Slashdot Mirror
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."
There's this Thinkgeek add on the top of my page now that reads something like: "CDs, great for ... pirated software (don't worry, we won't tell)." I always knew they were up to no good.
--
#nohup cat
Luckily they are only cracking down on people at expensive schools.. Should be quite a while before they get to state schools in the cornfields of illinois..
You would think after September 11th that they would have more important things to worry about. I've never heard of anyone dying (or even getting hurt) because of software piracy.
Reality has a liberal bias
Like I would have paid for XP?
MSNBC and Wired. Seems that no one was arrested (in the US, at least - 5 people were in England). One customs agent said each computer has an average of 1-2 terabytes of software (Wired article). Wow.
-David Ziegler
-
In other words, this effort that went into this coordinated 27-city raid (which took probably tens of thousands of manhours to prepare and execture) could not have been spent elsewhere?
Because I thought we were still at war with terrorism. I thought we were still living with the constant threat of terrorism. Every one of these FBI agents chasing down CD images is one less agent knocking on doors, interviewing potential suspects.
I swear, if there are any attacks or terrorist incidents tomorrow, or the next week, or hell, any time the first question I'll be writing my congressman will be "Where was the FBI?"
I almost hope something does happen. What's it going to take for the FBI to learn their FIRST AND PRIMARY responsability is to safeguard the lives of American citizens...NOT the PROFITS of American corporations.
- JoeShmoe
.
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
I like how they say "billions in software." I wonder how much companies would really get from any of those people. Most people who pirate software can't aford it in the first place. I mean, who can afford to spend 500 on office and another 500 on Adobe programs just for a semi-intermediate user.
*blink*
Uh, they do, dude. That's the difference between the cops and the BSA, namely you can tell the BSA goons to go fuck themselves.
Meantime, as you correctly point out, piracy is no longer needed to make your computer useful anyways.
(And for those of you wearing tinfoil hats, they're not coming after Joe Slashdotter for being the end-user of downloaded warez and mp3z, they're going after the d00dz who acquire the 0-day warez in the first place.)
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.
what the government will do to protect ALL fucking programmers. Just b/c some of the software being pirated was MS does not mean that's what they were protecting. Some people...
Hey, I am not saying that I have no copied programs in the past, hell probably just about 100% of people have. What I am saying is that it isn't right. Fucking programmers work their asses off writing code for people to use. They make their living off of this crap and people are stealing it.
I am not defending MS, in fact I only run Win98 on a laptop so that my GF can use a computer to do work while she is over here... I own that copy (it came w/the laptop). I don't use Windows products b/c I don't like their methods or their stability.
I am defending those people that are having their hardwork and money stolen and distributed...
Just b/c a good majority of the people here do not like MS doesn't mean that we should get pissed off when people are caught stealing programs. You should be pissed off that a good majority of people that read this site are in the same boat. Writing code that is bettering some part of the industry and that people are out there stealing the hardwork.
Get over yourselves. Piracy is illegal and tough if you get caught.
Right... Because people pirate software, American companies are going to loose out to foreign companies, since software produced overseas is much harder to pirate. Oh yeah, and all those countries have more clout that the US government does when it comes to getting foreign governments to cooperate with enforcements efforts. Yep, American Leadership in Software Development is definatley at stake. Uh-huh. Yep.
Ok, what does software piracy have to do with OSS?
When people find out I don't pay for my software, they assume I am a pirate. OSS != free loader.
It's about free speech, its always been about free speech. I love free beer too, but I won't steal it.
Firstly.. my take on warez.....
here's the thing.
First.. these groups get busted. Okay. Well.. they *are* knowingly spreading massive amounts of copyrighted material, which IS illegal... sure.. we all do it.. but they can't say 'Oh gee, I didn't know'.
Second.. it IS rediculous to claim 'billions' in losses because of them. I've seen my fair share of warez groups.. they hoard software so they can be bigger & better than the next guy. Almost nothing actually gets USED by anyone, even those downloading it.
And of all the pirated software I've seen used by most people.. only a fraction actually comes from the warez scene.. lots are just directly burned CDs.
Warez kiddies hoard software like other kids hoard baseball cards, or pokemon, or whatever the new craze is. It's about who can hoard more.. it's not even about theft.
Perfectly working copies of Win95 existed many months before Win95 was officially released. The most intellegent move MS ever made, enlisting thousands of independent voluntary beta testers. The testers (I worked in such a company at the time) were sent updated CD's to "try, and file bug reports against." We just had to promise to destroy the disk upon official release.
So, someone alters the banner that says "Beta Build 451", makes lots of copies, and says in triumph "Look At Me! I Have Win95 Early!"
Lots of thieves get caught because their egos get too big, they get sloppy thinking they can't be caught.
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
The numbers these groups throw around are bogus, and that needs to be repeated.
Note that these raids occured on a number of campuses.
Microsoft and law enforcement love to talk about the millions and billions lost to piracy.
When they bust down some students door and find things like Maya, 3DSMax, and Windows Datacenter Server they go, whoops, we're out $250,000.
But there is a fatel flaw in this argument. These are NOT lost sales. Students simply do not have the money to go out and buy a ton of high priced server software, though they may enjoy playing with it.
And the low priced stuff a campus almost always as a Campus Select Open agreement for.
The guy in China paying $5 for 200 programs worth $2 million? Same thing.
This needs to be repeated. These numbers are often bogus. Things like drugs have real street value, so that's more acceptable when they value drug busts, and they actually track street prices carefully. Microsoft numbers hype is a distortion of the system.
This reminds me of the $1 billion Microsoft offered to settle their private court cases. $800 million of it in their software. I doubt the marginal cost of supplying that software was $800 million (estimates are it would be around 20 or so) and they get a dream come true, take out apple their last competitor and drive their software into the education system to hook the next round of users.
Get over it, Feds. Software piracy is a part of life. When you try to sell something that has no material component other than a CD which can pretty much be replicated at will, for outrageous prices and with EULA's so tight they make our balls ache, there's going to be piracy. Blame companies like Microsoft for setting their own prices. $300 for a piece of buggy, crashy software that we HAVE to buy to play many games, or use many popular aps is insane. Live on, pirates.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
You're right. All police activity that doesn't help fight terrorism should cease immediately and all freed resources should be redirected towards the War on Terrorism. We should only focus on one thing at a time.
Look, just because you don't like a law doesn't mean you won't face the consequences if you break it. That's what civil disobedience is all about, taking absurd responsibility for an unjust law. What these idiots were doing was breaking the law hoping to never face the consequences.
Here are some stats from the Business Software Alliance.
What I find interesting here is that while the total dollar losses are the highest in North America, the 'Piracy Rate' is the lowest. That means that the large majority of software users in the U.S. and Canada are properly licensed, law-abiding citizens.
Further, these stats say that piracy has gone down not up.
( Here's a current study with information by US region. )
Guvegrra?
I have a good deal of experience with MIT and their network, and for some reason the administration there thinks that any and all network activites should be allowed and are for some reason granted under free speech (as evidenced by, among other things, fuck-the-skull-of-jesus.mit.edu), including piracy of software, music, and movies. I'm really not sure what's going through their heads or why they consistently look the other way (join MIT, pay to pirate all you want and we'll protect you!), but I've SERIOUSLY seen less piracy in a number of Asian cities selling "questionable" goods on recorded media. What a disgrace.
Interested in open source engine management for your Subaru?
We are. Violating the DMCA is now an act of terrorism.
So, where are all the sob stories? Where are the stats of companies going out of business due to piracy?
This is not trolling, I'm honestly interested in seeing any evidence to back up these oft-repeated assertions.
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
Wiping out warez can only be a good thing for Linux and Free/Open Software. If people actually have to pay $600*workstations for MSOffice, they won't. I only wish XP's activation wasn't so easy to circumvent.
A complete set of PC hardware goes for $250-$300 now... Windows XP + Office XP is $900. So you can have a new workstation for $300 running Linux, or, now that you can't pirate Microsoft's crap, the exact same machine, for $1200.
Although he had to say:
This is not a sport, this is a crime," Mr. Bond said, adding that punishment could be "serious hard time" in prison.
What he really wanted to say was:
They're not going to some white collar resort prison. No, no, no! They're going to federal POUND ME IN THE ASS prison!"
Computers don't make mistakes. What they do, they do on purpose.
I've said before on Slashdot and in other venues that the Intellectual Property system in the United States is cracking. With the advent of distributed internet Piracy of the type Napster made popular, it is completely inevitable that the system mutate to account for the fact that the primary source of IP theft is no longer commercial bandits, but rather the users themselves.
What this ultimately means is more of what you've seen. You'll see Federal agents descending on ordinary users, people who are just "innocently" making copies of software and music and sharing it with their friends. This activity has been illegal forever, but for the most part readily overlooked by the glaring eye of justice, largely because justice had bigger fish to fry.
But that's changing. The distributed and widely connected nature of the internet is enabling ordinary users to become first class pirates, with the push of a button distributing many thousands of illegal copies to any and all takers. This is turning those users into IP public enemy number one.
There is simply no alternative. The law is going to CRUSH the violators, with a variety of test cases being used to set harsh examples.
From past reactions here on Slashdot, I know that the Slashdot community is not ready to hear this message. Please don't forget, I'm only a messenger. The outcome I'm seeing is easily forseeable. Consider it yourselves: will the government sit idly by and allow the intellectual property system in the U.S. to go titsup.com? Hell, no. It's not going to happen.
That being the case, what's going to happen:
Examples will be made.
C//
Considering that 'They' see things thus, how can anyone be surprised?
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
An article is posted with the word 'Fed' in it and the Slashdot crowd is screaming the imminent doom and destruction of life as we know it.
They broke the law. People who break the law are punished. We're not talking about people's rights being violated, we're talking about groups who know that what they do is illegal and are getting caught.
If real life existed the way the /. crowd thinks it should be, we'd live in total anarchy.
From the DoJ site:
"Bandwidth, through the joint efforts of the Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS), the Environmental Protection Agency Office of Inspector General (EPA-OIG), and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), supervised by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Nevada, created a 'warez' site, controlled and monitored by the undercover operation, as a means of attracting predicated targets involved with the distribution of pirated software. "
I can see the FBI and the DoJ being involved in this operation, but why the hell was the enviromental protection agency have to do with this? The piracy of corprate software has nothing to do plants or air pollution.
I'm sure the EPA was actually secretly dissolved by the Bush administration and was replaced by a DoJ brute squad using the same name.
'
'
A rabbit in the hand is worth 4 in the cage
So the US will spend millions on this investigation, and what to show for it? A few thousand in fines, and a few million more to jail a bunch of people for a few years. Wow, we have gotten so far ahead!
I have a friend who is big time into piracy. Every time we get together he wants to give me some new game he ripped. Then he emails me 5Meg cracks to the rips. Constantly. He whines if I won't take them.
So I offered to burn him a copy of Slackware. "Why would I want it?" he said, "It's already free. Duh!"
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
how much is Microsoft's monopoly costing the economy?
How many billion dollar software businesses do you know out there that market their main products solely for the Microsoft platform.
Answer: I can't think of one that Microsoft hasn't bought, buried, or screwed with some manner of breakware.
I'd pay for front row seats the day our protectors in the FBI raid Microsoft HQ because their "activites are costing the economy billions of dollars".
Stories like this make me mad not because I think piracy is harmless, but because its pretty clear to me that FBI and DOJ have their priorities dead wrong.
"insert angry epithetes and swearing here" yes yes.. I know this has been said but I want to vent.
Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
That's not completely true.
If we don't continually buy more software...the programmers eventually lose their jobs. Their salaries aren't affected sure, but, hey if they don't have a job, what does it matter?
Derek Greene
...and usually sell it to companies as well; they buy stuff when they need it. And hardly ever use illegal software (at least here in .nl that's my impression). Home-users on the contrary usually buy software when they buy a new computer (Windows, Office etc.) or when they finally have enough money (youth that buys games). Therefore I think the majority of the software that is pirated would not have been sold anyway and therefore the losses are no way near as large as projected; home-users use the software if they can get it illegaly but wouldn't buy it if they couldn't get it illegaly. And the type of home-user that really needs software is usually also the type that buys it. Except maybe for those that pirate Windows and Office, but I couldn't care less about Microsoft products and I think they're about the only exception to this.
At least, that's my impression...but who am I to speak about this when I only use free software?:P
0x or or snor perron?!
So not only did they use entrapment; but they were themselves accessory to over 12,000 incidents of software piracy!!!
You can run but you can't hide, except, apparently, along the Afghan-Pakistani border.
