[Tfug] OT : Site Scaper

[Bexley Hall]

--- On Tue, 5/19/09, Joe Roberts <deepspace at dataswamp.net> wrote:

> > And, by extension, don't ever PUBLISH any software because that
> > *too* will be copied and stolen.  So, instead of entering a field
> > where your work *can* be stolen, we should all engage in professions
> > where the fruits of our labors can NOT be easily copied or stolen?
> 
> Or just continue as normal.  What has amused me about the copyright
> debate in the past few years is that so many treat it like it is a new
> phenomenon.  But I remember dubbing records and tapes or off the
> radio, pirating games on Commodores and Ataris and Apples, and still
> the game industry and music industry went on.  As will other
> industries.

Exactly.  If you want to peddle your "wares", you have to expect
some "losses".  Just like department stores expect some percentage
of loss through shoplifting, etc.

The problem with "these" types of "products" is they are easily
copied.  The Industry (whether you're speaking of music, art,
software, etc.) has always complained about the problem and
used this issue to pass protectionist legislation to compensate
them for their losses before they have even incurred them (e.g.,
CD-R audio media carry an extra cost as they are otherwise equivalent 
to CD-R data media).

Then, they spend energy *increasing* the costs of their products to
support protection mechanisms (DRM, RCE, Macrovision, etc.).

An LP used to sell for ~$4 mid 70's.  And, *had* to cost much more to
produce and distribute than a CD does, now.  And, a CD cost much more
to produce and distribute than a downloaded MP3.  Yet, the costs
never come down to reflect manufacturing economies.

OTOH, things like "shareware" invariably get poor returns -- even
when the "product" is widely used (I have a friend who authored a
widely used product who claims to have received exactly *one*
"donation"; as a result, he simply stopped supporting it.  Folks
who liked the original found themselves with a dead-end product...
and probably grumbled when there were no bug-fix updates, etc.)

<shrug>

> > I guess there will be lots of ditch-diggers in the future (ditches
> > are very hard to "steal" or copy -- without expending the same
> > effort that the original digger invested!) and very few "artists",
> > programmers, photographers, etc., eh?  :<
> 
> I doubt anything will change.  As it hasn't since as long as I've been
> alive and people have been copying things.

Of course!  I'm sure MS has been keenly aware of the copying
problem they face(d).  And, I am sure there are much more
robust mechanisms that they could have employed to cut down on
that copying.  Yet, they obviously decided that X% loss was
worth bearing when the alternative was to divert manpower to
come up with protection mechanisms, etc.

If you have a product that people *want* to copy, then (presumably)
you must be doing SOMETHING right!  Hope that you can eek out enough
revenue from "paying customers" to offset the losses (which don't
really *cost* you anything tangible... it's not like someone
actually walked off with a $500 piece of equipment without paying)

> > I don't publish most of my IP as I don't want to have to spend money
> > defending it (if you don't defend your "rights", the law treats
> > them as "forfeit").  Instead, I share my IP with "select entities"
> > where it is to my best advantage.  If that means others who could
> > potentially benefit from *observing* it lose out... <shrug>
> 
> Well I suppose that's one way to handle it.

It works quite well as it keeps me from having to spend time
and money chasing down "thiefs".  Note that if one of those thieves
is an employee of a big company who has just incorporated your
IP into one of their products, just the hassles of getting them
to *know* this has happened can take a lot of your time away
from you -- time that could have been spent making your IP
better, etc.

There was a time when I would publish PDF's of documents I had
authored but using a simple substitution cipher (and a matching
custom font) just to annoy folks who would try to blindly extract
the text (e.g., source code listings) from the articles and
paste it into their favorite application.  Granted, this is
by no means "protection" -- since they can simply *read* the
text in PDF form to see what it *should* be -- but, it is
enough of an annoyance that I suspect it pissed off a few
thiefs who had thought they were "quite clever" in their
approach.  (Of course, I stopped doing this because it added
a fair bit of time to my production of the documents -- which
added nothing of *value* to a legitimate reader)