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."

Comments

Evaluation

[ZaneMcAuley]

I prefer to educate them as careful shoppers :)

Evaluate before you buy :)

Re:Legal vs. Right

[13013dobbs]

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.
My dad bought a Christler in '86. It was a piece of junk. Do you think it would be OK if he went to the factory and stole a few cars? Oftentimes when I eat at McDonalds, I get the shits. Is it moraly correct for me to hop over the counter, grab a bunch of food and run out the door? RedHat sold me a CD with an exploitable copy of WU-FTP. Can I steal a bunch of CDs or a development server from them?

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.
I would bet that the percent of people who pirate for moral reasons is less than 5%.

Piracy is my birth right...

[iomud]

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?

Thanks Windows XP

[PepsiProgrammer]

And now we can all thank Windows XP for what will probably be the biggest increase in piracy/cracking ever, owing to its new 'authorization' scheme.

Hell, i know legitamite buyers of XP that have it cracked for privacy reasons.

YEAH, Lets educate them about copyrights

[argoff]

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!

Re:It's ok.

[evilmonkey_666]

I write shareware software, but I don't really care that assholes like yourself rip me off, because it's not a lost sale.

I can understand pirating it for 'evaluation'. Hell I would never buy something without knowing exactly what I am getting.

You would never pay for software, even when you find it useful. Low lives like you would steal from defenseless old ladies given the opportunity.

Re:You're right, it's not really PIRACY, is it?

[Darby]

Speeding kills people, 'copyright violation' does not.

This is a bunch of crap. Speeding does *not* kill people.
Idiots driving slowly in the passing lane are the ones who cause problems on the road. I could drive 100 mph on the freeway with no problems until someone driving 50 pulls out right in front of me for no purpose.
I can generally drive much faster in the slow lane since everyone gets on the freeway and then immediately gets over 3 lanes to slam on the brakes and get behind the line of cars who did the same thing.
Speeding is not inherently dangerous. Idiots are.

Re:big picture

[Anonymous Coward]

You'll get modded down for sure. You make too much sense. This is, afterall, "Wah wah wah! Everyone should give me stuff for free!" Slashdot.

IF it were a service

[HanzoSan]

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.

something is missing here

[Erris]

But shouldn't I have the right to say no to you copying my creations, regardless of the media?

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.