Assuming your technology #4 really could be created, I don't this is much different from musical piracy. And I'd be just as ok with this as I am with things like peer-to-peer networks existing. Such a technology would be awesome - as you said, it would appear to be magic. And it would be my problem to come up with a new business model, not to outlaw a piece of new technology.

Copying things has existed for a while (although it was never as easy as it is now). We chose to develop copyright despite this because we wanted to promote creation of works like books and music.

I don't necessarily disagree with your larger point, but It's worth noting that copyright was created for exactly this purpose (limit distribution of something that would be easy for copiers to distribute, but hard for them to originate).

I suspect copyright is one of the driving forces in the existence of lots of the information and entertainment I enjoy consuming on a day-to-day basis, so I'm skeptical of tossing it out completely.

Copyrights, trademarks, and patents also weren't as complex and over-bearing when they were first created as they are today. If anything, the content industries only have themselves to blame with their egregious extensions to copyright terms amongst other things.

I don't think there would necessarily be the same 'tear it all down' mentality around (for example) copyright if it wasn't: 1) overly abused and 2) a ridiculous length of time. It also doesn't help that a lot of people feel entitled to copyright, when in reality it is a monopoly granted by the people, not some sort of 'God-given' right.

I feel entitled to copyright on what I make. Don't you?

I make something, I determine the price and distribution. You have the right not to buy it.

Copyright is not a basic human right. You may like that you have copyright on what you make, but to claim ownership over ideas is like trying to grab a handful of water.

Also, please don't try to frame this argument as, "If you are against copyright then you must be a pirate!" Please let McCarthy-ism stay dead.

Since you've consistently posted in favour of copyright recently:

  * Do you feel the *need* to have copyright 90 years
    after you are dead? Is that your only incentive to
    create?
  * What about retroactive copyright extensions? Are you
    planning on 'un-creating' things that you created in
    the past because you weren't retroactively granted a
    copyright extension so you now have no incentive to
    create something that you already created?

If copyright terms were 14 years long (IIRC like they were originally), I think people wouldn't have such an issue. The fact that black & white films like Steamboat Willie are sill under copyright long after anyone can make any significant amount of money off of them is a travesty. This is especially true because a lot of things that are under copyright have become part of our culture (the 'Happy Birthday song' anyone?).

I'm not claiming ownership on my ideas. I'm claiming the right to prevent copying of my software and writing!

> Also, please don't try to frame this argument as, "If you are against copyright then you must be a pirate!"

I'm not - the article isn't about copyright reform, it's about stopping piracy. This post is filled with n-2 people who apparently don't want piracy stopped, and 2 people who've actually had experience with having their works ripped off and oddly enough aren't so keen. If you made something, then someone distributed the source code for that against your wishes, you'd join us.

> While we're at it, do you feel the need to have copyright 90 years after you are dead? Is that your only incentive to create? What about retroactive copyright extensions? Are you planning on 'un-creating' things that you created in the past because you weren't retroactively granted a copyright extension so you now have no incentive to create something that you already created?

1. I'm quite fine with my work going PD after I die. I support copyright reform too - people that support piracy at the same time harm the cause. Saying 'hooray, taking things without permission is awesome' isn't the best way to have a debate about copyright length and PD.

2. No, my incentive to create is that I enjoy it. Money is what I exchange for goods and services in return for my work. Do you make something and get paid for it?

3. Er, no. I just don't like people stealing my work. Do you work on an app? Would you like it if someone ripped off the source code and uploaded it to TPB?

> I'm not claiming ownership on my ideas. I'm claiming the right to prevent copying of my software and writing!

How are you going to do that, though? It just so happens that the natural world does not provide you with an obvious way to do that. If you physically occupy a house, someone has to violently eject you to take it. But if you voluntarily put your software out into the public sphere, someone can copy it entirely in the privacy of their own home, using 100% materials they own! Now it's you who'd have to engage in the violence to stop them: you, or a state acting on your behalf, would have to intrude into their private house, and tell them they can't use the materials they physically own in the way they're doing. That, to me, seems a much worse intrusion on actual property rights than any "intellectual property" defense could justify.

