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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."
People don't mind paying for software\music etc. They just don't like being ripped off with overly inflated prices.
There has been a popular meme throughout history, back to the days of the Old Testament that said that beggars were entitled to the excess of any farmer's crop. If the vagrant were to walk past a farm, they could take as much as they needed from the outer ring of crops, but they were not to venture inside.
This is because it is thought that the person doing the work of farming had more than enough to feed himself and his family, after all, he's got huge tracts of land and will sell the amount he doesn't keep for himself at the market. What little scraps are taken by the passing beggar will hardly be missed.
The same attitude exists with regards to copyrighted materials. "I, one lone person, can't possibly make a dent in the amount of revenue that the copyright owner will make." (It's the same reason many people don't vote.) And they are correct. Individually, they make no impact on the final numbers. They aren't even a rounding error in many cases. But in large numbers, all these individuals refusing to pay for the material (to the copyright owners) make a huge impact.
When every vagrant takes their "fair share" from the outer ring of a crop field, the crop gets smaller and smaller until the farmer and his family starve.
people don't see downloading copyrighted material as theft
that's because:
CopyrightINFRINGEMENT != Theft
-Sj53
It's copyright infringement and the punishments for that are much much higher. You're better off shoplifting a CD or Software than actually copying it. At least if you consider the possible punishments.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Using your logic, my refusal to buy a particular music\movie is theft whether I "pirate" it or not.
At least here in Denmark, downloading copyrighted material is NOT theft. It is (surprise, surprise) violation of copyright.
Pirates are not stealing, they are making an unauthorized copy.
Maybe the people that say pirates are theives should look up the facts, i.e. read the law.
Downloading software or music is one thing - making money off of "pirated" copies is another. I don't even think about using Gnutella or downloading MST3K DAP releases from eDonkey (using eMule) because no one is making a profit from those actions(ok, my ISP). I would never use Kazaa, because piracy is their business model (and if you think Kazaa is just a tool, I think you are).
In fact, one torrent supplier of rare Star Wars stuff always points out to *NOT* buy stuff from the "Dark Side Dealers" and make copies available so those trying to cash in on piracy can't.
I'd copy Windows, Office or even UnixWare for you no problem - but if I saw you selling copies of any of these I might just kick you in the nuts.
Get your Unix fortune now!
I, too, can't understand why people would pay for copied software. I suppose people just don't have the time to technical knowledge to get it for free. Perhaps they also kid themselves that they are helping a poor self employed buisness man. Who knows?
While I don't condone wide spread piracy there are some types of pircay that I don't have that much of a problem with. For example, go back a few years, you were interested in ray tracing and 3d modelling. You had a choice of pov-ray and coding all the scene files by hand or paying megabucks for 3d studio (I know this is a little simplified). If it is something that you are only semi-interested (you would never consider doing it commercially) that I don't see a big problem with you grabbing a cracked copy of 3ds. After all you would never buy it, and in reality what has discreet lost? They didn't even have to pay for the bandwidth used in the download. I pick 3ds because it was widely cracked (and still is I believe). It used to be protected with a dongle (not sure if it still is) and there was no "entry level" version. They seem to have finally figured it out though as you can now get a feature restricted free version which is supprisingly good.
As for music piracy well I say eat as much as you can. Reproduction costs of music now must be tiny yet the price of music in real terms is still sky high. I can't help feeling that we, as a consumers, are being ripped off left right and center. If we aren't beign riped off then the music industry needs to be prompted to look at ways of cutting back on costs. Perhaps the problem is that there are to few music producers.
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
It is taken for granted by the younger generation. I remember being in a record store once, overhearing young girls saying aloud that they could 'just download it' instead, like, who cares anyway.
Funilly enough, I can tolerate people who copy in private amongst their closer friends and family members, but I have a bigger issue with people who sell pirated software and corporations pirating, because these people are actually profiting from it in some way. People will pay for something if they see fit, but if it results in some virtual loss for some company that never would have seen the money anyway, then "boohoo". Programs are not physical objects, they are state, which can easily be duplicated without effort. When software stops being developed commercially due to piracy (riiight), then the next generation would start a new wave, and the process repeats, until at some point it would even out when people respect each other a little more. Right now both sides are egotist assholes, the laws just slow 'evolution' in this matter by acting prematurely.
There is no self justification in my post. My post stands on its own merits. People don't mind paying for music or movies at overly inflated prices. They don't seem to mind paying what they consider to be a fair price.
I know I shouldn't feed the trolls, but this is one of those moral/philosophical things that's been pissing me off for some time.
You, AC, a prude. You think the morals and customs by which you live are natural laws, and that there is something defective with anyone who does not follow them. While you and I do agree that certain behaviours are despicable (or, if not despicable -- who are we to judge?), that they are atleast not behaviour we ourselves would engage in, I am willing to accept that fact that what I and the culture I was brought up in consider 'right' are not universals.
For example, I break the law all the time, many times a day. When I'm not breaking the law, it's not because I 'fear the law,' or 'agree with the law.' It's because I wouldn't act in an 'illegal' manner to begin with, because it's against my personal morals.
And similiarly, if I find a law inconvenient or wrong, I have no qualms breaking it.
And anyone who would swear to me, on their own stack of bibles, that something being illegal was the only reason they didn't commit such an act (as opposed to fear of punishment), why, I'm quite positive they're insane, so delusional that they truely believe it.
In closing, you're a prude.
And I have no idea what I originally intended to say.
Oh, wait. Here it is.
Pedophiles may, in fact, be "victims" of Humanity's own preference towards young women. Let's face it: Men who picked Young Women had a better chance of having more offspring, and if that preference for Young Women was genetic, then pretty soon everyone would be a decendant of men who liked young women.
And any woman who could look younger than she was would have a better chance of getting a better mate.
So, in short, you get a runaway Fisher effect -- women keep on retaining their young longer and longer, or stay immature older and older, and men constantly prefer younger and younger women. So it's no wonder there are some males who find children sexually attractive.
Goto any pre-civlization hunter-gatherer group and ask the men there what age they prefer in a mate. They'll say "Between Puberty and First Child." That's rather young, you know.
