Subj : Re: GNU Public Licences Revisited (again)
To   : comp.programming
From : David Golden
Date : Fri Sep 09 2005 10:00 pm

>> Bought?  I said "supplied".  No copyright, remember? People aren't
>> going to pay much for copies. 

> Contradicting your assertion that talented creators will make money.

I claimed that talented creators would continue to be paid for the
service of creating in the absence of copyright, not necessarily that
they'd be able to make all their money just selling copies.  (though
people often do freely choose to buy copies from source anyway.)

> So they have a choice between paying you a trivial sum for a copy of 
> Rowland's latest, or whatever other stuff about boy wizards is
> floating around, or paying Rowland a large sum, enough to induce her
> to write  some sequel sometime.  Which is going to be chosen by
> 99.999% of readers? 

Come off of it. Apart from the choice of paying rowling anyway, given
the choice between the two, why leap to buying a copy of the existing
book as the only way to pay for the creation of a new book? If you're
going to pay someone to paint your fence, don't pay them for
sitting in your garden near some the paint tins.  One could pay Rowling
a nontrivial sum *to write the sequel*, potentially even bound by
contract to do so, not just pay her for a copy of the existing book in
the vague hope she will write a sequel sometime (though of course such
payments might be all the encouragement needed in many cases, just not
necessarily.)

If they've already read or can read the latest (and heard it was good
from a trusted source in the latter case) as is likely if it's freely
available, they're (potentially as a group) capable of paying Rowling
for another to find out what happens next than pay her for one they've
already read. They might even willingly prepaid preorder a copy of her
next book from her in order to fund her and to be the first on the
block with it - if she fails to deliver by the time agreed, they'd be
due a refund.

Why would someone pay torwards the creation of information that will be
freely available once released?  It may still be worth EUR20 to them to
be in a world where the information was available to them compared to a
world where it wasn't.  Just because other people might also later have
the information, doesn't mean it wasn't worth EUR20 to them to have it
created*, unless you think information has no worth to anyone apart
from exclusivity, which is just plain untrue.

(I am reminded of http://orange.blender.org/ )

(* Nor does it mean the value of availability of the information to
those who later have it is EUR20)

> There's really little point in further debate with you

Good good. Now run along home to your mother.

.