Part of the DaveNet Mail website. San Francisco CA USA. 12/6/96.

Let's Have Fun -- Now! RE: DOES ANYONE OWN SYNTAX?

Sent:12/6/96; 12:37:24 PM
From: tony_jacobs@ced.utah.edu (Tony Jacobs)

Dave,

Ashton Tate lost their copyright protection because dBase was based on JPLDIS and it wasn't disclosed to the Copyright Office. They may not have lost their protection if it was an original idea as in the case of your fictitious example.

I have had this debate and discussion with my brother on a few occasions. My thinking is that we would be better off without much of the protection of copyright and patent law. The argument is made that people wouldn't have any incentive to come up with new ideas. Well, I don't believe that. I think just opposite would happen, people might come up with even more ideas because they don't have to go through as much hassle and waste time protecting their idea and because those in the idea producing and marketing businesses will have to come up with more ideas to make money on. If the whole cycle of coming up with an idea, marketing it, improving it, and remarking it is shortened, then more and better ideas develop and the whole of civilization progresses faster.

Let me try to illustrate this: I come up with a new idea. In order to make money off the idea I have to get it to market fast and strong because as soon as I do, others will copy the idea and I will not make as much money then. That's ok because I *will* make money because I'm the first one out of the gate. I have more ideas and I will continue on with them. At first the price of the item will be high. Those who want it now will pay the price, those who want to pay less will wait for the competition to bring the price down. If the idea saves time and money then many will not want to wait.

Let me back up a little and talk about some of the reasons I think patents and copyrights are immoral. I just don't think the scales of justice balance when you look at how much money someone might make on some simple idea. The amount of time and effort they put into it just doesn't equal how much they might get paid back on it. Sure, they just saved millions of other people some time and money because of this idea, BUT, that's those folks time and money, not the inventors. Just because you save someone else time doesn't mean they owe you that time/money. The inventor should get some reward, but in proportion to how much time and effort he put into it, not how much it might save society. If he continues to have to put time and effort to produce the idea, then he gets paid for that time and effort. The emphasis should shift to quality production and support of the idea and not just the simple sale of the idea.

Now there are many ideas which take a long time to develop into products. They deserve fair reward for that time and effort. Many such ideas exist today and are protected by simple trade secrets. People will be able to make money on those kinds of ideas longer because it will take the competition longer to catch up. But, the important thing is that the competition will be allowed to catch up and work to improve the idea.

Software is a little different as is all copyrighted stuff because it can take some considerable time to create, and no time at all to copy. So, the key to making money in that market might just be how good you are at supporting the software and improving it. How fast and efficient you are at improving the software may be the key market feature. How good you are at producing and marketing the product will also determine your success. It may be that you have to charge by the hour for support of sell some other kind of support package. You certainly don't want to be giving out support to just anyone who copied the wares.

Maybe it's a crazy idea, but I think that it would cause improvements and new ideas to multiply much faster. I don't know that it could ever come to pass because there is so much momentum in the way the system works now. There's too many people making too much money to let the current system go.

Anyway, a rant from me!

Tone

Let's Have Fun -- Now!

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