Jim Choate wrote:

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Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 08:23:58 -0800 (PST) From: mark@unicorn.com Subject: Re: the best justice money can buy --Lessig

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Of course there's a free-market remedy for Microsoft; eliminate copyright. If anyone can copy Microsoft software for free, it would be forced to compete on real benefits rather than installed base.

If there were no copyright nobody would have any reason to market software or much else for that matter. I would predict that much of the technology and infrastructure we have now wouldn't exist.

Thats pretty obvious. I'm usually the last person to defend Microsoft, but cancelling copyright is throwing the baby out with the proverbial bathwater. There are a couple of obvious free market solutions. The first that comes to mind is to stop buying Microsoft product. This needs to be restated because even though obvious, it has a number of important follow-on conclusions. (1) There are other usable operating systems. (linux, mac-os, os/2) (2) There are other usable applications. (applix, macwrite?, whatever) Why won't people stop buying microsoft product? (1) FUD helped along by a microsoft reality-altering marketing budget (2) The *applications* they write are sometimes quite usable. (3) Their applications only work on *their* OS (mostly)? Why is that? (4) Their OS, even considering its questionable quality has, until this point, hornswaggled a bunch of developers because its the *defacto* desktop applications API. Why that is the case is probably a topic for endless speculation -- though it probably comes down to some version of the "stack 'em deep and sell 'em cheap" philosophy -- something that Apple still hasn't learned. (5) ...and most importantly of all...it hasn't become painfull enough yet to stop purchasing Microsoft software.

Free markets monopolize.

Hmmm. Thats a rather sweeping generalization. Perhaps it would be more enlightening to discuss the nature of monopolies. It is rarely possible to enforce a monopoly that isn't a natural monopoly. A company will tend to keep a lion's share of the market as long as continued investment in more efficient production gives them greater market share -- bringing you cheaper goods and larger quantities of them. At that point nobody cares because quality goods are being sold as low prices. When that breaks down all natural monopolies start to crumble or revert to their previous market share. Having said that, let me follow it with a big "all other things being equal". One of the reasons NT became popular is because they priced their NT server not "by the client" as Novell used to, but at a flat-price (if memory serves -- which it is doing more infrequently these days ;-) In doing so Novell's market share took a serious hit. To some extent I say good riddance. Novell server's IMOHO suck as a server architecture (not to mention truly horrible and snotty tech support). Novell didn't react quickly enough and lost tremendous market share. Are we suggesting that Novell be protected by the US Justice Department? I certainly hope not. You are welcome to go back to those days. The only other kinds of monopolies are cartels, and government enforced monopolies of both the public and private kind (the latter being the most heinous). Cartels always collapse because one of the partners will eventually see the increasing profits to be made by breaking the cartel. When this happens the company that breaks the cartel is the winner and the last one to leave the cartel may well collapse financially. If members of a Cartel get together and use guns to prevent the breakup of the cartel then that is a lot more like a government enforced private monopoly -- bad news. Government-enforced public monopolies like the US Post office and public education are wasteful, out of touch with their markets (because of the lack of competitive price feedback) and thus inefficient. They have no valid function in a free society and are a waste of taxpayer dollars. The USPS will tell you that everything is hunky-dory because they don't use taxpayer dollars. What they don't tell you is that the difference between the price you pay for their stamps and what you would in a free market is your tax. (this and the strange tendency of workers to "go postal" -- you rarely hear about FedEX employees going on an AK47 rampage, must be the water ;-) Goverment-enforced private monopolies teeter dangerously close to the pure definition of fascism. Fascism, from the latin "fascia" means "to bind together" (perhaps you remember the "fascia" tissue from high-school biology class during dissection of frogs, cats and other unlucky animals). In this case they bind a force monopoly with a yet-to-be-named monopoly. Classic examples of Fascism^h^h^h^h^h^h^h government enforced-private-monopolies in the US are the Federal Reserve System, the AMA, and the local Bar associations. Why is this? All these monopolies depend on FUD and govt to enforce their services. "What would happen if we didn't regulate xyz is that all hell would break loose and many people would lead lives of horrible desperation. 'There oughta be a law!' etc...blah blah..." You know the drill. Now that we have a perspective on monopolies, perhaps we can take a look a microsoft. Microsoft is not a force monopoly (usually), its not run by the government (thank god), it doesn't appear to be a cartel (usually) so unless further information comes in it looks like a natural monopoly. What does it take to undo a natural monoply? Build something cheaper, better and more reliable. Its just possible (and this might be a stretch, but only by a little) that Linux, Free Netscape Sources, Java etc might acheive this. Certainly Apache is more popular than any other webserver. How you come up with a new product in this type of market without M$ "re-inventing it" and giving it away is anyone's guess. (1) Hope that Linux/Scape/Java/KDE do something big (2) Write a Win95/NT compatible operating system that is faster and cheaper. If you can clone a Pentium, you can clone Windoze. (visions of a QNX like OS with Win32 API dance in my head). A GPL'd VSTa-based Win32 OS would be pretty amazing. This would be necessary because games are a big market and the Linux kernel just doesn't have what it takes to do realtime without a major hack. How about VSTa/a free DOS emulator/Wine. If Sun would fund this effort it could take a lot of wind out of M$ sails. Probably more than Java. McNeally would have to hop down from his high-horse. When will this happen? When the market gets tired of M$ practices and some lucky competitor comes to the fore. Until then there is no devine right to a percentage of the operating system market share. We can only code and hope. (donning flame retardant vest) jim burnes

