vandalism, etc. versus ethereal constructs 
>> of "intellectual property".

>Yes - one can be physically locked the other requires 
>technological locks.

That's not the difference, and because I 
think other folks have caught on by now, 
I'll do any future hammering off-line, 
until you get this, too:

If it's PHYSICAL, then theft or destruction 
deprives the owner of the use and enjoyment 
of his/her physical property.

If the item in question is intellectual, 
then theft isn't happening without physical 
breakin' and mind-wipe.

>Either way - whether you steal a car or a disk full of  1's and 0's,
>stealing, is stealing, is stealing. Just because software and on-line
>books are "etherial" does not mean they are free for anybody to take. 

I've given the reasons why too many of the 
ordinary (voting) public are beginning to 
see a difference and no longer agree that the 
generalization applies to both categories.

>THere is a change afoot. Corporations are banding together and taking a
>united front against theives, hackers, and criminals. There 
>will be more
>arrests and more jail time for these people. As their should 
>be. We have
>laws. If you want to break them - you get punished.

That's often true. But the way you say it seems 
to imply that you think the fact that something 
is a law makes it right, valid and probably eternal.
I happen to think there needs to be more behind 
it before you can justify it.  The more, in this 
case, is reciprocity and utility.  Bad laws exist. 
The fact that something is law does not make it 
right. 

I think writers (and singers and other artists) 
should start getting used to the notion that copyright 
may no longer offer much utility. I predict a move 
toward craftsmanship, personal value-added service, 
live performance. Recordings will be attention-
getting, loss-leader items, sold at cost or given 
away, by people who charge admission to live 
performances/presentations, or who sell personalized 
and "one-off", signed items of their work.

Techy-writers will continue to write instructions 
and explanations where copyright is irrelevant, 
and the next versions of the product invalidate the 
instructions for the previous versions.

Private enterprise and entrepreneurialism will 
continue to thrive, and capitalists will continue 
to put money where they think it will generate a 
return. Merely, some of the emphasis may shift, 
and some previously untenable business models may 
blossom, out of the shadow of "intellectual property" 
restrictions.  People will innovate. That's what 
they do. They'll do it according to different rules, 
and with different emphasis and direction, perhaps.
Only for people tied to the old way will that be 
necessarily bad.

My several thousand pennies.

/kevin

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