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Software Piracy Seen as Normal
Spad writes "The BBC is reporting that people don't see downloading copyrighted material as theft, despite concerted efforts by the games, music and movie industries to convince them otherwise. The report, titled Fake Nation, claims that '[People] just don't see it as theft. They just see it as inevitable, particularly as new technologies become available...The purchase of counterfeit goods or illegal downloading are seen as normal leisure practices,' However, they also found that while people are generally not buying counterfeit software from dodgy dealers on street corners, they are still happy to purchase them from people they know at the office/pub/school in addition to downloading them.
Nobody can really be that suprised by the 'popularity' of downloading pirated software, but I was a little thrown by the apparent willingness of people to pay for pirated copies of it."
Piracy isn't theft. Theft is the action in wich one denies others acces to the stolen goods. Piracy doesn't deny anoyne acces to the pirated goods. So piracy is per definition not theft.
... despite concerted efforts by the games, music and movie industries to convince them otherwise ...
Here (germany) these TV-commercials are as bad as the mainstream (streamlined) popmusic. They are without heart. In cinemas they often get booed at. They are even less convincing than the products these guys want to sell.
> [People] just don't see it as theft. They just see it as inevitable, particularly as new technologies become available...
Userfriendly has hit the nail on the head with this explanation of the economics of software piracy. The costs of piracy had hit companies way back in late nineties, these days the piracy factor is calculated into the initial pricing. Where I was working before, they had estimated ~19% piracy rate for a mobile phone app. It is slowly starting to become a market force for the software industry - and the companies hate that. (price it too high, we'll pirate !)
The american corporate's blood sucking is slowly starting to show on the economy. what price for - America Inc (specializing in mergers with oil rich countries with dictators) ?.Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
In order for something to be theft, there has to be an "intention to permanently deprive". You have to take something away from someone. That's the legal definition.
If you copy something, the original is still perfectly usable. Nobody is deprived of the original for a moment.
The copyright "industry's" attempts to equate breach of copyright with theft has fallen upon deaf ears because people aren't that stupid; they know the analogy is stupid from the start.
Bodies which name themselves using the phrase "copyright theft" are open to public ridicule, because everyone knows that breach of copyright absolutely not the same nor even similar to theft.
Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com
Perhaps I didn't put it simply enough. I wasn't making a judgement, I merely meant that if you act in a certain way towards other people, then you have no right to complain when they act that way back to you.
The law makes a clear distinction between the two things, it's a pity that journalists can't do the same.
No sig today...
The press rightly continues to use the word 'piracy' for illicit copying and distribution of original materials. Some think it's a new phenomenon, and hard to square with the traditional image of the Jolly Roger and swashbuckling robbers-at-sea. The use of the word 'piracy' as signifying an unauthorized copy of a manuscript is hundreds of years old, long before modern Copyright doctrine was developed. From http://www.ninch.org/forum/price.report.html: There was very little trust in the print medium when it was first developed--it was seen as unstable and subject to piracy and fraudulent copying. Authenticity was hard to guarantee: indeed, the term "piracy" was first used by John Fell, Bishop of Oxford, to describe certain pernicious practices of early printers and booksellers. A "pirate" was someone who participated in the "unauthorized reprinting of a title recognized to belong to someone else." "Stationers" eventually emerged as the trusted practitioners who were placed in charge of various aspects of publishing--practices we would now recognize as printing, publishing, editing, and bookselling. Stationers worked out the conventional practices of making books, and thus made printing a viable economic enterprise with the elaborate complexity of producing a book eventually invisible to all but the practitioners in the trade. That's Dr. John Fell (1625-86), who was given the title of Bishop of Oxford in 1675.
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Here downloading isn't illegal (although uploading is).
I'm not quite sure where you got this information from, but I don't believe it to be true. Downloading of copyright data without the copyright owner's consent almost certainly is "making an unauthorized copy" under the meaning of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act. It is typically a civil offense, for which you can be sued by the copyright owner. Also, there are many additional circumstances that can turn it into a criminal offence. I recommend you read the act; it is available somewhere on the hmso.gov.uk web site -- google for it.
That's why we pay a levy on blank media.
There is no levy on blank media in the UK. The only country I'm aware of that has this system is Canada, although I'm sure there are others.
Definitely. How would you like it if some company used your GPLed code in their proprietary application? Now that's software piracy!
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
I'm replying here because it's a good spot on the first page. :)
0 05057966
If you have any doubts about the definition of theft and piracy, just look to recent court actions.
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20040205
I like the judge's rebuke:
"Let me say what I think your problem is. You can use these harsh terms, but you are dealing with something new, and the question is, does the statutory monopoly that Congress has given you reach out to that something new. And that's a very debatable question. You don't solve it by calling it 'theft.' You have to show why this court should extend a statutory monopoly to cover the new thing. That's your problem. Address that if you would. And curtail the use of abusive language."
The judges here clearly viewed the use of 'theft' or 'piracy' to be an abuse of the terms, and I do as well. To equate making an unauthorized copy of a 3 minute song with actual theft or piracy is a slap in the face of everyone who's ever been robbed or an actual victim of piracy.