And considering the fact that those people live pretty much the same way all of humanity did for a damn long time, well. Nevermind.
I should probably point it out, at this point, that I think Pedophilia is a rather disgusting condition.
Also, the only NAMBLA is the National Association of Marlin Brando Look Alikes.
Edward@Tomato - /home/Edward/ man woman
man: no entry for woman in the manual.
"Qua!?"
Actually it is not theft. Theft is defined as "dishonestly appropriating property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving them"
Because you are not actually removing the property simply copying it software piracy doesn't actually come under the heading of theft, it comes under breach of copyright.
I also disagree with all the complaints of lost revenue from software houses. Every pirate copy is not necessarily lost revenue. The person may not have ever considered buying the copy in the first place. The company hasn't lost the revenue because they haven't been deprived of something to sell. Again not Theft!
It doesn't even come under Criminal Law in the UK, (unless you hit Fraud) Its a Civil matter.
INAL, this is a combinition of what I understood from helping my wife revise for her Bar exams and also from something that happened to me:-
I went on EBay to see if I could get a replacement cd for a game I own, I had the box, manuals everything was just missing the CD. When the CD arrived it was obviously a burned copy. I contacted the police and was told that it wasn't a criminal matter, it was civil and down to the copyright owner to persue and that I should inform FAST.
BTW this doesn't mean I condone piracy its just that I disagree with the use of the term Theft.
Every time I go to the cinema there is some advert or other by FACT (Federation Against Copyright Theft, a UK org) telling us how naughty copying is and how much trouble we'll be in if we try to record the film.
And every time there is a ripple of giggles. The more serious and ominous the warnings, the harder people laugh.
For better or worse, most people just don't think that copyright infringement is a serious crime. Most people acknowledge that it is "wrong", but probably regard it as no more serious than eating a penny sweet from the pick-and-mix. I am of the generation that grew up home taping (LPs, CD, Spectrum/C64 games), most of my friends don't see a little low level piracy as being a bad thing, in fact most would say they discovered new bands from friends tapes and ended up buying more (some would be lying, but not all).
The media world has got an uphill struggle before it convinces people that casual copyright infringement is anything like the serious crime they think it is.
Paul
Paul Leader
It's not piracy either. Piracy is an illegal act of violence, detention, or plunder committed for private ends by crew or passengers of a private ship or aircraft against another ship or aircraft on the high seas or in a place outside the jurisdiction of any state.
It's called copyright infringement. Calling it theft, piracy, etc is a manipulative attempt to confound discussion by depicting copyright as a piece of owned property which can be stolen when in actuality it is nothing more than a government run incentive program to fund the arts.
Not too many people will stand up and say that they think stealing someones car is appropriate behavior. Not too many people would say it's appropriate to steal a CD from a music shop. But if you ask them "Do you think it's appropriate behavior for people to borrow their friends CD and make themselves a copy", you find a very different response. Case in point, the article.
For all those people out there who constantly parrot "Whatever, it's stealing" whenever the subject comes up, do stop. It makes you look stupid, it's rather offensive to regurgitate such transparently manipulative crap in a forum that's presumably frequented by more intelligent people, and it rather quickly kills any discussion of the real issue: Should copyright be granted at all, why, and what limitations on its scope will result in the greatest benefit TO SOCIETY.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
No, and the device I'm typing this on is not a person employed to perform calculations. I still call it a computer.
Evolution may gear us towards finding "younger and younger" women attractive, but it makes no evolutionary sense to be attracted to pre-pubescent features, as is characteristic of paedophiles.
If you will, please answer me this simple question.
What word would you use?
Language is a flexible thing, people can very easily equate one concept with another. Fluid concepts and creative analogies. There are some dectionary definitions whereby theft does indeed cover the topic at hand, and some where (on a technicality) it does not.
Instead of getting stuck over word-definitions, let's talk about whether it is RIGHT or WRONG. Morally, ethically, legally. In all cases, it is WRONG.
You may (and in fact you probably will) argue (whinge) that the big business are wrong first with their over-pricing and bugged s/w and 72 minute albums with 6 filler tracks of crap forced on the artist by the record studio. How very childish.
The rules are the rules, legally.
The rules are the rules, ethically.
The rules are the rules, morally.
Software boloxology* is wrong on all counts. You know it, but you are re-jinking your moral-compass to allow yourself to continue to get away with it.
People do this all the time, I'm not saying I am flawless, but please do not try to skip out of it on a technicality "Uh, I wasn't wearing an eye-patch, so it's not piracy", or "Uh, I didn't rob the cd, and WarezCorp still have their bits, so it's not theft".
The only people who fall for that crock are people who are copying stuff ilegally already.
*boloxology = word to describe what's going on, seeing as i'm not allowed use any other words. But I await your word of choice.
I re-iterate my simple question. If it's not theft, not piracy, what word would you use?
I ranted about this sort of thing on my blog recently. What's happening here is simply that companies are failing to supply what consumers want.
For example (and to wander ever so slightly off-topic), consider the recent debacle over the leak of Star Wars Episode III onto the newsgroups.
The only legitimate way to see that film was in a cinema/movie theatre, where one must endure people chattering away, texting their friends, munching on their popcorn. Not to mention that cinema projection technology is really showing its age now and you have to watch the whole thing in 24 frames-per-second stutter-vision! I HATE AND DREAD going to the cinema with a passion for these reason.
Many people now have huge widescreen TVs at home with Dolby Digital 5.1/DTS sound systems that can display a picture at an effective 100 frames per second (well, I have anyway). Suddenly all of the disadvantages of the movie theate have gone, but now you can sit and enjoy a beer or two while you watch your movie (and pause it when you need to pee)!
The current market model is old fashioned and needs to change to fill the gap between what people want and what companies will provide. Here's an idea. What doesn't the Lucasfilm website allow people to download all their movies, but in a format that is a little less than DVD quality?
As a side note, I wasn't originally going to see Episode III at the cinema at all, given the dreadful prequels that preceeded it. After downloading and watching the first 20 minutes of the famous timecode version, I changed my mind and ventured to the cinema. I still had to endure children in my row rustling sweet wrappers and constantly getting up to go to the loo. And the opening sequences gave me headaches, as I am used to the 100Hz display off my home TV. And the sound was rather weak too, despite being in a THX certified theatre. Since then, I have downloaded far better quality versions of this film and will continue to watch them at home in peace!
