Why programs aren't cars
The debate over copyright jumps the tracks of
reality once again.
Debates over forms of intellectual property often
seem to be both triggered by, and then mired in, the fact that sometimes
intellectual property rights are abused. Some people begin to believe that such
abuse is a fundamental aspect of IP and thus the whole notion is inherently
flawed. Mostly what's flawed, though, are their arguments. In one recent debate
someone came up with the suggestion that if writers, programmers, etc should be
able to continue to receive revenue for their output for extended periods of
time, then assembly line workers in the auto industry should get a cut every
time a car they made is resold.
What
this neglects to take into account is that when you buy a car, you've got a car.
The workers were paid to deliver a physical object capable of benefiting 5
people and that's what they delivered. If you sell the car, it still only
benefits 5 people. And when you bought the car, you paid for it outright. You
paid for the materials that went into it. You paid for the labor that turned
those materials into a motor vehicle. And you paid some extra on top for a few
people who didn't really have anything to do with the production of your car but
are somehow perceived as being essential to the production of cars generally.
And let's not forget the premium you paid for the right to advertise their brand
for them.
That's very different from
software or a song (not a CD, but a song) or a story (not a book, but a story).
Creating a piece of software costs much more than build a car, and yet the end
results sells for much, much less. When you bring home a book or CD, or download
a zip file, you haven't bought what's on it. You bought the right to use it and
benefit from that use in some way meaningful to you, and in some cases you paid
for a delivery medium (to which you have full rights...you can do anything you
like to the book or CD itself). But the $25 hardcover book or the $40 game DVD
doesn't come close to paying for the production of the content it carries, as
the purchase price of a car does. Very few software publishers - even relatively
large ones - are raking in money hand over first on any given title. Production
and support costs eat up a huge portion of the revenue, and protection of
intellectual property is the only thing that makes even that level of success
viable. I truly don't understand why someone would argue in favor of reducing
the opportunity and incentive for people who want to create software to do
so.
Posted: Sat
- January 5, 2008 at 01:02 PM