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Educating Youngsters About Piracy
Colin Winters writes: "The New York Times has an article that is a follow-up to the recent raid by the government on pirates in universities. Some professors believe that "By the time we get them, they already believe it [piracy]'s right." An interesting read. There's also an interesting bit on how business software is now 1/3 pirated, down from 1/2 in 1995. In America, it's only 24%. From the way companies like Microsoft whine about piracy, I'd assumed the figures were increasing, not decreasing."
because my 10 year old doesn't understand why I can't just make a copy of Pod Racer so we can multiplayer at home.
Especially since his Mom has warez copies of MS Office on her machine that she uses to writes her papers.
I know what the Internet is, what the hell is this Interweb business?!
By educating you mean show them where to download the latest P2P program and show them where the warez/crackz sites are. Right? :)
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Piracy. It seems to evoke some romantic image of sailing the seven seas, drinking rum and singing sea shanties. People, when told 'you are a software pirate' seem to shrug it off. Call it its real name, and you can change people's minds.
Its not piracy, its stealing.
If 24% of the automobiles on the road in America were stolen from dealers' lots, would anyone feel that the auto industry had no right to "whine"? Why should it be any different with software?
MS Dos is (was) incredibly easy to pirate back in the days when it was widely used. If it was never pirated, it would never have become nearly as popular as it was. This would have made Windows less popular. Microsoft has piracy to thank in part for its success.
Successful software WILL be pirated. That's how you know that people are willing to buy your products. In the long run, the corporate clients who have to worry about staying legal within their contracts will comprise most of the legal purchases of software, while the little guy (individual persons like you and me) will still probably pirate the stuff. This is how software gains grassroots acceptance. I think piracy by some individuals is good for business. It's better than any advertising campaign.
Could the drop in percentage of software being pirated have less to do with individuals pirating less than they did before, and just the sheer number of computer users increasing?
In general, even the ease of use of peer 2 peer networks requires a minimum of tech saavy, and a faster broadband connection to make pirating your average 500+MB CD-Rom worth it, two things which the growing population new to computers don't have.
In previous years, the percentages of computer users who actually were real computer users and not just people who owned one for email or web browsing was certainly higher.
With this decrease in more advanced users compared to the general public, and the increase in the sheer size of pirated programs needing to be sent across your connection (Games, for example, going from a couple megs to a couple hundred in size), I'd see those two as the reason for the drop.
Isn't knowing how much software in the country is pirated a bit like claiming to know how many rapes go unreported each year? It's a statistic that is impossible to gather by the nature of the question.
I'll tell you one thing I hate about software these days. If I want to play a multi-player game of Ghost Recon or something with my brother, I have to buy at least two copies of the game (at more than $50 each!). However, if I want to play a multi-player game of Monopoly (pun intended) or Parcheesi, I don't have to buy a new game set for all four or eight people I'm going to play against.
by going to:
/ www.nytimes.com/2001/12/25/technology/25HACK.html
2 5HACK.html
http://archives.nytimes.com/auth/login?URI=http:/
OR
http://college.nytimes.com/2001/12/25/technology/
Editors: please start putting in these links in the stories--you know this crowd is big on privacy.
I think piracy is a bigger issue than we think, rooted in the ideas that stealing from a big corporation isn't stealing, because they obviously screwed little people over to get where they are today, so it's alright for us to screw over "them". It's a nameless, faceless "them" kids think they're screwing with, not individual people. Where I went to college there were countless students who had no problem ripping off credit card companies ("it's the companies we're hurting, not people, and the companies have millions to spare so who cares?") to get stuff they wanted, I was appauled, but there was no way to convince them that somewhere down the line, they were hurting the guy next door.
Piracy is about the fact that nobody cares about anybody, and that's just the fact of it.
spacefem.com
The professor is confussing "legal" with "right." Frankly, I see software piracy, especially of the larger conglomerate companies like Microsoft, as a moral issue more than a legal one.
Yes, it is illegal. But so long as companies like Microsoft abuse their position, lie to consumers, produce broken software, knowingly release bug-ladden insecure crap, and otherwise mistreat the public it is difficult to defend, on moral grounds, striking back at the evil empire.
Now, there's certainly a question to be raised regarding piracy in that it may well do more good than harm to a company's actual bottom line. But the question of if it is "right" should not be confused with the question of if it is legal.
Much that is legal is not morally defensible. And much that is morally defensible is not legal.
Certainly there are those, perhaps even the majority, who pirate for entirely selfish reasons. But there are those who pirate because they see it as striking at a morally bankrupt corporations heart.
They've succesfully brainwashed slashdot as well, or what?
I have two thoughts on the matter:
1) re-education doesn't work. No one likes having perceived priveliges removed, rightfully or not. No one likes being fed pablum to explain why it's wrong (Disney and FreeJackster.)
If something doesn't seem wrong to a majority and the harm isn't directly observable, then it's not going to be curbed by re-education.
Also, we need to make a distinction between Piracy and Copyright Infringement. They aren't the same. Where copyright infringement is being claimed, copyright law needs to be reformed to match the people's behavior, within balance, not to curb it.
2) maturity does work, to an extent. The 27 year old quoted at the end felt he'd outgrown warez. Of course, the 45-year old who was pissed he couldn't download oldies mp3s counters that example.
I've been wanting to a legit copy of Office 97 rather than living on the MSDN copy from work (should I ever have to get another job). I found a guy on eBay selling a sealed unregistered OEM copy for $75. I used "buy it now" to end the auction and used eBay's own BillPoint to pay. This happened three days ago.
About six hours later I got notice that the auction had ended at Microsoft's request because the good were pirated (VERO rule or somethign like that). See the problem? I already paid for the goods, and the charge has cleared my bank. The listing is gone, and I haven't heard from the seller. What happens to my money?
I've written eBay about it, but of course haven't heard back probably because of the Christmas holiday. Has this happened to anyone else, and if so, what happened?
People probably wouldn't pirate software if they felt they received 'fair value' from the software or other goods they buy or are forced to use.
*Note to MicroSoft. You can't suck and blow at the same time!
But [Professor Willard] added that the argument has power -- and that recklessness and rebellion are not just part of adolescence but of the American character. "We applaud the U.S. patriots," she said, "who hacked onto the British tea ship and destroyed their product."
There's a big difference between the destructive protest of the Boston Tea Party, during which efforts were made to prevent looting, and the activities of software pirates who take for their own use without paying the producer. The colonists had already attempted to have the tea returned to England without paying duty on it, but were prevented from doing this by the Governor.
I think that most of the "pirates" know more about the illegalities of what they're doing more than the actual people aresting them. In fact I would bet my legal software on it.
Now comes the question of why is Piracy so big? Well why is drug use and prostitution so big? Well they make people feel good (not endorsing either, but lets face it ... coke heads like the feeling they get from stuffing their nostrils with coke) ... Getting something for free has always made people feel good about themselves.
Let's figure in the MS-Factor ... MS makes most of it's money from site licenses and OEM's ... they don't make their money from off the shelf Operating Systems. Now their games and apps, yessir they pay for all those. According to MS Though you _can_ have a the same copy of Office and Windows at home and office ... so long as you don't use the computers at the same time (which is technically physically impossible) ... But MS does make games and I will admit that I know of people "stealing" from MS everyday. Do I think that they're criminals? Hell no ... I blame the MS for making a standard that is used in schools and accepted in the office that we are taxed for in our homes for compatability issues.
Now lets throw in the OSS factor. Of course OSS doesn't have to worry about piracy, hell they ask people to share (dumb bastards *note the previous comment was meant to poke fun as a person who is coming from the stance of microsoft*). So what's the solution, THERE ISN'T ONE
So why is it so big??? Well it's promoted. You think someone would buy an Apex DVD player that reads CD-R's because they thought it would look better on their shelf system? Hell no ... they bought it so they could play VCD's on the thing. You think they bought their 12x burner because they wanted to make compilation CD's from CD's they already owned? No they wanted to copy CD's, make Audio CD's, and VCD's. You think that they got broadband to download on the web faster ... lol ... NO ... they got it for that wonderous P2P that is out there to make things easier for those floating in the dangerous seas.
All in all ... and in a nutshell ... piracy won't stop ... there will never be an end ... if everyone who was a software pirate were arrested then 80% of america would be sitting in a jail cell right now ... because we've all "stole from the man".
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
If you don't feel like making a NYTIMES account, here's the text of the article:
December 25, 2001
TECHNOLOGY
Trying to Keep Young Internet Users From a Life of Piracy
By JOHN SCHWARTZ
When law enforcement agents seized 129 computers in 27 cities recently in a coordinated assault on online piracy, they focused much of their effort on colleges like Duke, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of California at Los Angeles.
They were probably too late.
As children have access to computers earlier and earlier in their educational careers, experts in piracy, hacking and other forms of Internet mischief say that any effort to tackle the illicit trade in digital goods -- including video games, computer software, music and even movies -- should be looking at a younger crowd.
."
"By the time we get them, they already believe it's right," said David J. Farber, a professor of computer science at the University of Pennsylvania and the former chief technologist of the Federal Communications Commission "If you're willing to bootleg music, you're willing to bootleg anything."
In fact, America's rush to the online world has created an enormous population of ever-younger computer pirates, say experts in the field. They compare the situation with giving every student a car without providing drivers' education classes.
"We've got to focus on preparing kids to use the Internet in a safe and responsible manner," said Nancy E. Willard, director of the Responsible Netizen Center for Advanced Technology in Education at the University of Oregon. She has prepared course materials and guides for teaching computer ethics in secondary schools to help them meet the requirements of the Children's Internet Protection Act of 2000. The law, which requires schools and libraries to use filters or similar technology to protect children from objectionable materials, also requires an "Internet safety policy" to prevent "unauthorized access, including so-called `hacking,' and other unlawful activities by minors online."
Online, the searching and trading for wares goes on day and night. In an online discussion last week using technology known as Internet Relay Chat, the "warez" channel, or chat room, was busy. Warez is slang for software that has been "liberated" from encryption. On the channel, rapid-fire bursts of messages requesting digital goods -- games, DVD's, business software -- were interspersed among the random comments and insults:
Queball: "Anyone know where I can a copy Sybex virtual lab . .
Porrin: "@find 3d studio para *pc*."
Nellie: "Anyone here have save the last dance movie. msg me."
The patter and trading are constant, yet this is small time. Far bigger players operate quietly with vast storage and bandwidth, cracking the copyright protection that keep the strings of ones and zeroes that underlie everything from the video game Tomb Raider to the movie "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" and making them available in a limitless five-finger discount store in the ether.
The recent raids focused mainly on the networks of hard-core traders in a handful of groups with names like DrinkOrDie, which tended to trade for fun and not for profit. Among the computers seized were ones belonging to business executives and administrators of computer networks.
Unauthorized copying and distribution of software is a global headache for the industry, which claims that more than a third of all business software used is pirated, according to an annual report commissioned by the Business Software Alliance, a trade group. In fact, the situation has improved markedly since 1995, when the figure was closer to half of all software. In the United States the figure has dropped to 24 percent, the lowest rate in the world, because of a vigorous education and enforcement efforts and until recently a strong economy.
Over all, the cost of business software piracy alone was $11.75 billion in 2000, the group reported, although this amount assumes that any illicitly used software would otherwise have been bought by users.
The greatest incidence of software piracy, according to industry experts, occurs in business, where many employees of a firm will share a single copy of a program. Internet trading pales by comparison, said Bob Kruger, vice president for enforcement at the Business Software Alliance. But it constitutes "the biggest threat in the future," he said, "as people become more accustomed to getting digital works online."
The software industry does not break out the statistics for piracy in higher education, but "anecdotally, we see a lot of activity coming out of university areas," said Ric Hirsch, senior vice president for intellectual property enforcement at the Interactive Digital Software Association, the trade association representing computer and video game publishers.
Eugene H. Spafford, a professor of computer science and director of Purdue University's Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security, said if students lack the ethical preparation when they begin using the Internet, things quickly spiral out of control when they reach college, where they have lots of free time, peers they want to impress and high bandwidth.
That is to be expected, Professor Spafford said, since college is a time for testing boundaries. "We do encourage them to try new things, meet new people," he said. "It's not that surprising that they try to break some of the bounds, and not just in computing."
But fixing the problem would be expensive and intrusive, he said. He questions whether the monitoring required might be worse than the disease.
"When you have one person who goes bad out of 40,000, do you want to watch that other 39,999 to catch that one?" Professor Spafford asked. "To find the people doing the bad things might involve violating the privacy of all those other people. As a society is that the kind of trade-off we want to make?"
Professor Farber agreed. Closely monitor students, he warned, and "pretty soon you'll be looking at what they write and what they read."
Some experts say they wish the corporations pushing for ethical behavior among customers would show more of it themselves.
Many students bristle at the newest legal tool for protecting copyright, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. It has been criticized as heavy handed, tipping the balance of copyright law away from principles such as fair use.
Many also note, Professor Willard said, a federal court ruling that Microsoft (news/quote) had abused its monopoly power.
That is how "Incursion" sees it. The Internet name belonged to a college student from Texas, who was looking for games recently on the Warez channel. The student said he generally pays for the software he uses but does like to sample the goods before buying. "If I feel it's a quality game," he said, "I'll buy it."
Asked whether using software without paying for it is wrong, he replied, "depends what you consider wrong." Pressed for further explanation, he wrote, "A monopoly is wrong."
Taking apart rationalizations like that one are part of what Professor Willard tries to do in materials that she has prepared for teenagers.
But she added that the argument has power -- and that recklessness and rebellion are not just part of adolescence but of the American character. "We applaud the U.S. patriots," she said, "who hacked onto the British tea ship and destroyed their product."
Ultimately, time might be on the companies' side. The environment changes so quickly that even would- be pirates say they find it hard to keep up.
Jeremy, who goes by the online name "Xelsed" and asks that only his first name be used, insisted that he did not trade software any more -- which did not explain what he was doing in the Warez channel typing "!gimme stuff," a request he saw others type and which he figured could lead to offers. Even if he wanted to, though, he was out of touch, he said, having not visited the site in several months.
The old formula for a request for software -- typing "/xdcc" and then the name of a program -- did not seem to resonate in the current slang. "Now I really dont know what to do," he types in the hasty, error- riddled style of instant messages. "I have to face the fact that well i'm dated."
Jeremy said he was 27 and out of college and added that he feels he has outgrown the warez world.
"To be frank," he wrote, "I think its probably alot easer to buy the game then to spend the hours neccacery to make `friends' and get into the sceen."
--
End of article
The difference being that what is being stolen is copies of copies. And it isn't tangible property, so dealers have just as many cars in their lots to sell to people willing to pay.
Of the "billions of dollars revenue each year lost to software piracy" how much of that is to thirteen year olds downloading a $10,000 copies of 3D Studio Max from a warez site? I'm sure sonny just would have bought it if he couldn't have downloaded it.
Sure.
I prefer to educate them as careful shoppers :)
:)
Evaluate before you buy
----- Whats wrong with this picture? http://www.revoh.org:1234/whatswrong
...then you have an even deeper problem that neither the software industry, or any other media publishers want to address.