It's quite appropriate that, where a piece of work is still being sold, there should be protections over it. I'm even easy about Disney getting an extension over Mickey Mouse... MM is still being commercialised, so I'm not entirely comfortable with a Mickey free-for-all by any Johnny-come-lately.
But there is no place for 90-year copyrights for works that are not being commercialised. Copyright should operate on a 'use it or lose it' basis where, say, after five years of non-exploitation, the work is decopyrighted and opened to anyone who wants it.
Then perhaps we can get our DVD box set of "It's like, you know". [and "Nightingales" too, please]
Visit Snowflake Showers
The basic fact is that we can copy material whether we have authorization or not. Those who would profit from our purchasing it wish us to purchase it, and they appeal to our altruism -- they want us to purchase their copies because we want them to have our money, as if they were a charity. This is not far-fetched, in general. There's nothing wrong or silly about asking for charity. Charity and altruism are things I am willing to offer, and many others are too.
But are the people asking for charity here people who would ever give the same to us? They claim to be in need, and us to be able to help; but if we are in need, will they help? Will Microsoft ever lower its prices just because it can afford to and it would save us money? Or do they price their software wherever it makes them the most money?
If corporations base all their decisions entirely on their own personal profit, how can they ever expect us to sacrifice our personal profit for their good? Is that fair?
I believe in sharing, but when I share with others, and they don't share back, I stop sharing. I only pay for free software.
Copyright infringement is neither theft nor robberty. True enough. But it's *still* a crime. You are not physically depriving the creator of the orginal. No, what you are actually doing is stealing the creator his right to do with the original as he choses.
To be more exact: you are violating his *exlusive* right to reproduce and sell copies. Buying an album, DVD or a game doesn't give you the right to make copies of the content (unless for home use that is) and distributing them!
This is the very basic meaning of copyright and it seams in all the FUD spread by either big firms or the pirates, that meaning is getting lost and deformed. Copyright is not something tangible. It's a basic right which shouldn't be violated.
Seriously. Don't do it.
I thought I was getting a bargain when I bought a bunch of stuff off this pirate I met in a pub, but I later found out that the parrot was in fact dead, and not just pining for the fjords as he claimed, the eyepatch was for the wrong eye, and the cutlass was made of plastic.
Still, at least I didn't feel quite as ripped off as the time I bought a DVD from this bloke I know - he works in a place called "HMV". Paid £20 for the DVD, I did.. what what do I find when I get home and pop it in my player? I'm forced to sit through a bloody two minute intro lambasting me for my evil criminal pirate ways, and how I, personally, am causing the entire film industry's collective children to die a horrible death from starvation. And it was all encrypted so I couldn't (legally) make a backup of it for my own personal use.
Bloody inferior quality goods. I've learnt my lesson. I'm sticking to Bittorrent in the future.
Curiosity was framed. Ignorance killed the cat.
IMHO there is an undergoing lame attempt to try and make copyright infringement look like a really bad thing when common sense actually tells us that there's no big deal about it.
Common sense might even tell you that increasing peoples exposure to varied creative works makes them more creative by inspiring them, makes them more intelligent by exposing them to various ideas and forcing them to decide amongst them, makes them more tolerant of others by increasing their awareness of cultural diversity and enriches their lives.
Common sense might even tell you that copyright legislation harms our society and everyone who lives in it, and that we should take a serious look at getting rid of it.
Have you noticed how uncommon common sense is these days?
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
I'm lucky. I know lots of really fast FTP servers with lots of high quality software on them. And best of all? It's completely free, and legal.
Get your own free personal location tracker
That copyright infringement is wrong is a difficult case to make; directly it hurts no one. That copyright is wrong is much easier; it directly deprives most people of access to most of the world's artistic work, and also prevents us from doing a lot of great things.
From an economic perspective, copyright is just a very bad mechanism to fund a public good. Copyright infringement, on the whole, most likely increases the efficiency of the mechanism, by increasing the number of copies, and thus the value, of the copyrighted works.
One that wouldn't buy your product anyway cannot deny you revenue. The situation is more complex.
Copyright is an artificial monopoly. Because it's artificial, people don't tend to respect it naturally, as opposed to physical property right or right to live, respect to which grows and is maintained naturally within any culture (at least towards peers - it could be otherwise with, say, slaves). Hence the common attitude towards copyright infringement: it's illegal, but it's not wrong.
Illegality of unauthorized copying is only the means of leveraging that monopoly. Indeed, if we legalize copying, it removes the incentive to buy your product from people that would otherwise buy it. Therefore you can't say that somebody who copied your creation deprived you of something, but you can say for sure that if copying was legal, you wouldn't get much at all.
Personally, I don't think that without copyright life would be much worse. The amount of content would of course reduce drastically, but the percent of true art as opposed to artistic-like prostitution would be much higher.
On the subject at hand: I agree that illegal downloading is copyright infringment and denies the copyright holder of revenue.
But I was wondering about the bigger picture here. If the public at large condones such behavior and doesn't see it as a crime, should it NOT be a crime in the legal sense?
If laws and guverment are put in place to represent 'the people' shouldn't they reflect the people's view?
Here I'm thinking of: illegal downloading, speed limits, ID cards, airport security checks and other laws that differ from the general public's view.
Richard
Most dictionary definitions reflect common usage, this particular common usage is brought on by a compound of both propaganda (by the producers attempting to add emotional spin to an otherwise borring sounding crime) and the adoption early on by some groups of 'pirate' to inflate thier self image.
However Piracy originally meant pretty much what the GP said with respect to sea-going enterprises.
I imagine that definition is still a good laymans translation of most leagle definitions of the word. I don't know that you would be charged with piracy if caught making 2000 bootleg copies of a Brittny Spears album (poor taste perhaps, copyright infringement certainly).
IIRC it's derived from 'privateer' which meant essentially a private ship with one countries official permission to attack the vessels of another country they were at war with. A pirate was simply a privateer without such a letter, and perhaps no particular care as to the targets nationality.