It's not about CEOs getting millions of dollars a month because they happen to be at the top of the ladder. It's about the programmers themselves getting money for doing what they do during the day. For them it's a job, and your paying for what they create is how they get their food every damned day. This comment was in anticipation of the BS to come. And I've got the moderation on me to prove it.
SIG: HUP
... will the feds start prosecuting REAL crimes?
They're spending all their time going after easy petty thieves which requires almost zero investigative work and zero effort. Then they beat their chests and toot their horns like it's some major accomplishment.
My guess is that the feds will spend 10x as much time, effort, and money prosecuting these teens than they would ever spend prosecuting murderers, rapists, or armed robbers.
And I predict they will get stiffer sentences than violent criminals too...
Wouldnt this time, money, effort, and manpower be better put to use chasing terrorists? Sheesh.
Even more, I wish the editors would NOTE PROPER SOURCES!!!!
This ain't no Times story; it came from Reuters, here it is no registration required.
I survived the Dick Cheney Presidency 7 to 9 AM 7-21-07
My first rant, they constantly talk about how millions, even billions of dollars have been lost to Microsoft, Adobe, Macromedia, and more due to software piracy. Those numbers reflect if each and every person that stole a copy of that software or even used the copy of that software for 5 minutes and deleted it, would have actually purchased that software. They're working with phantom numbers and voodoo economics. I doubt even 1% of those people would have purchased that software. Software, like digital music, and anything else digital is data. It doesn't cost Microsoft money if I were to take their CD and copy it to another CD and give it to a friend. They haven't actually lost any money, especially if that friend weren't actually going to buy the product in the first place. I understand protecting intellectual property, and I am in no way saying what these people are doing is right, but what I'm saying is that you can't say the industry has lost billions of dollars to software pirates when half of the pirates and their users would have never purchased the software in the first place. Am I not allowed to purchase a lawnmower, mow my lawn, and allow my neighbor to use my lawn mower to mow his lawn?.. Hell all the people on my street use my lawn mower, in fact I could even charge for it, would anyone blink an eye at that? Would John Deere have the FBI do its dirty work and hunt me down for the sales it lost on all the people in my neighborhood?
Second rant, On par with most of the Slashdot posts, why the hell is the FBI worrying about this in the first place? Lets see last I remember we are all suppose to still be on a "high alert" state for possible terrorist attacks. Somehow though, the FBI has the time, manpower, and money to go hunt these so-called criminals. Yet still, we have absolutely NO LEADS ON WHO WAS DISTRIBUTING ANTHRAX? Seriously, whats the count, 5 or 6 people have died from anthrax in the mail thus far, and the FBI doesn't have a single clue? It's been almost 3 months! Someone needs to straighten out their priorities.
..There's a-dooin's a-transpirin'
Who says programmers must work for closed source companies like Microsoft? Programmers will always have jobs.
Government needs them, schools need them, people will always need programmers, and if software no longer sells people will make money via services.
Redhat has programmers and they all are making money. Dont forget Suse, and soon Mandrakesoft.
You dont have to sell the code, to make money, although selling the code sure makes it easier to make ALOT of money.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
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".
The problem is when they call it "pirating", as if they are some oversea rag-tag group that takes things away from other people. It's not taking away; it's making a copy. Most anti-pirate sources try to claim that every single copy is directly affected by the sales of the product. In fact, most pirates are just people who can't afford to buy the damn game anyway.
Say that when it's your own livelihood that's being stolen.
Please...I'd love for a product of mine to get pirated all over the place. Just look at id Software and Doom. More pirates = more popularity.
If you really want a comparison of numbers, try comparing the online games with serial numbers (which is a pretty effective anti-piracy agent right now) to the games without serial numbers. More or less, it's the same numbers.
Zodiac Survey
On a side note...
:)
Stealing Monsters INC for example is totally lame, some movies aren't worth the C$8-10 entry fee, heck, they're not even worth the gas it would take me to drive to the theatre that is 10 miles from my home... But that movie ROCKED.
Anyone who downloads it to watch it for the first time on his PC or TV-out, unless he has a dolby surround system and a 60 inch plasma, is totally nuts and ruins his own viewing experience.
Heck, even if he has that, encoding screeners (VHS tapes) is FaR from the result you'll see at the theatre.
They shouldn't be arrested for piracy... but for major mental illness... We shouldn't let people with that kind of judgment wander off the streets
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
Operation Bandwidth: ... On December 11, 2001, the longest-running of the undercover operations culminated ... This undercover operation, code-named 'Bandwidth,' was a two-year covert investigation established as a joint investigative effort to gather evidence to support identification and prosecution of entities and individuals involved with illegal access to computer systems and the piracy of proprietary software utilizing 'warez' storage sites on the Internet. ...
Bandwidth, through the joint efforts of the ...
Environmental Protection Agency Office of Inspector General (EPA-OIG)
I just want to know why the EPA's money and time is being misused.
good. i'm glad.
the only thing i disagree with is that it costs companies money. i think microsoft in particular makes tons of money off people who initially get illegally copied software and then end up having to pay for it in later versions.
US Citizen living abroad? Register to vote!
That's what I thought at first, but then there was this other quote in the Wired article:
Doody said one computer held more than 5,000 individual movie titles.
Even if the movies are pretty heavily compressed, that's got to be hundreds of Gigs, at any rate.
-Mark
Also, a programmer can make money without selling code.
ISPs learned they could make money without charging by the hour or charging you for email, for FTP, for newsgruops, for every little site you go to, for every little thing you do.
ISPs figured it out. You can charge people for the service of accessing the internet itself.
Software can work the SAME way. Software distributors would be a site like say www.download.com, and they can charge $10 a month to everyone who needs software to access the site.
And guess what, I think everyone here would pay $10 a month if they had to pay that to access all the newest software. I would do it.
Of course people will distribute on their own, but having a fast connection to reliable sites like that would make it easier.
You see selling services makes money. It works for the internet and it can work for software.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
The article says that "corporate executives, computer-network administrators and students at major universities, government workers and employees of technology and computer firms" are being prosecuted as a result of the raids.
So those are the kind of people the US wants to put in prison! And they're saying it is to protect "American leadership in computers and software".
It sounds like these CS and IT professionals and students are just trying to challenge themselves (according to the article). I'm sorry, but locking up exceptional individuals is no way to preserve the US's leadership in technology.
"Leave the strategizing to those of us with planet-sized brains." -Tycho
And guess which company is the most prominent member of the BSA ? (hint : it's a monopoly that milks the software industry)
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
You're right. You should be allowed to do whatever you want with software that you have on your system. It's yours. What does it matter what the license of said software is?
Just like I should be allowed to take your GPL code, modify it as I see fit, and only distribute the binaries. I mean, what does it matter what license it is under?
Je ne parle pas francais.
Get over yourselves. Piracy is illegal and tough if you get caught.
Give me a break; this is complete and utter overreaction. The government should kick in doors and confiscate computers over violating COPYRIGHT law? Law enforcement agencies should coordinate raids on an INTERNATIONAL scale? Personally, I don't like to use pirated software, something which my friends consider odd. Yes, it is wrong, but despite what the corporate flacks say, it's not the same as stealing.
Whether the need is percieved or not, don't you deserve to be paid for the work you've done anyway if that's what you decide to do for a LIVING?
SIG: HUP
Ah, once again everyone's content with hitting the suppliers without addressing the issue of demand; once again, there's a failure to realise that busts of this nature will do nothing but screw with the lives of a few kids who were just having a bit of fun.
The piracy 'scene' doesn't actually have all that much to do with the software; it's about friendship, competition, coding, learning to write perl or set up a firewall, and it's about a sense of community. And it's a community that isn't going to go away, irrespective of the number of busts or the citing of (oftentimes ludicrous) figures as to its costs.
I've found that many people who rail against software piracy will quite happily copy music from their friends, or tape videos from the tv and lend them out. I've also found that virtually everyone I've ever met is happy to ask for a copy of a piece of software when it suits their purposes. I've *also* found that most people involved in software piracy tend to buy a great number of computer games, and do genuinely subscribe to the scene's central tenet that if one enjoys the software, one should buy it.
What do busts like this achieve? They're a publicity stunt to demonstrate that *something*, anything, is being done. They're an example of pandering to big business, of ignoring what the public actually wants and believes. They're a triumph of bad accounting and spin over real-life facts as to software sales. And, ultimately, they don't change anything: the pirates will continue to pirate, and the end users will continue to download the stuff. And a few kids will find their lives becoming very difficult.
What we need is a little less hypocrisy. We need more people to admit that they copy games, that they lend cds to friends - and, hell, we need to question whether it's *really* the piracy that leads to the high prices, or whether in fact that's just traditional market forces at work. And pay attention: programmers are themselves very often pirates, at least in my experience. Perhaps I'm an evil man and live in an evil world. Or perhaps everybody's doing it, and a war on the supply is as fruitless as all of our other wars that fail to address the root of the problem.
Mr. Kruger is right : why isn't somebody doing something about these "kernel.org" and "gnu.org" people who make all that evil free software available to everybody ?
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Who says you should be made to speak of your code? I thought free speech was just that: free to speak, and therefore to not speak. And just where in my comment did I mention OSS?
SIG: HUP
This is insane. By your logic, the amount of money entering an industry does not affect the salary of the people working in it. Therefore programmers make as much as artists, garbage collectors, ditch diggers, etc? No, of course not. Programmers can make tons of money for not so much work simply because the product they produce is worth a lot of money. End of story.
Now, what you're saying is true, in the sense that once you've worked on a project, the amount of sales of that product in the future won't affect the amount of money you make now. But this is a horrendously simplistic viewpoint. When you work for a company, they're not paying you out of the money they will get selling the product you're working on. They don't have it yet. They're paying you the money they've made on previous products. And yes, me pirating M$ software today will affect the job prospect of M$ programmers in the near future.
Sorry, kid, it's the way the world works.
Come on, give it up, that's
Write the next apache and charge people a fee to download it from your website.
Dont sell the software, sell the service of distributing the software.
Control its distribution until you make a fair bit of money, and by this time other people will be distributing it and you can begin work on your next peice of software.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
I somewhat agree with the you on the sentiment shown here. The introduction of high speed internet at home has really increased the waez scene. I've diluded myself into believing that I warez responsibly, and I believe that it has allowed me to support decent products. I work for a small, but highly technical company with a $250,000 IT budget. That may seem like an awful lot of money, but half of that goes to liscencing fees.
With half of my budget eaten up by software liscences, I simply don't have enough money to buy garbage software, and the demo's released by the companies are generally lacking. The last full product I bought without testing it fully was MS Project. One department direly needed it to work, and needed it yesterday. So I bought ten copies, installed it, then listened to the complaints of how it was a giant waste of time, it didn't work as easy as they wanted, or didn't do what they expected. Since that fateful day I am really picky about the products which I choose to purchase or upgrade. I download the full version off of morpheus at home, play around with it, and if it's a good product, I buy it. And yes, every copy is liscenced.
This way, I am rewarding the companies which release a good product, shunning the companies who release software with features nobody will use and expect you to upgrade, and am no longer spending my budget needlessly. I suggest everyone else do the same.
Hey, I know you! You were the CEO at my old .com who kept telling us that profits didn't matter!
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
You own the code, the information, and in my opinion you do have the right to modify the code.
As far as the GPL goes, releasing binaries is releasing a product, not releasing information.
if you are to follow the rules of freely sharing information, and having complete control over information, then yuo must release the code as well so that other people have free control and access to the information YOU provide.
Else you are taking all the information from everyone and keeping it to yourself.
Thats the problem with closed source.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
What's it going to take for the FBI to learn their FIRST AND PRIMARY responsability is to safeguard the lives of American citizens...NOT the PROFITS of American corporations.
On FBI website you can find
mission:
The Mission of the FBI is to
uphold the law through the investigation of violations of federal
criminal law; to protect the United States from foreign intelligence
and terrorist activities; to provide leadership and law enforcement
assistance to federal, state, local, and international agencies;
and to perform these responsibilities in a manner that is responsive
to the needs of the public and is faithful to the Constitution
of the United States.
So, the first thing they say is that they have to uphold the law. That's what they did. Piracy (and therefore warez) are against the law.
What you say is basically the same as what so many traffic (parking, speed, etc) offenders say: "Don't you have some bad guys to arrest?"
That argument does not work. If there's one big goal to pursue (wether it's the end of terrorism or arresting all gangsters) should all other goals be set aside? I don't think so.
Okay I'm going to play Devil's Advocate for once, (fire retardant suit on!)
