Superdistribution and the economics of bits

Abstract

Why is the engineering and distribution of software fundamentally different from the engineering and distribution of other engineered objects? The author presents a unique answer to this question-an answer that could lead to a fundamental change in the way that software professionals view their creations and software marketers sell them. The infrastructure he proposes would make it feasible to buy and sell digital goods with any terms and conditions imaginable: pay-per-year, pay-per-minute, pay-per-save, pay-per-keystroke, and so on. Even today's pay-to-own terms and conditions would remain feasible, with ownership technologically enforced via invocation metering, but precisely which prices, terms and conditions should vendors offer, and which set of conditions would be most desirable to the buyers they hope to attract? Such questions are complicated, but answerable. Each is merely the electronic counterpart to questions we routinely confront in the tangible world of everyday experience, but cyberspace emerged less than a generation ago, which is not nearly enough time to even define-let alone build and deploy-a robust basis for the ownership of digital property. These technical issues are only the easy part compared to the social issues of building a true information-age economy.