[Spivak]

And yet we're paid to write derivative songs all day which is why I don't think the analogy fits.

If I write yet another rails app that does nothing to push the industry forward and isn't novel (to a computer scientist) it nonetheless provides business value. And since it isn't consumed on use it's clear that we're talking about a bespoke durable good — a chair, a shelf, a thing that is useful without it being novel.

Software might be made of words but that doesn't make it a recipe or a song.

[aidenn0]

But in this case, the bespoke rails app does do something that other ones do not, in the sense of it works with a specific database with specific operations.

To stretch the analogy, "this chair fits people who are 180.3cm tall better than any previous chair"