And that is that more and more people, worldwide, are begining to believe that copyrights, and so-called "intelectual property" in general, do not deserve all the protections that they are afforded.
No one wants to address this because it is the publishers' biggest fear: copyright will lose respect and eventually be abolished. Their entire revenue stream is based upon the idea that data, be it software, music, video, or whatever, can be artifically kept scarce. And that's just not true.
What the whole Napster thing has done is to demonstrate that a good number of people (enough to make a "political majority") do not think that CDs are worth $18 a piece. People are now realizing that CDs cost under $1 to make and that the artists aren't getting the remainder. The people are making it known that the recording industry is NOT worth $16 a CD anymore. And since, unlike an ideal marketplace, you can not negotiate the price of a CD, potential customers are looking elsewhere to obtain the products at the price they feel it should be.
Piracy itself is not the primary target of these raids. The real target is attitudes towards copyrights. Since people are no longer respecting them on their face, the industry is attempting to convert the lost respect into fear of the law.
And that fear can only be provided by a copyright police state.
I realize piracy is very wrong.. but I just don't care.. I really don't care if a programmer I don't buy software from is dying on the street... I'm sorry but that's true.
...where does that 1/3 number come from? The BSA likes to throw these numbers around without giving sources. If they *really* know exact numbers then they must know where the software is being pirated and, quite frankly, they don't.
That's a load of crap.... exactly how many people registered their $10 shareware.... maybe 1 out of 100,000? The majority of people don't think about it as a matter of principle, they just see a way to steal without accountablity. If they were to stop and think about it was a matter of princliple, I think most people would realize that what they are doing is no different than going in to Circuit City and taking things. If you don't feel you are getting software worth the sticker price, you have the option to not use it! it's that simple.
Well thats what software as a service (ie., subscription based software) aims to prevent.
But how many kids do you know with a credit card that are capable of using these products?
Anarchy Online, Necron massively multiplayer role playing games for example along with streaming entertainment or internet services.
----- Whats wrong with this picture? http://www.revoh.org:1234/whatswrong
These manufactured piracy figures would be even remotely useful if they included demographics for each group of software pirates. If the majority of that 25% were, say, Mercedes Benz driving, diamond-clad rich folk who light cigars with hundred dollar bills, then we would be worried.
At present, these buckaneers seem to mostly be low-income students and others who have a compulsion to use the latest and greatest software, without the funding to back it up. Rather than paying bazillions of dollars towards enforcement and purchasing new laws, software companies could stand to make a huge tax write-off if they called this willful taking of their software a Charitable Donation.
Big software companies practically print their own money giving out these wares as name brand commercial products, and they enjoy insane profit margins once the development costs get paid off. Since profit==taxes, they should try to encourage software piracy, pull a figure out of their ass equivalent to their taxable income, and then end up paying a few dollars, rather than a few hundred million.
(did I mention, IANAL and IANAA?)
"Look at me, I invented the stove!" -- Ben Franklin
LOL! And topical too.
No no no no no! Call it piracy. Y'know what, if I hadn't pirated my first copy of win 3, my family wouldn't have just bought XP and Office XP... If I hadn't have pirated sim city 2000, I wouldn't have gone out and bought sim city 3000 as soon as it was released! and so on... Seriously, companies like M$ can't be all that bothered about it, or they'd do something about it! There are ways to make software more secure from pirates, but it is due to this progression (as seen in my first example) that means they can stay ahead with their newest product. If I hadn't have started reading this story, I could have been enjoying my christmas.....
The other day I was handed a packet from a teacher which contain mostly material copied from textbooks. A lot of the material had no source info and some of it was dated from 1984!!
h tm l
I did a little searching to see if the teacher was allowed to do this through some loophole in copyright laws. To me, it seems like he is completely violating the law. This is happening at a very prestigious school by a professor that has been there for 20+ years.
http://fairuse.stanford.edu/
http://www.loc.gov/copyright/
http://www.education-world.com/a_curr/curr280.s
Either it is wrong for a professional and amateur to steal software or it is ok for both of them.
Make up your mind.
Theres a diffrence between right and wrong. Its WRONG to steal. However its RIGHT to share. Piracy is right, but its illegal.
I know everyone here may be confused by what I said, but honestly sharing is supposed to be a good thing, its RIGHT to share software with your friend whos too poor to buy it. So to stop piracy, bringing up moral issues just makes people support piracy MORE!
The only way to stop Piracy is to raid all pirates, and thats too expensive. So you have a situation where, People are going to pirate software, the best thing you can do is make it so its easier to buy software from a store, than to pirate it off the net (huge long download, or buy it from a store) and there shouldnt be $500 software because no one in their right mind will buy it. IF software were $10-$20 then I'm sure most people would buy software like most people buy games. But when software like photoshop is $500, and you NEED photoshop, well, you are going to sit for 3 days downloading a 500+ meg ISO before paying $500.
IT comes down to this, make money off of convience, not off of the product itself, its easier for me to go to a store and buy a CD, than to download it, burn it, etc etc. I'd pay to have it all done for me. I'll pay $10 and if its really good software, maybe $20, even $30, but theres no way I'm paying over $50 for any software nevermind $500.
To stop piracy, lower prices, and offer good enough deals so that its easier to buy than to pirate.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
..always testing the boundaries of society. Why can't they conform??
Oh wait, we don't want to be ruled by a bunch of brainwashed zombies, right?
I wanted to buy a candle holder, but the store didn't have one. So I got a cake.
This is how you educate people about piracy :)
(not porn, not goatse.cx)
Henry
i don't do sigs. oops.
You're right, the analogy doesn't hold up.
Sure, stealing is wrong, but might the term 'piracy' applied here be so over-the-top that young people simply can't take it seriously? What are our other options?
- Intellectual theft (too vague)
- technovampirism (too bloody)
- software parasitism (too icky)
Hey, wait? Why don't we just call it "copyright violation?" That's accurate, after all. Doesn't sound scary enough? Maybe because it isn't all that scary.We aren't talking about truckloads of baby food being waylaid by highwaymen; everyone who pays for the software still get their goods, after all. Is it really justified to fight a war on copyright violation the same way you'd fight a war on drugs or terrorism? Does anyone really think every KaZaa user represents a lost sale of Office XP Professional?
Again, I'm not saying it isn't wrong. But so is speeding, and that could be brought under control by mandatory cell-linked speed monitors in vehicles. It would save lives, after all, so why don't we do it? It would appear that no one wants to push the personal privacy issue unless there's considerable money (not lives) at stake.
Perhaps the industry and society as a whole would benefit if we shifted to a more palatable equilibrium point, and treated copyright violations at the user level as they've been treated since the advent of photocopiers and audiotape: frowned upon, but tolerated.
steal, v intr. to take or appropriate without right ... and with intent to keep or make use of wrongfully.
Whether it's tangible or not, taking something that's not yours is still stealing. And you're right, software companies aren't losing money from lost property. They ARE losing money because that person that obtained the software by pirating it is one less person willing to pay for it.
And as for your 13-year old scenario, the article says that the biggest problem is businesses, not teenagers with cable modems.
But whats right, may not be the same as whats legal.
The law says Piracy is illegal. Do you want to follow the law? or your morals?
Alot of people would rather die than lose their morals, and alot of people would kill to protect the law.
What you have is, the moral person vs the patriot capitalist.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Stealing from the rich and giving to the poor?
:)
I call it empowering the people
----- Whats wrong with this picture? http://www.revoh.org:1234/whatswrong
While I can't state that this isn't true for some people (trading one blanket statement for another would make me a hypocrite) I CAN state that the majority of people I know aren't going to fill that statement. My friends and I certainly do bootleg our music; it's difficult to find one band that produces an album that has more quality than filler on it, so we pick and choose the songs we enjoy and download those individually. If an album comes out by a band we particularly like, we'll buy the album, but for the most part, we pirate our music.
However, we don't pirate our software (except for a few big titles
My friends are the same way. We don't, by and large, pirate software; sometimes we share, and if it's good enough, we'll buy it (that's how I came around to Baldur's Gate and Quake III). Music is one thing; software is a different story altogether.
I know people who feel the same way about movies; they pirate movies, since we have faster-than-god internet access at school, but if it's a good movie they'll go out and buy the DVD or the VHS. The only thing we really pirate and NEVER purchase is pr0n =)
I think Prof. Farber is trying to suggest that music piracy is a "gateway drug" for kids, but I don't really see any evidence of this. As someone (the article? don't remember) states, software piracy is down in recent years, even though CD burners are cheaper and broadband access is more widespread.
What is interesting (and potentially frightening) to see is this "war on piracy" turning into the next "war on drugs"... something to keep an eye on, I think.
Merry Xmas*,
~Aaron
(yeah, I'm an atheist, but I still celebrate Xmas, because it's a social holiday, too; so to all non-christian geeks out there, have a good one!)
student of animation and the fine arts
What I loathe are these kids on irc who think it's their birth right to every movie, game, and productivity application out there. They hardly even acknowledge that they're pirating software. I know people who have absolutely no legal games on their ill gotten operating systems yet somehow it's ok because "I wasn't going to buy it anyway". The people I know that do this aren't broke either, I almost wish they'd get busted just so they'd have to acknowledge that they're doing something that can have serious consequences. It just really grinds my gears when I go out and pay for a game ( I think 49.00 is reasonably priced ) and they pirate it and talk about how great it is, great but not great enough to buy?
It seems like you say that in a "how dare they" attitude, but they do have the right to whine. Obviously, this has been stated over and over again, but piracy is stealing. MS and other software companies lose huge on piracy, especially small companies who need those sales to keep afloat.
According to most peoples morals, sharing is a GOOD thing. Right? In fact its promoted.
Now the law says, Sharing is BAD. So you have a situation where some people follow their morals, and some people follow the law.
People who are patriotic, who will die / kill to protect the law (you know, like police, marines, etc) they follow the law at all times even if the law isnt all that moral.
Some people however, would die/kill to protect their morals. Alot of people believe sharing is whats right.
These two sides are fighting, if they keep it up it could start an entire revolution here. People have options, chance the law so the law fits everyone (I dont know if thats possible) or arrest one of these groups of people.
It seems the patriotic capitalist types have more power (through money) than the people who wish to follow the moral code of sharing, however the people who wish to share outnumber the people who wish to follow the law.
You have a bad situation. Because you cannot stop the people, but the people with money have alot of power and will harrass the people.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
I already have problems with the system, they want to teach my children about "Political Correctness" and other good little citizen values. I want my kids to think for themselves. I don't want the same people who tell me what my kids can and cant wear, eat, say, what to think or how to think.
This is a war of morals, My kids should be able to back up their games, eat peanut butter sandwiches, write stories about death/god, wear black, kiss, give gifts, tell a teacher they are incorrect, tell a grown up no, refuse to accept punishment.
Do I care if my kids are trading mp3's? No, they still buy CDs. I personally don't think an mp3 is much different than recording off the radio or cable music channel.
Warez.. Yes its wrong, you should always buy a game you like. Even the pirates say "If a game is worth playing, its worth buying..."
Make your own choice.
Microsoft faking evidence?
Microsoft illegaly using their market domination (apologists please note that I don't say monopoly) to lock out competition?
Microsoft forcing customers to buy another license although they already have one?
Microsoft forcing people to buy the product over and over again by breaking formats and standards?
The response of the average Microslave is:
"Oh well, that's just normal business. Everybody would do it if they could."
People pirating software?
"Oh well, that's just normal. Everybody does it."
P.S.: No, I don't pirate software, I even paid for my Linux distribution.
This is FILE SHARING. You can listen to propoganda by rich elite CEO types who want to manipulate your mind by calling you a theif, a pirate, and all kinds of other words to make you feel like a criminal. But really what you are doing is sharing whats yours.
You see, information once released has no owner, you can try to restrict who has access to it, but its not the type of thing that can ever truely be controlled, its impossible.
Corperations know this, but they just want to maximize profits.
When you take a file that you in theory should own but are really renting, you copy it, and give it to a friend. Nothing has been taken away from anyone so its not stealing. No one has been robbed, You still have your software. The only diffrence now is your friend has it too.
You decided to SHARE your software.
Theres no stealing going on here.
A pirate is a person who sees a boat, and literally takes everything useful from the boat, and adds it to their own. That is stealing.
But if a pirate went to another boat, sat down and looked at everything, and built exact copies of it on their own boat afterwards. This is sharing.
When boats were made, were there laws saying "You cannot copy our boat, if you do you are a pirate and we will kill you"
No, Pirates had the same boat technology that they copied from everyone else, everyone shared information. Its been like this for thousands of years until recently.
Now if you share information you go to jail, not because its wrong because sharing helps many people, you go to jail because some rich CEO wont be able to buy a new card or another house.
So WE benifit from sharing at the cost of RICH CEOs.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
We should stand up against this kind of nonsense. It is little more than the industry trying to brainwash our kids to believe in their warped way of thinking.
Most of us here are young, and we, not the sickly old men that sit in CEO positions at music companies, are the future. We should teach our children ideals that will propel this nation beyond the dated zero sum game of economics that's been played for ages. We should teach them that information should be freely available to all, that US citizens rights should be respected, irrelevant of their differences, or the consequences of doing such, or "national security concerns".
Undermining the traditional system in the "real world" -- where politicians say that rights are important, but then disrespect and ignore them (i.e., Katie Sierra, who was prevented from wearing an anti-war T-shirt at school; Brandi Blackbear, who was suspended from school for "casting a spell on a teacher") -- will require resolve, disobedience, and awareness.
To undermine the traditional intellectual property system is something of slightly another matter, because its more convenient and easy. I do not propose that we take the moral high road, as Martin Luther King did when he fought racism by peaceful protests, and by allowing police to brutalize him. I suggest we take the path taken by Malcom X -- violent disobediance. Get roudy. Here's my recipe to undermine intellectual property:
(1) Support open-sourced software, or "open-information". Support it namely by using it, wherever possible, in place of closed-sourced software or information.
(2) Support "free" software or information, which is different from "open" software or information. This is software or information which is freely obtainable, but in which the source is closed. Normally, these endeavers are supported either by ads or by promotions for the "full product".
(3) If you use "free" software or information, don't support the sponsors economic endeavers by upgrading to the "full" product or watching their ads. If you want the full product, find a hack, or download a crack -- either a warez version or a crack for some serial numbers to be entered. If its ad-based, don't support the ads.
(4) To avoid supporting ads -- remember, we need to undermine the current zero-sum economic system as well -- create a HOSTS file for your browser. As a reply to this message, I'll post my HOSTS file. Disable animations or sounds from your browser -- many ads come in such form. If there's an ad-based program, like LimeWire, try to block the ads by deleting the file that might be responsible. If not, try to find a crack to block the ads. For LimeWire, since its open-sourced, this should be easy -- surely, someone must have released a patch to remove the ads. If you cannot remove the ads, simply ignore them. NEVER buy anything based off an internet AD. That support the ad-system which clogs our bandwidth.
