In an earlier post, I made a normative criticism of the fact that the Rambo franchise transferred more than a billion dollars from consumers to producers. (And I will now kill myself for using the pretentiously scholarly word “normative.”)
My opinion is that creation of that character and associated entertainment was not worth a billion dollars. And I think it’s OK to have this opinion because the Constitution’s copyright/patent clause calls for policy judgments about the extent and scope of intellectual property protection.
I came across some discussion today about how much money the Mozilla foundation makes off the Firefox browser. The gossip is that they made $72 million dollars. It may be more; it’s probably less. And it’s interesting that Mozilla folks come across as defensive about making money. (That’s consistent with the IPCentral theme that open source and free culture people are anti-capitalist. OK. So what? Free to be wrong.)
So, while trying to avoid one, the Mozilla folks have stumbled into a new(ish) content business model, advertising-supported software. The difficulty with this business model is that a LOT of people have to like your product, and you don’t get paid Microsoftnormous amounts of money when they use it. Sounds suspiciously like life in a . . . competitive market.
Because Mozilla is not relying on copyright, I think they’re entitled to earn based on marginal value. But I see the income from the Firefox browser as potential evidence (among much more that is needed, and not itself definitive) going to where the copyright balance should be struck when we make that policy judgment.
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.
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