Re: Why DRM exists [was Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!]

Jamie Lokier
2003-04-30T08:27:25Z

Timothy Miller wrote:
> I have known a lot of incredibly creative people who have never shared
> their ideas with anyone because they feared others would steal their
> ideas and not give credit where it's due.

Indeed so have I. For the most part those people weren't very
successful in business.

> Maybe you think they're crazy for thinking that way, but evidence
> abounds that that sort of thing happens all the time. It's very sad
> that so many brilliant ideas have never been shared with the world.

It's very sad that people stay on abusive relationships, or continue
to fight one another long after they need to. It is hard to
sympathise with people who seem to keep choosing that, though.

> What do the "information wants to be free" people have to say to
> those people who know they're going to be ripped off if they open
> their mouths?

Larry hit the nail on the head by pointing out that it's irrelevant
what you _want_, consequences just are whether you acknowledge them or
not.

The rest of the world will go on creating brilliant things whether the
"incredibly creative" people share their variants of ideas or not. It
is their choice, to share or not to share.

The world will not stop creating and sharing just because some people
are too scared to, just as it will not stop just because a large
proportion live in fear of other things.

Yes it's very sad when someone creative is too scared to share their
brilliance. We should not engineer a system of punishment so that
those people can be happy at the expense of _other_ brilliantly
creative people though!

Nonetheless, credit for creativity is very important and a formal
system to represent it might be worth creating. (Such as a library of
registered creations.)

How to get from here to there... that's a big one. I think we here in
open source are an essential ingredient in that direction, and part of
a diverse movement so large it is difficult to perceive the whole of it.

Money is not enough - money is anonymous and does _not_ give credit
where it is due. Seriously! How many commercial things do you see
where the people who created them are completely unknown? How many
creative people do you know who will not share their ideas despite
financial reward, because they want personal credit too? I know one
very well.

Something is desirable to ensure credit stays with creative people enough
that they feel happy to share. But it should not be something which
frightens _other_ brilliantly creative people - that would also be very sad!

-- Jamie