Yes Microsoft is an evil corporation with an evil Chief Software Architect... (I think that's what he's calling himself these days)
However the reason why programmers do not make the money you think they deserve is, comes down to a sole reason. We live in a society built on Capitalism. A society that when certain risk is applied, great returns can be recieved, just as well as failure shown by losses. (And any other color in between that spectrum.)
The reason why Microsoft had this great success (or still having) is due to the fact that people fronted money into the company and it payed out in those great returns. (i.e. Secretaries taking Stock options instead of bonuses, people investing in the Stock Market, etc... Boy what I'd do with a time machine) Those are people taking risk, or gambling with there own money. Workers (programmers) on the other hand, do not share that same risk. If they lose their job, true they do not get that paycheck anymore, but nothing else is lost other than those future wages. (which they can get back by getting another job) Taking Stock options on the other hand is a risk that they might lose, or pay off in the end.
True, Microsoft is an evil corporation, I don't like them either (Personal preference) but bashing them because a couple people are richer than others (i.e. Gates) is extremely Marxist. Bash them because they release unfinished buggy products and make you pay for updates.
If programmers want to make more money, think about starting taking a risk yourself and maybe it will pay off.
I'll just be quiet now and return to working at my underpaid job and complain about Gates ruling the world.
"It takes many nails to build a crib, but one screw to fill it."
Does anybody have any further information on this? Was DrinkOrDie the only group targeted? Was this primarily a raid on IRC-based "warez groups" - groups like Razor911, Class, Myth, Deviance, etc., that rip/crack/distribute warez, or was it a raid on professional-level mass-CD-duplication piracy rings?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
First off a couple of comments:
For the guy who said selling services for ISP's work implies that it will work for selling software. I'm not saying it will or won't, but just because one business model worked somewhere does NOT mean it will work everywhere.
Now, just because joe highschool kid isn't going to spend $600 on Photoshop does not give anyone the right to pirate software. Besides, if Adobe sold more copies of Photoshop, we might not see the $600 copies of Photoshop. Maybe be would. But defeating piracy only helps software developers- the better developers can demand a larger chunk of a companies profits.
As I recall, Infocom, the venerable old text adventure game company (Zork, Hitchhiker's Guide, Enchanter, Leather Goddesses of Phobos, et al), credited software piracy for the reason for their going out of business way, way back when.
They had great games, everyone agreed, but so many people pirated them (I knew almost no one who had an original copy, myself included) that they couldn't make money.
Restrictions are prohibited. Be well, get better.
Its already working, how do you think redhat stays in business?
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
I think the FBI's doing a bang up job protecting the corporations. I applaud their efforts. So what if they miss a little terrorist here or there. Everyone knows those darn terrorists are just a bunch of whack jobs who will never be able to get it together enough to harm anyone right? And it doesn't really matter if they still haven't figured out where all that anthrax is coming from. That's no biggie. In fact, they should take all their guys off those hard cases like that and put them on piracy, because our corporations need those dollars to buy more pink paper so they can fire more employees.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
My friend was selling CD-R GPL Red Hat and Debian 2.2 CDs for $10.00 each in his little computing shop -- customers would just come in and ask for the latest Linux CD and he'd burn it for them on the spot. When his bank found out [apparently some nosy busybody didn't understand about Linux], his merchant account was frozen without notice for "investigative and evidentiary purposes" and he could no longer accept credit cards!
The bank would NOT compromise and insisted that he stop comitting software piracy. He got a lawyer and tried to explain to the bank that the CD-R Linux CDs he was selling were GPL and that he was fully legal to distribute this way.
The bank told him that it gave the *appearance* of software piracy and that if he was willing to copy Linux, there was no reason for them to think he wasn't copying other software. His account is still frozen, with over $12,000 in limbo -- and they are still trying to work it out months later.
It's a proprietary software world, in case you ever doubted it.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
1) Trying to compare this to terrorist acts or similar is just not a fair comparison to make. Resources are divided up across many divisions in any type of organization. These divisions then each go after what they're created to... This is like telling a traffic cop, who is supposed to enforce traffic violations, "why aren't you out tracking down drug dealers?"...well, because he's not in the DEA, he's a traffic cop.
2) With regards to "losses", I HATE it when software companies claim a LOSS from piracy. How can it be a LOSS if they never had that money to begin with???
Contribute your code, write documents, or if you have no way to contribute, then pay. Read my sig.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
And should be modded up for it:
Suppose these raids continue, and each newspaper or magazine article continues to make similar quotes about "free software" being a problem, being an issue, being ILLEGAL...
Ordinary people read these articles, and begin to equate "free software" = ILLEGAL.
Therein lies the problem, because if "free software" = ILLEGAL, then doesn't it follow that "Free Software" = ILLEGAL as well (in the mind of the common man)? That is a scary, but interesting thought to contemplate, that of the manipulation of the masses through words, by the BSA (which may or may not be a front organization for Microsoft - anybody got data to back that assertation up?), with the goal to ultimately cause Linux and other Free Software to be viewed as illegal, with the intention of destroying the movement.
Or maybe I am just overly paranoid, hmm...?
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
-------------------
This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Amen brother.
What is the FBI so afraid of?
Someone using Photoshop and Kai's power tools to distort the presidents face?
Oh the horror...oh, wait, maybe it'll improve President Mush^H^H^H^HBush...
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
"Major Games costs 30-50$ each because there's not a lot of volume in sales, if there would be more sales, the price would go down dramatically"
h e-stuff kinda way. unfortunately there's not a "best way" for this that would suit both the employers and the prosecutors.
10 years later.. Major games, 30-50$... While the complexity and everything surrounding a game got more complex, the price tag is still the same.
Same goes with a lot of high-end software.
On another note,
There are 3 takes , 2 extreme, 1 middle.
Middle: extended kind of piracy (like trialware) or sometime students have to learn somehow, and school arent' always the best avenues, students can't afford Max, autocad, and blablabla, and when they find a job, the employer needs to buy a seat of that software that the student knows, so basically, in the end, the money gets pumped in the system. That theory is good IF the employer is legit and honnest. In that case, Govs needs to target companies (which are the one MAKING money out of the software) but not in a super-intrusive-will-take-3-days-to-go-thru-all-t
The other problem is sometimes cashflow (especially for startups) doesn't allow to blast the required "200,000$" in a single payment (run a software budget analisis for 10-15 employees, a server based on M$ and the basic tools required to do the job depending on what kind of company it is, and it runs up quite fast) Some people are honnest and try to catch up with the licenses (I knew 2 startups that weren't legal from the beginning and catched up over a year or 2 and became totally legit afterwards, ok of course I know also a lot of small companies that are producing off pirated software and that disgust me,
but there's ONE point that I saw that made me think: the argument for one was to ban all the M$ products and buy 1 license of every software they were using, not 5 like required for every seat, the argument was "if we buy everything needed, we go bankrupt, I'd rather not be fully legal and have a job than being legal and broke (and no, these weren't companies that had 50 employees and making gazillion cash) , besides (they added), you cut on the salary of the employees to give some extra $ to uncle Gates's pockets, which doesn't create anymore quality jobs than I do."
While I have mixed feeling about that, the conclusion we can get from this is: if there could be a leasing option or renting option and the system would be more flexible, maybe there would be less piracy and people would tend to be more legit.
The 2 other points of view are "*everything* should be free" which shows how immature and short-sighted some people can be, and "everyone stealing software should get shot, there's 0.00 reason for copying a software, even if it's to try, to get a snapshot, to do backup copies, whatever, there's NO reasons"... heh.. no need to comment on that.
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
It is almost never the case that a big agency or institution has only one, current, urgent project that supercedes everything else. FBI fighting terrorism, NASA with the ISS, EFF fighting the MPAA/RIAA...sure, they're important, but they're never "drop everything else and deal only with this". Besides, the effectiveness that could be gained by dropping all the other projects and working only on the one is minimal, in some cases actually negative.
You're gonna believe a guy named "Doody?" Too easy...
"If he thinks he can hide and run from the United States and our allies, he's sorely mistaken." Bush on bin Laden
Here's a primer on how a government can attain total control of its citizens.
For each dissident or somehow threatening group, perform the following steps:
1. Turn the name of the group into a perjorative term. ("X")
2. Hold numerous press conferences on the dangers "X" poses to society or to the economy.
3. Create new laws to target some core activity of "X" that seems likely to be of no interest to non-X citizens.
4. More press conferences on the widespread problem of violators of the laws created in step 3, and proposing harsh new penalties for such violators.
5. Massive crackdown on violators of laws created in 3. For small and unimportant groups, all members may simply be thrown in an oubliette, or even executed. For larger groups, the threat of arrest may be used to compel individuals in whatever way is deemed necessary.
That's it. This model works quite smoothly, as demonstrated by Stalin (too many groups to count), Hitler (Jews are the best known victims, but many others as well), McCarthy ("Communists"), and the Inquisition ("Heretics", "infidels", and others).
Meet the New World Order. Same as the Old World Order.
That's "Mr. Soulless Automaton" to you, Bub.
- Commerce is all about *consent*. Consent involves an exchange acceptable to both sides, not just the consumer.
I'm glad you mentioned that! Because it is about concent, and nobody forces you to write something and release it to anyone, but once it leaves your hand and you wish to restrict everyone elses hand, then it is about coercion. These people have made no personal agreement with you, they have not deprived you of your original copy or anything else.
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).
I'm glad you mentioned slave here, because that argument sounds very familiar to the one - if you don't like slavery, then don't own slaves and shut up. It too was bull because slavery too by it's nature coerced on everyone.
Well, if you're going to put it that way, I'd rather have a War on Terrorism than a War on Drugs. ;-)
"If he thinks he can hide and run from the United States and our allies, he's sorely mistaken." Bush on bin Laden
IMNERHO, this is the right way to enforce copyright law, not the DMCA. punish those who steal, not those who create tools that could be used by someone who steals.
You may or may not agree with copyright law, but as long as it exists and must be enforced, I greatly prefer enforcement that targets the actual offenders. If copyright is not abandoned (which is highly unlikely), then we will have to either accept individual enforcement or laws like the DMCA.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
What's all this griping about? Why does everyone seem so seriously angry that a bigtime pirate organization got nailed for stealing software & movies in gross quantities? If it was your software they were ripping off, you'd probably be singing a different tune (and no, I'm not referring to free software).
These weren't Joe Home User making copies of a buddy's software for personal use. These were dudes copying thousands of software and movie titles and distributing them. And it's not all Big Corporations that get nailed by these guys. I know a guy who writes shareware for a living, and mostly does okay. But fully 80% of the customer support requests he gets are from users with cracked copies of his software. What, should he just give away his work and live in an alley, all in the name of free beer? Or should he give it away and support himself by working for M$ or some other company? He almost has to anyway to support himself as it is.
I have another friend that makes a fairly popular shareware app. The only difference between the "registered" and "unregistered" versions of his software is that the registered version says "registered" in the "about" window. That's it. It's essentially freeware with a request for money to support his efforts. And still the crackers produce cracked versions of his software within hours of a new release. That, in my mind, perfectly well illustrates the mentality of the typical cracker. There's no great social or political statement being made by them. It's all a matter of machismo, pumping up their ego by breaking software and showing the world how big their penises are.
In any case, the assertion that the Feds are doing this to protect M$ is asinine. Sure, M$ was one of the victims here, but I'd hazard a guess that all those ripped off movies were not produced by M$. Nor were the majority of the software titles either.
Maybe we need a new business paradigm for software or other digital wares, I agree. I don't think wholesale piracy is the way to go about making it happen, however. Besides the faulty ethics, it hurts the little guy more than the big evil guy.
Suse is breaking even, Transgaming just started.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
I don't know about other universities but Purdue implements a policy that they do not give out personal information to entities that complain about students who cause trouble using university resources. I know of several cases where students were contacted by the Dean of Students and informed of their wrong doing but that their information was not given out to whoever complained. There are however exceptions to the rule for what I would assume are extreme cases. For instance several students were arrested in connection with a child pornography case. Anybody else know of policies like this at other universities and what the exact guidelines are?
"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
Slightly off-topic now, but I'm curious. Who decides that a long series of ones and zeros is worth so much more than the service of a garbage collector or artist? Generally, it seems that the more abstract the work you do, the higher you can expect to be paid if you're good at it (take something like a banker--he deals with nothing but an abstract concept called "money").
On the other hand, people who provide a vital service like garbage collection get paid peanuts. If we compared how our lives would be without artists (probably a bit more boring, but quite livable), as compared to how they'd be without someone picking up our garbage (not so nice at all, methinks) one gets the distinct impression that garbage collectors should be the more highly-paid of the two examples I used.
Just for interest's stake, I'm an artist and a writer, so I have no reason to say this other than my own belief that the values society places on certain things are fundamentally twisted.
