LWN: Comments on "Suing Your Customers: A Winning Business Strategy? (Wharton)"

Valid vs fair copyrights

man_ls — Sat, 25 Oct 2003 11:09:25 +0000

Unlike the automobile cartel that tried to stop Henry Ford, the recording industrys copyrights are perfectly valid.

Just reading the article, it would seem the motor patent was just as valid as the copyrights in question. This does not mean they are fair -- witness the huge number of musicians complaining about royalty payments. The RIAA is, plain and simple, ripping them off. Many of them would surely prefer people listening their music for free than fattening an already bloated industry, who steal their copyrights (the copyright owners here are the companies, not the authors or performers).

As to the media coverage of lawsuits, I think now the mainstream press is so much more on the side of business than in the 1900s, the "public outrage" is not so easy to see. It's a very different situation indeed, since the downloader is willing to believe she is committing a crime.

I notice that this is not the appropriate forum for this kind of thing, so focusing on the SCO comparison: in this case, the kernel hackers are the lawful copyright holders, and they seem to be quite happy with the situation. So I guess the applicability is not so good in this respect. But it shouldn't take long before big software companies start using the same strategy as SCO, in the open: suing their customers. Then we will see.

Suing Your Customers: A Winning Business Strategy? (Wharton)

dkite — Fri, 24 Oct 2003 01:59:48 +0000

Yup.

There is a slight difference however. You and I can use linux without getting noticed, unlike
driving a car when they were rare.

This is a business cycle. Create and market product. Build marketshare. Lose portion of
marketshare due to incompetence. Tranfer Legal department to Marketing. Lose rest of market
share. Go out of business, or be bought up.

This narrow focus on Intellectual Property stuff will pass when with a few prominent
bankruptcies. Intellectual Property has no value unless someone wants to buy it.

Derek

Suing Your Customers: A Winning Business Strategy? (Wharton)

toon — Thu, 23 Oct 2003 19:14:25 +0000

Ye Gods - does this mean that we have to wait until 2011 until
this mess is over and done with ?

Toon Moene.

Suing Your Customers: A Winning Business Strategy? (Wharton)

allesfresser — Thu, 23 Oct 2003 17:43:11 +0000

Man, does it ever apply to SCO, especially the last paragraph:

"As Henry Ford once summed it up, lawsuits against new technologies provide 'opportunities for little minds ... to usurp the gains of genuine inventors ... and under the smug protest of righteousness, work a hold-up game in the most approved fashion.' What the recording industry needs now are new business models, not outdated legal strategies."

Suing Your Customers: A Winning Business Strategy? (Wharton)

torsten — Thu, 23 Oct 2003 15:55:51 +0000

This article is a reprint, and has been published many times before where no registration is required. See here, and here, or here.