-- On 4 Jul 2002 at 1:26, Sampo Syreeni wrote:

But try constructing an Independence Day without Will Smith. Or the special effects. Or the soundtrack. Or the distribution chain. Try guaranteeing that it arrives on schedule without making a loss. I think you will not be able to accomplish that with a volunteer effort. Try doing that tens of thousands of times a year (that's for all of what is currently covered by IP) and you're bound to fail. Unlike with Linux, the individual parts of most larger projects involving IP are of no use without the surrounding whole. Unlike Linux, many IP products aren't modular, reusable or decomposable, and so they can only exist if you can find a single source of financing for the whole project. In the case of modular projects, you can rely on overlapping interests to fill in the voids, but most projects aren't like that. Especially if all that the creator gets is the ever-diminishing value of a single copy.

Increasingly the locations of big blockbuster movies exist inside a computer, so a substantial reduction in finance would reduce, rather than end the genre. Again, If you offered the average guy the deal "Would you like on demand access to all movies and television shows ever made, even if it meant fewer and lower budget movie releases in future?", I think most people would go for on demand access to everything. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG gWZBRbSRNDjGq8+KjaoqOPxgT5lZ2F9LX2ocm0bc 2zgr4eTiKCozbQHScUv6yEqK35dT0WvEzOV/Rd8Fp