A word can paint a thousand pictures
If you are doing illegal stuff, never deal with people that you haven't met or reccommended by someone you know well. And if you run a webserver, block all blocks of IP addresses that are owned by Federal, State, and Local governments, and the military. Boom, you have instantly kept the desk jockeys and beauraucrats out of your webspace.
It wasn't too long ago that Microsoft was pushing for it's products to get translated into Chinese and distributed to the country. It wasn't too hard to see the prospects of the software getting pirated; for every ten copies of software used in China, there is one sale. Actually, Steve Ballmer said: "If you're going to get pirated, you want them to priate your stuff, not your competitiors' stuff. In developing countries, it is important to have a high share of the piracy software."
Guess what China is? That's right. A developing country. And once it hits "Free World" status, here comes the profits for Microsoft in a country that is already used to and dependent on it's software. Up until that point, Microsoft isn't really losing anything. Programmers for Microsoft aren't losing their jobs because of this, since the demand is still there, even if the supply is being sought out for free.
Of course, this doesn't mean I'm supporting piracy, merely presenting an opinion.
Another thing: I see you guys specifically referning Microsoft in alot of your comments, another idea on them... if your major software competition offers their products for free... isn't it a good idea to be able to reach the "customers" who are only going to get their Operating Systems for free anyway? That way, you trap 'em in either one of these ways...
Further down the road, you increase piracy prevention so much that it's damn difficult to pirate your software. Microsoft-Using-Pirates now find themselves in a tough situation, either adapt to software you haven't used before, or actually buy the software.
Or, how about the fact that Microsoft makes so many things besides the OS. Most people are bound to pay for some of their products... and that's where they'll make their profit.
- cars can't be copied, so stealing cars isn't going to reduce the need for them
- software can be copied, so you're not stealing it
- if I don't feel the software is worth its price, and I still want the software, what will I do? That's right, I'll copy it from somewhere else
Hypothetically speaking of course. Personally, what people call "pirating" is a ridiculous attempt by capitalists to apply archaic definitions to new concepts that won't support them, in order to maintain what they see as a fast-slipping hold on some industrial sectors (vastly simplified view).So really, the unlicensed copy of Windows 2000 that I could be running is perfectly legal according to my own values, and the only thing that I need to worry about is the law, and how to get it changed to what I (and many, many other people) see as fair. My conscience is quite clean.
A word can paint a thousand pictures
Members of Warez includes corporate executives, computer-network administrators and students at major universities...
Hey, I'm a student at a major university. Can I join "Warez?" How do I sign up? Is there a membership fee? Why didn't someone tell me they'd organized it into an actual group?
And correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the proper conjugation "Members of Warez include corporate execs blah blah blah?" Mr Stout there obviously doesn't know shit about computers, the least he could do is use correct English. (I admit my English may not be perfect but then I'm not wrting for the Times...)
Things like this really make me wonder. If you're going to be in the warez dump or just generally hoarding or distributing any amount of "illegal" stuff, why wouldn't you set up some sort of last resort protection?
It was what, a few years ago, some feds raided another pirate group, much smaller scale, 5 siezures I think. One of the 5 had time to sledge-hammer his CD rack and hard drives. He got away scott free if memory serves.
Something along these lines isn't hard to set up. Ok, a big hammer might not be the way to go if feds come barging in, but you could easily set up some sort of more practical means of destruction. An electromegnet around your hard drives is a no brainer. flip a switch and they're clean as a whistle. Some sort of incendiary cage around your physical media shouldn't be too hard to set up. Heck, it could be as easy as sprinkling gas and lighting a match or I'm sure someone could set up an entire torching system.
Remember that movie Conspiracy Theory? The conspiracy nut hit's a switch when "They" finally come to get him and his apartment goes up in smoke. Seems like a good idea to me. A couple of well placed charges or canisters of fuel connected all connected to a big red button with "EMERGENCY" written on it and you're good to go. Cops or federal agents come knocking or break down your door, you hit your big red button and they can confiscate the rubble and fragged hd.
Seems like a good deal to me. I mean seriously, do your Divx movies, or copies of Playboy Pinball, or your own personal music store, or whatever the hell you want to collect really mean that much to you that you'd rather go to jail?
IANAL
I am BelDion's
When I get a copy of a game from my friends, it's because, quite frankly, I'm not impressed enough with it to buy it on my own. In fact, more often then not I'm just installing it so we can all play it at a LAN Party. When the party is over, I never touch it again.
The companies have lost NO money from me. If my friends hadn't had the game, I just wouldn't have played the game. I DEFINATELY wouldn't have spent any money on it. This "$1 billion" or whatever they're claiming to be their lost sales may be greatly inflated for the simple reason that many (maybe even most) of the people who copied these games wouldn't have spent money on them anyways. (Or at least, they wouldn't have paid the shelf price for it--maybe they would have bought them if they cost less.)
Now, don't get me wrong: I DO spend money on computer games, and I've bought about 90% of the games that I've actually played for more than just a couple hours of "dabbling" (for the last 10% I had physically borrowed the CDs). My tastes generally go towards games with novel ideas such as Afterlife and Strife, which are usually conveniently lying in the $15 bin since nobody else likes them. :-) I get MUCH more satisfaction from these games then I do from Quake 3 at $30-40 or so.
Copying a game, to me, is akin to "borrowing" a book from a friend, minus the physical inconvenience of having to physically give it back to him. He tells me its interesting, so I try it out for a bit. If I really like it enough, I might even spend some money on it. (Like I have on many books that I own.)
In fact, "borrowing" this game while allowing my friend to keep the original (i.e. copying it) should even theoretically be legal in this scenerio: Assume for a moment that only one of us is actually playing it at a given time. What's the difference between us swapping it back and forth and us maintaining two copies of it then? None--if you believe that people have a right to transfer their license to play the software to others. It's just that the transfer of the license in this case does not require an actual "physical" transfer of the software.
Yeah, yeah, I know you're all going to reply and tell me that some programmer out there is starving because I didn't give him any money for his game. That's just not true. If he's starving, it's because his game simply wasn't worth spending any money on--at least, to me.
Oh, and if he were to stop making games because he couldn't make a living off of them, I wouldn't feel agony over it. I'd just shrug my shoulders and find something better to do. Again, it's not as if I spend that much of my life playing games anyways.
Now, having said that...
Puts on flame gear and runs away from angry horde of starving programmers.
Snarkiness is inversely proportional to wisdom because it emphasizes feeling right rather than being right.
Hmmm. Are the FBI *THAT* bored to go after warez kiddies than the REAL threats of the country? Have they caught all of the morons sending anthrax around?
Take care of the pirates after our REAL threats are neutralized. Is it just me, or is a group of 15-20 year old guys that pirate M$ Word less of a threat than an Osama Bin Laden follower with 5 bars of C4 strapped to his waste?
Now, I may be naive and all, but doesn't that pretty clearly imply "buy our service and pirate the shit out of the entertainment industry"? Makes me wonder when the government will go after these guys.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
Piracy has absolutely NO effect on programmers salaries.
Wrong. Both directly and indirectly. You see, usually I get a bonus. I say usually, because some quarters my company does really well. Other quarters... not as well. Now, if everyone thought like you and figured the only person they were sticking it to was Bill G. when they stole software, well I doubt I'd be getting a bonus for a very long time.
Indirectly, my company likes to hire what on my planet we refer to as "people". These "people" are sustained, indirectly mind you, on a substance called "money". Now take away the money. You see where I'm going here?
I hate responding to trolls, but DAMN the temptation is too great!
I don't think your model really works.
Most of Hitler's victims were never accussed of violating any law. Stalin comes a bit closer, although 'counter-revolution' was already illegal before he took power. He just extended it into witch hunts. McCarthy's smear tatics damaged the careers and lives of many people before he was brought down. But again, he passed no new laws. The Communist activities that he targeted were treason and espionage. He didn't 'attain total control' because most American Communists were not in fact guilty of this. Oh, and the Inquisition's main target was "Secret Jews." But other than that, I guess that actually does follow the model, with lists of "Jewish" practices like bathing widely distributed.
Your attempt to extend the analogy to software theft is equally sketchy. The sites that were raided had activities that were illegal long before the DMCA--this is just good old fashioned theft. And I don't really see the 'harsh new penalties either'.
Ahh, so the bodycounts are expected to be equal now? You know, if Palestinians didn't keep attacking Israel, they wouldn't lose so many people or so much land.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
No that's NOT the same as stealing. I steal 50 dollars from you, you're out 50 dollars. I copy a program you wrote, you're out nothing. Yes, theoretically I might have bought the program if I couldn't copy it, but that's a lot more abstract than me mugging you and taking your money.
What do you do for money? Are you on welfare? Or do you work for McDonald's? Or does your mom & dad give you an allowance?
You are subscribing to an anti- "socialized corporatist" view.
Are all companies evil? Even the SOHO ones run by real programmers whose income depends on contracts and software?
Hell, you sound like the guy 12 years ago who wanted me to fedex 35 floppies of my port of GNU g++ v1.35 for the Atari ST. When I did, he refused to reimburse me for the fedex charges, saying that the GPL means that I couldn't ask for shipping costs! He was a lying cheating scammer just like you.
Go back to the 60's with your attitudes and smoke more dope.
If you don't want to do that, try to start your own company and try make a living off of it instead of sitting at the sidelines in your crappy job with only your bitter rhetoric of how the world should be.
--jeff
ipv6 is my vpn
> Taking someones property against their will is theft, I don't care if it's taxes, or software piracy, or mugging, or even real on-the-ocean-using-ships-and-guns piracy.
Well, its all about how you define property. Government opted to define "intelectual property" as property of the copyright holder. They could have very well decided to define information property as it is naturally defined, which is the property of the holder. Its theft in the sense that its been defined as "property", but its not necesarily unethical, legal and illegal does not always equal ethical and unethical, or moral and immoral. If someone is using software and finds it useful or makes money from it, that is unethical, if on the other hand someone doesnt like the software they try before they buy, or they are dirt poor and can not afford to buy it either way, then its not unethical (they wouldnt have paid for it in the first place).
In fact, in natural ownship of information, if I *have* information, and someone tells me to delete that information, or tells me not to share that information, can be unethical. For example if someone witnesses a crime or is molested and the criminal tells me not to share that information by force, then it becomes unethical for them to hold me back. That is why freedom of speech was created in the first place, to make it wrong to hold back information. The founding fathers in particular Thomas Jefferson, understood this and that is why he was hestitant in defining how information property would work, but he compromised at the promise of fair use rights and the time limit, which today is being trampled on left and right, and the time limit is extended by a lot more then our founding fathers wanted simply at the profits of a corporations like disney (they wanted more time to milk the cow, rape mickey and then let the public have him).
> Where does the money come from to PAY those programmers? From software sales. Reductions in those sales, because of theft of simply no one buying, means those programmers don't get paid.
If *no one* is buying the software, its because the software sucks face it, its more likely some people buy the software whether they use the warez version or not. This is why share ware and demos are done and still are done to this day, in order to allow people to try before they buy. The reason why a lot of companies opt out of shareware versions of their product these days is because users can download warez versions to try out before they buy, plus their user base may already be aware of their software and they dont need to promote it that much.
Another issue I have come across is that cracks which are created to remove protection from software, are used by legitimate users in order to get rid of anoying copy protection. I've done this on one occasion myself, because my cd rom drive was getting old and was producing a lot of heat, so I installed a full game and cracked it so it would not need the cd rom in the drive any more to play the game. Other people are annoyed and or dont trust dongles. But dongle software tends to be the more expensive kind of software and they are not interested in wasting resources persuing college kids trading their software on line, their main concern is studios who are making money off their license but not buying a lot of licenses. But cracks are a diffrent topic all together, although I dont recall if DOD was a cracking group or a warez group or both (I do recall seeing their name somewhere).
disclaimer : My views do not represent those of every one else in slashdot.
The language is what I find scary, it all sounds as if some sort of physical theft had taken place.
Your problem with language doesn't inform the question -- the word means what it means. A quick glance at three dictionaries, including OED and Webster's Third New International, disclosed many definitions of "steal" that did not require tangible theft. Indeed, some specific examples entail takings of intangibles.
That said, not all stealing is criminal, perhaps not even wrongful. I might steal a kiss and be naughty, but not necessarily commit a crime. Moreover, even conduct contrary to the law -- even some bearing criminal penalties -- need not be wrong per se. The law distinguishes between crimes that are malum prohibitum (wrong because prohibited) and malum in se (wrong in themselves).
Copyright infringement is often stealing, sometimes criminal, and certainly at most malum prohibitum.