It's an interesting aside that the 'jolly roger' skull and crossbones flag wasn't an identifier of pirates per se, but rather of intent- no quarter given or asked. It took alot of anger to raise that flag.
Mcyroft
https://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4c3ed6600b6ea
Instead of getting stuck over word-definitions, let's talk about whether it is RIGHT or WRONG. Morally, ethically, legally. In all cases, it is WRONG.
Copyright for unlimited times has no basis in the Constitution, and thus it is legally wrong.
Copyright in the information age is restricting everyone's freedom far more than it promotes "Science and Useful Arts" which is its purpose. Copyright never goes into the public domain which means it limits society's freedom without giving back to society! Binary code is copyright-able, which means it helps only the copyright owner, and does not help society create derivative works in the future (which is, again, the purpose of copyright). Thus it is morally wrong, as well.
The question of whether to copy or not to copy, when paying for the copy is out of the question affects not the creator of the original, and thus it is ethically neutral.
You are wrong on all accounts.
It's like those reality cop shows. After watching one for the first time i came to the conclusion that they were nothing but propaganda tools to trick citizens into thinking that gettign pulled over for a burnt out license plate light is enough justification to search the entire car and cart someone off for magicaly finding a bunch of drugs under the spare tire. Or make people think it is acceptable to get shot for not stoping when a police officer yells at you.
Calling copyright infringment stealing and getting the public used to acknowledging it as the same only paves the way to introduce laws declaring it as stealing. After they are successful, you won't find it offensive or even concerning when your brother in law serves five years in jail and pays thousands in fines for downlaoding the latest Metalica blunder. Right now people see it as the big corps trying to punish the little guy who cannot afford to pay thier extorionate fees. Wait until file swapper are disliked as much as the welfare families that drain tax dollars from important projects like ball stadiums just because they think they have a right to eat and live.
But enough about language nitpicks. The point of the article was not that many people think that the definition of "stealing", as laid down in dictionary, does not exactly fit the crime of copyright infringement". The point was that many people do not see copyright infringement as immoral, or at most as a minor misdemeanor.
As to your last point: There are some people, myself included, who believe that artists should be able to reap the fruits of their work, and retain full rights to them. I think that copyright is a basic moral right that in principle belongs with the artist, and is not something to be lightly toyed with in order to maximise the benefit to society, as if we're communists dividing up the harvest.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
That's a lovely metaphor. It's also (IMHO) somewhat flawed.
First of all, what's the grain supposed to represent? If it's music, or software, or copyrighted materials, then the "vagrants" don't actually take anything. It's still there after they pass on by.
If the grain represents money, then who is the farmer? If the farmer represents musicians, say, then all the grain gets taken by the farmer's absentee landlord who promises to give him part the profit, after he's taken what he needs. The record labels don't actually add any value, they just control the distribution channel so as to create an artificial scarcety and thereby inflate their profits.
There's another persistent historical meme for your collection: Hatred of absentee landlords. Not without reason, either; they make temendous profits from the hard work of lots of other people, and yet the workers scarcely see a penny of the value they create, and when their useful working life is done, they're left with nothing.
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
*Choke* Invented by Microsoft?
Why does everyone think everything was invented by microsoft these days?
We were using piracy to describe copying back when I was at school, and that predates Windows.
There's Chinese proverb that states: many laws make many criminals. It isn't just that reasonable activities are criminalized; it's that acts that ought to be criminal become more respectable by association.
Unauthorized use of software somebody has created with the idea of supporting himself through selling it most certainly is theft. It is not theft of the work, it is theft of the revenue that the author could expect. Granted, the author can't name any arbitrary price the way SPAA does in press releases; it's ecnomically naive. But pirates don't have a moral leg to stand on: they can't say this thing has no value so I shouldn't pay for it; if it had no value they would not pirate it.
The problem is that the entire system of intellectual property has become imbalanced, incomprehensible harmful to the public good. In part this has to do with bad laws like DMCA, in part with legal practices like blending licensing and copyright in mass market sales. But nonetheless, the public can't work productively with the current IP situation. One great overlooked advantage of F/OSS is that it is comprehendable. The most complicated F/OSS license is GPL, which (a) is not complicated by commercial license standards (b) standardized and widely used and (c) completely safe for anybody who isn't in the business of selling software.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
> People think it's ok, because they don't physically
> take it from some place. That is the classic
> definition of stealing.
People can reproduce the feeling of having their property stolen, and therefore most of them do not steal others property to avoid hurting them the way they wouldnt like to be hurt.
On the other side, very few people can reproduce the feeling how it is to have your "Intellectual property" stolen, because they dont posess any. This leads to the opinion that a new form of property, the intellectual property, is unjust towards all the ones that do not posess any, while a few can live of it by simply selling fictional letters of indulgence (licences), so this form of property is simply ignored.
Most people have long forgot the purpose of copyright.
And no, folks, it is not meant to reward authors.
Copyright has for a long time stood without legal basis (Violating the "Limited Times" clause), but for the last 20 years, its also violating its original purposes.
Lets restore the original copyright:
1. Limit all copyright times to the minimum required to pay back for creation costs (along the lines of 5 years).
2. Cancel copyright on functional information (such as software). The power it grants the copyright holder over its user, even in a limited time, is too great. Software creation, in most cases, requires little to no financial incentive, and in niche cases where it does, payment to programmers is still possible.
3. Allow copyright, but only apply it to inter-legal-entities copying. This would mean that EULA's have no effect (You really shouldn't need extra permission from the copyright owner to run the copy you bought!).
4. Disallow copyright of the binary-form of software and creations. Only allow copyrighting Software in source form (And yes, music in its "source" forms). This is because copyright is all about making the derivative works possible in the future, in order to grow society's information base. You can make derivative works from public-domain software source, but you cannot make derivative works from binary blobs, even if they go into the public domain. How does it promote Science and Useful Arts to create dead-end pieces of information?
Speaking of the C64, back when I had one I had much more legit software than I do now.
This wasn't because I couldn't get my hands on pirated stuff, there was plenty of it about. It was because the legit software was affordable, and I would have much rather owned a real, boxed piece of software with the manuals etc.
