Fed Raids Software Pirates in 27 Cities

akiaki007 was among many who wrote in to say: "Check out this article on the New York Times (free reg, blah blah) site. The Feds have raided 27 cities in 21 states. Raid sites include MIT, UCLA, Purdue, Duke, UofO. Their main target was the group DrinkOrDie. 'This is a new frontier for crime,' Kenneth W. Dam, deputy secretary of the Treasury, said at a news briefing. 'The costs are enormous to both industry and consumers.' I better hide my burned Linux CD's. They might think it's some weird hacking tool."

Comments

What some people won't do

[genkael]

It's amazing what the government will do to protect M$.

Re:What some people won't do

[garcia]

overreaction? We should just let people STEAL and keep what they steal? We should also allow them to keep the tools w/which they steal?

No way man. If you are caught dealing drugs or stealing a car, they take all that crap from you. They take whatever you used to steal and whatever you stole.

Umm, copying a program and distributing it is fucking stealing. There is no and's, if's, or but's about it.

And yes, if someone is stealing and sending it across international borders, I say take them out.

Responses here not surprising, unfortunately

[Brad Wilson]

I'm not surprised by the responses we're seeing here. I just think it illustrates the unfortunate situation that a valuable concept like public domain or open source software has to be overly infested with thieves who believe that stealing software or pirating movies in the theaters "doesn't hurt anybody".

Say that when it's your own livelihood that's being stolen.

Re:Oh? So then they finished the terrorist problem

[autocracy]

Get over it. Incidents like that are things we weren't prepared for, and realistically couldn't have been. Terrorism is a buzzword in America now. We've had one horrible incident and the world comes crashing down for us. And you can damn well bet that most of the stuff pushed through Congress was somebody's already planned agenda that just happened to be aided by the events of 9/11. Besides, they ARE after terrorists now. To make warez, you have to hack them. Hackers are now terrorists, remember?

Re:Piracy is good.

[Stonehand]

- Why should we care about what you think your rights are? What matters is what your rights *actually* are.

- Not all software comes from companies owned by GAtes, believe it or not.

- Commerce is all about *consent*. Consent involves an exchange acceptable to both sides, not just the consumer. As an example of the consequences of BROKEN agreements, consider the financial straits of Sir-Tech, which has had a great deal of trouble collecting money from companies which sold JA2:UB in Europe. Both the "Jagged Alliance" and Wizardry franchises are pretty much over, and Sir-Tech isn't exactly in good shape either.

It's your right to offer software with no restrictions. It's also your right -- or mine -- to offer software with conditions, and the user gets to decide whether he'll accept the software, and along with them the restrictions (within certain limits, such as you can't request somebody's firstborn as a slave).

It sounds like you're still in the juvenile "me" stage of psychological development. Grow up and realize that life involves agreements and deals, not just taking whatever you think is yours.

"This is a serious crime."

[vmalloc_]

"This is not a sport," Commerce undersecretary Phil Bond said. "This is a serious crime. These people should do some hard time."

Oh my god. They have the NERVE to do crap like this right now? Aren't these people supposed to be helping trace down terrorists, instead of arresting teenagers in their bedrooms because they can't afford $500 worth of photo editing software and movies? The BSA must have bribed a LOT of people.

This is slowly becoming my favorite sentence: Animals don't belong in cages, politicans do.

-vmalloc

Re:Redhat is profitable

[vax]

i cant help but notice how blind you are sir, first of all your talking about all this contributing to the community and your contributing to mandrake, mandrake isnt the linux community, mandrake is just another redhat, trying to make money off free software. you are contributing to them? and what do you get in return? the joy of paying 39.95 for the latest copy at walmart? hmm that might work for you but when i want good software i dont need redhat or mandrake to sell it to me, i think i would rather get it free like it should be. selling free software will never make money because of the obvious, people dont pay for things that are free.

They arent selling products!

[HanzoSan]

CAN YOU READ ENGLISH?

Selling service is not selling products.

You pay for code to be created, not for the code.

You pay programmers for their time and effort, not big greedy corperate CEOs.