> How are you going to do that, though?

This bill is a good start.

> That, to me, seems a much worse intrusion on actual property rights than any "intellectual property" defense could justify.

We already raid houses in relation to fraud, embezzlement, and other crimes based around intellectual values.

Would I support raiding a house for piracy? I don't think anyone's proposing raiding houses for casual downloaders. If they were an organized piracy network ALA TPB, who have inflicted massive amounts of damage on authors, artists, game makers, and app developers, big and small, then as a writer, a software maker, and an ethical human being I'd certainly support that.

Please point me at the comment where I state support of piracy.

You said you don't believe copyright is a right, so I presumed you don't respect it.

That may be incorrect - if you don't support piracy, I apologize if I've mischaracterised you. There's a lot of people on HN that don't seem to realize that piracy affects small people too and it's sometimes a little frustrating when they themselves, as makers of apps and games, benefit from it.

...from preventing it, ahem.

You want to make something, start by first creating the universe (as Carl Sagan put it). Since you didn't, you already owe a large debt to the universe for just existing (assuming a you've a good life) and to a lesser extent to society for supporting you (with doctors, farmers, builders, roads, schools, stability, security, existence of an economy etc) which is not really repaid in taxes. So, there's a social contract, which people now feel is being abused by creators.

Edit: But yeah, I'd like to live in a stable utopian anarchy as well.

The universe wasn't made by humans. But yes, I pay for my MacBook, I license the fonts I'm using in my web app, I'm going to pay the guy who does my graphic design, I respect the licenses of my Python modules, I write the odd OSS app myself, and I pay taxes. Yes, people do things for other people. Those people - doctors, builders, famers, teachers - deserve to be compensated just like software makers and writers do.

Yes they do. But what's fair compensation? If a doctor saves your life, do you then become his slave? Because if not for him, you'd not exist anymore. No? Then it's obvious that the compensation is only upto a point. What if it was some medicine discovered a century ago that saved you? How do you compensate that person? You need to rely on society to have taken care of or provided for him when he was alive.

If technology progresses to a level where an individual is independent of society (to the point of one planet per person maybe), your ideas would work. Right now society has the upper hand over the individual.

This is why doctors are paid well - they're responsible for something very valuable, people's lives.

I don't understand how people needing others (which is true, no man is an island) justifies people taking things from others.

Some would argue that doctors are paid well because they've formed a cartel and fight strongly to prevent others, such as nurses, from intruding on their turf. Something that would lead to healthcare that is both better and cheaper.

I'll let you draw your own analogies to the creative industries.

I'm fairly sure none of the 3 people responding to this HN article are members of cartels. Piracy doesn't discriminate between good or bad. There is no 'major label only' torrent site.

It's not the needing of others, but the inability to price or pay for societal benefits that leads to the social contract you're basically born into.

Another example, what price do you put on having your neighbors being educated or non-violent enough to not kill you the next time they see you and take your family and belongings? In an anarchy, the cost of your own weapons cache maybe, but in current society it's hard to determine. But it's still a benefit to not be living in the stone age or next door to the Huns.

> Another example, what price do you put on having your neighbors being educated or non-violent enough to not kill you the next time they see you and take your family and belongings?

The price I pay of my neighbour not killing me if he feels like it is not killing them should I feel like it - that's the nature of society. We also both fund a police force that will attempt to prevent and punish crime. It doesn't seem hard to determine at all.

Markets work differently from societies - the price consumers pay in a market is the price the provider asks for, for the product the consumer has chosen. The provider could set an unreasonable price if he wishes, but the consumer could always decided that the value provided isn't sufficient and not buy the product.

> that's the nature of society

Haha. Exactly. I think you don't really believe what you read about other societies where this is/was common. And the police are a component of society, but is just having some policemen around enough to prevent crime? If so, I'd be selling you a great Russia investment story.

