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[LeoLeonardoIII]

Check it.

I didn't know these things. What do you guys think? Feel free to cite some sources that contradict or support her facts (that is, that certain industries don't have IP protection, the relative money volumes of those industries, etc).

EDIT: One note that I'd like to make: she does admit that digital objects are fundamentally different from physical ones like dresses or shoes or hamburger phones. But she groups those as ideas rather than concrete objects, because they behave so much like them.

If you don't understand her point there, please watch again. It's the part where she has the four-quadrant graph with the red dot in the middle.

The problem I saw was that the digital object (say a video game or music file) is easily copied for free and that serves the same customer base as the for-pay version. Yet her example with fashion is the knock-off brand that produces a different garment, from lower quality materials, and so serves a different market from the big name brand. That is, someone who buys Nike shoes is not going to buy Rike shoes that are sort of like Nike. But a listener who would get the free Dethklok CD is the same one would would want the for-pay Dethklok CD. The knockoff is exactly the same.

Anyway, just thought I'd bring this up because it seems very cool and fresh. I don't hear people talking about industries without IP protection in the copyright conversation.

[ein]

That was awesome.
I suddenly have a new-found respect for the fashion industry.

[Virex]

Do note that the point she does make, but is easely overlooked, is that the fashoin industry is very, very, very dependant on brand protection and as a result still very reliant on a specefic type of intelectual property. It's similar to how for example interview bureaus have no dependancy on any kind of copyright, brand protection or patent, but they couldn't exist without database protection.

[smigenboger]

For the cd issue, wouldn't that be more akin to the Jimmy Hart version (granted you're talking about heavy metal)?

[Mfbrew]

One of the resulting strengths of the fashion industry is that there are way more viable options.

If you think Gucci Or Abercrombie or Brooks Bros is a complete waste of money, you can go successively down to cheaper, similar alternatives in your style.  If you don't care about clothes at all, you can still stay warm and be presentable in public cheeeeeaaap.

In the copyright protected software industry, you basically have to choose between ridiculously overpriced crap, or difficult to use foss software.

Consider OSes - windows and mac are crazy expensive and probably more than most people need.  Linux is free but just not feasible for anyone other than computer nerds.

It'd be like if the only clothing stores were Prada, Dolce and Gabbana, and a bondage gear shop.  No place to just get a cheap pair of jeans that's compatible with anything.

[PTTG??]

It'd be like if the only clothing stores were Prada, Dolce and Gabbana, and a bondage gear shop.  No place to just get a cheap pair of jeans that's compatible with anything.

That sounds like...
DWARF FORTRESS

[Deathworks]

Hi!

Reading Mfbrew's comment, I was reminded of a little tale that people may wish to forget.

Many, many years ago, when GUIs were not the standard for private homes and there was diversity in the realm of computers, International Business Machines set out to develop a new computer platform. While preparing their big release, they came upon the problem of what operating system to give to it. While they got an offer from Digital Research Inc. to get a port of their successful operating system CP/M, they also had a promise from a private friend of some high ups in IBM, named Bill Gates, boss of the nearly bancrupt little software company Microsoft. In order to fulfill that promise, Bill Gates got a poorly masked pirate copy of CP/M from another company and renamed it to MS-DOS. Unfortunately for M. Gates, Digital Research had already started legal proceedings against that pirate copy which would have probably spelled the end for this business venture. However, the friends at IBM intervened and negotiated for Digital Research Inc. to drop their charges in exchange for getting a sweet deal with IBM. Unfortunately, no one told Digital Research that the IBM computers with MS-DOS were to be dirt cheap compared to the ones featuring CP/M. And the rest, as you say, is history.

That is at least the version of the story I have heard (I was not involved in the entire process and only read much later about it).

Deathworks

EDIT: Disambiguity.
EDIT: Also note that Windows actually already works on the principle of copying what others design. The task bar, for instance, was originally found on Acorn's Archimedes computers (and I think they were the first ones).

