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Software Piracy Seen as Normal

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the facts-of-life dept.

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."

3 of 1,032 comments (clear)

  1. Not surprising by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:Not surprising by Zebidiah · · Score: 5, Informative

      There are two words for it: "Copyright Infringement"

    2. Re:Not surprising by DrHyde · · Score: 5, Informative

      Yes, it is piracy. From the OED:

      " 2 fig. The appropriation and reproduction of an invention or work of another for one's own profit, without authority; infringement of the rights
      conferred by a patent or copyright. "

      It goes on to illustrate this with a few quotation, the earliest of which dates from 1771.