(5) If you must get a commercial product, there are still ways to avoid supporting commercial endeavers. i. You can try to find warez for the product you want. Search the web from google.com. This is hard, because very few warez sites actually offer software -- most are just fronts for advertisements and porno. You can also try searching from a P2P program, like LimeWire. ii. Sometimes, a retailer will allow you to return a product even after its been opened. So open up the CD package and copy it. If it has copy-protection, you can try making a 1:1 copy by CloneCD.
(6) For textual information -- i.e., books, textbooks, scientific papers published, etc. If possible, offer these in pure format -- i.e., a PDF file or html file -- if you can overcome copy-protection. Otherwise, transcribe them. If only each person transcribes one book, out of every 10, that's millions of books you have online. You don't have to do it all at once. Many of you are very adept typists, and this should be no problem. I've found many transcribed books on LimeWire...even a copy of Crichton's "Jurassic Park".
(7) Most obviously, publicly protest against the intellectual property system.
Hope you found this helpful...
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
What is that percentage of? I would vouch that M$ and other companies are losing a substantial amount of money on older versions... software that's not really new so people figure it's OK to copy and distribute. How can you stop them, if the company no longer supports the product? People won't keep upgrading forever; at some point the software (i.e. Office 97, SQL 6.5) will be good "enough" and they'll stop buying and pirate to infinity.
Sir_haxalot
stuff |
Hell, i know legitamite buyers of XP that have it cracked for privacy reasons.
"The United States has no right, no desire, and no intention to impose our form of government on anyone else." - Bush 05
The LAW is not about whats right. The Law is about the economy and what we know works.
We know capitalism works. We know businesses make alot of money by selling what is essentially free.
However, this is all about the economy, and rich CEOs making billions of dollars off of us. It doesnt really help the people, it helps just a few rich CEOs have a few more million dollars.
So the question is, what is more important? Would the economy survive if it changed? Absolutely. Would CEOs be as rich as they are today? Definately not.
So CEOs dont want to make more average wages, they want to be billionares, and this is only possible if you sell overpriced software for $500.
Its not like developers get paid billions, no, some CEOs and guys in suits do.
Same with the RIAA, So its not about right or wrong, its a matter of, should we be getting this money? or should some rich guys in suits be getting this money?
Developers and Musicians wont be getting this money either way.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
"software piracy" isn't really piracy, and it's not really stealing either, because the origional product is still there. It simply is sealing value, something we consider inflation. Some people would even say it's not stealing very much value, because most people who "inflate" software woundn't buy the product.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
So are you saying that authors don't have some rights to control distribution at all? Two days after Windows XP is released it's a copying free-for-all (and maybe WXP is a bad example since MS is so obviously morally bankrupt)? I think there is a long ways to go from "moral" to "piracy". Of course, it is a thing we must each decide when we cross the line from ethical copying/re-use to "piracy".
Easy to avoid the whole issue and simply *not use* software which is not Free. This creates a de facto standard wherein "piracy" as a concept becomes meaningless. At this point in time, it is a choice one can make, so at least be making that choice first. Then we can discuss more rationally the problems with things like math patents without having to obscure our philosophy so that it also covers basically copying stuff without paying for it.
I do not have a signature
It is true that not only businesses have to pay for software, but one should calculate the Market value of his software before choosing a price that looks o.k. i.e. would you, as a private user, pay 50$ a year for your Norton AV?
what about the firewall? what about a DownloadManager, a desktop translator (like babylon), word, excel, powerpoint, flash, html editors, enhanced text editors...)
The list can go on and reach an amount of 50k$ easily for most of windows users (which are most of us after all I believe).
I think MS has the solution with their dotNet, so we can pay per usage to MS for their powerpoint i.e. or for adobe's acrobat reader. Still, the prices have to be in cents, I'm talking about max 100$ a month per person for ALL uses (Software, online content including music and videos...)
If you do the micropayments right, there's enough money to start a few new Hollywood's just for the net, if you dont, you reach today's piracy chaos.
girl
and how MS leveraged them to lock out innovation all over the map
and how the music industry has used them to lock out any distribution channel that they don't approve of
and how the movie industry is trying to use them to region code the whole planet, and used them as an excuse to try and put a 15 year old who wanted to play DVD's on linux in jail
and how they lead to laws like the DMCA that have nothing to do with copying, but everything to do with speech
and about how they call it piracy, as if those who copy are aken to those who board ships beat and kill people Yeah, I'm all for educating people!
You didnt "TAKE" the software away from anyone or anything. Its still there!!!!
What you did is COPIED it. So stealing doesnt apply unless you "TAKE"
COpying is like taking a pen and paper, seeing a picture on the wall, and copying it. Now you have a copy of that picture.
While yes its illegal to sell your copy of the picture, it shouldnt be illegal to make a copy of it for personal use EVEN if you didnt own the picture.
If you can copy something, then you should be able to own your copy of it.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
I would not consider myself as a pirate i purchased windows 3.11 and will purchase another o/s from MS when they actually have a working product.
Once you release information you have no control
I am not saying people who make software should not get paid, but when you share something, you already paid for it. Its not like someone broke into the factory and stole the software before it was even sold then sold it on the black market.
That would be morally wrong because its taking profits away from Microsoft.
However, when you buy something and you share it with a friend, you arent taking profits away from Microsoft, your friend obviously doesnt have the money to buy it himself, you are sharing with your friend.
Perhaps if software were cheaper, as in under $30, people would pirate less. Really though, when I have the option to pay $500 or download it from a friend whos rich, what do you think i'll do huh? Especially since i dont have $500.
You see, what Microsoft is trying to do, is on a boat, trying to sell water. Then claim other pirate boats are stealing their water when all the other boats are doing is getting water from the same resources Microsoft is, from the ocean.
So you have a situation where, Microsoft wants to profit on programmers as much as possible, and people try to share, Microsoft snaps at them and says they own it all.
Thats wrong in my opinion.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
In the grand traditions of Robin Hood and of Blackbeard and other noble men who sought to teach the money mongers a lesson in sharing it is our duty to NOT deal with wasting our time worrying about what is called piracy by the software mafias.
Stop jamming us with your Microsuck generated spin campaigns.
I DON'T Care what you stole/
I just want you to share it now.
Yes it is wrong to steal, and it was wrong of MS to steal all the shit that they stole. But lets get over it. If MS had to pay damages for all the crap that they claimed to work and never did, then they would have no money at all.
MS should get over it. They don't own the operating system any more than anyone else, it has passed into the public domain. . .
I believe that if there is real damage done to anyone than piracy laws should be applied. Say someone pirates from a small and weak company, then they should be handled.
If someone steals a copy of Word, it is like a mosquito stinging a dragon. The dragon is not damaged at all.
How fat is too fat?
How corpulant does MS need to be?
Who is really being defrauded?
There are so many other things to spend time worrying about. MS should suck it up.
Now, if they find out that someone is massproducing and selling cointerfeit disks. . .
I can see that they have a case.
If they find out that people are MAKING MONEY on their stuff, then so be it, lets get the forgers. BUT if it is someone who is just fucking around, leave them the hell alone.
Quick question that I haven't really ever understood:
Is "software piracy" theft or a copyright violation?
Is it theft because... well... yeah, it's taking without paying
Or is it copyright violation in the same way xeroxing a piece of music is? After all, we don't buy the software, we buy a limited license, just like we can buy a license to copy of x copies of music? And then if we make a copy of it, we're committing copyright violation?
Is the term "software piracy" tantamount to "intellectual property" - just a misnomer?
Just a question that's been spinning in my mind. Little off topic, but if youth are to be educated, it'd be nice to have a starting point.
You can claim that piracy is lower for whatever other reasons, but the fact is, tricks like the Windows XP Auth Code do reduce piracy. Granted, they don't stop the tech-aware people -- you can find cracked copies -- but I've personally watched it stop piracy in from "normal folk". People with XP preinstalled can't just share their OEM CD's and let others install from it. Families now realize they're supposed to buy multiple copies for multiple PCs -- and if you recall the Slashdot article about the sales of additional licenses, that has been even more successful that MS expected.
Now for something else you don't want to hear: Microsoft is justified in whining. They do have many, many people using their software without paying. Even if we see the software as crap, it's apparently "good enough" to be pretty damn popular. They deserve payment for that 24% (for Windows, probably more) of their software that's being pirated.
And their attempts to stop piracy haven't been unfair, either! There's all this complaining about the Windows Auth Code -- and not even anecdotal evidence of it harming anyone. So you let the software authorize itself, big deal. For the tiny, tiny percentage of people who upgrade a lot, they just need to give MS a call, and MS will authorize their new code. Big deal.
So let's get this straight: MS isn't whining, it's trying to educate consumers who don't realize that sharing copies or installing on multiple PC's isn't legal. And they appear to have been very successful in stopping piracy of XP among the "common" people.
I hate MS as much as the next guy, and I could drone on for hours about their monopolistic, anticompetitive actions that are unfair. But I'm not going to slander them for trying to recover a few billion bucks that they have rightfully earned.
-- Imagine how much more advanced our technology would be if we had eight fingers per hand.
I saw a poster (I think somewhere after 1995) with that 30-ish % figure for the US. It was a poster of the world with every country labelled with a percent.
The US was the lowest as I remmeber. Most coutries cracked 50% and a large chunk cracked 80%. I remmeber russia and china and a few other counttries were up into the 98% range.
Then I look at microsoft. I look at it's gross product. I see that it's gross product, if it were a nation, would be the 5th largest in the world.
I absolutely feel no pity for them. Granted, I do not pirate software anymore, but I used to, when I was a college student and was making no money at all. I buy it now, or do without. Most of the software I buy is games.
So, I hear these arguments from the BSA saying that piracy increases software costs. I think that it's a lie. Simple economics says that they will charge what the market will bear. The market bears this price, and they will not decrease the cost just because all the software in russia suddenly becomes legit. They will charge us the same, because we'll take it. They may charge less for the russian one, because it's a different market.
I'm sorry if this viewpoint bothers professional programmers. I really am, but I really doubt you'll be getting more money when all the russian MS Office goes legit either.
-- Who is the bigger fool? The fool or the fool who follows him? --
but that doesn't make it a biscuit.
No matter how many times people scream from the rooftops that unauthorized copying is stealing, that doesn't make it so.
No question about it, copyright infringement is illegal. When discussing a company like microsoft who (allegedly) stole Stac's code for doublespace, it's hard to get a groundswell of sympathy for their "lost revenue".
If people don't feel too bad about copyright infringement to do it, some people think that they can change this by calling it stealing. The use of that word conjurs up imagery of parents scolding children about not ripping off candybars from the corner store.
Let's examine this, by making an illegal copy of Windows 2x, you have denied a sale to Microsoft and have cost them money. By costing them money, you have stolen from Microsoft.
Every linux distro that includes Samba is a potential lost sale for Microsoft. For every one of those lost sales, Microsoft has lost money. If one follows the logic train, RedHat, Mandrake, SuSe, Debian, Slackware, Yellowdog, and countless others are stealing money out of Microsoft's pockets by costing them sales of Win2k.
It doesn't add up. Even if it is illegal and morally wrong, the former example is no more stealing than the latter.
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
That was a triumph of spin control. But it was done by the pirates. Anyone remember far enough back to when "Pirate's Harbor" ran full-page ads in Byte for tools to remove copy protection?
Thing is, if I steal 3DstudioMAX, and learn to use it, then, when i'm about to use it for something profitable, i purchase it. If I hadn't been able to use the software I wouldn't have gone out and bought it now would I?
Often, people will make analogies comparing software piracy to stealing from a physical vendor (e.g., shoplifting).
This is rather ridiculous.
If some 133t h4xx0r type downloads some warez, more than likely, he had no intention of buying the software in the first place. Thus, the software company doesn't lose a customer. (This isn't always true; sometimes the kid might have bought the title. However, in my experience, it is applicable most of the time.)
Which is quite different from shoplifting, where there is a physical loss--the company loses a piece of merchandise than could have been otherwise sold.
So find a new analogy, please.
Copyright infringment is wrong because 1) it has the potential to short-circuit the way software writers get compensated for their efforts and 2) it is a breach of trust. Calling it stealing, though, is misleading for two reasons:
evilpaul13's example of "sonny" pirating 3d Studio Max is a good example of the analogy of piracy as "stealing" breaking down. "sonny" can rationalize his piracy with the following line of reasoning.
Note that if "sonny" tried to use a similar line of reasoning to rationalize stealing a car from Joe's House of Cars, he'd fail because the car that he'd steal from Joe's would be one less car that Joe's could sell, so Joe's would be harmed by the theft.
Instead of resorting to bad analogies that fall apart under examination, those who oppose piracy should point out the real problem it makes: One act of piracy can potentially encourage others to commit piracy, and those others can encourage further others, etc., and if this acceptance of piracy becomes widespread enough among those who can pay for legal copies, then it will strain the revenue stream of those who provide software, music, movies, etc. and make it harder for them to get compensated for current works and produce new ones. That is the real problem, and it has nothing to do with stealing or whatnot. At its core, piracy is simply an economic short-circuit.
Jeremy said he was 27 and out of college and added that he feels he has outgrown the warez world. "To be frank," he wrote, "I think its probably alot easer to buy the game then to spend the hours neccacery to make `friends' and get into the sceen." they dont offer spelling classes in college do they? maybe he should get into the scene just one more time to get a nice spell checker
i am convinced that "/.ers" are homosexuals and imma make that my "sig"
That said it comes to an issue of whether you think MS should have the right to make a licence that limits your use like they do currently. I happen to be on the side of "why shouldn't they be allowed to" because MS made the software in the first place, they should have the right to define the contract for sale. If you don't like it, don't enter into it by using the product. If enough people buy (or get through open source channels) another product, MS will be forced to change its practices or dissappear.
Finally I want to pop your misconception of corporations. The corporation as an entity is just a legal target. As far as who wants MS to profit, its every employee and every stockholder in the company, and why shouldn't they? They put in thier investment capital, or hard work, or good ideas and they have every reason to deserve monatery gain from that investment.
"You can now flame me, I am full of love,"
The last thing I want my kids to learn is copyright fascism, which is what this NYT article supports. Notice the complete lack of an alternate view.
So what should I teach my kids? Maybe some good old fashioned common sense:
Never take credit for what you didn't create.
If you use software, music, or other IP for profit, follow the copyright holder's wishes - pay for it, contribute your changes back to the community, etc.
If you really enjoy something you should follow the copyright holder's wishes.
Don't get caught by the copyright police
There's NOTHING in there against "piracy" as defined by the BSA. But it is a complete, workable ethics system for Intellectual Property that I intend to teach to my children.