[LeoLeonardoIII]

One of the resulting strengths of the fashion industry is that there are way more viable options.

If you think Gucci Or Abercrombie or Brooks Bros is a complete waste of money, you can go successively down to cheaper, similar alternatives in your style.  If you don't care about clothes at all, you can still stay warm and be presentable in public cheeeeeaaap.

In the copyright protected software industry, you basically have to choose between ridiculously overpriced crap, or difficult to use foss software.

Consider OSes - windows and mac are crazy expensive and probably more than most people need.  Linux is free but just not feasible for anyone other than computer nerds.

It'd be like if the only clothing stores were Prada, Dolce and Gabbana, and a bondage gear shop.  No place to just get a cheap pair of jeans that's compatible with anything.

I think one parallel to fashion may be that if all OSes were effectively open-source because there was no IP on the code, we would see a much greater variety in OSes like Linux - maybe some that are actually easy to use! Probably from countries other than the US. But it's also likely that the OS companies would try very hard to make software deals so the software works only on their systems. If they did that, though, the changes would just be incorporated into other OSes in the next generation (or even a patch).

So ... is the bondage shop ... Linux? ;P

I guess my concern would be that right now people use Windows because it has certain features (compatibility maybe) but nobody cares about the brand. But if someone put out say WizardBeard OS and it was a copy of Windows, but free, then a lot of people would switch. Heck, maybe everyone would switch. In fashion, as she explains, a lot of people still buy Prada rather than Prudu because the real Prada stuff is higher quality and has the label. That's why Prada can survive. But I can't see in her explanation why MS would survive if WizardBeard did its thing.

[Mfbrew]

I guess Branding could survive in enterprise computing.

Part of the appeal of getting windows for your company computers is that it comes with all kinds of packages where MS will support it, install it, and guarantee it. It's easy to present to your boss.

Even though ubuntu and Debian and bsd are better, the onus is then on the tech guy instead of on a big corporation that "everyone else" uses.

So without copyrights and IP, companies might have to brand via service/popularity/reliability.

[Deathworks]

Hi!

So without copyrights and IP, companies might have to brand via service/popularity/reliability.

And now you know why some large software company pushed for mandatory copyprotection to be put into the hardware of new computers in the US by law - I guess, you at least have to hand it to them that I understand their own place in the world :) :) :) :)

Deathworks

[Virex]

Perhaps it would work. It'd detract from the development of new aglorithms, so I'm wary of it, sepecialy since the value of programs like Gausian, Teragen or Mathamatica is essentialy fully in the implementation of their aglorythms. If these could just be coppied, I don't know if these kinds of software would be developed as much as they are now. (Especialy in the case of Terragen 2, who's main selling point is that they've got a way to render photorealisticv clouds, which the opposition doesn't).

[LeoLeonardoIII]

Maybe. But maybe the increased production from the free exchange of ideas would balance out the reduced production from less chance of personal profit.

And of course, a company could still make money producing software. They just have to get people to pledge money into the project before it starts. Once the project is funded, they produce the fancy game or algorithm or whatever, and release it. If enough people need something, I'm sure they could put in enough money to pay the programmers' wages for a few years so they can bang it out.

[Grakelin]

Somebody in this thread is having trouble spelling 'algorithm'.

[Blacken]

Maybe. But maybe the increased production from the free exchange of ideas would balance out the reduced production from less chance of personal profit.

And of course, a company could still make money producing software. They just have to get people to pledge money into the project before it starts.

Don't worry, man. I believe in unicorns almost as hard as you do.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

Maybe. But maybe the increased production from the free exchange of ideas would balance out the reduced production from less chance of personal profit.

And of course, a company could still make money producing software. They just have to get people to pledge money into the project before it starts.

Don't worry, man. I believe in unicorns almost as hard as you do.

You're sweet, but I really have quite enough ad hominems lying around. It's pretty, but no thanks.