2007-04-14T15:59:00.000-07:00

For Sale

Honda Civic 1991

Car in great condition for age

with a recent free attached AA vehicle inspection test portfolio to prove it.

WOF: Until July/07

Rego: Until 20/06/07

$1650 O.N.O

Contact: Eyal 02-12568103

Eyal – Honda Civic 91

02-12568103

Eyal – Honda Civic 91

02-12568103

Eyal – Honda Civic 91

02-12568103

Eyal – Honda Civic 91

02-12568103

Eyal – Honda Civic 91

02-12568103

Eyal – Honda Civic 91

02-12568103

Eyal – Honda Civic 91

02-12568103

Eyal – Honda Civic 91

02-12568103

Eyal – Honda Civic 91

02-12568103

Eyal – Honda Civic 91

02-12568103

Software Copyrights

2006-04-23T12:56:00.000-07:00

A few points against granting copyright on software:

Free Software proves no copyright incentive is necessary for most types of software.
Society grants copyrights on binaries to software firms without getting anything back. Not the software "blue prints" that would help compatibility/competitive purposes [for society's benefit], and definitely not the entrance to the public domain of the work eventually.
Copyrighted software development, like other copyrighted works (and perhaps much worse) is constantly recreating the state of the art, because nobody is allowed to advance the state of the art by creating a derivative work, except for the copyright owner. The copyright owner often has many reasons not to advance his software (No longer profitable enough, lost the development capabilities, and so on).
Software copyrights encourage low quality software: High quality software is easy to be compatible with, and thus easy to compete with. Creating software that makes compatibility harder necessates low-quality software practices.
Software has great potential to create lock-in via the power of a critical-mass network, operating system or other de-facto standards. Once lock-in is acquired, any incentive for quality is immediately dwarfed compared to incentives for profit in the form of annoying pop-ups, bugs and other freedoms taken away from the user. Once lock-in is acquired, the users of the software are almost hostages of the software maker. The secrecy of the source code, the disallowing of derivative works, and various tricks used in the software itself often make compatibility and competition impractical, and thus perpetuate the lock-in.

Copyrights in modern society

2006-04-22T14:08:00.000-07:00

Copyrights have a large effect on our lives.

They tell us what we can or cannot do with our music.
They tell us what we can or cannot share with our neighbor.
Most importantly: They prevent access to vast amounts of knowledge and arts in the form of books, music and movies.
The last point is the most important one, yet it is the least noticed one: People have no idea what kind of access they would have if no copyrights existed.

Despite the obvious effect of copyright on almost everyone in society, there is hardly any debate on the essence of copyright. Copyright has become in the eyes of many a "natural right". I contend that copyright is not a "right" but a mechanism by society, for society. This is the basis of my entire view, and those who do not share it will obviously not share the rest of my views.

Copyright is a trade-off. Its a trade-off between:

The freedom of the individual.
The incentive to create information.

Without copyright at all, there are many areas where there is little to no monetary incentive to create information at all. There is also an incentive to create information in secrecy. [Copyright as an incentive to publish works]
With perpetual copyrights, individuals' freedom to copy information and more importantly: to create derivative works and distribute them is inexistent. [Copyright as a restriction on freedom]

This tradeoff is not a trivial one, and I believe that in different areas of copyright application, the trade-off optimum lies in very different places.

Copyright law is mostly indiscriminating and applies to all kinds of information in the same way.
Not only that, but it seems that copyright is gradually moving towards becoming way too much of a restriction on freedom, even when no incentive is necessary.

If you hold this belief that copyright is a mechanism for the benefit of society, and not a "natural right", then the questions that should govern the application of copyright become:

How much would the copyright incentive benefit society [in the form of more published information]? Another way to put this is: Is this incentive greatly needed, or are the other incentives or causes of creation already good enough?
How much freedom is taken away from society by the restrictions on copying, distribution and making of derivative works?

Copyright should be applied such that the answer to Question 1 is "very much", while the answer to Question 2 is "not a lot".

Modern copyright was drafted in the newly created United States, and in those times, creating information was a highly unprofitable business.
In order to profit from the creation of information, one had to put a lot of money into its distribution, and had to cover both the costs of the creation of the information itself, and its distribution. A very risky endeavor, especially if anyone else who had better means of distribution can more cheaply and effectively distribute it.

