Re: Some interesting economic facts

[Matt Deatrick <mattd@shocking.com>]

	I agree with your points wholeheartedly. The real point to the
extreme presentation is this: how much of the raw information that we are
"sold" by companies is actually "our" information? And should any company,
aka Microsoft, be able to own all patent and copyright properties of our
means of accessing that inofrmation? I think this goes to the heart of the
matter of what we are truly discussing here. That standards, by definition,
must be open, not proprietary. And that our ability to access information,
the road by which we travel to gain that information, is best paved by the
public. 
	This lies in the economic theory of Public Goods, and information
fits the criteria exactly. I am not saying we should take the creative
ideas of a developer away without profit. Not at all. But we have public
libraries don't we? Our ability to access those ideas is fundamental for
the revolution our so-called "information age" is supposed to bring. I
suggest that the "look" of Win95 may be allowed to be proprietary, that is
their marketing can be unique, but they should be required to make an open
platform upon which all can travel; just like an interstate freeway.
	Matt


On Tue, 21 Apr 1998, Brett Glass wrote:

> At 12:18 AM 4/22/98 -0400, mattd@shocking.com wrote:
>  
> >	I thought this group might find this interesting. The fact that our
> >basic economic principles make the case against Microsoft having sole
> >control and ownership of information. Non-disclosure agreements, patents,
> >copyrights, if not completely removed(as a liberal reading of this might
> >suggest), should be in fact limited severely. 
> >	Matt Deatrick
> >	Dept. Of Economics
> >	CSU, Chico
> 
> You're describing a philosophy for which I've coined the term "Stallmanism" 
> (after Richard Stallman): the notion that the entire concept of intellectual 
> property is wrong and should be abolished.
> 
> I, personally, think that this is going too far. The Constitutional principle
> that giving inventors and authors the exclusive right to creative work FOR A
> LIMITED TIME will encourage creativity is sound and proven. The notion that one 
> should be able to own raw information -- that is, that which is not the result of 
> creativity -- is another matter. It's an extension that the Constitution does
> not allow (though Congress, lobbied by database companies and sports leagues,
> is trying to impose it anyway.) NDAs are yet another issue. NDAs are
> specific performance contracts. It'd be a bad idea to eliminate them, as they
> do serve useful purposes. But one might argue that their use for some specific
> purposes should be declared illegal.
> 
> --Brett Glass
> 
>