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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."
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.
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
One of the Key factors to a programs piracy rate is it's retail price. autocad3d is probably the highest pirated program in existance. Why? because it is horribly overpriced. A budding engineering student cant afford it, and you cant get a job as an engineer without expierience with it. (classes dont count, you have to do everything in it to become proficient with it) So what happens? it get's copied like mad and the cracks downloaded to bypass the dongle. Now we get to the graphics arts, Photoshop get's pirated, Tv or movie production? the rest of the Adobe suite get's copied. Why? COST. If the home version or student version was identical to the pro version but at a price that was actually affordable it wont get stolen. Businesses cant afford to use pirated software, a raid by the thought \d\d\d\d\d software police is expensive, more expensive than buying it outright.
Orcad used to be the #1 pirated electronics engineering program on the planet... that has changed cince the release of EagleCad, it's free for home personal use, so people dont see the need to steal it.
Want to stop piracy? dont rape home users. simple solution that works and is proven over and over. Microsoft... How about selling Office to Corperations for $3000.00 per workstation and make it $59.95 for the home user. office will no longer be pirated as people can actually afford it now for home use. ($199.99 for more for a wordprocessor/spreadsheet/whatever for home use? that is ASKING to be pirated.)
Alas, it will never happen. greed far outweighs common sense in the business world, espically the software business world.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
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
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.
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.
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
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