Physical objects that are handmade or manufactured have the advantage of not being easily reproducible. Rights management is easy in the physical world; I own an object if I posses it. The object can only be in one place at a time, because it is unique.
Digital goods are inherently more difficult to sell because it is so cheap to copy and distribute them. "Information wants to be free" has a kernel of truth in it; "free" is the most natural state for information. It can be copied easy, quickly, and cheaply.
DRM technologies feel draconian, but probably only because they restrict legitimate fair-use in addition to protecting information from unauthorized distribution. Ultimately, I think more DRM is going to be necessary to protect IP. Fairly soon, all IP is probably going to be distributed online (books, music, movies, etc). If piracy isn't kept to a minimum, it will eventually cannibalize the IP market.
If that's the case then why haven't smart people figured out a way for game developers to make money while releasing their software as open source? Point me to an example that illustrates how this is possible and I will concede that you're right.
Can you provide a link to your games or more info? I'd be curious to see.
I'm still not entirely convinced. In both of your examples it's not clear that it's possible to make a sustainable income, 10k is not imo a sustainable income, admittedly that's partly my fault though for not making my original question clear. I upvoted you for your examples though, since you did technically meet the requirements I asked for.
Directly from the article: "Programmers should give away their software and make money from consulting."
I read that as meaning open source, what do you take that to mean? Maybe my requirement that it be open-source is too restrictive - I'd be just as happy to see an example of a freely available closed source game that earns its creator a decent living.
In regards to 2dboy, while I think it's certainly an interesting economic model, which has a lot of potential, I don't think it's a counter-example of what the article is arguing in-favor of since it's still not free.
2dBoy was more of an example of smart game developers changing with the times and gating paid. And for a while it was free (as in beer) if a customer wanted.
The reason I doubt it means opensource because that's the equivalent to musicians handing over their source files.
Ultimately those who can adapt, will adapt. And they will inspire others.
It isn't an exactly what you're asking but in terms of giving away software and still making money on it with games - there are some people making money with free flash games. If I remember right the desktop tower defense guys made a little under 100k in a year and I read an article not long ago which suggested the ninja kiwi games website was making something near $30k/mo.
Or how about the farmville / zinga games offers where people do certain trial offers to get points in the game?
These seem like reasonable answers to your question (though these aren't open source they are still free to play).
its obviously easier to lobby to prevent the economy from shifting; many big companies will be unable to adapt, and many small companies will become the big companies.
> "Information wants to be free" has a kernel of truth in it; "free" is the most natural state for information. It can be copied easy, quickly, and cheaply.
The argument basically says "what is, ought to be, too!" But there's no logical relation between 'is' and 'ought' and this has been known for over 250 years. [1]
True. And that applies to the opposing argument as well. As in: copies of music and other IP ought to be paid for since that is the way it's always been.
There’s an anti-intellectual thread running through these arguments. It’s a primitive way of thinking, valuing only tangible artifacts and not ideas. It’s OK for a potter to sell pots, but a musician should not sell musics.
It's a poor ad hominem that this thinking is "primitive" and "anti-intellectual".
People like the economist, Mike Masnic explains and then build on freeminum business model and the nature of non-scarce goods for years
Two economists wrote an entire book on why intellectual property is flawed. It's also quite a history lesson in itself since it cover century of IP history.
I think this article presents an interesting argument, even though much of it is anecdotal. Some of the author's points are very interesting:
> He says he’s an empiricist and that data have convinced him he was dead wrong. He now says that the idea of giving away intellectual property as advertising bait is unsustainable and will have dire consequences.
It's too bad the author doesn't go into more detail about this. I'm curious to see his "data".
>It’s OK for a potter to sell pots, but a musician should not sell music.
I think I agree with the author - why should a musician not be able to sell their music if they choose. Those who choose to give their music away for free can do so, but suggesting that it's morally wrong to sell music seems, ironically, morally wrong itself.
Not that I necessarily agree, but just to play the devil's advocate - there a really easy solution to the fact that it's so easy to copy intellectual property. The solution is for our governments to disallow it. I'm willing to bet that if the government began criminally prosecuting those who pirated music, movies, and software the problem would significantly decrease.
I'd argue that the real problem isn't that it's too easy to copy intellectual property, but that it's too easy to copy intellectual property over the internet. Intellectual property has been copied for thousands of years, it's only very recently that it became _so_ easy to do it though. 15 years ago there would have been a lot more effort required to copy music than there is today. The problem is that today anyone can copy intellectual property from everyone else on the planet in a matter of seconds. In the past copying intellectual property would have required a much more physical connection to the source: For example exchanging cassette tapes with a friend, or going to the library to checkout a book and photocopy it. These barriers were enough to prevent casual piracy. The barriers today are so insignificant though that casual piracy has become a real problem. I don't think piracy by those who are motivated enough will ever be stopped (just like crime by those who are sufficiently motivated will never be stopped), but I think that curtailing this casual piracy would be enough to solve the problem.
After reading that article I'm very interested in checking out Jaron Lanier's book. Has anyone read it yet - is it a worthwhile read?
Musicians should give away their music and make money off concerts and T-shirts.
Why not give away the music onlne and also sell CDs?
Authors should give away their books and make money on the lecture circuit.
Or do like Doctorow and give away the actual contents of the books as well as selling printed versions.
Programmers should give away their software and make money from consulting.
Alternatively, open source the software and charge for a hosted solution. At this point you're not charging for the software, you're charging for the server resources and bandwidth that a user consumes.
I'm not a fan of creating atificial scarcity, as in DRM on bits that cost nothing to duplicate, but if you're also making available formats that cost to produce, then why not charge for those? They're not artificially scarce.
I'm not a fan of creating atificial scarcity, as in DRM on bits that cost nothing to duplicate
I'm a fan of creating artificial scarcity, if it is what the seller prefers. I'm disturbed by the number of Hackers who would prefer to strip individuals of their rights to do business as they please, selling products on their on terms.
The marginal costs couldn't be more irrelevant to the discussion.
Digital goods are inherently more difficult to sell because it is so cheap to copy and distribute them. "Information wants to be free" has a kernel of truth in it; "free" is the most natural state for information. It can be copied easy, quickly, and cheaply.
DRM technologies feel draconian, but probably only because they restrict legitimate fair-use in addition to protecting information from unauthorized distribution. Ultimately, I think more DRM is going to be necessary to protect IP. Fairly soon, all IP is probably going to be distributed online (books, music, movies, etc). If piracy isn't kept to a minimum, it will eventually cannibalize the IP market.