Sue! Sue! Sue!`(and think later)

In my humble opinion it's pretty normal to take a dispute about some matter to court. The courts are there to provide aid in cases where 2 or more parties are in dispute and can't find a solution by themselves. Offcourse I'm talking civil law here, not a lawsuit to convict OJ or something similar.

I noticed a blog on slashdot.org which really got me thinking:

"Apple is taking legal action against adult retail chain Anne Summers over adverts for a new iGasm sex toy.

The device consists of a pair of headphones and a "vibrating unit" which, once plugged into any media player, vibrates in time to the tune. The adverts use the same silhouette figures as Apple, but with a white cord leading inside the figure's underwear."

The first thing that came to my mind was: WHY?!

I'm not talking about the added value, or the smart marketing of this new toy. I'm wondering why Apple would take legal action? What has Apple to gain?

The iGasm is added value to an iPod. I don't own an iPod, but knowing that there is a wide variety of add-on devices that can bring more pleasure to using an iPod would push me towards iPod instead of a model offered by the competition. (being male the usability off this particular devices is limited at best, but I'm thinking in general) The iGasm helps (maybe a little bit) in setting the standard for MP3-devices to Apple iPod. Not a reason to take legal action.

Maybe Apple is worried about it's good name and thinks this could be negative publicity. Well... if you have enough braincells to go out and buy an iPod, download MP3's and upload them to your iPod, chances are you won't actually think that Apple is expanding it's market to the adult industrie!

Offcourse it could be just a very cheap publicity stunt by Apple, abusing the introduction of the iGasm. This would be pretty hypocrit though... If I thought that was the case I'd think twice about picking Apple as my brand in anything. Which means that if Apple's motivation to start taking legal action aren't cheap publicity for them, they certainly are free publicity for the iGasm! Untill Apple decided to take legal action, and offcourse someone blogged this, I had never heard of "Anne Summers" and/or a device called the iGasm. And chances are I would never have...

If Apple had brought out a public newsmessage and sent a copy to the adult store saying:

"We at Apple giggled and had a good laugh about the introduction of the iGasm, and although we are pleased to see that our products are inspiring in many ways, we will have to ask the adult store to stop selling this product. Or at least alter the way they present it, because this might get people to think that Apple has expended it's market into other industries than we actually have."

It would have had *at least* the same impact, would have had all options open to take legal actions, and would have much better been beneficial to Apple.

"Anne Summers is taking the request less than seriously. "Perhaps I can send them an iGasm to put a smile back on their faces," company head Jacqueline Gold told the News of the World."

The people at Anne Summers seem to know how to play this game! By only putting out a single sentence they:
- were provocative enough to reach a big audience
- were subtle enough not to provide more ammo for Apple's autornies
- probably altered the public opinion in favor of themselves
- get even more attention to there product

This product will most likely go out of stock 5 times before Apple actually puts a stop to it.

A fresh view on the ethics of piracy

I ran across some interesting stories lately where different people express their view on the added value of piracy. Check "The Marketfunction of piracy" as an example.

It's safe to say that giving something away for free is the most effective way to market a new or even existing product. So in my opinion we can safely conclude that from a marketing point of view, piracy is the illegal equivalent of handing out free samples to everyone who has a slight interest in your product.

Writer Cory Doctorow, who makes his work publicly available in electronic formats, has a solid point of view: As long as the gain outweighs the losses, it's good business to make my work publicly available. Offcourse it's the distinction from all other writers who do not do this yet, that got his name in the news and his work spread around. But the fact remains that he now earns more due to the fact that uncontrolled copies are widely available.

There are bands and artists that made their fame and fortune through filesharing and p2p-networks. And there are even more of them trying to make their way to stardom through these methods of uncontrolled copying.

I will take Microsoft as an example now, but remember this thesis can be applied to a lot more products and companies.

If Microsoft had made an operating system which could not be pirated, would they still have had such a dominant share in the market and would there revenues be better or worse than they are now? An unpiratable version would have "forced" a good share of users towards alternatives, which would have had a much better chance to gain popularity and maybe become a new standard.

Would it be fair to say that by deliberately not making a solution that cannot be copied/abused/pirated, the company has gained more or secured more than it has lost or could have lost? That in turn would mean that a user of pirated software added to the company value, for example through using the Microsoft standard for webbrowsing, the Microsoft standard for documents, etc. etc.

Taking this into consideration, I still think software should be bought if the author chooses to make it closed source, but I can't really be very harsh when judging piracy. Offcourse a pirated copy is illegal, but how morally wrong is it?

If I put 1000 cars in front of my house with the key's easily obtainable and the doors open. They run on regular gas, but even better on my own what is known as "mrbeekfuel", which is offcourse widely available at my own gasstations. I'd consider myself a hypocrit for judging the carthieves while they fill there tanks with my very profitable "mrbeekfuel", and slowly setting my fuel a new standard.

The Essence of "Thinking outside of the box"

What's up? - A direction away from the center of gravity of a celestial object.

I gave this a bit of thought, and figured this quote from bash.org would be an appropriate way to start my blog. I've heard people asking each other this question for years, and the person who thought this up, actually took the time to find a compleet and accurate answer to the literal interpretation of that question.

This required some thinking "outside of the box".

In the time to come, I will post some of my thoughts on different subjects on this blog. "Thinking outside the box" will be me, trying to look at problems and subjects from a new perspective without preconceptions through the process of lateral thought.

It's only fair to warn YOU (hello there dear reader) I've never been much of writer, and although I've been surfing the internet long enough to remember browsing on 16-bit operating systems, I never started a blog before.

So bare with me... it's gonna be a bumpy but refreshing ride!