[CS-FSLUG] Proprietary Software: Capitalism or Greed?

[doc]

> Following your logic, people who download
> CHADDB without compensating me are stealing from me.

In my post I was clear to state that you are free to
choose to make the product of your creative labor
free or for-fee.

*Only* if you have made it for-fee have they stolen
it if they download or copy it from any source without
your express waiver of the for-fee payment to you.

> It is only
> possible for the value of my labor to be deflated if I artificially
> inflate it first by making it non-free and commercial.

"artificially"?

Your creative labor has intrinsic value.

If you choose to make a gift of it to others that is
your choice.

To label in the pejorative those who do not *choose*
to gift the product of their creative labor seems improper.

> Even without a non-free license, my labor has value.

Agreed.

> Getting that value out of my
> labor without depriving others of the possibility to help themselves
> deprive others of their fair use rights, or even to prevent sharing,
> in order to profit from my labor.

Disagreed.  No one has any *right* to the product of
your creative labor.  That concept is a product of
communist and socialist philosophers and has no
grounding in the realities of advancing and productive
societies because it ignores the realities of fallen
human nature.

> I would argue that people can and do profit from free software.  Even
> RMS himself has stated that people should charge a fee to distribute
> free software (see the FAQs at fsf.org).  As an example, the FSF
> offers source code for a free download.  If you would like
> custom-built binaries for your hardware platform, check out the FSF
> store.  I don't know for sure what Stallman made from technical
> consulting, but you could pay him to add a custom feature to GNU
> emacs, I'm sure.  It might cost a bit, but paying him would save a few
> bucks in the long run since he wrote it.

These are value-added fees, again purely optional.

One may *choose* to gift ones "source" or one's "customization"
or both or neither.

Compulsion to gift, social or legal, is improper.

> Likewise, a local photographer I know doesn't believe in charging
> royalties.  As the photographer, he owns the copyright on photos he
> shoots (unless he assigns the copyright in a "for-hire" agreement). 
> He figures if he didn't charge enough for his photo that earned you
> $50k, shame on himself for not pricing the job correctly.

Both are free choices, he may demand royalty rights in
advance or only a one time fee, either way he is paid
for the product of his creative labor.

> The same can be said for software.

Agreed.

> Remember, the author does not actually own the ideas 
> incorporated in the software.

Sure he does, that is the principle that underlies
patents.

> (S)He merely has the rights
> of ownership, subject to fair use, for a limited time.

That is a choice that was made by the legislative authors
and supporters of our current patent law , but there is no
presumption at any time prior to the patent nor during the
period of the patent that one *must* gift anything.

That patents may under certain circumstances end and
the creative labors of some end up in the public domain
is an interesting concept worthy of discussion but
nothing about that goes to an obligation to gift.

> So how do you explain the fact that the free software community is
> growing, and not failing?   How do you explain the growing number of
> venture capitalists investing in FOSS-based enterprises?  How do you
> explain the fact that many more people are taking up programming and
> learning more about computers than would otherwise have the
> opportunity to do so in a strictly non-free environment?  I could
> never have accomplished much of what I have using non-free software.

There is on the part of the majority of those driving the
free software movement a presumption of collateral profit.

Just a few examples:

Fees for customized extras,

Offers of employment based upon the evidence of competence
and/or referrals flowing from their gifted app,

Commercial products marketed in relationship to their gifted
apps,

etc.

I acknowledge that there are some who gift the product of their
creative labor to the open marketplace with no expectation of
anything financial, direct or collateral, in return but I will
argue without access to hard research that were such research
to be conducted they would prove to be a fractional minority.

> From Lessig's "Free Culture" (http://www.free-culture.cc/freecontent/):
>      "This view runs deep within the current debates. It is what NYU law
>  professor Rochelle Dreyfuss criticizes as the "if value, then right" the-
>  or y of creative property 2—if there is value, then someone must have a
>  right to that value. It is the perspective that led a composers' rights or-
>  ganization, ASCAP, to sue the Girl Scouts for failing to pay for the
>  songs that girls sang around Girl Scout campfires.3 There was "value"
>  (the songs) so there must have been a "right"—even against the Girl
>  Scouts.