LOL
I have almost 300 CDs that I have purchased legitimately. These CDs are mostly imports in experimental genres and not cookie-cutter major label garbage. I also have hundreds of songs in MP3 format that I got thru P2P. The difference is that the MP3s are songs that I may have heard while out drinking, seen the video for, or just had stuck in my head. More mainstrean type stuff that is mostly crap, but perhaps still fun once in a while. I don't consider this stealing since I had NO INTENTION of going out to buy the CD in the first place, and if there was no P2P I wouldn't have even gone to the trouble of taping the song off the radio either. I buy the CDs and support the artists that I truly love, but if I just wanna hear some stupid gangsta rap or catchy pop-punk song or what have you I'm sure as hell not going to buy a whole album's worth of shite so that I can listen to the one song half a dozen times and then put it away never to be heard again.
I can't stand to hear arguments like "piracy costs us XXX Million a year" and the like. This is fundamentally false since they are assuming that every single pirated would have actually been bought and paid for in the absence of piracy, which is simply BS.
piracy being "wrong" or "right" isn't at all the issue at this point, the industrial needs to find a way to deal with it. its just the way it is, and its not going to stop. it applys to "stealing" mp3's also. one of my friends sings in a band called Down By Law ,and he is VERY against mp3s, he said it pisses him off when kids come up to him at shows and mention they d/l'ed all their songs off the net...i say he should be happy they came to the show at all, and without the mp3's they prob wouldn't have even heard of his band. big software companies need to find a way to cash in on their software becoming very popular thru piracy in the same way. perhaps people stealing the software for home use, getting acclimated to it, and BUYING it for their companies and recommending it to non-comp savvy friends for purchase is how that is being accomplished.
adventure-today.com
That's not a loophole; that is the fair use provision, which is essential if copyright laws are going to be consistent with freedom of information and academic freedom.
I don't mean to say that stealing is right. in fact, apart from absent mindedly walking out with a pair of earrings -- with which i wanted to surprize my wife at the checkout lane, i've never stolen anything in my life.
but having thought thru this napster-sharing thing a bit i'm finding it hard to call it stealing. stealing means that one person (the stealer) robs someone else (the stealee) of possesion and/or the use of the item stolen. that just isn't the case. the only thing stolen from anyone is the 'scarcity' created by the record companies. by napstarizing, people are robbing the record companies and the record companies alone from their ownership of the 'scarcity'.
However, it seems to me, that by affording these companies legal protection for them to create this fabricated 'scarcity' seems very far removed from the free-market that we claim to have established.
Although i fail to see the 'intellectual' part of the equation in the belly dancing of the likes of britney spears let's for a minute assume there is this 'intellectual property' they've been hammering me with. how is anyone destroying it? by sharing, we're spreading it (and in britney spears' case, god help us). i don't see any destruction. and like i said before, the only thing being stolen or destroyed is the faked 'scarcity'.
The fabricated scarcity has no part in our free-market. It might have to do with lobbying, soft-monies and various other 'buzzwords' that otherwise mean bribes. but definately not free-market. so in essence napstarizing is actually in defense of 'free-market'. and no i'm not talking about 'free' as in 'free-beer' market. 'free' as in 'supply and demand unfettered establishing a fair price' market (among other things). And hence i fail to see how i need to 'educate' my kids (once i have 'em) they way MPAA and RIAA thinks i should educate them. And you can bet your hiney (not the beer, the posterior) that they won't be watching the propaganda cartoons. But of course i'm preaching to the choir here.
It isn't "piracy": that's armed robbery on the high seas. It isn't "stealing": that is permanently depriving a person of his property. It is copyright infringement, and those who do it may deserve to be sued, but they do not deserve to be imprisoned.
Note: "Copyright infringement is not theft" is not just my opinion. It is established precedent in the US legal system.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
This kind of reasoning (some would say rationalization) is exactly what the article wants to stamp out.
Without even stepping into the unresovlable argument of reasoning vs. rationalization, what alarms me about the article is its unquestioning advocacy of "educating" young computer users to think in a certain way that is to be determined by corporate interests. The question of whether widespread piracy is a moral blight is trivial compared to this article's radical advocacy of implanting corporate moral imperatives in our youth.
You have to grant that moral complexity plus promises of lotsa "free stuff" opens a big old doorway toward the rationalization of theft. Since the ownership of a bitstream is counter-intuitive, it won't be simple to have kids subscribe to the idea. But is the answer to this brainwashing kids into a "stealing is bad" moral reflex?
What kids need to be taught is logic and critical thinking, rather than receive drill in corporate-endorsed moral standards. While we may get just as much software piracy, we might hear some better rationalizations than those quoted in the article; and maybe the next generation will get copyright laws that make sense for the times.
I survived the Dick Cheney Presidency 7 to 9 AM 7-21-07
Some say $50 is a fair value for a game. In some countries, this is enough money to feed a person for 3 months. How do you defend this price now?
Copyright and patent are enforced monopoly. We may be able to sustain brief bursts of productivity by it, but this can not be sustained. Its tyranny will be apparent to every person who manages to own a computer. In time.
"I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots." George HW Bush
IT MADE ME POST THIS
SLASHDOT
HAUNTS
MY
DREAMS
Also, I'm quite certain that the copy of perl that is used by slashdot was stolen from the briefcase of Larry Wall himself, and was licensed under the Stupid MotherFucker license of 1875.
Slashdot burns when cooked under direct light, thus slashdot is pure evil. QED.
It dosnt matter whether piracy is right or worg, its agaisnt the law, and therefore need to be prosecuted. Microsfot has to prosecute software pirates. if no one does anything about it, then why bother with a law on it? it would be utterly meaningless. People have to be reminded about the value of their software. if everyone could get their software for free with out consequences then what incentive would software developers have? Well except for the open source comminuty, but im talking about business suites, CAD programs, graphics desgin. I espcially hate the fact that i have to use windows beucase the software that i require only runs on windows. I hate having to only be able to use word becuase thats the only program everyone else uses. and i hate the fact that if i want to play a computer game im most likly going to have to have windows to play with it. never-the-less i cant call M$ a bad guy for going after software pirates, nor can i call any other company bad for going after software pirates, it needs to be done so long as the law exists. No matter what anyone says about it being right or wrong its still piracy, and you have to be willing to pay the price if your going to do it. Piracy is not an effective way to get things to change in the whole software world. Competition is. and thats why the M$ monolopy is so bad, and why the US government should stop dragging their feet on it.
Sun is Warm, Grass is Green
Let's set the record straight
You can dislike illicit software copying if you like. You can think that the participants are morally suspect, you can say that it does harm to the industry...you can say quite a lot of things. But lets get something very clear here:
Comparing Software Piracy to theft is a stupid analogy!
Meriam Webter defines theft as
1 a : the act of stealing; specifically : the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it
b : an unlawful taking (as by embezzlement or burglary) of property
1)..When someone illegally copies a piece of software, a physical piece of merchandise that existed in a warehouse does not just magically disappear. Unlike in the real world, the proprieter of a business (Say COMPUSA, or MICROSOFT) does not have to spend extra money on recovering lost inventory.
2)..You can argue against it all you want, but the vast majority of pirated software on many people's PCs would not have been bought in the first place. I know there are exceptions, as always. But seriously, look at the Start menu on your average (artist I suppose since I went to school with art students)College Student's PC: Photoshop, Premiere, AfterEffects, Office, 3D STUDIO MAX, an assortment of expensive 3D games (Not to mention about 10 GB of Mp3s, which is a different but incredibly related discussion). Oh Good Lord, this one student has cost the industry thousands of dollars in software, and has cost the music industry nearly $2000-$3000 in revenue! What a load of carp. Apparently most people have forgotten that college students are poor!
Yeah, I suppose you could argue that through pirated software one is stealing profit--depriving the company of the profit it deserves. That is a dangerous argument to make. Because then how would you like it if a company had the right to sue you over persuading a fellow citizen that it would be unnecessary to even wrong to buy a specific product. Would that then mean that you have stolen what would have otherwise been a positive cashflow from said company? I think not. A corporation does not have the right to determine what a consumer should or would have done under their ideal circumstances. That right lies solely within an individual. If we want to crack down, lets crack down on real piracy, where a piracy group sells contraband copies of another person's material. That's what copyrights are all about in the first place.
Plus, Bill Gates really kind of needs to suck my wang, a little bit.
Easy. Use pirated software. If you go under, then just less to pay.. If your company flourishes, then pay for the licenses. I mean if the software was any good, you'd make a proffitable company right?
Some professors believe that "By the time we get them, they already believe it [piracy]'s right."
Of course that's what students believe! What student--what consumer--believes it's "right" to ask $600.00 for Adobe Photoshop, $400.00 for Office, or $1000.00 for Windows 2000 Server? If Adobe is going to be stupid enough to ask $600.00 for a copy of Photoshop, then they get what they deserve.
If Photoshop were only $20.00, then nearly everyone would purchase a legitimate copy because they would feel it was worth the money and (most importantly) they could actually afford it! What a concept!
There's also an interesting bit on how business software is now 1/3 pirated, down from 1/2 in 1995. In America, it's only 24%. From the way companies like Microsoft whine about piracy, I'd assumed the figures were increasing, not decreasing
It would be more enlightening to see validated statistics regarding the least pirated software. I bet it's those $10-per-CD discs of discount software you find on those display racks at places like Target and Kmart, due mostly to the reasonable pricing.
- "It's just a matter of opinion!" - PRIMUS
I totally fail to see why "youngster piracy", as in
some kids who couldn't afford buying it anyway sharing software,
would be a bad thing(tm).
The companies don't lose anything (not having the cash to buy
a legit copy, the kids would just do anything else), but they
gain market share, and therefore mindshare.
And their whining about people making copies of stuff that's no longer available legally is even more ridiculous.
Ideally, everyone would move to just Open Source Software and the problem would be eliminated; in a less-utopic
world, we need a revision of copyright law, and fast.
This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
Ok lets clear something up here.
Softwar Piracy does not directly in hibit a comanies growth, if a comanies sofware sucked, then no one would purchase it anyway.
all these "lost" dollers the speak of probably didn't exist anyway.
And making an exact duplicate of something is not the same as having the ONLY physical copy.
It's more like making a precise copy of the monlesa from a meuseum, one is still in the meuseum the other is in your hands.
Thirdly adobe ever stop to think if they charged less they'd be copied less, same for microsoft etc.
I like to try before i purchase my self that's why 99% of the time if I like a game from blizzard i'll purchase it if not i delete it from my hard drive (just as an example).
It's like telling a kid: your not allowed to try this bike out before you save your book mony for it
How far do you think that'd go, probably about as long as it'd take you to smack the store manager a good one.
I am tired of them Linux basterds chargeing $100+ for thier software. Lets all pirate redhat 7.2. I have cracked their network and found an open ftp server that has an ISO of the software on it. (ftp.redhat.com)
As a side note - I might be a little far out with this one, but, if the population of a country belives something is ok. Then with my reasoning the goverment should belive the same. I thought that was what democrocy[sic] is[sic on the whole dam posting].
01100001100001111
I reckon that you'd have an easier time educating kids to swear off sex totally (except for procreation within marriage) than getting them to honour all forms of 'intellectual property'.
I argue here that the notion of intellectual property is not natural to humanity.
While animals relate easily to concepts of scarcity, one thing that distinguishes humanity is its capability to comprehend of abundance.
Human societies the world over have emerged from the caves by their ability and willingness to share information freely, and use this information to better their lives.
The notion of 'ownable intellectual property' was an artificial construct used initially to protect the incomes of publishers (who faced the large costs of typesetting and production), then was extended to generating an incentive for authors and providing them with a way to earn a living from the fruits of their creative labours.
However, to me, the 'intellectual property' system is clearly now serving the interests of the 'machine' far more than the interests of original creators.
How many masterpiece books actually make it into print? Many bestseller authors tell stories of their work being only accepted by the 30th publisher they approached. And even for those who find an outlet, they typically get screwed, receiving a miniscule percentage of the profit from their works.
And, it's the publishers and retailers who benefit far more from copyright than the original creators.
But with the advent of the Internet, I strongly feel it's now time to revise the whole notion of 'intellectual property'.
For the first time in human history, it's cheap, fast and easy to distribute information worldwide (anything that can be digitised - music, literature, art - perhaps even sculpture soon).
I strongly suggest that instead of trying to educate kids against 'piracy', we teach them to be innovative in finding new ways of profiting from their creativity in a new climate of abundance.
I would feel happiest with a system which limits copyright to the right of a creator to receive credit and acknowledgement for their work.
I feel that human society would thrive and evolve far better by setting the internet free, and encouraging everyone to participate in the new Abundance.
-- In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was UNSIGNED, and the main(){} was without form and void...
.. for not being able to follow his simple point. If "depriving" somebody of "potential revenue" is theft (which is what clueless trolls like you like to claim), then simply competing in a free market is also theft. Reducto ad absurdum.
Catch on yet, or forget to take your medication again?
To all the people even my self the think their are major flaws in Laws and soforth, In 20 to 40 years almost everyone on slashdot will be in a position to change them. I just say my your mony, make your life, our time will come (get rid of Socal Security as revange for fscking everthing up).
For all your condescending posturing you still seem incapable of understanding his point. Arguing over how a dictionary defines a term is a piss poor way of debating a point and convincing anybody you have anything valid to say.
We *all* know why stealing is wrong. It deprives the victim of something that is "his".
Everything else, including the law, legal definitions and semantic origins of the word "steal" follow from THIS, not the other way around.
Go back, and argue about why copying information is illegal (and, optionally, morally wrong) w/o resorting to your lame pendantic handwringing over who can use merriamwebster.com faster.
You'd be likely to lose, especially if you're talking about pre-college kids. How many have you talked to, personally? I work with about 50 teenage students. Of those who steal software (about half, i.e. most of the boys), perhaps one or two has ever given any thought to the legal or ethical implications. They neither know nor care.
Let's make this clear by removing the fuzzy issue of copying versus stealing. Instead, assume both extremes:
By and large, what they do care about is getting software without paying for it. This is largely equivalent to getting software without having to ask their parents to pay for it. This is largely equivalent to getting whatever they want as long as they can get away with it.
That is what frustrates me most. It is completely orthogonal to the tired debate on whether piracy is right or wrong. For most kids, right or wrong is simply no match for "what I want." This is typical of teenagers, myself included when I was that age, but that doesn't mean I have to tolerate it anymore. They can form their principles however they like, but if they discard them whenever there's a conflict with "what I want," then they're not principles, they're just excuses.
This is a point that the NYTimes article seems to miss completely. Telling kids not to do "X" is meaningless (except in very young children, e.g., "don't cross the street"). For all other cases, you cannot teach behavior, you can only teach behavior models.
Freedom is not the license to do what we like, it is the power to do what we ought.
They need to quit loading crippleware on cheap boxes.
A lady I know was mentioning that her PC came preloaded with a crippled version of Abobe Photoshop. After awhile it quit working on her and tells her she needs to upgrade to the current version.
When she found out how much it costs she said there was no way in hell she would spend more money on a paint program than what she spent on her computer!
So, she asked me if I could "obtain" a usable copy for her. Being "little people" that can'
t afford huge price tags like that just for playing around we feel no pangs of guilt downloading warez.
No big deal when it's just for private playing around. BUT, when you use it for profit or business that's a different story. I own a very small business and I BUY legit copies of the stuff I use. I DO downloaded and TRY the warez versions and when I decide that they WILL be used for my business I purchase them.
