On Saturday, December 22, 2001 10:52 AM Mike Lorrey mlorrey@datamann.com
wrote:
>One more looter disinfo-grenade. What he is talking about is a
>subscription model for software licensing. First off, little to no
>software out there is sold outright to its users. Almost ALL software
is
>licensed, which means they do not own the rights to reproduce it any
>more than that copy of TIME magazine on the coffee table which they
>SUBSCRIBE to.
>
>The only difference between the single fee license and the
>time-delimited license is the difference between a year's subscription
>and a lifetime subscription fee. With the lifetime subscription fee,
the
>IP owner agrees to supply all fixes and provide support for the
product
>indefinitely. With the subscription, the support period is fixed,
along
>with the usage period. Up to now, all major software producers have
been
>drifting to the limited period subscription model by limiting the
period
>of free support for the product, as well as not offering free
upgrades.
>Now the limited period picture is complete.
I with you here. When I go to see a concert at Carnegie Hall or when I
rent a car, I'm only taking a time-delimited ownership in, respectively,
my seat at Carnegie (usually in the upper balcony where the cheap seats
are) or the vehicle. Why can't the same apply to anything else? In
fact, it does as Mike shows, but the examples are spread a lot further
than software and even intellectual property -- and have been around for
a long, long time. Leasing, renting, limited time offers, and other
forms of expiring rights to something existed long before the internet.
Even a society with no conception of intellectual property could still
have these tools of trade.
Happy Holidays!
Daniel Ust
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/
"...the very idea that the law might not be identical with legislation
seems odd both to students of law and to laymen." -- Bruno Leoni,
_Freedom and the Law_, p6
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