Oh, but isn't "piracy" such a lovely broad term? you can prove almost anything with it.
Let's look at your argument.
- Terrorist organisations often support themselves through links to organised crime
- Organised crime often sells pirate DVDs
- Selling priate DVDs is often referred to as "piracy"
- Copying your mate's DVD is often referred to as "piracy"
- Therefore copying your mates DVD buys guns for the paramilitaries.
- Case proven, your honour, take 'em away!
This is one of the reasons that the term "piracy" is less than helpful in this sort of debate..Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
Of course Piracy sounds nefarious, but we really know it is sharing and that is what we should call it.
Before the net we used to make mixed tapes for our friends. Loan them books or VHS tapes etc... Now I share TV episodes often sharing the Download effort to get multiple episodes.
I am old enough that I had pretty much bought all the CD's that I was going to own when Napster Hit the scene. I might have bought 1CD in the previous 2 years. Napster rekindled my interest in music. I bought 10 new CD's in my first year of Napstering. But after the lawsuits and my growing awareness of the way the industry operated, I have sworn to never by another RIAA supported CD.
Yes, I'm sure this shrill overreaction will work in changing people's minds... 'cause getting that copy of Batman Begins is definitely the same as driving a car while drunk, endangering and possibly killing innocent bystanders.
The problem faced by the Content Cartel and their lackeys is this: Copyright infringement is in fact not as serious as these "sexier" crimes. People won't take it seriously because the harm is of an entirely different type.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
That even though they are both illegal, they're not the same thing. Murder is illegal too, but you don't go around calling people who make unauthorised copies of copyrighted material murderers, do you? Why not? They're bot illegal, aren't they?
Parse error: parse error, unexpected T_ELSEIF in
I would find the dictionary definition far more relevant than the legal one. We aren't (in most cases, at least) lawyers, and this is not a court. What matters is the subject at hand, and the meanings of the terms "copyright infringement", "IP theft" and "music/software piracy" are clear to everyone in this context.
I find it rather hypocritical that those on the anti-copyright side of the debate so frequently attack the other side for using the terms "theft" and "piracy" in an emotive way, while at the same time insisting everyone should reject common language that's been in use for centuries and use the fluffy-bunny-friendly-sounding "copyright infringement" instead.
I look at it this way: if we're debating the ethics of beating someone up, the discussion is likely to use terms like assault. Technically, in a legal sense, we probably mean battery, or ABH, or GBH, or wounding, or attempted murder, or manslaughter, or murder. The one thing we almost certainly don't mean is assult, since this doesn't (in most jurisdictions) require physical abuse. However, what matters is the ethics, the common language is "assault", and accepting and using that term is a far more effective way to debate those ethics.
To put it another way, everyone on every side of every debate uses language that tends to support their position. Language is not neutral, and probably never can be. However, if the best argument you've got is an attack on language, then you've got no attack on substance. And in debating terms, that's the same as having nothing at all.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
As to your last point: There are some people, myself included, who believe that artists should be able to reap the fruits of their work, and retain full rights to them. I think that copyright is a basic moral right that in principle belongs with the artist, and is not something to be lightly toyed with in order to maximise the benefit to society, as if we're communists dividing up the harvest.
Yes, there are some people who feel that way, particularly amongst those who have a vested interest in such a system being perpetuated. But, like the article says, people who feel that way are in the minority.
One thing that "basic moral rights" generally have in common is that a person needs to initiate an interaction with you in order to violate them, and that if people just leave you alone, your basic moral rights end up being respected. Like the right to life... to violate that right I must kill you. I can't think of any "basic moral rights" that can be taken from a person without interacting with that person.
But copyright isn't like that at all. You can write a song and perform it, someone overhears you and sings it walking down the street where I hear it and write it down and sing it around the campfire. Not only have I not interacted with you, unless you go running around trying to catch people, you won't even be aware that I've done it. And if you aren't a musician by profession who earns their livelihood by their music, I've done you no harm whatsoever.
As far as your comment about "toying with things in order to maximise benefit to society as if we're communists dividing up the harvest", lets get real for a minute here. Copyright would not exist if it weren't for "societies" resources being used to compel compliance. Laws are ALWAYS about maximising the benefit to society except in cases where the laws are not imposed by the society but by a non-representative ruling body. There is no other reason for a law to exist in a democracy. We outlaw murder because we collectively determine it's a benefit to us all to do so, and worthy of the resources we allocate to preventing it from occurring. We don't outlaw picking your nose because, even though it's kind of gross and distasteful, wasting our resources enforcing such a law isn't in our best interest.
So yeah, perhaps I'm wrong and you really DO have some moral right to come into my life dictating that I must stop singing a song I like unless I meet your terms, even if I don't know who you are and wasn't even aware you existed until you came looking for me. But unless it's in our collective best interests as a society to support cops, lawyers and judges while they look for me and take me to task for violating your so-called moral rights, we shouldn't be doing it.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
NO, GODDAMNIT, IT IS NOT THEFT.
A good has to be taken from the legitimate owner for the act to be theft.
I don't take the software away from anyone. It's a copy.
I don't take revenue from anyone when I make a copy of something. He still has all the revenue he had before I made the copy. If a is the same as b, then the difference a-b (which is what is removed) is 0, zero, nothing.
Everything else is just wishful thinking. Like, if 10% of the people who pirate Photoshop would buy it, Adobe could buy Microsoft. Yeah, except there is just no way to arrive at that number with a clear conscience. Chances are, NOBODY would buy it if they couldn't pirate it. Chances are, even fewer than today would buy it because the masses could not afford Photoshop and would buy something else (or use the GIMP, raising motivation and participation resulting in a much better product than Photoshop ever was). Like I said, wishful thinking. So not even the prospect of revenue is taken away. In fact, the what-if dream of riches is GIVEN to the one whose products are pirated.
The people who make our laws, despite all the corruption and shortsightedness in their circles, at least understood the simple and obvious difference between making a copy and taking something away. That's why only one of them is "theft" and the other one is "copyright infringement". SO STOP CALLING IT WHAT IT SO CLEARLY IS NOT!