They need to get real on the prices. Make stuff afordable and more people will buy it. If Windows was $40 they would sell lots more copies.
Piracy of software seems to be down from last year, so why are companies complaining?
/their/ businesses on free software.
:D
Simple: They are basing it on their revenues, not a study.
_FREE_ software has gotten more popular over the past year, and when companies used to blaming piracy see their drop in figures, they'll start complaining about piracy of course.
Then from loss of money they'll switch to running
Ha!
.
.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
If a BMW cost only $20.00, then everyone would purchase one, and the rate of theft of BMW's would drop to almost zero. That doesn't mean it makes business sense for BMW to do that.
First, this article makes me sick. The overwhelming corporate morality is obvious and in poor taste. People just should not get their values from the media. Values come from life experience, peer mentoring, and plain old critical thinking, not something like this.
What burns me even more is the reality that some people live in. If pieces like this actually are expected to sway people one way or the other, we should be more than a little scared. Popular opinion is just like popular music or popular anything --manufactured for those who just can't seem to think for themselves. This sort of thing is not what built this country, instead it is the source of the erosion we see today.
Toying around with some software to learn something about it, or the field of interest it is written for is not stealing. This act costs the authors nothing. The lost sales argument does not hold water either because only the rich or the foolish can afford to just buy software they are curious about. The rest of us are just not going to do that when there is no planned gain to be made. People normally do not invest when they do not see a return. Why would they?
As a kid this whole thing took a couple of days to sort out when I was presented with it the first time. It is simple. Learning is ok, profit is not, unless you are a paying customer. Pretty simple really.
As a result of that simple ethic, I have purchased every piece of software that I actually use to my benefit. Simple again, pay back what you owe.
Does this make me a thief? What harm does this cause the authors of the software I have learned about? The only harm I can think of happens when the software is lame, and I say something about it when asked. Paying for lame software is what started this whole thing anyway so in the end that does not hold much water either.
So this avaliabilty of software to all of us helps the authors much more than it harms. All of us who learn about software recommend it to employers and share knowledge and advocacy with our peers. There is a substantial longer term return for a very moderate investment on the part of the software authors.
Why should we bear the burden on this when we have very little return to show for it when the companies who profit from software sales have a clear one?
The structure of this is obvious. If things are slanted toward the established corporations it is much harder for new upstarts to have a chance at the top.
Return for investment works against us here where it should work for us above. Buying a few laws and maintaining a pile of lawyers is far cheaper than dealing with distruptve technologies once they are out of the bag.
Our loss is greater though. We lose out on choice innovation and in general the fruits that our contributions to society in general promise to bring.
How come nobody writes articles about these sort of things. Could it be structure again? Maybe those damn critical thinkers right or wrong are enough of an annoyance that it would be better to chill them before letting them speak?
Blogging because I can...
If you give something and now you dont have it, hows that any diffrent than your friend stealing it?
Ok, copying is more like taking a sandwitch and breaking it in half. Or sharing your wealth with others.
Thats sharing.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
This whole argument is wether or not making a program is making a product or selling a service. From the product point of view, copying a program is stealing. If everyone were to "Steal" from someone else then programers would starve.
From a service point of view copying after the job is done has no effect. The programer was paied in full for services renderd and the client is free to copy at will. Even if everyone who could were to coppy the program the programer can still eat.
The problem is that most companies bough into the product point of view and it would be expensive for them to change perspective. There are alot of managers, lawyers, and other people involved in selling product that are needed in s service industry. This suggests that the product paradigm is less efecent. Abandoning it woud require major restructuring of a company.
There is no perfect way to stop people from copying software. Software Copywright holders need to understand that it is not human nature to respect copywright. What they are doing in not effecent and causes all sorts of problems for them. Copywright Breakers need to remember, and Children need to learn that copying software can interfear with the way many people make a living.
You should be getting paid to write software period, not to sell products. You are a programmer not a salesmen, so what if people share your software, someone is needed to write it in the first place right? Charge people a fee for the service.
You can get paid without selling a product, you just may not become a billionare.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Then we wouldnt need rich CEOs, and mega corperations, we'd just have small groups of programmers working in small teams getting all the money.
Which in my opinion is how it should be, we dont need a middleman.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
A BMW is a tangible thing. When one is stolen it is gone. Software can be copied infinatly with no extra cost. Besides, when a BMW is stolen is costs the company nothing, it hurts the owner not them, so of course it makes no sense for them to do that. Did you even think before you postd this or are you trolling?
Mess Stuff Up
tell them that the only answer is to use OSS and only OSS. teach them now that you look at OSS first and then at pay-ware as an absolute last resort.
get 1 generating thinking for themselves and the entire industry will implode.
Because they are kids. They cant pay for it so its either get free software or have none.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Piracy MADE microsoft.
It's not the ethical scourge that many of the moral simpletons around here would have you believe.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
In other words, if I form a contract with a software provider or film company when I license software or content, and I break that contract by making a copy and passing it to another person, they should have the right to be able to sue me for damages. If the contract wasn't fair, the court will throw it out. If it was, they can make me pay up.
What is unacceptable, and an erosion of liberty, is that an unrelated third party - the police - can take action against me, on behalf of the state on this issue. Unless I was using this commercial transaction to commit another crime - like fraud, or murder - it should be nothing to do with them.
We rightly give the police tremendous leeway to detain suspects, confiscate goods and enter property. When this power is used on behalf of one party of a contract, it's very unfair. It's a dangerous extension of state and corporate power vs. the rights of individuals.
Breaking the terms of a software licence is neither "theft" nor "piracy". It's simply breaking the terms of a software licence, a bit of paper that comes in the box, written by the software company.
"Well, put a stake in my heart and drag me into sunlight."
no matter what you teach, they are going to "steal" software. no matter what behavior model you try to brainwash them with. Look at marijuana these days? do you think the last decade of anti-drug messages have made any impact what so ever? none at all. I can get pot easier than I can get water. So, what do you want to do about it? Throw them all in jail? Yeah, that would cost more than the sum of all the software they're "stealing". You grew out of the software piracy phase, so will they. Regardless, they don't have the money for it so one of 2 things needs to happen.
1) Lower the price of the software.
2) STFU and let kids be kids, it's not a lost sale anyways.
I'll get off my soap box now...
Photoshop is $600 for a reason. It's the best pixel pusher on the planet, and the price is well deserved. You don't need Photoshop. 90% of the people who use it (including people who pirate it) don't need Photoshop. If Adobe sold Photoshop for $20, that would be a lot like a certain company releasing a certain web browser for free.
I'm glad that Photoshop is $600, because there's already enough people who won't buy my software because they say "Sorry, but I already have Photoshop."
You don't need Photoshop, or half the shit people pirate. Pay for and use software you can afford. If people keep pirating Photoshop instead of buying cheaper alternatives, there won't be any more alternatives.
Moderators should have to take a reading comprehension test.
...In order to get ahead in life, you need to work by the moreys and rules that the successful and established have developed and thrived on. Take, for example, Bill Gates, who based his start up company on a ripped-off basic interperter. There are lesser known companies like Franklin and INSLAW and many many others, but this important lesson every last one of them:
Steal, lie, cheat, fuck, back-stab and other wise crush anyone who would stand between you and what you want to achieve... even if it's something as simple as not having to pay $200 for the Microsoft Office Suite. When the Feds come knocking, get a good lawyer (*all* successful people have employed lawyers to get what they want).
It's that simple... nobody rewards "virtue" and only the jealous prosecute the "guilty" (and these people are easily dispatched using lawyers).
Interesting. I've always thought that if I can't pay for something, then I'll make do without it. My mistake, sorry. I guess my upbringing didn't include the "spoiled brat" part, so I don't have that sense of self-righteous entitlement that allows me to demand whatever isn't handed to me on a platter.
Freedom is not the license to do what we like, it is the power to do what we ought.
Ok I can understand piracy being "legally wrong". But how can you claim it is "morally wrong". Were you the type to read Robin Hood and cheer on the sheriff? He is essentially doing what these so called "pirates" do. He's stealing from some guy with a fat wallet and giving to some guy who could just barely afford a decent PC, let alone afford any software. Trust me, I myself have made copies of games for free to a few people I knew that had to save and borrow money to be able to afford a PC that was half ass cutting edge technology. Thank god the P III's pushed down the price of a P II alot or else these people would STILL be saving up for a new computer. If the computer industry doesn't like it they can suck my left nut, the MPAA can suck my right nut because of their bullshit and the RIAA can kiss my ass over MP3s not being fair use when I already own the CD.
We've already heard this argument several times. The problem is that the current system uses a model whereby users of software share the costs of production. If more people cheat the system, either the honest users pay more, the software author goes out of business, or both. No matter how you slice it, someone is trying to get a free ride.
I used the example because I witnessed banks heavily marketing to her in a situation that could have been bad. Please tell me how a person with no income can afford to repay $10000 of credit card debt at 20% APR? What, they can't? Well, that's predatory lending by the lender. Some people I knew in college fell into the trap; namely, her roomate.
Do I think her roomate is blameless? No. Do I think it should be illegal? No. I'm just saying there's quite frequently irresponsible behavior on both sides of the equation. My heart doesn't bleed for the credit card companies who suffer bankruptcy losses because of their terrible lending policies, but neither does it for people who get themselves into that situation. As far as I'm concerned, they both get what they deserve.
If a drug dealer gives away samples for free to an unsuspecting child, is it completely the child's fault they get hooked on drugs and ruin their life? If a credit card companies loan sharks out to 18-year olds, who have never paid their way yet and can't possibly afford the loan they're given, is it completely the kid's fault if they get up to their ears in debt for the rest of their life?
I'm all for being responsible for your own actions-- don't get me wrong-- but knowing what dirty tricks some companies are up to is the best way to defend yourself. That's the big picture I'm talking about.
I can explanate how to administrate your network. You must configurate and segmentate it, so it can computate.
They need to know that it's currently illegal, which is not the same thing as immoral.
They need to know that the ethical aspects of copying are highly controversial, and that words like ``piracy'' and ``intellectual property'' are nothing but propaganda terms used by people who hold a particular point of view about copying.
Lastly, they need to understand the consequences of getting caught.
Then they can make an informed decision whether or not to engage in copying, and on what scale.
If the consumer does not believe it's right, then they should use a cheaper competing product (they do exist) instead. Otherwise, they are simoultaneously destroying the competitors mindshare, and keeping the market leaders prices high (less paying users means higher prices)
If Photoshop were only $20.00, then nearly everyone would purchase a legitimate copy
But would they ? People tend to feel that games are "worth it" and they can "afford it", but games are still pirated. I don't buy your argument, and no sensible business person buys it either.
It would be more enlightening to see validated statistics regarding the least pirated software.
Pirates tend to exclusively go after the market leader. This is one of the more damning aspects of their conduct -- they are re-enforcing the status quo. They are not on some moral crusade at all -- they are simply ruthless amoralists, who have about the same moral stature as Microsoft.
>>If you give something and now you dont have it, hows that any diffrent than your friend stealing it?
very simple you transfered your rights to the other party by giving it ( that is all the orginals and backup copies if we are talking software ).
>>Ok, copying is more like taking a sandwitch and breaking it in half. Or sharing your wealth with others.
no it's more like eating at a resturant and sharing a plate, you still have to pay for 2 seats.
You seem to forget that you agreed to the terms of the purchase. don't like the terms then don't buy the product.
now slight off topic. I don't like m$. but I completely understand the logic of the liscense. What we need is a good consumer protection act for software. In this way, software makers can be held liable for there software like auto makers are liable about their cars.
Onepoint
if you see me, smile and say hello.
Software can be copied infinatly with no extra cost.
Yes, but the cost to write the code can be millions of dollars. Unless you have some mechanism to recover the cost of writing the software, the programmer is going to find another line of work and you won't get any more software.
1/3 is greater than 1/2 - just look at the 3 and the 2, man! - Patrick Cable II Lord of the Blinkencursor (1/3>1/2 said sarcastically, im not that stupid)
The software was handed to me ... not copied ... the person was upgrading and had no reason to keep around the old copy. I was so interested in computers that I would get hand me-downs ... I used a 486 until 1997 ...
So it's not always the spoiled brats ... it was the fact that A.) I didn't know at the time you could get software without buying it ... and B.) My father raised me to respect other peoples things and that stealing was wrong.
That did kinda wear off through highschool ... but hey :-)
SuperDuG
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
If the consumer does not believe it's right, then they should use a cheaper competing product (they do exist) instead.
In many cases the cheaper alternatives are lacking essential features or quality or simply do not exist. Example: Windows 2000 Server. If I'm a college student who wants to learn Windows server administration skills, there is no cheaper alternative that will work me. I have to get my hands on the real deal, and I'll do so any way possible short of theft.
The fact that piracy is not theft is an important one to understand. Theft involves the removal of a good or service, and piracy involves just the opposite (creation/duplication of a good or service). Piracy is unauthorized duplication, not theft, as can be plainly seen defined in nearly any software EULA or video FBI Warning.
The problem is that around 90% of the money you spend on a retail box of software pays for intellectual development, not manufacturing costs. That's not the fault of pirates--that's the fault of someone attempting to build a business over top of an unworkable model.
It costs the originating entity a lot to create a good, but it costs much less for a subsequent entity to reproduce it. In the case of software there is a particularly sharp difference between those two costs, but the same difference exists for all products and services. Manufacturing is a natural business model. Distribution is a natural business model for tangible products or services. But invention isn't a natural business model at all: it only pays off if someone constructs artificial controls over its manufacturing and distribution.
My argument for piracy is the same argument I have against beggars: it's not my duty to support someone else's bad choices. And to those who fear invention and innovation would dry up without financial incentive, just remember that invention is the natural response to an itch called need. We would be better off in a world where the promise of financial fortune didn't lead to frivolous ideas. After all, we don't really need scissors that can cut through a quarter or a collector's-edition china set featuring David Duke, do we?
People tend to feel that games are "worth it" and they can "afford it", but games are still pirated.
No person I know feels that games are worth the money. Most people I know pirate games by the dozens and wouldn't stop doing it unless games were $5 apiece.
Games are frivolous entertainment; the buyer is primarily purchasing content. An application is necessary to get work done via the computer, and is used repeatedly because it serves a functional purpose. Thus it would make sense to any reasonable person to charge many times more for an application than for a game. But that still doesn't justify the fact that both applications and games are both ridiculously overpriced today.
Pirates tend to exclusively go after the market leader. This is one of the more damning aspects of their conduct -- they are re-enforcing the status quo.
Of course pirates go after market leading products! Who wants to spend hours cracking or downloading a given program when a better one is available? This conduct isn't "damning" at all, and is in fact the strongest incentive software companies have to strive for quality in their products. Pirates only care about one thing: the quality of a given product. Review wins, hype, or relative differences in price do not matter. Since piracy is an enhanced "word-of-mouth" (I don't just tell you it's good, I let you see for yourself) that concerns itself only with quality, software companies realize they can boost sales by building a reputation for quality. I for one am glad piracy exists to help enforce Darwinian natural selection.