But so what? Trying to control language is a terrible way to inform a debate. The words mean what they mean, but when used ambiguously, with loaded words like "stealing," that in some cases can be salutary conduct, slightly naughty conduct, or a serious crime isn't great debating technique. Just as poor, however, is pretending that the words don't mean what they mean.
> What is the FBI so afraid of? Someone using Photoshop and Kai's power tools to distort the presidents face?
No, they're afraid of someone using Photoshop to make a picture with a stern looking Bert peering over his shoulder.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
MS wants to dominate the market right? So how do they get their OS into homes where a teens parents won't fork over hundreds of dollars? Put it on the net. They have nothing to lose because the people who have the cash to buy it probably will. Putting it out on the net captures a whole new market of Windows users. Every now and then they raise a big stink about piracy and profit loss because this adds to the appeal for this target market. Nothing a rebelious teen loves more than illegal software right? Point is now everyone has MS Windows on their computer and MS wins. MS never loses a dime, in fact they make money off other, lessor priced offerings and/or subsequent sales of OEM preinstalled software. If you use something long enough to get used to it, you'll probably buy it again and reccommend it to others. It's all part of the plan.
...like an RIAA guy once said:
"We're going for the guys who steal a truckload, not those who steal a trunkload..."
+++ath0
Nice try, but no dice.
Infocom died the 'management death'. They did not "die" because of software piracy. They had a product called Cornerstone (a non-game product) that essentially cratered the company. On top of that, they had an Infocom-hostile management type running the show when Activision aquired them.
See http://www.infocom-if.org/company/company.html
for a quick summary, or do a yahoo search on Infocom. Piracy did NOT kill them.
They are assuming that everyone who pirated the software would have bought it had they been unable to pirate. From my personal experience, and my friends experience, it's usually the opposite. As such, this figure is wildly innacurate.
Got Freedom?
Thinking?
My sister is an engineer at VA Tech, and they have one of these deals with MS. If you attend the college, you pay the "Bill bill" and have to purchase Win2k, Office, and a long list of other software. You have to have a machine with certain specs. Part of your money goes to keep some consulting group on campus to do Windows tech support.
.doc, but if you run into one, you need to be able to handle it.
.NET workshop, and the professor who okayed them coming was told by the dean to cancel it and apologize to a number of people offended by bringing MS onto campus.
.PDF files". CMU's Computing Services officially supports (some variants) of Linux. All the network people are UNIX folks. All of the for-majors CS classes are taught on UNIXes. My intro to systems class was taught on a cluster of high-end Linux boxes donated by Intel, and operating systems class on Solaris. While most classes accept a Windows format (Prof. Rudich, who teaches a fantastic CS theory class, said on the first day of class "You *can* use MS Equation Editor, but things are going to be painful for you. I recommend LaTeX"), they generally lean toward UNIX. The compilers used are gcc (or sometimes cc, in the case of Solaris). gdb is the debugger of choice. Just about every CS major uses emacs.
Frankly, I strongly prefer CMU. CMU's approach is that you can use whatever you want to as long as you get the work done. They try not to use things like
BTW, if you're thinking about college and like ECE or CS, go to CMU. Seriously. Most colleges are pretty much MS camps...CMU had a bunch of CS faculty hired away a few years ago by MS and is still pissed off about it. As a result, the college is fairly anti-MS. There's an even breakdown in Macs/Win/Solaris boxes in campus clusters, possibly somewhat in favor of Solaris (and a few Linux clusters) because of all the engineering types. Recently, MS wanted to give a
In a game theory class I have, the professor distributed documents as Word files. I thought about asking him to change, then just shrugged and fired up AbiWord. The next day in class, the professor said "due to popular demand, future documents will be distributed as
In a day when many colleges have a computer science curriculum that pretty much amounts to job training in Visual Basic and Visual C++, it's a nice change.
Anyway, if you don't want to put up with Windows, Windows, Windows, MS, blah, blah, blah all the way through college and want some cool professors, keep CMU in mind.
Cool UNIX CMU stuff includes Festival, *the* UNIX speech synth program,
Coda and AFS, the only good distributed filing systems out there (unless you count InterMezzo, also a CMU project)...it goes on and on and on. CERT has a home at CMU. The guy that was one of the designers of grep's algorithms will lecture to you on it, right after you hear about SML from the guy that was one of its creators. If you like CS research on distributed stuff, computer vision, AI, graphics, you name it, it's probably here.
-- A happy student
Wow... The net suddenly got so quiet after the warez busts.
http://www.internettrafficreport.com/#graphs
-Legion
Comparing shoplifting to software piracy is equally bad in comparison. Shoplifting is harder to cover up than privacy, for one thing, and people are more likely to steal if they don't think they are being watched by a camera. Also, stores have detectors as you leave to check for unpurchased items; copy-protection isn't nearly as effective. Additionally, most items stolen are low price items (I'm pretty sure on this), while piracy usually happens to hundred dollar plus software titles. Maybe if there wasn't so much piracy, software prices would actually go down.
F-bacher
James Tiberius Kirk: "Spock, the women on your planet are logical. No other planet in the galaxy can make that claim."
most colleges give the students special deals. at pitt we get ms office, windows (2000, xp), visual studio, etc. for free.
< side though >
no body worth their weight in ram uses word or open office for a 400 page document. LaTeX is so much better.
</side though >
-- john
I wasn't comparing the acts as far as legality.. just the mentality of the collector. I did NOT buy all my Magic: The Gathering cards in order to 'support' wizards of the coast.. I bought them, traded for them, gambled for them so I could posess a good collection, better than my peers.. period. The fact that I paid for them with money was merely a convenience.
With warez.. its' MUCH MUCH more convenient to copy the stuff than it is to try to order it, yes?
A warez kiddie *will* pay for the equipment/bandwidth/media he needs, and invest tons of time into building his hoard. He just won't buy the software (because he actually doesn't want it.. he just wants to say he HAS it.)
If my woodcrafts are shoplifted then I'm indeed out my carvings. If my software is "stolen" then I'm without my copy....oh wait.....
Copyright violation is indeed a failure to pay for something but words like "steal", "shoplift", and most definitely "piracy" do nothing to promote your point of view. Another poster pointed out that "losses" due to piracy (in the BILLIONS) are not reported to shareholders. Apparently the accountants at software companies understand the difference.
A key phrase in most EULAs is "This software is licenced not sold." A better analogy would be that I run a movie theatre and some people are sneaking in and watching the movies without paying. It is necessary to make an example of those few or nobody will pay to watch the movies and soon there would be no movie theatre. Come to think of it, the movie theatre doesn't own the movies either. Warez kiddies make it more difficult to charge for what is in reality a service. They aren't (physically) stealing anything.
As long as industries that rely on copyrights use emotional and overblown terms like piracy "arr mateys I have a rich trove of Photoshop and hacked XP! arrrr!" then they are going to be less than convincing.
If copyright holders tone it down a little and call a shovel a shovel and a spade a spade then they might find a little more sympathy for their cause.
Wow, I didn't know Alan Greenspan opposed warez this strongly.
Didn't DoD have a reputation for releases that didn't work right? Maybe that's why the BSA is going after them: "You're making our software look bad, dammit!"
-Legion
They also tried to create a business software package. A database of some sort if I remember correctly. They spent the bulk of their development resources on it and the software flopped. No doubt the warezing of their games didn't help matters much but it doesn't appear to be the primary cause of their demise.
What is it with all Slashdot posters seeming to think they can see the future with perfect clarity. You may be correct, but if I were you I'd try not to sound so sure of myself. That way you don't put your foot in your mouth as bad if you're proven wrong.
Personally, I think you're dead wrong. What you and many others seem to forget is that the US is still a republic. Now I realise that could change and we could become a dictatorship, but I find that highly unlikely. At any rate, so long as we are still a republic, that means the people are ultimately in control. It may not seem like it at times, but it is the truth. Generally big companies, special intrest groups, etc get what they want because they are the ones that whine to the politicians. However, when a large percentage of the population decides they want something, they get it. Right now J. R. Public doesn't really care about the IP battles going on, none of it has effected them. However, if the authorities start locking up everyone that tapes a copy of Survivor, you will hear a mass outcry. Voters will tell the politicians "change the law, or we give your job to someone that will".
Again, something like this doesn't happen much, most of the time there aren't enough people that care on one issue, but it DOES happen. And I bet you if the FBI starts locking up normal people over things they've been doing for years, people will speak up, and with a loud voice.
Presumably, the people willing to pay so much more for it. It's pretty much the Law of Supply and Demand. There are not many people who can program, so they can ask their price much more so than can a garbage collector.
The law of supply and demand does not apply equally to monopolies, and that's exactly what copyrighted software is, a legal, state-given monopoly.
Of course, the garbage collectors generally have a legal, state-given monopoly too, and from what I hear (IANAGC) they make half-decent money.
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
No, it is illegally duplicated. This may or may not represent a lost sale. For all you know, it may actually increase sales if the "thief" tries the program, likes it, and pays for the next version. Copyright violation is illegal, and wrong in most cases, but it is not morally equivalent to theft.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
I don't think that's the correct angle. Yes, companies lose money on pirated software as a whole, but there's no way to pinpoint exactly how much money is lost. It's not a concrete value like a mugging would produce.
You're telling me.
I got into the sysadmin business because I couldn't make a decent living firefighting, or as a Paramedic. Not in the bay area.
Do you want to pay $10 a month and OWN the code.
Or do you want to pay $10 a month to RENT a product that you'll never own by paying Microsoft, or in some cases not even have the choice and be forced to pay a tax via Microsoft.
I think $10 a month is worth it to pay for the SERVICE of producing code, if the code isnt as good as you'd like, then modify it and sell your service of producing MODIFIED code.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Indeed.
Slashdot engages in massive copyright infringement every day - don't believe me? Go to SLASHDOT'S L33T WAREZ SECTION FOR GAMEZ AND APPZ
By the way, there are some programs that deserve to be pirated
(for the humor impaired, warez.slashdot.org resolves to 127.0.0.1)
Do you want to rent the internet, only be able to use it for a specific amount of hours per month, only be able to download certain things on a list, and not be able to modify the OS in any way?
Or do you want to be able to have total freedom on the internet?
The same applies to software.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
The sig is supporting the programmers who produce the code.
This isnt about software its about information, CODE I'm paying for their service of producing code.
This is not paying mandrake for "free" as in beer software, its paying for the service of producing code free of restrictions, and giving them what they deserve for putting in the time and effort.
Read Gnu.org Free software isnt free as in beer, but free as in freedom of information.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Even if DoD is knocked out completely, every application and every game will still be cracked and distributed within 48 hours of release.
Do you believe in life after death? - No, I believe in death after life.
We don't live in a democracy, we live in a republic, those who represent us (to some small degree...) get to push the federal government agencies in the direction they want. The FBI is no exception. They fight the federal government fires first.
The real problem with this is the "elitist" representatives are passing laws to quiet the public. 70 percent of our government representatives are millionaires, they don't represent the average American.
There is no Political Equality in the USA.
Perhaps.. But I don't think it's unrealistic to assume they have several hundred gigs in CDs laying around.
Rod Taylor
So what about high school/college students who are interested in Oracle, SQL Server, Photoshop, Visual Studio, etc.? Even at the "discounted" educational price, most apps are way out of budget for most folks (In high school, I was lucky to have enough for a night of playing pool...College was worse).
Don't ignore the fact that many of these apps cost so much money they make it near impossible for anyone to just "learn the tool." Once they've pirated a copy, they aren't using it to make money, they're learning it so they can get jobs. When they get those jobs, they bring the product to company they work for, and those companies purchase the product and pay up tons of $$ in licensing fees.
Was that pirated copy worth it to the company? Damn right it was.
Was that pirated copy worth it to O'Reily and WROX Press? Damn right it was.
I wonder how many game 3D designers went out and bought Alias or Maya just to see if they had the knack for it? I can't see any of them forking over a few grand just to see, "What does it look like?" That would be a big, resounding, "No."
Sometimes a short-term loss can mean big bucks in the long run.
I gave myself to Jesus, but now he never calls
Well simply undefine it or
delete [] piracy;
Naw, that's way too simple. Better way?
[beating a dead horse]
Know what's enclosed in the back of every $34.95 "Linux for Idiots" book? A complete, fully functional distro of Red Hat Linux. I'm pretty sure the "For Idiots" company pays a tithe to Red Hat, don't they?
