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Comment by georgieporgie | Hacker News Reader

The mechanism of copyright, by definition, is to restrict the flow of information. This is exactly what you do not want in an information economy.

Where do you propose that money changes hands in an information-based economy where information is freely copied?

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You would pay not for copying but for creation. A software developer would be paid for solving new problems or customizing known solutions to them. Pretending to "sell" shrinkwrapped information is stupid nonsense.

What is code, or application, but information. It's all just bits. Yet I can go to the store and buy photoshop and it comes in a shrinkwrapped box. And I'm okay with that, they but a lot of effort into making that tool, and I don't have the time/skill to make it myself so I will pay them for the time I saved by buying it instead of writing it myself or trying to work in mspaint.

Who should pay for creation? And when should they pay?

It is happening right now. Recent example: http://www.indiegogo.com/SBCL-Threading-Improvements-1

One of the great things about software development is that -- theoretically -- you can do a large amount of work up-front, then receive somewhat passive income by selling that creation.

It seems to me that removing that interesting feature of software moves developers closer to what I generally hear described as serfdom, "wage slave", etc.

Pretending to "sell" shrinkwrapped information is stupid nonsense.

Care to elaborate?

While in appearance it may appear that software developers would be harmed if copyright were abolished, I suspect that if that were to happen, software developers would become among the few information creators to get really rich out of it.

After all, software is precisely what has helped the information flow faster and better. In a rapidly evolving, copyright-free world, custom software is king.

If that were correct, wouldn't we already see that effect in the world of free software? It's not quite copyright-free, but it should be close enough.

Linus Torvalds hasn't done too badly for himself, as far as I know. But if you really want huge profit, you need a model that doesn't rely on copyright, like SaaS. Google got where they are with a combination of the Google Search and AdSense software-based services, neither of which rely on copyright.

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