- "It's just a matter of opinion!" - PRIMUS
If you can't control piracy in other countries, don't even talk about it. You are wasting everybody's time.
In many cases the cheaper alternatives are lacking essential features or quality or simply do not exist. Example: Windows 2000 Server. If I'm a college student who wants to learn Windows server administration skills, there is no cheaper alternative that will work me. I have to get my hands on the real deal, and I'll do so any way possible short of theft.
But here you presume that you "need" Windows server administration skills. That's like me saying that I "need" a Porsche 911. Perhaps you should review your assumptions about what you "need".
In many cases the cheaper alternatives are lacking essential features or quality or simply do not exist.
But there are many cases where the cheaper alternatives exist and have the required features, and yet piracy results. Conclusion: the absence of cheaper alternatives is not the reason why people priate software
The fact that piracy is not theft is an important one to understand.
I agree that it's technically not "theft". However, that it's not theft does not make it right. I prefer to call it "freeloading", and consider it morally analogous to using a train without buying a ticket.
The problem is that around 90% of the money you spend on a retail box of software pays for intellectual development, not manufacturing costs. That's not the fault of pirates--that's the fault of someone attempting to build a business over top of an unworkable model.
Not true. That's not a bug, it's a feature! The user wants to buy intellectual development, they don't want to pay for packaging and distribution (see the slashdot rants on how the "middle man" is taking all the money on music sales)
But invention isn't a natural business model at all: it only pays off if someone constructs artificial controls over its manufacturing and distribution.
Invention is without a doubt a very valuable thing. Societies that value invention do well, societies that do not value it do poorly.
My argument for piracy is the same argument I have against beggars: it's not my duty to support someone else's bad choices.
No, it's not. If you don't like a piece of software, you don't have to use it. If someone has a vastly superior business model, buy it from them instead.
And to those who fear invention and innovation would dry up without financial incentive, just remember that invention is the natural response to an itch called need.
Again, there is a lot of historical evidence that says that rewarding productive citizens works, and punishing them does not. You can spout your neo-marxism all you like, and it won't alter the fact that communism collapsed and capitalism is still here. Funny thing isn't it, that countries that value invention tend to be more prone to it.
No person I know feels that games are worth the money.
Your freeloading buddies are not a representative sample of the population.
Of course pirates go after market leading products! Who wants to spend hours cracking or downloading a given program when a better one is available?
They don't go after "the better one". They go after "the one everyone else is using". And they perpetuate a situation where (a) the market leader has a monopoly on mindshare, and (b) overprices their product.
for calling the original poster "retarded".
Nice way to not listen to yourself, skippy.
The larger the buyer is, the more negotiating power and the lower the prices and more favorable the terms. Logically, we individual consumers ought to be able to form a buying association for major software to get the T&C's we want. (If we could ever agree.)
The other thing that's asymmetric is that those licenses are written by high-power lawyers and are quite complicated. What makes you or I think that we really know what we can and can't do under their terms? What is "reverse engineering"? What is a "backup copy"? What about files on a fileserver? Etc. A "prudent person" (with the cash) would ask his favorite lawyer to research the subject before purchasing or loading the software.
And in the end, your lawyer can't tell you what you can get away with. That is only determined in a law court after the fact.
This is more than theoretical. As a university employee setting up software licensing programs, I am fairly often in the situation of interpreting license terms that really ought to be handled by an expert lawyer, but it's often too much trouble to do that. At some point, you make a "reasonable person" decision.
- Bromo
Fiat Lux.
The people who make the big bucks are often, not always, the ones who take the risk. This has been said before in the music RIAA discussions. The developers get a salary, they sit work get paid, usually for a guaranted about. If said company goes under, its the guys up the chain that bit the bullet the developers are just looking for a new job, being they still got paid for the time they did work.
LinuxWorx
Spelling errors are intentional as are gramatical error
A good place to start is with the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights[or search Gnutella]. Plenty of nice articles there, but these two seem most relevant to the current topic:
Article 19
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
Article 27
1. Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.
2. Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.
Clearly, the only reasonable conclusion is [insert your conclusion here] and anyone who says otherwise is a pirate and scallywag!
------DO NOT WRITE BELOW THIS LINE------
From the way companies like Microsoft whine about piracy, I'd assumed the figures were increasing, not decreasing."
I honestly believe that if Microsoft really went about going after piracy, then they would loose a lot of business. Also, it would break their Monopoly.
Why? Say they really went after the pirates in the non-commercial area (mainly home users) and people really began to be scared shit of copying software and nobody would do it because of the real threat of being prosecuted.
Now say you need an office suite - since you can't copy one, you go to the store to buy one. Do you buy the MS office suite or one just as good for your needs for 1/10th (or even less) of the price?
Microsoft forcing people to register their products online will undoubtably reduce piracy a hell of a lot. I also think it will dramatically decrease theirmarket share.
This is because in the past, everybody was using office because everyone knew how to work it and everybody had a copy at home more or less. Now say this is no longer the case and most people suddenly have different packages. Companies now no longer see the need to also go along with the MS suite becaus ethe reason they didi this in the past (everybody being able to use it because they use it at home or at their previous work) is not necessarily a given.
Also for open source software, MS going after piracy and introducing their forced registration may be the best thing that ever happened to the open source community and other small commercial software vendors. It may be the worst thing microsoft have ever done to themselves (because it will break their monopoly).
A question that is often asked by John Perry Barlow when he speaks, is " How many of you can truthfully say you have never installed any unlicensed or 'pirated" software on your computer?" He continues on to point out that it is about the same percentage across the board regardless if it's a university, corporate, or the general public. The only group that shows a major deviation (which is usually lower) are lawyers.
There is a 18MB MP3 File of him speaking at the O'Reilly Conference, you can download it here
Where in the name did you study economics? Seriously, I'd love you to back this statement up with something more than a soundbite.
However, this is all about the economy, and rich CEOs making billions of dollars off of us. It doesnt really help the people, it helps just a few rich CEOs have a few more million dollars.
Hell, why limit this thinking to just SOFTWARE? I mean, those big, bad, CEO's run all sorts of companies. Next time I'm at the department store, I'll just SHOPLIFT whatever it is I need. And while we're at it, William Clay Ford makes far too much money so I'm just going to STEAL a shiny new Mustang GT.
Grow up. Software piracy is stealing. It hurts far more people than just CEO's and you are only fooling yourself if you think otherwise. How many industries would be absolutely destroyed if they suddenly had to deal with over 25 percent of their product being STOLEN? It would be capitalism's rendition of the apocalypse.
Hi everyone, I am a MS user. I am a gamer also. I find it odd that when I purchase the licence to a game under fair use I am entitled to make a back up copy. However most companies use safeDisc2 for copy protection. Clone cd makes a good back up however it is unable to copy the weak sectors well enough that allows you to play the game without the cd in the tray. So I call them up and I am told that if my cd becomes unreadable that for 10 bucks they will send me a copy providing that they still make copy's of the game. So what alternatives do I have to make a functional backup (legal)? I must use a no cd crack as I am unable to make a working back up. Under the DMCA this makes me a terrorist ! Does anyone know if fair use is dead or has this issue just not bumped heads in the court system ? Do there numbers of piracey include me as I have downloaded this crack ? Something has to happen soon as I wonder when the day will come that I might be considered a pirate and a terrorist.
Am I the only one who have trouble reading the article?
I'd like to point out that I really wanted to moderate today. But there are just too many fools who know lots about computers, less about society, and very little about the law posting mindless bits here.
Ever wonder why corporates and lawmakers look at open source like a bunch of freaks? Think about the guys who promote copyright infringment against corporations, and yet if Microsoft violates the GPL (a copyright infringement), they'd scream bloody murder.
Face it, we're all intellect workers here. I doubt many of us make a career out of building physical objects, or performing physical services. Most of use here either make or will make our careers of our using our minds. And we'd probably like to make money doing it so we can eat, stay warm, and buy more equipment.
The problem is that there are two camps. Those who say that all copying of software/music/etc costs money per copy. That's bullshit. The other camp says it doesn't hurt anybody. Well, tell that to the game companies who didn't make any money because you spent your $50 on blank CD-Rs instead of a single game.
The problem is that no one here thinks about who benefits and loses. People all over have become way too selfish. This counts the users, copiers, corps, etc. Look at the record companies! They want to control distribution of the music through their channels. But if I play the music enough online and get it to enough people, then the artist benefits because people go to the concerts, where t-shirt sales and such benefit the artist. However, what happens to the small record companies that DO promote their artists if they don't make money on the sales? Back when Windows 3.0/3.1 was making the warez scene, Microsoft was yet another competitor. Now they're a monopoly, in no small part thanks to those who wanted the software to be "free".
This isn't piracy. Piracy means we deprive people of what they have to trade. Maybe it's more of a conspiracy, since we all get toghether and affect companies in ways that in our own little world we don't see.
Let me just wrap up and say that your money votes and so do your actions. You can buy all the Linux software you want, but if you're still USING copies of the latest greatest Windows, you promote the monopoly. You may love a band to bits, but if you never contribute anything to them succeeding, you're a leech, not a fan. Why do the rules that we have in the IRC rooms and trading programs and such not apply when we interact with a world in which we can vote with ballots, purchases, and lobbying?
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. - G.B. Shaw
1. Copying, distributing, sharing, and pirating are examples of violations of software license agreements.
... but it does nothing to protect the software authors themselves. This, in a very powerful way, is wrong.
2. Violating a software license agreement is a federal crime under the DCMA.
Therefore:
It's a federal crime not to comply with arbitrary regulations imposed by corporations concerning the use of their products.
The regulations corporations weave into their license agreements are not approved by the citizens of this country and can be changed and reworked and made obscure as the software company pleases. This completely bypasses the kind of representative government that was constructed to prevent large interests from overriding the will of the citizenship. This is wrong.
Copyright law specifically protects the rights of an author to sell, distribute, package, modify, and redistribute *their work* as they wish. The spirit of the law is clearly to protect authors from attacks on their work by competing parties who wish to claim the work of someone else as their own. However, corporations write this out of the contracts they sign with their employees, making everything that their employees produce the property not of the employees -- the authors -- but of the corporation. This completely bypasses the protections that copyright law was designed to protect, ripping out of the hands of the software authors the power to control how their work is handled. This is wrong.
Copying software to share with my friends, copying my friends' software to use on my computer, and distributing software applications and MP3s via file-trading networks is not "theft." It is a violation of the rights of the software's author to control the dissemination of his or her work. However, these rights have been signed over to the software company in a complete adulteration of the spirit of copyright law. The author has already been exploited; redistribution of software in violation of a license agreement is only further exploitation of the original author. Think Adam Hinkley and Hotline Communicatons. This, too, is wrong.
Unfortunately, the law itself is what is responsible for all of this confusion. It enables the exploitation of software authors despite specific protections it was constructed to provide. Yet it prohibits the further exploitation of those products in the name of protecting a corporation. It protects corporations against "software theft"
Of course, the easy answer is, well, that the software authors -- the programmers themselves -- shouldn't sign the contracts that fork over the lifetime rights of their work to their employer. But we all know that's a ridiculous solution to the problem, because it only further supports the power of corporations to exploit their workers. The more complex answer is to steal the products of the corporation to perhaps hurt the corporation and bring about its demise. But again, we all know that this is a ridiculous solution because the corporations will survive and thrive as long as there are people willing to fork over their rights for the sake of feeding their children. This is the catch-22 that causes the vast amount of tension between each side of this issue.
The ultimate solution would, of course, be a true Marxist society. I would guess even that a truly democratic society would dissolve the disputes. However, the fact remains: as long as our society exists to protect the rights of each citizen to live, work, and pursue happiness, creators and exploiters will be at mortal odds. What will therefore continue to rage is a battle between two huge segments of our culture: those who believe in the rights of human beings to support themselves, and those who believe in the rights of corporations to exist as fleshless citizens.
Ought we violate software license agreements? Surely not. Might we violate software license agreements? Surely.
j
a beta product full of bugs like any Microsoft piece of shit. They also stole everything they know from others. Let's just fuck those thieves deep in the ass. I only pay for finished (or at least working fairly well) products as long as the price is decent, it includes all the games I enjoy, DVD (I own more than 200) and music. There's no way I would pay $500 for a software when there are free and/or cheap versions that work as well if not better (gimp vs photoshop for example : in this case, photoshop insane price isn't justified that's why they can suck me dry to pay for it).
Copyright can't exist on a Capitalist country.
About capitalism:"under this system a minimum of government supervision is required; if competition is present, economic activity will be self-regulating"
Copyright is an artificial interference.
So capitalism don't work, what works is mixed economy.
Roman epire existed 500 years, but at last it collapsed.
So "capitalism works" is a rash conclusion if it can be take into account.
-= If you fight Dragons long enough, you will become a Dragon =-
In UK law, and according to the definition of 'theft' I found in Websters, stealing implies an intention to deprive the owner of his property. Software companies have hijacked the word to give the case against copying an emotional appeal. Whatever you think of the rights or wrongs, it's not theft.
Suppose that copying software were literally harmful. Say, developers' bank accounts magically shrink. Most kids would neither know nor care.
What a crock of shit. Most kids do not directly hurt other people in an unjust way! They are not a bunch of self involved sociopaths who run around robbing and attacking people. Why do you claim they would rob and attack software developers?
Indeed, people feel OK about software piracy exactly because of the moral fuzziness of the issue. It is not clear to these folks that they are hurting anybody. If it were, they wouldn't do it.
No, it really isn't. It is copyright infringement. There's a significant difference. Theft deprives someone of the item that is stolen. Pirating software merely brings another copy of it into the world. Don't let the suits brainwash you too much there...
I think half of the readership got bullied by the big kid in school way too much, and subconciously see copyright infringement as a way to get back at that big kid (now a suit or CEO). The over-the-top lack of caring for the law shocks me. There are some days when I read slashdot and am enlightened, some when I am scared, and some when I am just sickened. Today falls in both categories 2 and 3.
Put identity in the browser.
I am a firm believer in the Henry David Thoreau's famous quote "That government is best which governs least", and further agree with him that
Make the ownership of software by businesses an entirely different thing than ownership for personal use. Impose hefty fines on businesses for piracy, but require software companies to make available - free of charge - any software sold to businesses (e.g. Adobe Photoshop, Word for Windows, AutoCAD, et. Al.) to the private consumer for personal use. This will have a positive effect for companies and individuals as follows:
1) The overall pool of knowledge will likely increase when it comes to business related tools, and companies will not have to hire expertise from other companies. For example, if an embedded systems company wants someone with vxWorks experience, they can expect to find a reasonable pool of people who have been using it at home, as they did not have to pay the multi-thousand dollar fee or work at a company that did in order to have access to it.
2) It will be practical to enforce multi-thousand dollar fines for piracy on businesses (who presumably have the money to pay the exorbanent prices) without threatening the lowly worker who may have had a hand in developing a product that generates millions, but certainly doesn't see very much of that themselves. Appropriate fines for piracy of software intended for home use may also be levied.