Jim Choate <ravage@ssz.com> writes:

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Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 08:23:58 -0800 (PST) From: mark@unicorn.com Subject: Re: the best justice money can buy --Lessig

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Of course there's a free-market remedy for Microsoft; eliminate copyright. anyone can copy Microsoft software for free, it would be forced to compete on real benefits rather than installed base.

If there were no copyright nobody would have any reason to market software or much else for that matter. I would predict that much of the technology and infrastructure we have now wouldn't exist. It would also stiffle creativity and new methodologies because there would be no profit in it to recoup development costs. Those who would survive in such a market would be the 800-lb gorillas because only they would have the resources to squash the smaller companies.

Software development seems to be thriving in countries that aren't very keen on enforcing copyright laws - do you care to explain why?

Free markets monopolize.

Hmm... There's no copyright on perfumes. There are market leaders in perfumes, but no monopoly; hardly even an olygopoly. --- Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

At 1:38 PM -0800 2/5/98, in a generally right on post, Jim Burnes wrote:

(this and the strange tendency of workers to "go postal" -- you rarely hear about FedEX employees going on an AK47 rampage, must be the water ;-)

No, the problem is the US Postal Service's willingness to tolerate assholes as managers. There may be an argument for pinning that on the government monopoly aspects of the USPS as well. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bill Frantz | Market research shows the | Periwinkle -- Consulting (408)356-8506 | average customer has one | 16345 Englewood Ave. frantz@netcom.com | teat and one testicle. | Los Gatos, CA 95032, USA

At 10:34 AM 2/5/98 -0600, Jim Choate wrote:

If there were no copyright nobody would have any reason to market software or much else for that matter. I would predict that much of the technology and infrastructure we have now wouldn't exist. It would also stiffle [sic] creativity and new methodologies because there would be no profit in it to recoup development costs.

If there were no copyright, markets for information and entertainment would definitely have evolved differently than they have in the US and Europe, and would use much different mechanisms for getting money to the producers of information, such as standard sale contracts.* On the other hand, if there were no colonialism, markets for sheep in New Zealand would have evolved much differently than they did, a problem they're now gradually working their way out of. The music business, for example, handles paying authors when their works are performed by performers through mechanisms other than just charging big bucks for sheet music. The Free Software Foundation found that with a bit of academic and military socialism to jump start it, there are a lot of reasons for people to create value and beauty, and you can even talk corporations into paying money for support. Van Gogh found good reasons to paint, in spite of being broke. Michaelangelo found good reasons to paint, and Gutenberg found good reasons to print, in spite of not having copyright protection. Newspapers eveolved in an environment where copyright wasn't a big deal; if your competitors ripped off your stories, they were a day late, and you could rag them about it in your own paper. Mainframe software evolved in an environment where contracts covered use of the software, and copyright was seldom relevant; that has gradually changed with mass-market computers, but it took a while for courts to accept the idea of copyrighting software, and the industry didn't refrain from writing the stuff. Copyright is certainly a major market convenience, because it means that individual authors, middlemen, and readers don't have to negotiate contracts each time they trade information for money, or having to read the annoying shrink-wrap licenses on books the way they did for a while on packaged software. It also makes it more difficult for alternative mechanisms to evolve, because it's got an 800-pound well-armed gorilla subsidizing it.