"without intending to return it" implies you preventing another party from having said item. Not the case with IP, hence the use of the word pirated. If 'steal' was correct, then we wouldn't use the word pirated, now would we?
:x
If I had points I would mod BOTH of you up. People in the United States download illegally because they are getting something that they want for free. In other countries (China for example) the prices of these items are not adjusted to the median income. I cannot recall the actual numbers, but in general legal software in China costs the average worker a larger ratio of their income vs. the cost to a US citizen.
Is this fair? That just depends on your perspective. Do you blame the chinese government for the low median income, or do you blame the people for not being more ambitious?
The two arguments above are Black and White, there is a lot of grey out there. I personally think it is unwise to make sweeping claims that these acts are legal or illegal.
There is a problem, what is it and how do we as a society fix it? Address that.
Maybe true, maybe not. I'd still worry more about the support to terrorism the tank of gas to get me to the black market is providing.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
The only fair comparison is taking a picture of a painting and showing it to your friends. The museum receives less traffic, the artist may receive less interest in his work because you took a picture. But the museum still has the artwork and the artist hasn't lost anything, other than future revenue. Which, incidentally, is the express purpose of copyright.
Theft is gaining something, arguably of value, and taking that valuable object from someone else, depriving them of said value. Copying the object may decrease the value, but the object remains, with no possession lost. If anything, it costs the pirate MORE money to make copies and distribute those for free, compared to simply stealing outright, as making copies constitutes money invested with no outright gain.
It's propaganda the second they edit out all the people pulled over who are found to have no drugs. Or did you think the police on Cops were all psychic, and had 1 bust after another, never a miss? They'll never show the old hick guy that was pulled over, starts arguing, gets into it, and when they do the search 3 hours later as he's crying, they find absolutely nothing, and they finally let him go... but not after lecturing him anyway, the final insult. Ever see that one? There have to be a few. Maybe he was going to 7-11 to buy beer, or maybe he was on his way to the one job interview he's managed to get in the entire last 6 months. No way to know, even if they didn't edit those out.
Why are you running away from a cop?
Maybe you are Amadou Diallo's neighbor, and you witnessed him being shot up 41 times by men not in uniform that failed to adequately identify themselves as police officers, even as the guy was pulling out his wallet to offer it to the "muggers". Most cops are not that big of a lowlife, but if all or most of your experiences with them have been as half as bad as my example, it might be a good idea to run if you have even a slight chance of making it.
It figures that no one knows much about ole' TJ anymore. Somehow, I get the impression he might actually approve of magical candles that can be used by 1 million people simultaneously. I'm sure candlemakers would have been unhappy, but most as a whole would have looked at it as if it were a boon. Not every village had its own chandler, after all. And those that do, it would no longer be the most efficient way to light up the night.
Wrong. Mens Rea is the intent to deprive him of the IP, which is impossible, he still has his copy. That's why copyright infringement requires its own criminal laws. But don't worry, big business bought those laws.
Wouldn't care to argue Actus Reus though, that's certainly debatable.
No. Piracy of PhotoShop is one of the prime reasons it is unchallenged as an image editor. If every aspiring graphic artist had to cough up hundreds of dollars for a legal copy, many of them would think seriously about the much cheaper alternatives (PaintShop Pro, [until recently], Gimp, Ulead, PhotoPaint, etc). There would be many more if there was a market, but there isn't. If you're poor you use pirated PhotoShop, when you get a job in the field you insist on using it and the company buys it. Pretty much the same way that MSWord became the de facto standard. Consider that though MS and Adobe make a lot of noise about piracy in the Third World, the only time they do anything serious is when countries decide to get honest, and start looking at Linux instead of Windows, for instance. Then MS brings out the hugely discounted version. Until then, they were happy for the pirates to build their market share, knowing that if the economies grew to the point of being able to afford to buy software, they would be already locked in. Adobe has brought out several cut-down versions of PhotoShop for similar reasons, like PhotoDeluxe, which was bundled with scanners and such, to fend off other cheaper image apps that would have been bundled otherwise and obtained a foothold in the market.
Please reread what I wrote. The expected revenue is wishful thinking. It is a what-if scenario with far too many unknown variables. Your scenario is plausible, but there are other scenarios which are just as plausible (again, it is impossible to quantify this). For example, yes, piracy is harmful, because it means that the GIMP has to compete with a "free" Photoshop which would not be available without piracy. Piracy takes away user awareness and participation, crippling the truly free product. Without piracy, the GIMP would have dwarfed Photoshop in every respect by now, reducing it to a hardly profitable niche. That, just like your "50% of the pirates would buy a $50 Photoshop", is wishful thinking.
It's truly idiotic to shoehorn piracy into the definition of stealing by declaring something as unquantifiable (possibly negative) as the revenue loss due to piracy to be the good which is taken away. It doesn't make sense and the law doesn't allow it. Why people still refuse to stop calling copyright infringement theft is beyond me. But then I remember that there are people who reject the theory of evolution and I stop wondering.
Of course it is completely upside down. Photoshop (and some other programs) is popular thanks due to piracy.
Why?
Almost everyone, whom make living from creation of graphics (pictures, painters, adv, art, etc) and whom use Photoshop, almost everyone used in past (most likely on beginning) pirated version of Photoshop.
And later come times when you must pay for photoshop. Why? In-home pirated Photoshop no longer apply. In bussiness possesing pirated sofware is too risky and your boss must buy Photoshop. Why? Because your get hooked in past with pirated version of same program. If were no piracy, you never will get hooked, because Photoshop costs insane amount of cash for typical student.
Yes, for some companies (BIG companies, of course) piracy is under certain circumstances very profitable. Microsoft is of course another example of this phenomenon.
What modern Obelix would say today? Of course, "Those crazy Americans!".
I'm not even sure its that. I know the US has the DMCA, but many countries don't. In many ways you can see MP3, DivX etc as an interpretation of a work, and therefore not covered by the original copyright. In many ways MP3 and DivX are equivalent to a synopsis of a work, where only the plot and few nuances are captured (lossy compression). The work is the creation of the compressor, if they choose to release it in to the public domain what is to stop them?