3) Patty Piracy will have a much easier time explaining to little Johnny why it's OK for her to have an unpaid for copy of Word on her machine, but not OK for little Johnny to pirate a game. The Game is software designed and marketed for home use, and so must be paid for by home users, while the word processor is designed and marketed for businesses, and so must be paid for by businesses.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
The world being full of enigmas as it is now, (Bush, Microsoft, Taliban, Israel, Palestine, India, Pakistan, etc, etc, etc),it would be very irresponsible action on my part to even think about bringing a child in this world.
I put you into my replicator, but all that came out was a troll. What's wrong with this picture?
Your hypothetical machine is an interesting and flawed side track. We might imagine that there will always be some kind of input to such a machine, like energy, and that you will have to please the folks that make those inputs or they won't want to do it anymore. Hmmm, sounds like trades are required to satisfty people and you have some kind of traditional economy, old laws and all, working. Or not, and the nice things break down. Worse things have happened when people don't respect their neighbors and try to screw them.
As for your intent, sorry, No Feasable Way, No Moral Way, and No Fucking Difference.
1. No Feasable Way. You can't keep people from making copies, but they don't affect the value of work. The original will always have some value to someone and coppies will always be recognized as such. Today, you can buy a print of the Mona Lisa, or you can pay someone to stand in the Louve and painstakingly make a copy by hand. The results are indistingushable from a distance. The differences only tell as you get closer. Coppies will be available, unless your restrict other people's freedom.
2. No Moral Way. You telling me that I can't do what I want with my brushes, or any other technology is an immoral artifact of the now obsolete publishing and recording industries. In the US, limited time fanchises were granted for publishers with the express intent to increase the public domain and enrich society. The evil is no longer needed as we now have nearly costless reproduction of intelectual work. The creator of the Mona Lisa made his living producing works of art, war and liesure. He would be just as valuable and sought after today as he was then. But what is ownership of his work? Does the Louve or any other institution have the right to keep me from imitating the Mona Lisa? I think this is an unnatural extention of your power over my behavior. As you would make the law your tool in violating rights, people would loose respect for the law. Knowledge hoarding of the kind you recomend is the surest road to social ruin.
3. No Fucking Difference. You can try, but you will fail.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
When I tell people about apt, they think I have some kind of software Napster. I learned this while demonstrating dselect to my wife's brother. He was unimpressed untill he learned that the authors of the software meant for me to have it, source and all for whatever purpose I saw fit. I was shocked as much by him thinking that I was "stealing" as I was by his acceptance of such theft. My sister's father in law thought much the same, though he was more dubious about copyright violations and expected me to be busted one day. The thought that I tried to impress was that there is no need for this "theft" as better free alternatives exist that will always be free and always be better. It's hard for them to see outside of the greed they are daily bombarded with.
The net result of the bombardment is that they think that they should not but that they must and will "steal". "Oh well, that's just normal business. Everybody would do it if they could." , is repeated over and over. They, however, feel as though there are no alternatives and that they must continue to do things they consider wrong untill M$ is kind to them and bundles what they want into their OS. Amazing isn't it? The greed is good folks are conditioning people to act immorally and accept immoral laws.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Almost every story here seems to be, "Waaaaaa! I can't get foo for free!!! Waaaaa!"
First, there is griping about the "broadband monopoly". Apparently, for $25/month, we are entitled to buy broadband when our usage will cost the company more then they will make. Strange, I know, but people here just don't get it - companies exist to make money. Apparently, if I'm the only person making a particular product, I'm obligated by "monopoly" to sell every version of it imaginable for the price that Slashdot thinks I should.
As for this software piracy, the real issue is that people don't want to pay for software. It isn't anymore complicated then that. They have very complicated justifications, but they don't want to pay for thier software. Fine, don't. But don't use it, either.
I think the biggest thing that could be done for open source software would be an enforcement of piracy law. Think about it - how many people would keep using Word at home if they had to pay for it? Don't you think that it might help some of the OSS word processors get market share? But, no, we're whining about how we should be able to use Windows and Word for free. Even the Slashdot community, who is supposed to be pro-OSS, seems to think that commercial software is better then the alternatives (at least for some things). If we don't believe what we preach (that OSS is best), then how can we expect others to?
After all, doesn't the music theft crowd believe that piracy increases the sales and populatiry of music? Why, then, would we pirate software on the moral grounds that the company doesn't deserve our money? Our piracy may contribute to the company's bottom line.
Piracy is really stealing.
Even with morals, it is stealing.
When you buy a CD, or a tape or whatever, your do NOT buy the stuff on it. You buy the right to certain use of it. This use includes playing/listening to it privately (not charging others to use it), and making a single copy FOR ARCHIVAL PURPOSES ONLY.
Giving free or for pay copies to others IS NOT LEGAL.
Using a pirated version FOR ANY AMOUNT OF TIME IS NOT LEGAL
Having multiple instances of it active at once IS NOT LEGAL
When you pirate, you just violate a contract between you and the record label, software publishes, etc. If you feel that big companies are bad, email me and we can discuss this (arecibe@hotmail.com)
Accepting prated stuff is Stealing, not sharing. You use something which you are not allowed to use.
If you still think that it's "Sharing", send me your real address, so that I can "Share" your house, car, wife, computer, etc.
arecibe@hotmail.com
Piracy is done mainly because software isn't cheap and usually costs a lot. How much do you think 3DS costs? I'm not talking about educational crap here ( as in stripped down of what's really interresting about the software ). Further more, how much do you think the licence of 3DS costs. It is freakin expansive for anybody that doesn't own a business. Now think about how many applications graphic designers have on their machines, total the cost of these and you'll see why piracy is so popular. It is simple, piracy is done because software costs a lot for anybody that doesn't have a 5 digits salary ( even with that it is still expansive ).
;) This seems drastic, but it is the only to stop it. I don't picture the scare tactics of the "federal bureau of intimidation" making any difference on the warez trades. Believe it hasn't changed a single thing :)
The only way to stop piracy is through open source and "free as in beer" software. Har!
People still copy what can be copied and that will never ever change! Anybody got his balls busted for copying tapes a few years ago, I don't think so. So now they have no means to stop the copying and they revert to the most coward mean of enforcing the law.
"Don't do this, or i'll go to your place, kick your ass and make your life a nightmare..."
Anyone wants an ISO of Hitman ?
See this link, which is one of the highlights on the MSN page today. http://www.bcentral.com/articles/enbysk/138.asp?co brand=msn
Speculation: Maybe MS has already realized that they're going to lose a lot of XP sales this quarter thanks to the PnP bug, figure the best way to prop up their bottom line this quarter is with another piracy crackdown, and are pushing stories about software piracy to the popular press to make the crackdown more palatable?
Not to defend piracy, of course.
Maybe, just maybe; the computer "use" community will finally learn that MS and Adobe et al are the ones assuming control of your lives and our government is their pawn/s for the will of corporate america. Software companies appear to be the ONLY business that can have laws created SOLELY FOR THEIR PERSONAL BENEFIT, never US! If the government is so damn willing to chase us and jail us for every claim MS, Adope and others cry foul about, then SCREW the government, AND the software companies, or should I say monopolies. Why is it okay for just the software biz firms to hold "rights" so near and dear, when those very biz firms are so bent on VIOLATAING OUR PERSONAL RIGHTS? Who made THEM a god? I can speak with certainty, that IF MS or you-know-who TRIES gaining access to MY home over some friggin software "issue" they'll be looking down more than a few high-powered guns barrels! NO company has ANY right to invade our homes for "claims" of software "infringements" they assume/d has occurred! I DO NOT OWE THEM A LIVING! If this is the case, then we should sue them for not buying what we produce, and force our licenses upon them for everything WE make/sell them..(hell, it IS "fair use" is it not?)do we not "deserve" to be justly paid for our works as well? Hey, MS, Adope and all; from this day forward, everything you buy WILL come with a license to use enclosed within YOUR "purchased" products, and ONLY when YOU comply with the terms, can you make use of the product! How long would our economy last if every friggin product had a damn license attached to it? I HATE the method MS and ALL software firms have a legal agreement INSIDE a box, and NOT on the outside like the LEGAL documents we use MUST use. How is it legal to hide a license inside a box, and then retain rights they purposefully HIDE on us? How about making the intentional hiding of ALL software license agreements within a package a VIOLATION of the damn DMCA as well! Make the software companies LIABLE to the government and as liable to criminal prosecution as we appear to be. When B. Gates and ALL software C.E.Os are held accountable for their criminal acts as we have been, then FAIR USE has been reached for ALL, not just the rich operations. Laws restricting and denying OUR RIGHTS are NOT LAWFUL acts by the government! WE NEED A NEW GOVERNMENT! One built upon the constitution ONLY and DENYING the government access to ANYTHING that denies us from FAIR USE, OWNERSHIP of ANYTHING SOLD and USE of what we purchased, not these damn "licenses" those bastards force feed us! I OWN EVERY PIECE OF SOFTWARE I PAID FOR, IN WHOLE, and since these "licenses were INSIDE the package and NOT of the outside for me to first read, I IGNORE the claims they make about their "licenses" as well! If I can not READ the agreement first, but have to purchase the product BEFORE I am able to read this agreement, then the agreement is NOT LEGAL NOR BINDING according to the federal trade commission concerning "contracts" "licenses" and "user fees" that populate this nazi-loving nation holds so damn near and dear to their "hearts"! Wake up people..."copyrights" are BAD and WILL destroy all our lives in one form or another! Copyright is for the USE of the writer to use for LIMITED times, for his/her personal gain, but when that gain is overextended, and crushes and violates another's rights, it has gone TOO FAR! Once a copoy has been sold, further "rights" to profit have been ended with the sale to one person has taken place. To hold that writer's rights to be unending as long as his software is on the market, and hold all right, title and profit is NOT a right, but a monopoly that the rest of us do not have with our personal property we sell, regardless of what it might be, and THAT is WRONG as well. Why is software so well defended? Are writers of software now "special" people that NEED to force us to make THEM a living somehow? Once you SELL, OFFER FOR SALE ANY product, do you retain rights to the product after its sale as well? NO...NO...NO!!! Open your eyes people, it is NOT STEALING to GIVE COPIES AWAY, since YOU are NOT doing it for profit, you deny the "company" NOTHING! It is YOUR copy to do with as YOU see fit, NOT the company that made it! They SOLD it, they LOST the right to dictate what you or I do with it once it is sold! It is ONLY theft when you copy it, then sell it, THEN and ONLY then is it "piracy"! Making copies is NOT theft, HOW can you STEAL what you PAID for? Did you SIGN and AGREEMENT to USE this software BEFORE you paid for it? NO? Then it is NOT a "license" but a product sold like any other product available to us then. Simple, plain and TRUE! You can ONLY be bound by the condition of a license when you SIGN A DOCUMENT folks, not by the simple act of useage! How can anything be billed as "fair use" when it is so restricted in its use as to deny my doing what I want to, with what I paid for, and not just for a short time, but forever as well? That in itself is NOT "fair use" but "restricted use" of an item or items that were sold for money. Nope, I own what I paid for...in full! That home you "bought" is not really yours, but is "licensed" for use only, for a limited time..yeah, right! I say again; what is sold for a price is SOLD, not licensed!
206.39.38.2, DDN-BLK-36, DOD NET INFO CENTER. 800.365.3642 206.36.0.0-206.39.255.255 NET RANGE.
In the negative time days (before 1970), if you wanted to copy something, it took serious effort. Copier machines could be used to copy books, but it was too expensive to bother with in most cases. Tapes could be used to copy vinyl records, but the results were usually quite inferior.
Enter the computer, an all in one printing press, photo shop, music production studio that even an idiot can use. Now that we've scaled this technology to a level where anyone can copy intellectual works of various sorts at minimal expense, how shall we price and sell intellectual work?
This is a dangerous question. This paradigm has been a fact of life ever since our industrial society began.
For all practical purposes, IP law is becoming a moot point. Practical concerns are overshadowing the original reasons for having such laws in the first place. This is not a question of morality, rich vs. poor, intellectual honesty, business policy or anything of the sort. It's a question of how we are to build workable concepts of intellectual property distribution and nourishment that are designed to meet the needs of technology.
Teaching not to pirate software is not good or bad --it's irrelevant.
Nearly fifty percent of all graduates come from the bottom half of the class!
I know we have been around the block on the whole legal vs right issue, so as much as I agree with the principals of the question, I do not think it actually matters.
What does matter is the fact that it revolves around control. Remember in Dune when Paul says something to the effect of "that which can be destroyed can be controlled" or some such. What we are dealing with is the fact that corporations have piracy in mind when they are compliling software they will attempt to place stricter and sticter controlls on usage
I firmly believe that is is not actually a question of right vs wrong, and paying royalties on copywrites is an incidental argument to make the whole issue sound fair/unfair to the unwashed masses. What is going on is methods to get popular opinions set for legal changes towards the government's attitude to piracy.
Could it be that someday piracy will be/resemble a form of terrorism
I really dislike the spin that seems to always be present in the media...so here is what I think:
Untill the man can absolutely controll piracy there will be piracy. All of this whining and complaining is a means to control/influence investors (in said corporation)/legislation inititives and be 'PC' in an executives environment.
For example in a non-related industry: Do you think that if the government was serious about speed limits, and how illeagal driving over the speed limit is, that they would require cars to be manufactured that were incapable of exceeding the speed limit? Maybe they just forgot about that small fact. If you have a child in the house do you leave glasses full of toxic household chemicals around for them to play with, or do you lock them up in a garage?
It sounds to me like they are desparately whining about something...and that is their lack of control. Some of you may have been fooled, but dont be.
Whatever.
Right...? Wrong....? I'm the guy with with gun.
The issue really is the len of the Copyright term. Which now stands at about 75 years.
This is how I see it. The copyright is a contract between the producer of an information good(software) and the consumer(public) of that software. The contract gives the producer a temporary monopoly (75+ years) and in return the public gets to use the software for free in public domain after that.
The len of the copyright term as rendered most(not all) of software value less after 75+ years.
Not many will want MS-DOS after 75 years, or not may may want to see B grade movies/vidoes from 70 years ago.
So the general public has little incentive to honor the copyright contract.
It is very difficult to tell the youngsters (with a straight face) to honor the copyright contract now and wait for 70+ years so that they can freely play that game, or listen to that song or use that software when it comes out in public domain.
PS
the above comment is copyrighted by me A.C. 2001.
It will be available in Public Domain after the year 2075.
In 7th grade (1995) I was subjected to an educational rap video in my computer class where I was repeatedly instructed to "Don't Copy that Floppy".
Anyone else remember that?
I think a slightly revised selling system could
totally CRUSH piracy. We all know how nice it is to have pretty books, and tech support, and such, but often times the user doesn't want that stuff, and they just want to be able to install the program and use it. They don't want to pay for tech support that they aren't going to use. Why can't software companies sell downloads of ISO's for a fraction of the cost of the retail version of thier software, but ISO users would be barred from tech support and such. They would be still making thier money, and they would be selling directly to thier customers, and a substantial savings to the customer. Retail stores make HUGE markups just because they can, why can't the software companies sell the isos below the wholesale price of thier products? I would never pirate software again, methinks.
