Stephen Carson alerts me to this very interesting essay that deals on an advanced level with the economics of internet commerce. Fundamentally, the blogger addresses a question that is on everyone’s mind: if information is infinitely copyable and reproduceable, what is there for anyone to buy? The blogger offers a nice list. The list is important for artists, software designers, or anyone trying to make a go of it in a world in which data is free.
When copies are free, you need to sell things which can not be copied.
Well, what can’t be copied?
There are a number of qualities that can’t be copied. Consider “trust.” Trust cannot be copied. You can’t purchase it. Trust must be earned, over time. It cannot be downloaded. Or faked. Or counterfeited (at least for long). If everything else is equal, you’ll always prefer to deal with someone you can trust. So trust is an intangible that has increasing value in a copy saturated world.
He continues to offer some very practical help here. Eight Generatives Better Than Free: Immediacy, Personalization, Interpretation, Authenticity, Accessibility, Embodiment, Patronage,
and Findability.
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well but the answer to that is simple. “someone to do it for me.”
So, an admission that counterfeiting can be used to temporarily profit at the expense of the producer.
So what happens when trust is being massively counterfeited by everyone? Does trust just “want” to be free? Or are we dealing with a genuine threat to our wealth?
/facepalm
Trust is part of the image others have of us; it’s not even remotely comparable to copyright, patents or trademarks.
Intellectual Property Often Neglects Recognition Of Its Source.
In essence all true wealth orignates from these ideal attributes and praiseworthy virtues. Their nature is eternal and not subject to dissolution. And just as they possess that potency they have no exclusivity. Anyone who comes to know something discovered in the invisible realm by thoughtful alertness is fully entitled to share it with others, therefore all restrictions are the result of manmade corruption of the sphere of knowledge.
What if people don’t want any of that, and they just value the idea itself. No property-based market for that, then? Too bad so sad for anyone who might want such an idea to be produced and is willing to buy it on the market?
Remember, you can make money through ” Immediacy, Personalization, Interpretation, Authenticity, Accessibility, Embodiment, Patronage, and Findability” for physical goods too, but no one asks that we abolish property rights in them, for some reason…
I find it funny that so many people insist that ideas are “property”. Who owns calculus? Who should have owned calculus? Would calculus have thrived better if Newton could have patented it, or if Leibnitz could have copyrighted his works for his lifetime, and fifty years more afterward?
Calculus flourished because it was an important idea, not because of patents or copyrights. Newton and Leibnitz flourished because they could teach this idea to others.
Finally, why is it immoral to copy Newton’s work, but perfectly moral to check out his work from a library? If restricting copies is natural, then why are there so many “fair use” exemptions?
And what if I want to make money by sitting on a couch twiddling thumbs? Does that mean that there has to be a new type of property so that people are forced to pay me for that?
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