Why intellectual property is such a confusing concept

[Louigi Verona]

Musician is a person who composes and/or performs music.

Out of all the professional musicians I know - and I know quite a few - none of them make a living by selling copies of their music and telling people not to distribute it. Some of those guys actually make quite some money. For instance, one of them is a demoscener, who writes music for games and that music is available on his site. He also does some web development. Another person, with whom I often play gigs, plays classical and ethnic music. He earns his money by live concerts and teaching recorder and percussion. He also teaches biology.

You might notice that in the above examples all of the guys do something else apart from music. Well, that's a usual situation. Musicians who do only music are generally a rare occasion. I do know those too, though, a bit more of them in the classical world, but their profits are more like salaries.

[PabloLuna]

If you make software to make music, people is not likely to make too much money out of it.  So if it is for sale, it would be too expensive for the amount of money people might make with it.

There are plenty of free softwares out there for free.  And I think it is a good thing, because it discourages people to make millions with a tiny piece of code.

I do programming at work, and the value added of my work is to help in the solution of a problem my company has.  The value added is not the piece of code.

If you think good games are overpriced, try these freeware games.

http://www.gltron.org/download.php
http://home.comcast.net/~SupportCD/XPGames.html
http://www.freepcgamers.com/2009/02/free-adventure-games-you-must-play.html
http://www.freepcgamers.com/2008/03/free-racing-games-list.html
http://www.orbitersim.com

One interesting case of a cool freeware game is the one released by Volvo, which is basically advertising in the form of a game, since all cars you drive are Volvo. Another interesting case is Orbiter, which is a sim that has so many addons that is superior when compared to any similar software around.

Another problem of commercial software is that it makes games based on demand, not really based on the best interest of society.

[Louigi Verona]

I have to admit - I have yet to see an open source game that is not crap - unfortunately.
There were a couple of closed source projects but which were freeware and that were interesting but they were never completed.

All of the above does not look promising judging by the screenshots, tbh.

[uncloned]

LV - then get involved in making a game that isn't crap (if you haven't already)

it is perhaps the best way for you to make a positive difference - be part of the solution.

[PPH]

Another problem of commercial software is that it makes games based on demand, not really based on the best interest of society.

Er... isn't demand what people want? So, how could something based on demand not be based on the best interest of society?

[g]

Another problem of commercial software is that it makes games based on demand, not really based on the best interest of society.

Er... isn't demand what people want? So, how could something based on demand not be based on the best interest of society?

Fast food would be a good example of such a thing.

[Louigi Verona]

LV - then get involved in making a game that isn't crap (if you haven't already)

it is perhaps the best way for you to make a positive difference - be part of the solution.

Yep!
I am involved in two games that aren't crap ))) seemingly!

[Louigi Verona]

Er... isn't demand what people want? So, how could something based on demand not be based on the best interest of society?

I don't think that advertised things are actually on demand. They make you think they are on demand. In reality they do everything in their power to make people buy their products, whatever those are.

The on demand products are bread, milk, toilet paper - you know, things which people really need, which do not need any special advertising. Yet another proprietary app which does some new functionality "which you never dreamt of" (and which roughly translates to - "and which you basically do not need") is not a product on demand. Innovation in itself is a questionable good, I can tell you.

[uncloned]

Microsoft Invents Price-Gouging the Least Influential


"In the world envisioned by Microsoft's just-published patent application for Social Marketing, monopolists will maximize revenue by charging prices inversely related to the perceived influence an individual has on others. Microsoft gives an example of a pricing model that charges different people $0, $5, $10, $20, or $25 for the identical item based on the influence the purchaser wields. A presentation describing the revenue optimization scheme earned one of the three inventors applause (MS-Research video), and the so-called 'influence and exploit' strategies were also featured at WWW 2008 (PDF). The invention jibes nicely with Bill Gates's pending patents for identifying influencers. Welcome to the brave new world of analytics."


http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%2220090307073%22.PGNR.&OS=DN/20090307073&RS=DN/20090307073

http://research.microsoft.com/apps/video/default.aspx?id=103759

http://www2008.org/papers/pdf/p189-hartline.pdf

http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2008/11/Gates_top_Microsoft_executives_do_some_inventing_on_the_side34192179.html

http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/techbeat/archives/2009/12/want_a_job_anal.html

[PPH]

Er... isn't demand what people want? So, how could something based on demand not be based on the best interest of society?