Spring is here. Don't believe me, look outside!
Take caution with the brainwashing there. One can use this argument to "borrow" someone's car if one intends to return it after use. Also, there's a fairly solid argument that at least some percentage of people using warez would buy the program if they didn't have access to it for free. So, theft of use is indeed different from theft of goods, but there are still ethical parallels to be considered.
Virg
companys like microsoft and many others whine because in countrys like india they are 98% pirated so its not so much the US side of it. hence the reason the xbox wont be out in china
I've been waiting for someone to come up with the Robin Hood metaphor, because on the surface it seems to apply to the situation, but in this circumstance it's a horribly skewed fit, and here's why.
1.) You didn't steal the software from Sheriff, you bought it, and in so doing, you agreed to the terms of the license. If you're going to steal, then by God, steal.
2.) Since when is there a God-given right to play the newest games? The Sheriff of Nottingham was taxing people to the point of starvation. Geek jokes notwithstanding, I've never seen anyone die of a Quake deficiency.
3.) There are free software packages available all over the 'Net, including games if that's your poison. It's not necessary to pirate to use any of them. And before you say, "there's no (insert name of newest game here) available free," I'll ask you to reread article 2.
4.) What the MPAA and RIAA do wrong doesn't make what you do wrong morally right, because they aren't forcing you to do anything in the first place. Again, to go back to the Robin Hood motif, the poor couldn't choose not to pay their taxes. You (and your poor friend) can choose not to play game X without serious injury.
In short, if you feel like sticking it to the Man, then do so, but don't try to bend the rationalization around so that I'll se your actions as morally justified. What you're doing isn't civil disobedience. It's just copyright infringement.
Virg
In America, it's only 24%. From the way companies like Microsoft whine about piracy, I'd assumed the figures were increasing, not decreasing
From the way people still whine about murder and rape, you figure they'd just get used to it by now....
Interestingly, piracy rules and behaviours make for an interesting study in sociology and economics. Posturing is just so much noise.
Ultimately, a product will be sold for whatever the market will bear. You can talk development costs, volumes, whatever else you want. If the market will support a higher price, the price will go up.
When supply is low and demand is high, prices go up. Diamonds are expensive, for example, not because of any intrinsic value but because supply is low and is kept low. But, these are physical things. You can control the supply by physical means without worrying about the fact that anybody out there can duplicate them at will.
So, what happens when you can no longer control the supply of a thing? Adam Smith would say that as supply increases, if demand remains static, prices will drop. Makes sense. True monolpoly power relies on the ability to control the supply of a necessary article.
In the information realm, you can no longer control the supply. Supplies of Photoship CDs are, for all practical purposes, unlimited. Once it is out there, it is out there and just about anybody can make more of them. So, the price has to come from somewhere else. There has to be some sort of intrinsic value to a thing. If the price goes above that, the duplication behaviours set in and you get a high piracy rate.
It becomes a classic sort of saddle curve. Price the product too high, piracy sets in and your profits tank. Price it too low, and you aren't making enough money to keep afloat. Find the maximum of that curve and you are in happy territory.
Basic economics, right?
So, how do you lower the piracy rate? That's where a little sociology comes in. Look to the reasons people say they copy the program and attack those. How do programs that offer trial copies fair on piracy? How about those that offer feature-reduced versions (Photoshop Elements, for instance)?
Sure. Some people are going to copy programs just because. About the only way to stop them is to dry up the demand for pirated copies. Even that will just reduce it. Can't affect them much.
The real opportunity is in the casual copier. Reduce the incentive for Joe User to copy software, or increase the incentive for him to pay a reasonable license fee, then you can make progress.
Teaching it as "right" or "wrong" has proven ineffective. Fancier protection schemes are slightly less ineffective, but not much. Treat it as a behavioural problem, not a moral one. Then you can make progress.
> Big corporations are always screwing over the little guy, with their
> fine print, bait & switch tactics, political donations, advocacy advertising,
> EULAs, whatever. Why is it OK for them and not for me?
Well, it's not okay. For either of you. Whether or not they deserve to be screwed, you screwing them is still unethical. That said, them screwing you is also unethical.
Get it now? Carry on.
Virg
Allow me to touch on a few points brought up in this forum.
Let's say you own a software company that sells an office suite for $500 (and let's assume this is the first release for an obscure company with little advertising money). The program is fast, cross-platform, and reads/writes MS Office files flawlessly. You put this product up for sale on your webpage. One person orders it. He is so captivated by the usefulness of this program that he decides that other people should be able to share in it as well. He puts it on his FTP server and posts a few messages on USENET to let others know about this incredible software (let's also assume that the feds aren't on his ass about this). Now, let's also assume that your office suite will send information to your servers whenever the software is run (usage information)... but wait, what's this? According to your logs, over 10,000 people are using your software! How can that be? You only sold one copy! On the one hand, you feel great that your software is enjoying immense popularity; on the other hand, you're wondering how you can pay your bills given that 10,000 people are using your software and all you have to show for it is $500 instead of $5 million.
------
The scenario above may seem far-fetched, but it serves to illustrate the "piracy is theft" point. Anyone who thinks otherwise is TRYING TO RATIONALIZE THEFT. Yes, it's not "theft" in the classic sense, but preventing someone from having what is rightfully theirs (in this case, $5 million for 10,000 copies of software) IS THEFT NONETHELESS.
"Well too bad, it's overpriced! I won't spend $500 for software!" -- Well, you're not entitled to use it then. The company puts a price on their product... if you're not willing to pay that price, then you don't need to use it. You might say, "I won't pay $500, but $30 MAX is okay"... who decides what a "reasonable" price is for this software? You might say $30, but someone else might think $30 is absurd, and would only want to pay $10 (and therefore steal it because he feels the software isn't worth the given price). Then, someone else might think $10 is too much and...
Basically, that reasoning is a slippery slope where the bottom is "all software should be free, regardless of how much money it cost to produce". This kind of reasoning boggles me... if you're not willing to pay the given price for software, that means it is worth nothing to you... if it's worth nothing, then why do you insist on using it? Obviously, if you "need" to use the software, it has some value. Would you prefer that software companies allow you to download full versions of their software and give you the option of paying only what you think the software is worth? If you can't see how that kind of strategy would bankrupt ANY company, you need to wake up.
One last point: "I'm a college kid and I can't afford $500 for Photoshop/AutoCAD". Okay, let me get this straight: you're in school for graphic design and Photoshop is the industry standard... therefore, you need Photoshop skills before leaving college. You also NEED college to get into the industry, and you're paying $30,000 for college. Is $30,500 that much more to spend? You need college, you need Photoshop... am I missing something here?
Software is a PRODUCT, nothing more! Programmers provide the SERVICE, the service of programming, nothing more! Selling a software suite/package is selling PRODUCT, nothing more, since I can't call the programmer that wrote the program and request he/she give me the SERVICE I require to USE my software; again, THAT, is a SERVICE, nothing more! People ONLY can provide service, NEVER software! Since we have yet to attain actual A.I. status of any software driven robotics, it falls upon HUMANS to BE the SERVICE we need, and not the software we USE. How is MS or any software firm "losing" money if I paid for a copy of WIN-98SE and then copied it to several machines I own? How did I "steal" software? I buy software to OWN, not simply use with "permission" of another. My money paid for it, and if MS or XXX wants to retain ownership, then REFUND MY MONEY and I'll sign a CONTRACT OF USE with their attorneys, nothing less than THAT, will suffice! If money paid for it legally, and I have a legit copy, what I paid for is ALL MINE..and NOT "owned" by MS simply because they paid to have a programmer write some program....NONSENSE! Fair use is fair use, nothing less will do! Making profit from that use IS NOT fair use! But my making multiple copies for myself is fine, I bought it and will do whatever I want to do with it, even give a copy away as well. As long as I do not profit from my sharing or giving a copy away, MS and company can't do squat about it, let alone prove it as well. (I secretly encoded the root file with a hidden message that makes the user want to buy stock in Apple.) All I want to convey is this: Copies paid for and kept and owned by myself and nobody else. making a profit from another's work IS theft, and THAT is wrong. As long as I paid for my copy, what I do with that copy is legal, and since I signed no legal contract, I am NOT bound by any terms of use, license or anything. No contract signed, NO CONTRACT/LICENSE! No court will be able to jail anybody for breach of wind, except MS will try though!
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>>Ok, copying is more like taking a sandwitch and breaking it in half. Or sharing your wealth with others.
no it's more like eating at a resturant and sharing a plate, you still have to pay for 2 seats.
Actually it's more like eating at a restaurant, ordering one plate, and then using that to figure out the recipe so you don't have to pay for a second plate. Unlike with the sandwich example, you both get a full meal even though you've only bought one.
>>Actually it's more like eating at a restaurant, ordering one plate, and then using that to figure out the recipe so you don't have to pay for a second plate. Unlike with the sandwich example, you both get a full meal even though you've only bought one.
nope because you still have to pay for the fillings
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You missed my point, I was rebutting the parent's comment that if software were more reasonably priced, people would pay for it. $10 for a piece of software certainly seems like a small price to pay, but nobody does. Exactly how even if Windows XP were $20 (not $200), it would still be very heavily pirated.
I'd venture that Software Piracy is akin to...
Sneaking into the Cinema without paying!
or...
Squeezing under the door in a Pay Toilet!
or...
Passing Counterfit Currency!
People with an unauthorized, and unpaid, Cable-TV connection probally feel quite morally justified about it!?!
Paying the Owner of Software for its usage, is paying for a service.
This is akin to Hire where you are paying for 'the use of'!
.
(David Bowman, EVA near HUGE Monolithic Win-PC in orbit around Jupiter) "My God - its full of Malware!"
This crackdown is bullshit. I seriously think my tax money should goto something a little more worthy. Sure I think it is wrong for big corporations to pirate software and such, but if your a poor college student like me and need office, or something like that and it costs more than your computer then you better believe I ain't paying for it. Also, if it is a game, I'm all about trying before buying. There are soo many crap games that are released and I'm sick of spending $50 for more coasters. Sure if you like the game, buy it, if you don't delete it. All these dollar figures they come up with on how pirating hurts the economy are way over inflated. You really think joe blow who makes $6/hr at wal-mart and just happens to have a $16,000 copy of maya burnt, was going to buy it if he couldn't pirate it? I just think the software companies bring it upon themselves by making crappy software and overcharging for stuff. For highend software they should offer fully featured noncommercial versions that are significantly discounted, and they should have some method of trying pc games before you buy them, and I bet piracy would drop significantly. Anyways, just my $.02 on that.
When you look at some of the accidental and deliberate abuse of piracy over the years, it's pretty clear we are totally unprepared for such a huge change in mindset.
M$ allowed huge amounts of piracy of their software, as it gave them a big market share, and in the long run, allowing that piracy will probably make them a lot of money. The record companies can't let go of the old technology, and wonder why people are so angry about paying the same price twice, for a CD that's scratched. Isn't part of the money for the license? not the media?
When a discussion is about the price of CDs, it's all about incorporating the license fee into the media... but when it's about getting a discount on a replacement or duplicate media (CD version of your old LP), then it's all about the media and distribution...
M$ still hasn't come across the big rebellion against them, and won't unless they start cracking down on piracy... but when they do, people are going to be pissed off, and retaliate... unfair? well if you allow piracy some days, and not on others, you're inviting people to be pissed at you...
Too many big companies have lied to their customers about many things, so it's asking a lot for them to respect their rights, when the companies don't respect their customers.
Disgusting ethics breeds disgusting ethics...
you can't have it both ways...
It's a bitch when Karma bites back
People "pirate" software because it is extortionately overpriced. Sure you have the R&D costs, but they are one-time costs, after that you have the media costs.. which are next to nothing, It`s like printing money, money as raw materials is virtually worthless and incredibly inexpensive to produce. So then you have a company producing endless supplies of CD`s for a few cents a piece, and selling them for $100+, with "ABSOLOUTELY NO WARRANTEE", If i PAY for a product, i want to know it`s gonna work properly, or else recieve some form of compensation.. same as if i bought a car with defective brakes, or a loaf of stale bread.
And this money goes not to the developers who actually made the software, but to the fatcats.
Now think of the poor kids, if a kid gets $5 pocket money a week, and an average computer game costs $50... he has to save for 10 weeks just to play 1 game, Most games don`t provide 10 weeks worth of entertainment, some may not even provide 10 minutes, and how many kids are capable of sitting on money for 10 weeks without spending it? Instead, the kid gets a few games for his birthday/christmas/whatever, and with his money buys a box of CDR`s, and copies his friends games.
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Your girlfriend had every right to throw all those offers away. I got tons when in college, used only 2, ignored the rest, survived. Maybe I was the innocent one, but don't suggest that your GF didn't have some responsibility too.
Lest anyone remember a wee tale of a gentleman named Robin Hood?
You don't need Photoshop. 90% of the people who use it (including people who pirate it) don't need Photoshop.
Adobe realized this and released a stripped-down product called Photoshop Elements. It retails for $100 and includes everything but high-end color separation. Many other users (such as myself) are also happy with GIMP or WinGIMP.
If Adobe sold Photoshop for $20, that would be a lot like a certain company releasing a certain web browser for free.
"Certain company" meaning AOL, whose Netscape division contributes engineering labor to the free Mozilla web browser suite?
Will I retire or break 10K?
To hopefully end this argument:
Velocity is a function of both distance and time v=d/t. When applying this to collisions of moving objects on the same vector(such as cars on a one lane highway) it is true that both the distance between objects (the difference of positions p0-p1) as well as the negative acceleration time to match velocities is the cause of collisions.
To put this in numeric terms, the distance between two cars is 10m. Car0 is in front of car1. Car0 is traveling at 30 m/s while car1 is traveling at 35m/s. If car1 can not match velocities in two seconds, they will collide.
If the distance is 100m then car1 would have 20 seconds to match velocities.
If the distance is 10000m then car2 would have 2000 seconds to match velocities.
In other words, speed (velocity) does not cause collitions, but rather the inability to slow down (negative acceleration) does.
Of course it gets a bit more complicated when you have multiple lanes and allow the objects to change lanes.
Ummm, Jon, aren't you supposed to be dead...? - Otter(3800)
This is terrible, terrible news. To think our youth are growing up thinking that it's okay to maraude the open seas, hoisting the jolly roger, in search of treasure to plunder, women to rape, and villages to burn. In my day, we didn't have such dispicable people in our colleges! I fear for our nation's future.
no it's more like eating at a resturant and sharing a plate, you still have to pay for 2 seats
... Here in the USA, I don't pay for the privelege of sitting down at the resturaunt. I pay for the food I order. If I choose to share that food with whomever I want, then I can. No extra cost is incurred. Your argument is flawed.
Umm.. I don't know what country you're from, but
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