If M$ "gave away" their most basic product, the OS itself, in the form of a flashy "Learn how to use Windows XP!" manual with the full program enclosed, and charge no more than the price of a "For Idiots" book, then people will say "Why would I want to pirate XP when I can get it for free in the back of this book?" and cheerfully pay for it. Then sell a home/small business version of Office XP in the form of another flashy book. They needn't even open-source their software. Then they can charge the normal price for all the programming environments, games, customer service, etc.
But it seems that Linux companies are the only ones to figure out how to make a profit off of "free" software this way.
[/beating a dead horse]
I still have to scratch my chin at comparisons between gimp and photoshop - the latter is overpriced, but when gimp can do cmyk separations and the like, prepress stuff, then I might listen more.
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
Piracy is bad
so says the S.B.A group
remember Linux is FREE
Copy that Floppy
Bill Gates needs no more money
think Blue Screen of Death
stealing this software
putting it up on Kazaa
FEDs talking to Mom!
M.I.T. and Duke
Homes to the Drink or Die Crew
How bout cracking books!
Leet Warez Kiddies rule!
I Have all the zero day wares
Never kissed a girl.
when they ban enctryption only criminals wi$21*J *#JF$%!@#$':
The OSFS (Oh Shit! File System) (TM)
The next step in preventing data recovery is the Oh Shit! filesystem. This is a CFS used solely for the storage of 'temporary data', where the key is randomly generated at boot time. If the system is shutdown, crashes, or loses power, all data is lost... irrecovably.
For the really paranoid, I've got friends working on the encryption of off-core memory, so the key only ever exists inside the CPU and on-chip cache.
As to why people don't torch their warez collection when the Feds are kicking in the door, perhaps because that is a criminal act in of itself :-)
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
I have heard that there is desirable software beyond that which is produced by Microsoft.
That $5 license doesn't do a student who wants a copy of Maya any good, does it?
What are we talking about here?
/.: If you don't agree to the term, you can't distribute GPL software. Fine. If you don't agree to the term on a given software, you can't distribute it to your friends, relatives, set up a ftp etc etc.
We're talking about pirating, as in distributing software you don't have permission to distribute, as in, not following the terms that a software is distributed under. We're not talking about EULA here.
GPL sets certain terms for distribution of software, BSD License sets other terms. Other software packages yet another term.
Again and again, we have gotten this beaten into us at
Why is it OK for these people to break copyright and set up distribution, but it's not OK for me, for instance, to break copyright, and distribute binary only GPL software?
Je ne parle pas francais.
It is about time the Feds started cracking down on this stuff. Warez is bad and only hurts the economy and free software. I just had a fight with my finacee' the other day because she was pirating Windows ME. I told her that she won't be pirating software in my house, or music for that matter.
There was once a time, that not only did I pirate software.. but I was also a trader, back when a 28.8 modem was cool. I have turned around and no longer pirate any software, and I feel much better for it. It really is nuts to even consider pirating software, why would I? Everything I need is available in a free (gpl or bsd) version; Why would I ever have to pirate? Especially when it is wrong.
Feed the starving developers or better yet, use free software; You know it is better anyway.
that market their main products solely for the Microsoft platform
Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
-schussat
The hour of noon has passed. Let us go and get some Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Adobe at least does do this, as do Macromedia, etc et al. And some of the software that Adobe doesn't make available online *can* be gotten by speaking to the nearby Adobe distributor...
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
It's amazing what the government will do to protect M$.
This is actually a more profound statement then the moderators make it out to be. Yes, its the typical Slashdotien Microsoft bashing, but its deeper than that.
The government is protecting the largest software and motion picture companies (the articles cited lots of pirated movies as well).
What about your small software house (are there any that still exist?) that is also suffering from software piracy (a LOT more than Microsoft could ever be). The government isn't running to their rescue.
This is a true problem when it comes to that little thing called "equal protection under the law". The government isn't equally protecting small software authors, in fact they probablly aren't protecting them at all.
If you doubted that the governemnt was corrupt and seeks to only protect big business, does it seem all clearer now?
"ISPs learned they could make money "
Okay, all you who have had to change providers due to your existing one going belly up, raise your hand.
Now all you who were with @HOME, raise your hand.
Now, all you... oh wait, there's no one left.
Let's not be using ISP's as a model for business plans, eh?
So the software giants go out and claim that N dollars are lost because these people have obtained their software in a fashion not endorsed by these proprietors. This deems the obtaining and posession illegal. If one is intending on further distributing this software, it is even more serious. And perhaps there is a small margin of people that now won't pay for something they got for "free". But I am of the opinion that most of these people would end up buying the software anyway because they like the fuzzy feeling of doing the right thing. The others simply either do not have the money, or don't think it's worth paying for. So the N dollars lost is nothing that was a revenue stream in the first place. Hence not such a big loss.
But what these software giants DON'T say is how much business they gained from having people obtain their software illegally. Imagine this 17 year old kid who started with Windows 2000 when it started hitting the warez scene. What if he wouldn't have been able to do this? How much less exposure - and addiction - to this product would he sustain as a result? Probably lots. Much of the corporate usage of products such as the various productivity suites and tools is due to the exposure people get to a certain piece of software.
Did you ever meet some guy/girl who maintains that Lotus WordPro or Corel WordPerfect is superior, or simply that that's what they use? Sure you have, even though they aren't that vast in numbers. These people are most likely honest customers from the very start. They bought a computer and got the software bundled, or they bought the software in the store. And they kept with it because that's what they know. But again, they are few. Now look at all the attention Microsoft has on their Office suite. Is there a coincidence that this particular piece of software seems to be far more trafficked than competitive products?
Also pay attention to the fact that when a Microsoft OS is in beta stages, these builds seem to fly around on the Internet like crazy. Even "secret" or "leaked" builds do. And people collect and probably install them and use them. Because they want to be the first kid on their block with Windows XL or whatever the next version will be called. Microsoft seems to do nothing about the spread of this software. However, once it is released and stores charge for the software, it's another ballgame.
I would put more credibility in the reports if they were accredited an estimate on how much sales increased just because of piracy. Of course I am just speculating, but to me it makes sense.
Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. -Ayn Rand
Yeah. ESR and those that VA made rich....
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
What, two weeks?
God, how the mighty have fallen. :)
Back when I was a teen, the 64 pirate scene often had software six months before. In some cases it was a year or more.
I never even saw a legal copy of Elite, for example. :)
my old sig used to be funny, but then slashcode ate it and now it's not funny anymore
stop justifying your illegal behaviour because you want it to be "morally acceptable". Either you steal because you want to steal, or you don't. Period, end of story. Stop whining about how it makes your pussy hurt when you're not allowed to "try" photoshop before you "buy" it.
My friend just informed me of this...
http://www.internettrafficreport.com/#graphs
Look at the first graph. Internet traffic has dropped over 50% since the raids.
--------------------------------------
58.0% slashdot corrupt
"Warez" pirates accused of breaking the law get their computers seized, publically criminalized before a trial when Commerce undersecretary Phil Bond said, "This is a serious crime. These people should do some hard time." because their accused activities are supposedly causing billions of dollars of damage and putting companies out of business.
Yet Microsoft has been found guilty in two courts for anti-competitive behavior, and stealing billions from it's consumers and competitors, and putting several of their competitors out of business; and they have never had a single computer seized and will only get a slap on the wrist as opposed to this "hard time" that Mr. Bond talks about.
Also check out Yahoo, the DOJ and Quote.com for more articles that don't need a registration
An absolute joke. First off, the stories that they're putting out are ludicrious. "4 Tiers, billions of dollars, hard criminals... blah blah blah". Weren't we at War?
I'm sure glad the US government is sinking undoubtedly billions in to this.. (I'm exagerating? Perhaps, but isn't this exactly what the government is doing when they inflate the "BILLIONS OF DOLLARS PROBABLY LOST"?) Nobody killed anyone in the name of piracy. No nations were brought to the ground by this. No corporations have gone bankrupt. NOTHING HAS HAPPENED.
Yet, the governments of the world insist on fighting this element that doesn't kill anyone and doesn't make anyone starve out on the street and this is something that probably NEVER will end.
From the government standpoint, this can't look much better for them. They get to tell you who the bad guy is and what wrong things they're doing, AND they get to say "LOOK! We caught them too!". They also get paid, they get to keep all the hardware they've confinsacted (whether it was involved in "wrong doing" or not), and it looks like they've gotten off their lazy asses and done something.
The FBI and other federal agents are the one's stealing, they've stolen hardware and alot of it. They've stolen taxpayer money wasting time on this instead of going after drug dealers and murderers. They've also stolen many people's time.
The authorities are no different than some other people that recently "struck" on a Tuesday as well. If you get what I mean.
I just wasted your mod points! HA!
By offering my software up for the taking the software thieves are, at least some of the time, depriving me of a sale, so yes, they are depriving me of something. Also, there are things other than personal agreements that people in a modern society are expected to adhere to, for example, laws. In this case, the copyright laws.
That's the problem, this has nothing to do with the right to controll your work, it has to do with the "right" to controll market share. But that is not a right, and every other company in America has to deal with it.
You are correct about the law, but there is another law in the US called the Bill of Rights. In the information age, copying and free expression are becomming inseperable, you can't deny this without being left behind and you can't accept this without choosing between loosing copyrights or loosing freedom of speech. Checkmate!
We sound like the marijuana activists. Yes, the arguments make perfect sense, but no one other than us is interested.
Unlike the norml groups we have a wonderful, free alternative.
So fuck 'em, use linux.
"A matter of internal security, the age old cry of the oppressor" - Jean Luc Picard
WAREZ n., (wares) (alt pronouc: ware-ez)
1. Commercial software, generally of a highly desireable nature, but with an exhorbitant price thus not allowing curious young hackers a chance to even try it.
2. Software in general.
What WAREZ is not:
1. A group of people.
2. An organization.
3. Anything but software.
A "warez" group is a group who is interesting the the afformentioned software. IT IS NOT SOME "CYBERGANG" OR OTHER SUCH DRIVEL. Gee, with reporting like this, one has to wonder if we are really at war with Afghanistan because of terrorism, or if this is all about oil.
See "Wag the Dog" for more information.
Cool! Amazing Toys.
Is it unethical - NO! (in my opinion)
The "download, try and buy-if-you-use-it" approach is even good for a country's economy. Follow me on this one:
- If people can properly evaluate the software before they buy it, beter-quality/more-adequate software will be chosen
- If the software is beter, this means that time lost in crashes, lost work, going around the software's limitations decreases - this implies a productivity growth ( spending your time solving software problems is not a productive activity )
- At the same time, the number of software packages bought doesn't decrease - people buy software because they need it (keep in mind this is the ones that use the "download, try and buy-if-you-use-it" approach), so if they couldn't try it before buying it they would either risky it with something or maybe think beter about it and not buy anything
- Since the same ammount of software is sold and the average productivity of the users will increase, this means that the average productivity across the country will increase - this means less $$$ spent for each $$$ made
As i see it, the same ammount of software is still sold, it's just that it's selected more on qualitiy and less on hype.Given the current quality of most software out there, any behaviour that promotes the "natural selection" of quality software over crap software is ethical and positive.
Violating the DMCA is now an act of terrorism.
But only when performed by an individual against a large corporation. Otherwise you may as well simply send the B52s in over any large US corp...
Microsoft? Yeah and maybe Adobe, but really. ITs just as many as there are successful ISPs. And AOL is the Microsoft of ISPs
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Yes its a good idea, but no ones actually doing it.
Make open source profitable.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
The licences/laws/formal-rules are not the core here, it's all a question of what's ethical to do and what's not:
Of course, people can organise themselves, but again that costs money. In the end, it is often easier for a corporation to buy influence through a lobbying movement than it is for people to persuade a politician themselves.
See my journal, I write things there
Take a look at some 0day warez websites and the software the offer (or rather, they claim to offer to trick you into banner clicks)
95% is complete and utter crap which noone in their right mind would ever download.
The U.S. is already a dictatorship. Did you miss the last election, or was the cheesy writing of that choreographed event too subtle for you?
Anyway, this whole kafuffle about software piracy is nothing new, and who the hell cares? The Evil Overlords WANT you to be plugged into your flickering boxes, because they make you soft and dumb and easy to control. GTA3 and all those retarded shooting games? Whether or not they create Columbine Kids is totally irrelivent. Fact is, the power/money/establisment people THINK that such games raise the danger level of society, which makes it easier for heavier internal security measures to be passed into law.
No matter what the playing field happens to look like over the next ten years, whether you have to pay through the nose, duck arrests or trade software in a free for all, Joe Asshole WILL be plugged in, he WILL think that his choice to be plugged in will have been un-affected by the general miasma of social programming which surrounds us all, and as a result, his brain WILL be all mushy and ripe for 'instruction' and easy control.