Is it fair that people be able to give these to each other for free? I can think of many times I've read the synopsis of a book and decided that I didn't want to buy it. Such is the free market. Is this analogy flawed? Well yes and no. In the case of music, the quality of a CD is clearly greater than an MP3, plus you get the album art etc... if I feel strongly enough about a song I'll buy the CD much like a book. But unlike a reading a synopsis, listening to a MP3 provides me with a similar experiance to listening to the original. So I need to be motivated by a sense of duty to actually buy a CD, rather than a desire to achieve the fully experience. What I think people are missing is that CDs arn't the product, music is. The real music experiance is a live performance - you simply cannot bottle that. CDs are adverts for performances. The fact that they've convinced us that they have value is a standing testament to creative marketing.
Its DVDs that I almost feel sorry for. Cult directors like Kevin Smith nearly always fail in the cinema (the performace in this context) but make a killing in the home DVD market. They may recoup some costs in TV viewings but rarely the millions that they see in DVD sales. The fact is that as much as I adore his movies, they don't require the big screen cinema experience unlike Starwars or a good Bond movie.
As far as software piracy is concerned, I'm not worried. FOSS is more than doing enough for me not to have to worry. Commercial, home user software is a dying art. If you want to make money out of software you have to sell your time to people willing to pay you to improve FOSS software. Requirements will always change, so software will always change. The only time I expect not to make a living out of code is if it becomes so trivial that people can program computers as easily as they program each other.
Scared of flying, pointy things snce 1979!
I don't understand how this comment gets modded +5 Insightful with no dissenting opinions on a forum for computer technology professionals. When did the average Slashdot moderator become a warez kid?
How else could I explain such support for cancelling copyright on software? Software patents yes, copyrights no. I know this is an open source community but you can't seriously believe that you should ban closed source software development.
Open source is great, forcing open source on companies isn't. If someone should decide not to disclose source for his program, that should be up to him, it shouldn't be up to the warez kids to scoop it up and claim "oh, but I am entitled to violate the contract because of my interpretation of the historical meaning of copyright."
All software isn't fun to develop, and even if it is, you can't waste time trying to assemble a team of dedicated and qualified volunteers to work on your huge project. That's why finanical incentives sometimes are necessary. And don't forget that developers are being paid as we speak to develop open source software.
As is often repeated, most software development is done in-house. If a company develops a tool for itself, do you really believe a competing company should be allowed to use that tool without the creator's permission just because it is in binary form? Even the GPL enforces terms on binaries.
Finally, don't forget that the distinction between binary and source is only in your head. Assembly language may very well be the only source for some programs.
Pedophiles may, in fact, be "victims" of Humanity's own preference towards young women.
Actually, I would make it even more general and say that "of Humanity's sex drive". Its biological purpose is to create reproduction, but it is wildly inaccurate. Just look at the numbers of people attracted to the same sex, or for that matter to a blowjob, which is absurd from a biological point of view. It has been more beneficial to create an extremely strong sex drive which makes "everything" attractive (including stimulating yourself) than it was to evolve a finely refined attraction to male-female intercourse. A shotgun approach, if you will.
Of course, being biologicly advantagous has nothing to do with morality, just numbers. There's been some long and flameful discussions over things such as rape. If mankind was only driven by instincts and emotions, there would be no free will, no morality. Morality is a question of choice, a wolf is neither moral or immoral as we know it when attacking a sheep.
So, to sum it up, despite the attractions a person has, that person also have choices, and those choices have consequences. It may be a reason, but it is not a justification. To take advantage of a very drunk (adult) woman because you are horny is a reason, not a justification. That goes the same for most any human emotion.
The victimization is really a big trend I see everywhere. Victim of his genes. Victim of his childhood. Victim of his education. Victim of his religion. Victim of society. Victim of propaganda. Victim of violent video games. Nothing is your responsibility, nothing is your fault. If we were talking about thought crime, I could see the defense that someone is pedophile by nature. But to commit a crime, he made a choice and must suffer the consequences. Just like the rest of us when we give in to temptation.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
No, the story was to suggest that while everyone continues to buy candles, only one person buys a match (and perhaps only one match ever sells). People are then getting their legally paid for candles lit from the flame of someone else's already lit candle.
This is like starting more than one cigerette with a match (which was considered unlucky, a superstition most probably started by match manufacturers.)
To go from this story to candle theft is to not get the "piracy is illegal, but it isn't *theft*" arguement, because a stollen candle deprives someone of an actual candle, whereas using an already lit candle is *more* effiecent regardless of it's impact on match makers' business models.
Piracy is also used to describe unlicensed radio transmission on licensed bands, FWIW. If I set up a radio station in the FM broadcast radio band (about 80MHz to about 170MHz, I forget the exact boundaries) without the permission of the relevent authority of the country I'm operating in, I'm engaging in "piracy". No ships involved, unless I'm Radio Caroline, of course ;-)
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
I think you have something backwards.
I won't use the word respectable, but acts that ought to be minor offenses, or even non-offenses, are turned into major criminal acts. Robbing the muisic store at gunpoint and taking some CD's will get you less time than what the RIAA wants you to get for ripping a track to your mp3 player.
You have it backwards. It is not that major criminal acts (copyright infringement) are becomming respectable. It is that minor criminal acts (that maybe should even be fair use) are turned into major criminal acts. Labels warning you that you dare not copy this vinyl phonograph record onto cassette tape.
The problem is that the entire system of intellectual property has become imbalanced, incomprehensible harmful to the public good. In part this has to do with bad laws like DMCA...
Let's not forget infinite term copyrights.
I think I saw it on Groklaw recently, what the constitution should be ammended to say about copyrights and patents... The copyright cartels have no respect for the law, the constitution, and they have no misgivings about bribing congress against public interest; yet they expect us to abide by laws that they write and then purchase. (DMCA was written by Jack Valenti former MPAA spokesdroid, and then congress was paid to pass it.)
Plese use your time more wisely preaching to the copyright cartels.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
As to your last point: There are some people, myself included, who believe that artists should be able to reap the fruits of their work, and retain full rights to them. I think that copyright is a basic moral right that in principle belongs with the artist, and is not something to be lightly toyed with in order to maximise the benefit to society, as if we're communists dividing up the harvest.
