Pardon, Is This Your File?

Teknogeek writes "The BSA says piracy is thriving. At least, according to this article. Note one interesting statistic: '...the group found that 57 percent of respondents never or seldom pay for copyrighted works they download. And 12 percent admitted to pirating software.' How much do you want to bet that 45 percent gap is freeware and/or open source?" On a similar note, an Anonymous Coward writes: "MIT Technology Review reports on the process of scanning the entire internet for digital signatures matching copyrighted work (watermarking not required), and automatically emailing threats to the offenders and their ISPs."

Comments

Re:Article Says:

[alan_d_post]

From the GNU site:

Publishers often refer to prohibited copying as ``piracy.'' In this way, they imply that illegal copying is ethically equivalent to attacking ships on the high seas, kidnaping and murdering the people on them.

If you don't believe that illegal copying is just like kidnaping and murder, you might prefer not to use the word ``piracy'' to describe it. Neutral terms such as ``prohibited copying'' or ``unauthorized copying'' are available for use instead. Some of us might even prefer to use a positive term such as ``sharing information with your neighbor.''