The above situation led to the creation of secret works, only given under strict non-disclosure agreements. This meant that all creations were "dead ends". The state of the art wasn't being advanced, it was being recreated in each and every work.
Another consequence was simply lack of incentive to create, where non-disclosure was less of a possibility.

Copyright addressed the above issues, by making it profitable to publish the information rather than keep it secret, and "monopolize" the distribution of that specific information.
Back then, copyright was applied for terms of 14 to 28 years, and explicitly allowed, under provisions called "fair use", for individuals to retain almost all of their freedoms with the work, other than republishing it. It is important to note that after the expiration of the 14 to 28 years period, the copyrighted work became public domain. This meant that the work is fully open and published, and anyone can create and profit from a derivative work after this period. This enrichment of available human knowledge can be considered the main purpose of copyright.

Creation of information requires education and profit requires the means of distribution. Back then, these were a lot more expensive than these days, and the barrier of entry to creation was high. Thus, there was an anti-incentive to create financially, and an incentive was greatly needed. The answer to question 1 is very good: "Incentive greatly needed".

Persons back in that age had little to no means of copying available, so the limitations of redistribution affected only the few who could publish a work at all. So that little freedom was taken away. The answer to question 2 is also very good: "Very little effect on freedom".

So it seems as though copyright was a very good tradeoff back in those days.
Today, however:

Creation of information can be done by almost anyone in the western world, any time. Basic-level education is a commodity, and the barrier of entry to creation of information is very low. This of course depends on the type of information, but most forms of writing, or even art and programming are very accessible these days. In some fields, a monetary incentive for information creation definitely can help society, but for many types of creation it can be shown that it is no longer necessary. Even when an incentive is still necessary, it needs not cover the costs of distribution (which are now nil) and does not need to cover the barrier of entry and costs of education, etc. Answer to question 1 became "Incentive may still be needed, but certainly much less so".

On the other hand, the digital age brought copying to the masses. Almost anyone in the western world can copy anything, distribute anything, and share information with almost anyone. The limitation of distribution affects us all negatively. We are not allowed to use these otherwise very accessible freedoms. The answer to question 2 becomes "freedom greatly restricted".

Given that the two questions governing copyright both yield much more negative answers than centuries ago, one would expect copyright restriction to lessen. On the contrary! Copyright is continously extended and today it is practically perpetual, fair use is restricted by law-enforced "protection" technologies, and secrecy is encouraged rather than discouraged by allowing copyrights on the secret blueprints of software [software binaries].
Many creations are again "dead-ends". The state of the art can only progress if it does not require a derivative work, and if the copyrighted information was published at all [In the case of software, the software is not even published in a form that can inspire new works, yet it receives a copyright]. The public domain of society's knowledge is deprived of all of the works. If the exclusiveness given to the author was an exchange for the enrichment of public knowledge, it is now given to the author, for no return whatsoever.

If the copyright tradeoff was near an optimum level back in its inception, it sure is very far from it today.

Unfortunately, the times when law makers had the best interests of society at mind are long gone. Copyright causes a "feedback loop", in that draconian copyright laws necessarily lead to ultra-powerful corporations based on copyright, which then use their financial power for buying more draconian copyright acts.

Several things must be done to address this:

The reasons, tradeoffs and purposes of copyright should be brought to the attention of the public, so that it causes an incentive for law makers to reduce copyright restrictions.
Educate people that copyright and private property are different things, and that copyright infringement is not like theft of a physical object, and has nothing to do with it.
The financial backing of these draconian laws should be limited, by avoiding copyrighted meterial. This is best done in accordance with the law (by acquiring copies of free arts, free software, and generally free information). If copyrighted meterial is used, payment should be avoided. In many states, the law allows for personal copies. In almost all states, draconian copyright laws are only actually enforced against corporations.
Create free works and distribute them freely! This is succeeding very well in both increasing people's accessibility to free information, and in undermining copyright backers by competing with them on terms they cannot.

Peaker's thoughts

For Sale

Software Copyrights

Copyrights in modern society