What are YOU going to do about it?
-Fantastic Lad
If as many argue, computers are like brains, or like extensions of our brains, then the patterns of code which flow through them are the thoughts and the ideas.
Now, I don't charge for my ideas, even though they take life energy, (Time, food, security), to generate. I share them freely. (A little too freely, some of you might suggest!)
The whole charade of selling ideas, and licences for ideas was pretty bloody weird to begin with. Just because something takes hard work doesn't mean that it must automatically be compensated. If you don't want an idea shared, then DON'T TELL IT TO ANYBODY! Like any secret, once you let the cat out of the bag, it's out of your control. It's ridiculous to imagine people running around trying to sell limited licences for secrets and punishing people who re-tell a secret to somebody else. (Except that's what the whole spy/espionage/cold-war culture was all about. . . How nice was that to live in?)
And yet, millionaires are made and broken today based on this farcical software industry, and as such people have come to accept the reality of it. They give it power by playing along with it, as though it were something with actual legitimacy.
The fact is that ideas need to be communicated in order for them to thrive. But our society has become increasingly dependent upon maintaining a thought restriction and control system, (complete with 'Thought Police'!). This is making all our lives miserable in many ways which are invisible because we have already accepted the premise that ideas can and should be controlled by those who think them up.
Basically:
1. An operating system should be made by the computer manufacturer and come as part of the system, burned on a rom. It should be part of the cost of manufacture, as it is an essential part of the computer; it should be free and open for people to manipulate as they please.
2. The kind of games we see today should basically not exist under a sensible system. The enormous effort and resource which goes into their manufacture is moronic, like the crazy hedonistic parties the Roman emperors threw; highly enjoyed by the participants, but which can only be maintained at enormous cost to the civilization. That cost being, the sale and ultimate control of thought.
I find games boring, and bloat-ware lame. I steal and distribute it all in the hopes that the whole architecture of the software industry will collapse under the weight of its own insanity. I'm probably only helping to speed us toward the end of things.
Pardon me. There are some gentlemen in black at my front door. . .
-Fantastic Lad
If as many argue, computers are like brains, or like extensions of our brains, then the patterns of code which flow through them are the thoughts and the ideas.
Now, I don't charge for my ideas, even though they take life energy, (Time, food, security), to generate. I share them freely. (A little too freely, some of you might suggest!)
The whole charade of selling ideas, and licences for ideas was pretty bloody weird to begin with. Just because something takes hard work doesn't mean that it must automatically be compensated. If you don't want an idea shared, then DON'T TELL IT TO ANYBODY! Like any secret, once you let the cat out of the bag, it's out of your control. It's ridiculous to imagine people running around trying to sell limited licences for secrets and punishing people who re-tell a secret to somebody else. (Except that's what the whole spy/espionage/cold-war culture was all about. . . And how nice was that to live in?)
And yet, millionaires are made and broken today based on this farcical software industry, and as such people have come to accept the reality of it. They give it power by playing along with it, as though it were something with actual legitimacy.
The fact is that ideas need to be communicated in order for them to thrive. But our society has become increasingly dependent upon maintaining a thought restriction and control system, (complete with 'Thought Police'!). This is making all our lives miserable in many ways which are invisible because we have already accepted the premise that ideas can and should be controlled by those who think them up.
Basically:
1. An operating system should be made by the computer manufacturer and come as part of the system, burned on a rom. It should be part of the cost of manufacture, as it is an essential part of the computer; it should be free and open for people to manipulate as they please.
2. The kind of games we see today should basically not exist under a sensible system. The enormous effort and resource which goes into their manufacture is moronic, like the crazy hedonistic parties the Roman emperors threw; highly enjoyed by the participants, but which can only be maintained at enormous cost to the civilization. That cost being, the sale and ultimate control of thought.
I find games boring, and bloat-ware lame. I steal and distribute it all in the hopes that the whole architecture of the software industry will collapse under the weight of its own insanity. Sad thing is that it benefits the Evil Overlords for people to be distracted by their flickering boxes, (makes you soft and stupid and easy to control), so this state of affairs where people are inundated with software/programming will likely continue regardless of whether it's free, stolen or paid for.
Pardon me. There are some gentlemen in black at my front door. . .
-Fantastic Lad
According to an article at BBC News on-line,
So, I guess after taking them down, on-line piracy will fall by 95% and the problem will be solved for a while, huh?And why can't journalists ever tell the difference between "hacker" and "cracker" anyway?
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Wow you have the view of business economics way wrong.
your employer pays you as little as possible to keep you working. Salary raises are always miniscule (when was the last time you got a > 12% raise) and many many promises are made but never fulfiled.
Truth: your "benefits" will shrink to the national average baseline over a 2 year period from the date of hire. that is standard practice, offere more and shrink them slowly to normal.
Advertise the position as $low to $high and the employee will NEVER reach the high point. They will not hire you at that level, they never do. They want only a body that can do the job for the least amount of money, any extra skills are rewarded with worthless glass awards and NO salary or benifits increases.
no, in the real business world, if company profits were to triple, employee salaries will go up by 3% if they are lucky.... actuality the increase will be in the form of a "performance bonus" that will look nice but is made of un-obtainium.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Ok, I like your idea, so when are they going to start busting all the criminals on the roads? over 80% of drivers break many traffic laws every time they get in the car. why? because of the same thing that makes them copy software and pirate things, the feeling on entitlement. They are entitled to drive 15 over the speed limit, they are entitled to tailgate people obeying the law and put that person life at risk.
they are entitled to drive like idiots.
Until you make the laws have teeth the people will piss on the laws. Make speeding 5 over the speed limit a 1000.00 fine and 3 points on the license. tailgating a reckless driving offense and suspend the license and boot the car for 30 days.
make software piracy with intent to sell a death penalty crime.
until the laws make people afraid of breaking them they will never be obeyed.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
When the big companies whose whining prompted these raids actually finds out who these people are, they should pay them. Piracy has been the friend of big software for years.
Consider two scenarios:
Scenario 1: Adobe releases Photoshop. No one ever makes an illegal copy of it. So kids who want to goof around with pix they got on the Internet don't use it; they use a shareware Paint Shop-type app instead. If the bug bites him, he'll probably spend a lot of time on that piece of software, getting better and better with it. A small percentage of these kids might get their parents to spring for a copy of the real thing for Christmas or something, but don't count on it.
Meanwhile, Mr. Graphic Design Company CEO needs a tool to use in his design shop. Does he go with Photoshop? Maybe -- it has a lot of options. Big problem, though -- he'll have to train people to use it. Of course, there are some real hotshots out there with Paint Shop experience. Hmmm...maybe I only use Paint Shop, and outsource to a specialty company when I need Photoshop work. In fact, maybe I don't _need_ Photoshop; these guys are getting a lot of the same effects using the more primitive shareware tools.
Scenario 2: Adobe releases Photoshop. Individuals, mostly people who can't afford personal copies (students, kids at home, pros or amateurs at home) pirate it. They develop proficiency in it. Companies (who can be easily audited) more or less always buy licensed copies -- and they do buy it, because their employee base is all fluent in Photoshop!
Thanks, software piracy!
phil
... against yesterday's pirates. Now, when anyone can just use a p2p program to share a program they've ripped, cracked or made an image file out of, why would warez groups follow the old model of distribution at all? Oh, so they can be 3l33t and stuff. Look, except for very expensive programs, all you need is a copy, a skilled cracker or two, and a p2p program and the net will take care of the rest.
By the way, if the feds let all the pirate groups copy their releases and the pirate groups distributed them to all others, how many warez owners are there who've just gotten a little extra from their government this year? Isn't this a lot like if the government grew pot, sold it to 50 people, let the 50 people sell it to all their friends and then got around to busting the 50? Ohh, they got 50 drug dealers! Wow! Meanwhile, a couple of thousand hippies are stumbling around high on government pot.
Makes you wonder how they're fighting the war on terror, doesn't it?
Someone who I saw speak once said that in some third world companies, it's difficult at first to convince people to use free software instead of illegal copies of windows- until, that is, signs go up saying things like "Use illegal Windows = go to jail for 10 years". Apparently outside of the US the anti-piracy folks are less subtle, and there's no better advertisement for free software in the whole world.
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
Someone called into the G. Gordon Liddy show about this the other day, but forgot the details.
I remember the incident in the late 80's or early 90's a software company sold a copy or two of some sort of management software to the feds. DOJ I believe.
The agency then copied and copied, sold copies to other agencies and other folks, etc.
FINALLY, years later, after the firm was out of business or nearly bankrupt, they were heard in court but I believe the case was settled before a judgement was made.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
Look, just because you don't like a law doesn't mean you won't face the consequences if you break it. That's what civil disobedience is all about, taking absurd responsibility for an unjust law. What these idiots were doing was breaking the law hoping to never face the consequences.
... at which point you may well find yourself serving hard time for living in the same apartment as your lover (this happened in Texas a few years ago, brought to you compliments of a local DA of the religiously right persuasion and a century old state law no one remembered remaining on the books), or doing some other innocuous thing (like singing a copyrighted song in public, say in a bar with your drunken friends) which common sense would tell you would never be illegal, but our lawmakers and/or their corporate paymasters say otherwise.
Well, not to defend the warez dudez, for they were (and probably still are) idiots, but you should be very careful what you wish for. There are so many laws on the books these days at so many levels of government restricting and legislating virtually every aspect of our lives that each of us, just about every day we get out of bed, is breaking a number of laws just by living out our daily lives. Without ever meaning to, and certainly without malice.
What allows us to live out our daily lives? The fact that these laws are (almost) never enforced, at least until some local police officer or official develops a personal vindetta against you
So the argument that enforcing unjust and absurd laws, which many of us feel copyright in the digital age to be, is a screwed up priority in light of current, more pressing events, isn't so misguided, particularly given that our very ability to conduct our normal, everyday lives depends in no small part on the selective enforcement of a plethora of existing laws anyway.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
What if the cart of paper happens to be uncut hundred dollar bills worth 20 million dollars?
It isn't so much that the treasury department misses the few thousand dollars it cost to buy the paper and print the bills. The economy wouldn't suffer because there's an extra 20 million in cash floating around. But the thieves still made off with 20 million dollars in cash. You can sit around talking about how the economy doesn't suffer, and how the treasury department didn't suffer, but there's no doubt that the culprits have 20 million extra dollars.
It's kind of the same thing. There is a way of saying "look, microsoft didn't lose any money." But, there's also a way of saying "look, these people have in their posession 20 million dollars worth of software they shouldn't." It doesn't really matter to me whether or not microsoft actually suffered. It is enough that they could potentially suffer. Laws were broken, the pirates have software they did not obtain legally, and they were so proficient and brazen that the FBI actually paid attention to them.
You are right about the microsoft thing being crap, however. :)
Jack Valenti and the MPAA are to technology as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone
I think that they did face the consequences... seems to me that there was a bit of a messy war that happened not long after that--no doubt many of those same disguised Bostonians were wounded or killed during the Revolution. I don't think that was civil disobedience so much as a step on the path to inciting a war, which is what happened.
But that brings up a good point--there is a difference between conducting legitimate civil disobedience and just breaking the law to get something you want. I doubt that many of these pirates were truly interested in making a statement about unjust laws. IMHO, civil disobedience requires the willingness to be arrested and jailed, very publicly, in order to make your point. It is, as you say, to draw attention to an unjust law, and the best way to do that is to force the public to realize the absurdity of the actions versus the consequences. A lot of those who would currently claim the mantle of civil disobedience seem to want to skip the consequence part. That's understandable, but regardless of the fact that the law may be unjust, it's a necessary part of the game. If they don't want to do time, they need to hire a lobbyist and work inside the system. Otherwise, people need to stop whining and make their choices.
No relation to Happy Monkey
This is BS...what do you think McCartyism was? If anything I would suggest that the existance of a threat to our national security (be it russian or al queda) probably decresses our freedom. Remember freedom is only a poorly defined word...we don't need to actually have it for our leaders to say that is what we are fighting for (for instance the double talk bush is giving about the forms of freedom not interfering with freedom itself)
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
The campus internets are the last bastions of the internet as it was supposed to be. Peer computers and subnets operating as equals. All else in the US is now firmly in large corporate hands. Whose your ISP? ATT eventually.
I fear that this stupid Warez trash and September 11th will be used as a cover issue to kill freedom. Who here really wants a copy of "Planet of the Apes" or M$ Office? Such stuff is garbage and I'll be happy when there's less of it flowing on the net. But I'm much more concerned about the levels of proof used for these raids and newer dumber laws like USA and Patriot acts. Away go the computers to sit for months or years while "experts" try to extract "evidence" of your wrongdoing. Speedy trial, right.