So we both agree that society is good.

I'm not sure how society being beneficial makes it wrong profit from making something (if that's what you're saying - to be honest, I'm not suite sure).

No, I was responding to your statement on copyrights and why society gets to determine that.

OK cool. Society determines copyrights - I think that's good too. Most people think those who make stuff get to determine the price they sell it for (except a few rare cases, eg AIDS medication), so that's what the law states.

Salt Satyagraha was a protest against a government tax, by those in favor of free markets - not a protest against free markets. See the link you just posted.

I brought it up as an example of a society in peaceful revolt against a high price for goods, doesnt really matter who was setting the price, a tyrannical government or producers. They had civil disobedience which has a few similarities to how people flout copyright laws today (not completely the same of course, since they were willing to go jail). Like charging high prices for access to something that's essentially free (salt then, copies of mp3 files now)

Also see how electricity is commonly stolen in developing nations, anti-prohibition activities etc. For examples of societies trying to act through government to regulate payments to people, look at the UK bank bonus tax or the Autralian attempt at a mining super profits tax, and in the other direction blank media taxes, farm subsidies etc.

"A technology emerges that magically makes it easy to copy my SaaS app and use it in its entirety without paying the monthly subscription."

Before such technology existed it would make sense to pursue such a business plan.

But suppose such technology already exists, and you know it. It would be sort of foolish to plan a business that assumed such technology would not be used.

Now suppose that this magic technology was not invented for the purpose of copying SaaS apps, but was an inevitable side-effect of other good, useful, desirable technologies.

A side-effect of the technology that allowed you to build your SaaS app in the first place. Oh, and your app helped shut down other existing businesses that were not using this new technology.

That it can copy your site is simply one of a million things it can do.

Do you fight this technology? Freeze it? Criminalize it?

One of my gripes with the IP industrial complex is that there are companies that lucked out on a transitory scarcity because of a particular stage of technological evolution.

Tools existed for mass-producing physical copies and transmitting virtual copies across large distances (i.e tape and CD production, and radio/TV), but there were still sufficient financial and technical barriers to constrain its application.

These businesses were based on the assumption that cheap reproduction and mass data transfer would never become so cheap or so easy that just about anyone could do it with the push of a button.

Bad assumption. And now the cat's out of the bag.

The RIAA and MPAA do need to revamp their business model if they want to evolve into the future with the rest of us.

I often wonder why the movie and music industries don't embrace torrent technology. I would definitely pay a reasonable monthly fee to access legitimate and legal trackers that they manage. It's really win-win as far as I can see. Watch what you want when you wants, and the distributions costs drop to next to nothing.

In the case of the Saas app, I think there is usually more to it that can't easily be replicated. For example, while Google email service is very Simialar to what was previously out there, they offer things like large space, reliable (don't laugh) service, trusted branding etc.

Other providers offer quick development of new feature which a copied service can't easily replicate. This is the key, replicability (that's not a word ;p ) or lack of is your protection.

In the end, you can't sit and wait. Even if they don't copy your app, others will offer similar products ( I think this is fair and square) and you will die if you don't continue to provide more to the user.

Ubuntu One is a open source version of dropbox. I don't think dropbox will die because of it. Dropbox hosts the service and offers good support and feature development. Ubuntu's offering might not be as good. Even if it is, Competition is everywhere.

They have money to fill great convoys of dumptrucks and you have nothing?

This is not a joke, it's the reality. If you managed to scrape enough money together to have power in the world, you could start playing power games too.

We need to address this with a decentralized system they can't crack down on.

Some companies manage to base their SaaS business on free software. Take for example Gitorious, their entire code base is released under AGPL.

If something can be copied, it will be, that's the law of nature. Your business plan should take this into account.

> How is Gitorious making money?

By offering commercial support and custom instalations, see for example http://blog.gitorious.org/2009/05/11/welcome-qt/