It is a false postulate.

That *some* assert their appropriate right to the product
of their creative labor does not make all such assertions
by anyone legitimate.

That some make illegitimate claims does not invalidate
all claims.

If the song was licensed and the Girl Scouts failed to do due
diligence to discover if they were depriving the rightful owner
or reasonable compensation then nothing bad in this.

That the rightful owner chose to enforce their rights vs the
Girl Scouts is an entirely different question.

Then again, the rightful owner may not be in agreement with
what the Girl Scouts are all about these days and may not
be happy that their creative labor is being used without
compensation to assist that organization.

>> In the case of software (or music or writing or similar)
>> if someone steals the product of your creativity and
>> labor (that is, they use it without compensating you
>> at the rate you specify) then they can and should be
>> arrested and prosecuted.
>
> First, I disagree that a theft has occurred.  A person may not have
> been fairly compensated, but a theft, as such has not occurred.  We do
> not equate robbery with rape, so neither should copyright infringement
> be equated with "theft".  Air is not equal to land; software is not
> equal to tangible property.  Secondly, such deprivation of
> compensation is only made possible through artificial means.

I disagree.  I am only aware of two economic philosophies
which draw such a postulate, communism and socialism, and
both have long-since been proved dysfunctional in the
real world.

All of the products of ones creative labors have intrinsic
value and their creators has sovereign control thereof
unless they have implicitly and intentionally waived
such rights.

>> This is true of the creative side of hardware.  If you
>> design a new car and another manufacturer steals your
>> idea and copies it then you have legitimate recourse
>> against them because they have not earned the right to
>> use the product of your creativity.
>
> Again, following from Free Culture:
> "It is not just from the invention of synchronized
> sound in The Jazz Singer that we get Steamboat Willie. It is also from
> Buster Keaton's invention of Steamboat Bill, Jr., itself inspired by the
> song "Steamboat Bill," that we get Steamboat Willie, and then from
> Steamboat Willie, Mickey Mouse.
> This "borrowing" was nothing unique, either for Disney or for the
> industry. Disney was always parroting the feature-length mainstream
> films of his day.3 So did many others."

That it is not unique does not infer legitimate authority
to extrapolate some principle of non-rights.

This is just not clear thinking from "Free Culture".

> This is the kind of creativity that non-free software prevents.  It
> was previously allowed, and even encouraged in the past.  But our
> legal history is leading us down a treacherous path.

No, this is not correct.

Each could have easily gone to the prior "owner" and
requested permission to use the product of his creative
labor rather than just appropriate it without asking
and use it for personal gain -- that surely meets the
definition of theft.

Requesting permission to use is a basic courtesy
common to civilized societies.

Paying a fee or a royalty is a common means of
recognizing the factor of value of the creative
labors of another in ones own multi-source product.

>> A more accurate description of software may be the
>> "lease" construct vs the outright sale.  When you
>> buy software you are merely leasing it ad infinitum
>> for a specified purpose without the right to transfer
>> it to anyone unless the original terms of use are
>> maintained (a single pc/user license is a single pc/
>> user license = each copy may be used by only one
>> person on one pc at a time).
>>
>> There is no conflict here with the principles of
>> capitalism whatsoever.
>>
>> Those who *choose* to waive some or all of the
>> legitimate restrictions they have to the product
>> of their creative labors may do so but they may
>> not then cast aspersions upon those who do not so
>> choose.  To do so is to bear false witness and to
>> claim to know the other person's heart.
>>
> 
> Not all restrictions are really legitimate, per above.

I was perhaps less than precisely detailed in my
statement.  I was not intending to infer that I
had in mind a specific list of non-legitimate
restrictions, I was merely allowing for such.

Were I to make a quick effort to contemplate some
they might include restrictions on elements of a
work that are attributed to others and are used
*with permission* but which carried non-waiverable
conditions for which some restrictions may not
be "legitimate" or "permissible".

> To assume that exlcusive rights means un-limited or 
> un-balanced seems a bit off-base, even if understandably so.

I am not certain to what this refers.

Again, I hope this helps to clarify things a bit.


-- 
Respectfully ... dmc

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