I'll be very pissed if my favorite Debian mirrors go away.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Give me a break; this is complete and utter overreaction. The government should kick in doors and confiscate computers over violating COPYRIGHT law?
Yes. Yes they should. This is how ALL the laws are enforced. Me personally, I don't like the Social Security system. I can invest the money much better than the government does, but if I figured out some way to finagle them out of 1000 FICA payments, you know what they would do? They'd bust down my door.
Law enforcement agencies should coordinate raids on an INTERNATIONAL scale?
There's more than meets the eye here. Counterfeit merchandise (not just software but also other stuff like videos, designer clothing, etc.) is a known source of funding for... wait for it... terrorism.
Sorry I don't have the link handy, but there was a big article in the dead tree edition of the Washington Post about this. It should be archived on their website somewhere.
Personally, I don't like to use pirated software, something which my friends consider odd. Yes, it is wrong, but despite what the corporate flacks say, it's not the same as stealing.
Now, perhaps casual copying between friends is not as bad as using mass-produced knock offs, but even if you really weren't going to buy the package there is an important principle involved. Allowing such activity contributes to an environment where breaking the law is considered acceptable. Like it or not, society has established rules. There are mechanisms in our society to change the rules (activism, etc.) but if you choose the route of civil disobedience you have to live with the consequence. History will reveal you to be either a hero or a crackpot. This is pretty much how it's always been, and I don't see it changing anytime soon.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Let this be not only a lesson about Linux and the GPL, but about banks in America. This kind of behaviour is completely sanctioned by federal banking laws. Most people don't realize it, but federally insured banks are allowed to whatever they want, whenever, they want, with your money and you can't do a damn thing about it.
As someone who tries very scrupilously to obey the law, I ask this with no neferious intentions other than protecting my own solvency against misguided or perhaps even malicious government or banking beaurocrats:
Are there any countries one can recommend where a private person's finances are protected against this kind of unilateral action, where some kind of due legal process is required before one's accounts are frozen? Although I live in the United States, I bank online and use direct deposit, so I don't really need physical access to my bank all that often.
How do Canadian laws compare? German Laws? Swiss Laws?
After reading this nightmare scenerio I have more than half a mind to switch banks outside of this country in the very near future. Can anyone offer any pointers to hard information, comparisons, and guidance for individuals wishing to do their banking offshore to protect themselves against this sort of thing, what pitfalls there may be (legally as well as financially), and so on?
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Rather than have "(Free Reg. Req., blah blah)" appended to every freaking NYTimes link, why don't you just use an acronym like (FRR) linking to an everything2 node that explains it for the 3 people who have never visited NYTimes and have never seen a slashdot reference to a NYTimes article.
bp
Ever notice that a lot of piracy is of big-ticket, high-end software packages (Maya, Lightwave, Photoshop, Visual Studio, etc)?
And that a lot of it is done by college students?
People that, by and large, like to play with things, but don't have much money?
No college student or tinkerer is going to drop $2500 on a software package that he/she is only going to play with.
Many companies offer "educational" licenses, but usually the discounts are only a couple hundred bucks off the retail, so legal software is still out of reach of most people, not to mention the discount is only applicable to students.
My solution?
Non-commercial use licenses.
Sell licenses that basically just offsets the cost of the media, with the restriction that the software can't be used for commercial purposes.
Corporations (the main market for high-end software) still pay full price, but students and tinkerers get the software for virtually nothing.
The software companies lose nothing (since people that can't afford the software at retail prices won't buy it anyways) and create a huge base of (mostly young) people that will potentially become commercial customers in the future.
Enforce non-commercial use the same way we enforce educational use now, with EULAs and, when necessary, feds.
Yes, there will be cheaters, but there are cheaters now, and I don't see the software industry suffering.
The way I see it, everyone wins.
Big companies pay big money, kids making weird flash movies in their parents' basement, don't.
C-X C-S
Maybe this raid was a result of post sept 11 international cooperation. Maybe it was a result of increased police powers. It's nieve to assume that these enhanced powers will only be used to fight terrorists. Leaders are increasingly doing intelligence on their adversaries. Clinton looked at his opponent's FBI files. Bush Senior was head of the CIA for chrissakes (yes, I know they're not the FBI but they are an intelligence organization)
It should be assumed that any new powers granted to the police will eventually be used for whatever the hell the state wants to use them for. In the US, this means continued dominance of the two major political parties.
Warez are just a secondary issue in all this. Personally, I've used them since I've gotten tired of being dicked around by software companies. For example, I bought a macromedia suite of software as a student. When I installed it I got the message that it was for 'educational use only' and could not be used for commercial projects despite the fact that I had paid somthing like $200 for it (can't remember the exact figure). I tried to return it, as the EULA said that I should do and the store refused. I tried contancting Macromedia and they gave me the run around. " fax the information to us." "Our fax is broken" etc.
Microsoft did the same for Frontpage (yeah, my fault for buying the *$%&). They refused to remotly enable the software and wanted personal information before they'd let me use it.
Somehow I doubt the FBI is going to raid Macromedia, and the government seems to be calling off it's 'raid' on Microsoft.
The legitimacy of the law comes from the fact that it's applied equally to all people. Without that, it's just a bunch of men in blue with riot gear.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
your employer pays you as little as possible to keep you working.
This last statement is of course true. Why would they pay you more than you're willing to work for? This is a good answer to the poster who asked why certain types of workers make less; when there are more people willing to do a certain job, then the salary falls, because there is more competition for the spot. This is, again, why programmers make more than garbage collectors.
And I'll be honest... I'm not sure I would trust someone who is willing to pay me more than I'm worth. I don't know about you, but I get email from random companies all of the time telling me they'll hire me for twice what I'm getting paid. When I see this, I'm inherently suspicious. Perhaps, once in a blue moon, this sort of offer is made in good faith, but it's usually just bullshit. Maybe I'm cynical, but whenever I see someone in the business world proporting to not be looking out for their own interests, I get very suspicious...
no, in the real business world, if company profits were to triple, employee salaries will go up by 3% if they are lucky
This is not true. For example, what is the average starting salary of someone graduating with a BS in CS? Now, graph that from the period '90-'00. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but are you going to say that this grew at 3% per year?
Come on, give it up, that's
On the other hand, I do think the economic value of the product is a factor. For example, there aren't many people who can, say, sew a quilt, like those 100-year-old Quaker things. And they're very nice. But they aren't worth a whole lot, certainly not compared to M$ Office. So programmers will make more than quilters, in general.
I think hgh pay comes from a combination of lack of qualified workers, and a product which can generate revenue.
Come on, give it up, that's
that's not the point. I am not arguing that the laws are good or bad, I am arguing that they are ineffective.
people will pirate software as long as it stays the way it is, a un-pushable crime. and that for the most part is very true. 95% of all pirated software users will never get even a nasty letter in the mail.. the ones that get arrested are the stupid ones... Kinda like the bank robber that runs up and down the streets screaming "I rob banks! I rob banks! Nyah Nyah!"
every cracker/or warez person arrested was arresed because they were immensley stupid.
the medicore cracker that has 1/2 a brain will never get arrested because they aren't stupid enough to brag about it, or leave tracks. Same for a smart warez-king.
If you want a law to work, make it have teeth. but then there needs to be a balance too... If the law is unconstitutional, then the people that drafted that bill/law must suffer a televised flogging and humiliation. (I can dream cant i?)
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Go visit Tibet, Congo, Saudi Arabia or a place like that, then tell me we have a dictitaorship here. It sounds like you seriously need a glass of perspective and soda. If you really think the US is a dictatorship, leave. You are free to emmegrate to a new country at any time and the FBI/CIA/RIAA/whoever don't care.
The country is not a dictatorship just because the presidential candidate you happend to like lost.
Then why hasn't congress passed any worthwhile laws recently?
Who defines "worthwhile"? Some of them think the PATRIOT Act was worthwhile, though a number of us would disagree. Frankly, I'm just glad they haven't passed even more "worthwhile" laws like that recently - and doubly so that passing laws in situations like this is (supposed to be) hard. As for why they think those laws are worth passing, well, that's a political discussion that would take its own Katz article; suffice it to say for me, I voted against the current administration.
I mean, why do we still have SPAM,
There are laws against junk faxes, for much the same reason as the grievances against junk email. The laws are almost never enforced. Merely passing laws will not help.
and those ads that spawn other ads when you close them,
I surf the 'Net with Javascript turned off, only turning it on when I run across a site that requires it - and turning it back off when I'm done. Or, if I need Javascript on for an extended period of time, I turn it off immediately if I run into whack-a-mole popups, just long enough to close said popups, then turn it back on and resume life. I don't have any problem with popup ads.
and why do I have to goddamn pass idiots in the right lane because they drive 54 in the left lane and won't pull over?
Because no cop has come and pulled them over. If you have the local police department's number (not 911: this isn't an emergency), get on the offender's tail (but don't tailgate) long enough to read the license plate, then put in a call to the cops filing a complaint. They will probably at least investigate, and maybe even dispatch a car immediately (if you tell them where you are), since 54 in the left lane is a safety hazard (assuming there is space in the other lanes to pull into, and it's not 54 vs. 34 in all other lanes).
Hmmm... I guess I should have qualified what I was saying better.
I don't disagree that people would like to accomplish their goals without paying the price--wouldn't we all! But civil disobedience on a small scale (in other words, those cases where you do NOT have a million people out marching) relies upon garnering respect. I think that respect comes from seeing people who are dedicated enough to their cause to break an unjust law and face the consequences. When they are NOT willing to face the consequences, the respect tends to evaporate (no one likes a whiner!) and their potential for gathering support with it. This could be a personal bias, but I am much more moved by someone who someone who goes out to face imprisonment precisely in order to draw attention to their cause, than by someone who suddenly finds that they have a cause only after they get caught. Fighting the charges is perfectly acceptable, because it generates more attention and the courts often provide the best forum for demonstrating the absurdity of truly unjust laws. But the willingness to go to that length is, IMHO, what separates those who are exercising true civil disobedience from the people who just happened to be breaking the law and got caught.
So it's not a case of wanting to do time or not--it's a case of being willing to do it if that's what it takes. This does not require narcissists or the insane; just people with strong convictions. The presence of a desire not to be punished does not in any way preclude a willingness to face such punishment if it is required to accomplish the goal. The worst thing that can happen is to be completely ignored (although at that point, what is there to disobey?).
Anyway; the warez d00dz and I agree on more than a few points, but if any of them consider what they are doing civil disobedience (which I doubt) they didn't pick their fight very well. These issues are too arcane for a fair hearing in a public forum, and will likely remain so for years. Better demonstrations are available--people don't 'get' software, but they do get education, and the chilling effects of the DMCA on research and teaching institutions is probably the soft place where protesters should be driving the wedge.
No relation to Happy Monkey
takochan,
I'll refrain from expressing any view pro or con here, as I think it is an issue with many greys. I just want to make an observation that you say, "but in other cases, it is not so clear.." then you go forth with two examples that many would argue clearly show the opposite viewpoint. If you wanted to discuss ambiguity, take a look at an average sized software company, like maybe one that produces software for a niche market. Let's say this company has 100 people, 25 of whom are the developers. These are typical programmer types like you maybe and certainly like me. Let's say this company is run by some fat cat who pays the programmers a decent wage, but keeps the profits for himself. Now if this companies customers start saying, "hey, we already paid for this software, it's okay if we install it on a few more machines," then the companies revinues will subsequently go down. Now being a fat cat, the owner doesn't want to give up any of his income, so he lets a few employees go (including, inevitably, some of those "overpaid" programmers). Then a few more. Eventually all the customers are gone and the company has closed shop. Didn't hurt the owner at all, he's still rich and will go off and find another tax write-off. So is piracy acceptable in this case? I mean, it didn't hurt the fat cat, who is the one that was risking his money on that company, right? Even that example isn't that great, but it's certainly greyer that either picture that you painted. And I think that's really the thing about piracy: it's not a black and white issue.
-"Zow"
Why would you think that?
"If he thinks he can hide and run from the United States and our allies, he's sorely mistaken." Bush on bin Laden
illegal copying already has a word for it
If not piracy, what is it? "Illegal copying" is two.
People are lazy. We all want a single word when we can get it. If that word is piracy, ohh well. On to other battles.
--- -- - -
Give me LIBERTY, or give me a check.
5,000 Movies
x 120 Mins per Movie
x 60 Mins per Second
x 4 Mbps (lowest rate for full screen MPEG2)
This suggest's about 17TB, (~585 30 Gig Disks).