I don't think that advertised things are actually on demand. They make you think they are on demand. In reality they do everything in their power to make people buy their products, whatever those are.

The on demand products are bread, milk, toilet paper - you know, things which people really need, which do not need any special advertising. Yet another proprietary app which does some new functionality "which you never dreamt of" (and which roughly translates to - "and which you basically do not need") is not a product on demand. Innovation in itself is a questionable good, I can tell you.

That doesn't make sense. It seems you think everyone is stupid but you. Do you really think evil capitalists hypnotize the masses and make them work hard to buy useless things? Come on! By the way, I listen to ads about milk everyday. Advertising is information. Ultimately people decide what they buy and what they don't, except, of course, when the government meddles with prices and prohibitions.

Companies cannot survive if they don't provide what people want. Of course advertising influences people? It makes them know that certain things exist. Sometimes ads lie. So do politicians. Not everyone is stupid as to fall for the same lie over and over again.

EDIT: patents are an example of such prohibitions that cause the market *not* to be free and hurts people by diverting production from those goods and services which are more urgently needed or wanted by people.

[PPH]

Microsoft Invents Price-Gouging the Least Influential


"In the world envisioned by Microsoft's just-published patent application for Social Marketing, monopolists will maximize revenue by charging prices inversely related to the perceived influence an individual has on others. Microsoft gives an example of a pricing model that charges different people $0, $5, $10, $20, or $25 for the identical item based on the influence the purchaser wields. A presentation describing the revenue optimization scheme earned one of the three inventors applause (MS-Research video), and the so-called 'influence and exploit' strategies were also featured at WWW 2008 (PDF). The invention jibes nicely with Bill Gates's pending patents for identifying influencers. Welcome to the brave new world of analytics."


http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%2220090307073%22.PGNR.&OS=DN/20090307073&RS=DN/20090307073

http://research.microsoft.com/apps/video/default.aspx?id=103759

http://www2008.org/papers/pdf/p189-hartline.pdf

http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2008/11/Gates_top_Microsoft_executives_do_some_inventing_on_the_side34192179.html

http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/techbeat/archives/2009/12/want_a_job_anal.html

Is this an answer to what I said?

[uncloned]

no....

it is an article...

[Louigi Verona]

Do you really think evil capitalists hypnotize the masses and make them work hard to buy useless things?

Well... to take away emotional style of the passage - basically, yes, this is exactly what I think.

In fact, when we had a course in economy in the university, they actually said that western economy is no longer a demand-production scheme. Instead the demand is created by various marketing techniques and cross-company agreements.

A simple example are computers. If you look at the software which you had in, say, 2002, you will see that it basically offers same functionality. The only reason why you have to switch to newer software is not because it is useful, but because software companies are pushing their products and deliberately make them non-compatible with older versions by introducing new versions of file formats or beginning to rely on newer hardware. Creating hype is also part of the game.

When you speak about providing information - this is true, ads do that. But information, especially in our digital age, can spread quite well and in fact more reliably without the need for slogans from people, who are trained to fool you.
There are whole countries which do not or did not have advertisements, yet people could find what they need. I've never heard or seen an ad of a Korg groovebox, but I've bought it because I saw fellow musicians using it and I decided I want it. How did I manage it without ads?

The difference between ads and word of mouth is that the latter does not lie. So why choose ads?

[uncloned]

Do you really think evil capitalists hypnotize the masses and make them work hard to buy useless things?

Well... to take away emotional style of the passage - basically, yes, this is exactly what I think.

This is so true for industry music - just had to point that out.

Just like radio play - its not the music people necessarily want to hear - it is the music that the record companies pay the stations to promote.

[Saga Musix]

The only reason why you have to switch to newer software is not because it is useful, but because software companies are pushing their products and deliberately make them non-compatible with older versions by introducing new versions of file formats or beginning to rely on newer hardware. Creating hype is also part of the game.

So what you want to say is that every software nowadays should still work perfectly on a 486, just because we all still have one at home? Oh, come on! It might be true that some software is extrmele resource-hungry without any real reason, but how does that apply to the majority of software?
Do you think that software not supporting older systems is made by capitalists who work together with hardware companies? If it were up to me, I'd go and use some WinNT-only WinAPI functions to make my life easier when working on the MPT code. But I know that there are still Win9x people using MPT for example, so I have to use old and outdated APIs. Some software companies just do it right and demand a recent OS and hardware, where such stunts are not necessary. There are more examples...