Re: Intellectual property: another shot accross the bow

From: Felix Ungman (felix@hu.se)
Date: Thu Jul 05 2001 - 04:39:21 MDT


On onsdag 4 juli 2001 16.15, Alex F. Bokov <alexboko@umich.edu> wrote:
>Check it out, you know the drill. Read it and flame :-)
>
>http://www.toad.com/gnu/whatswrong.html

Gilmore starts out whining about missing features in current products - time-shifting and space-shifting of content. I agree with him. There's a large enough "black" market that indicates that these are important features. They don't violate any copyright, and most likely these features will be adopted by the manufacturers themselves. The market will decide.

He then goes on about the mission to eliminate scarcity. But here he's really confused about the market. What we sell is not bits. We sell creativity, design, architecture and imagination. And creativity *is* scarce. You can't increase your creativity with a CD burner. This will be true in a nanotech society as well. Just look at the automobile industry. Today most cars are quite comparable in performance, safety, etc. Design is becoming the single selling feature. The iMac is another stunning example, or the Nokia phones.

/felix



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