Those who would survive in such a market would be the 800-lb gorillas because only they would have the resources to squash the smaller companies. If I read Mark's note correctly, the gorilla he was talking about wasn't MicroSloth, it was the government. We may joke about Gates being the Evil Empire, but it's clearly a joke; we've seen the real thing.

Free markets monopolize. and in a following note, Jim says that that's true mainly for the long run, not necessarily for the short run. It's not only incorrect, especially as expanded upon, it's irrelevant to the moral question. If your alternatives are free markets, where you and I can offer to buy or sell products without anybody beating us up for it, versus non-free markets, where some gang can beat us up for not going along with the program (whether the gang is the Mafia, the Pinkertons, the KGB, or "your neighbors in a democracy"), there's no question which is morally acceptable - even if the violence-based market is often more convenient for some goods.

But morality aside, monopoly, in the sense of a single player or small group of players domination the sales of a commodity, is something that can certainly happen in the short run but is unstable in the long run unless the competition can be prevented by threats of violence (whether by the monopoly or the government.) If people are free to offer competing products, maintaining market share is difficult, and the market leader not only has to contend with the other big dogs, but with being nipped to death by Chihuahuas, and with being made obsolete by better technologies. Who monopolizes tabletop radios these days? (Who cares?) Who monopolizes Video Cassette Recorders? They're both relatively free markets, in spite of the FCC's attempts to enforce standards, and Sony's attempts to monopolize the BetaMax market. On the other hand, radio and TV broadcasting are near-monopolies, because the Feds have been "helping" protect our public airwaves. ------------ * Some Libertarians and some Libertarian-bashers will argue that using government courts to enforce contracts is still hiring the 800-pound well-armed gorilla to carry out your private business activities.... Thanks! Bill Bill Stewart, bill.stewart@pobox.com PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF 3C85 B884 0ABE 4639

At 6:12 PM -0800 2/6/98, bill.stewart@pobox.com wrote:

At 10:34 AM 2/5/98 -0600, Jim Choate wrote:

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If there were no copyright nobody would have any reason to market software or much else for that matter. I would predict that much of the technology and infrastructure we have now wouldn't exist. It would also stiffle [sic] creativity and new methodologies because there would be no profit in it to recoup development costs.

If there were no copyright, markets for information and entertainment would definitely have evolved differently than they have in the US and Europe, and would use much different mechanisms for getting money to the producers of information, such as standard sale contracts.* ....

It's always hard to say how reality would look in a different universe, one with, say, no copyright laws. However, we have some indications, because there are some things which are very much like "intellectual property" which, in fact, have no protection in the courts. Namely, _ideas_. For better or for worse, ideas are not protected against copying, use, etc. (Before anyone jumps in and cites patents, by "ideas" I mean scientific discoveries, philosophical expressions, aphorisms, and so on, not _expressions_ of ideas in the form of working gadgets. And not "software patents" (with which I disagree, as do many of us). And not _specific_ instances of ideas in the form of essays or stories or whatever, which of course _can_ be copyrighted.) In our society, and in all societies with which I'm familiar, having a good idea is not protectable. (Again, not counting inventions and such.) And yet society works fine. Those who keep coming up with ideas find ways to keep coming up with ideas, and often to prosper, as writers, consultants, etc., often because of their ability to generate ideas. (There is a radical, and bizarre, subsect of libertarians called "Galambosians," who argue that even ideas are property. In their view, I could charge people 10 cents or a dollar or such for their usage of "crypto anarchy" ideas, or "Big Brother Inside" ideas, or for being influenced by my ideas in other ways. Hard to enforce, I'd say. Which is probably why the ideas of Galombos are not copied by many others. In his system, he'd be a pauper.) Think about an alternate world where ideas are protectable before saying a world without copyrights would collapse inevitably. --Tim May Just Say No to "Big Brother Inside" ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^3,021,377 | black markets, collapse of governments.