And there are some, from a capitalistic point of view who believe that monopolies are bad, even monopolies on distribution of your own work.
The whole thing with "stealing" is that it is too far from the truth, and implies things that are wrong. When you copy copyrighted works without authorization, you are breaking an artificial (as in "non-natural") monopoly granted by governments in order to encourage people to share their creative works. Not a human right, like life, or freedom. An deal between governments and creators. If the conditions change, that agreement can change. It has changed into an agreement that gives nothing to the governments in exchange of their enforcement of such monopolies, but that's another thing, and it can change back, because it's an agreement, not an inherent human right.
"Stealing" is much farther from the truth than "standing up against an artificial monopoly", because the latter, although strongly slanted, is completely true, and applies completely to "copyright infringement". Of course, nobody calls it that, because they don't want to alienate those that think different, I just ask the same as the GP, that people stop trolling and calling copyright infringement, "stealing". There have been enough discussions here to clarify that point.
Using a VCR or PVR to record video and archive it is certainly easier and of better quality than downloads (in general) but it does not solve the problem of accessibility. Most television shows, movies, music, books, etc. are not available for sale in stores and are not played on television. Many of these are available for download on the internet. It's not just price but availability that drives piracy.
The victimization is really a big trend I see everywhere. Victim of society. Victim of propaganda. Victim of violent video games. Nothing is your responsibility, nothing is your fault.
You are not talking about victimization. You are taking about blame. The lack of distinction is a problem found among people who see everything in moral terms.
Any time harm is done, there is victim. The reason you try to deny their identity as victims is that you want to feel justified in punishing them. Those of us who believe in rehabilitation instead of the Good vs Evil crap have no such difficulties.
That's not theft either. People who "might" not buy something isn't theft.
Otherwise you could say that anyone who gives away second-hand clothes is stealing from clothes shops.
Theft is a very specific, very clearly defined crime; intention to permanently deprive the owner of a physical object. Breach of contract or failure to earn money is not theft.
Stealing coins or banknotes is theft. Moving money between accounts without authorisation is fraud, not theft. Doing something in contravention of an informed consentual licence is breach of contract, not theft.
Breach of copyright is illegal in itself. There is no need, no logic and no honesty in trying to claim that it is something that it isn't.
Potentially preventing a company from earning money is completely irrelevent.
Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com
Here's the analogy I've always used to compare piracy with conventional theft.
Let's say a teenager goes into a supermarket and steals a Mars Bar. After the teenager took it, that then meant that there was one less Mars Bar *physically on the shelf.* The Mars Bar is a physical object. So the supermarket has to suffer a loss on the money they were expecting to make from that physical object.
Now let's say that same teenager goes home and later that night, uses his T1 cable to download a warez copy of Windows XP. The teenager has downloaded a copy of XP...but in doing so, there has actually been an *additional* copy of XP created...one which didn't exist before...as a result of the downloading process. Nothing is missing from the shelves of any shrink-wrap boxed software shop, either.
So that's the difference. Shoplifting *removes* an item which the store then has to cover the loss of. Piracy on the other hand does not physically remove merchandise...what it really does is to create alternate sources of said merchandise...sources which are not necessarily under the software author's control. The software author might not make the amount of money he/she/they were expecting, but given that software doesn't exist as a physical object, it's a lot harder to quantify with any real accuracy the amount of money you could expect to make from it anyway.
And no, folks, it is not meant to reward authors.
Progressing art & science in a market system usually implies innovation, and innovation usually implies profit. Profit isn't necessarily a reward, though it could be used as such. Profit's function in an economic system is covering the costs & risks of future development.
Limit all copyright times to the minimum required to pay back for creation costs (along the lines of 5 years).
Limiting terms is fine, and the current trend for unlimited extensions is dangerous, but I disagree that it's about covering creation costs. It's about creating a market for content, thus ensuring revenue flow for the creation of future works.
Cancel copyright on functional information (such as software). The power it grants the copyright holder over its user, even in a limited time, is too great.
I'm curious why you would think this. Copyright is what allows things like the GPL to exist. Without it, you don't have a community of open source with forced contributions, you have public domain artifacts.
Software creation, in most cases, requires little to no financial incentive
In most cases? In general, this could be applicable to any profession in which one gains pride and/or fellowship from their work -- Habitat for Humanity building houses, or Amish barn raisings at one end of the spectrum, pro-bono legal work as another example.
Just because financial needs aren't the ONLY incentive, this does not eliminate the fact that people need money.
and in niche cases where it does, payment to programmers is still possible.
Niche cases? Those niche cases would be where someone spends 8 hours a day developing software, and thus don't have time to make money in exchange for another form of labour? That's a strange definition of niche.
Let's break out this scenario....
Software creation, as with all forms of human activity, requires incentives. Financial incentives certainly aren't the only incentive. However, if one is to spend the majority of their time creating software, they require financial incentive. That means a wage, or a salary.
Wages and salaries must be paid by people or groups of people that undertake some kind of activity that provides economic value. Thus, they too must have incentive.
In a world where software licenses are no longer valued (i.e. public domain artifiacts), then the value is in:
a) the time you spend (e.g. customization or support time); or
b) the complementary products you associate with the software (e.g. retail websites, advertisments on the web, or selling hardware or business consulting)
c) the usage of the software (e.g. software-as-a-service, metered usage, etc.)
So software-for-hire is developed by a consortium of volunteers in their spare time for certain classes of software plus full-time developers that are remunerated by manufacturers or software-service firms, or consulting / support firms.
Is this the model you seek? Is that really superior to today's model? I wonder.
Most popular open source software today is subsidised by hardware sales, business consulting, support contracts, and advertising (IBM, HP, RedHat, OSDN, Google, etc.).... Is this sustainable if the hardware business starts to falter, or if the business consultants lose large deals?
I do agree something needs to be done about the perpetual tax placed on desktop software upgrades, but I think that's slowly fixing itself -- people are upgrading less as the software becomes more commoditized and clones/alternatives appear. It's a long process, but probably in the next 10 years, Office won't be the cash cow it is today for Microsoft.
Allow copyright, but only apply it to inter-legal-entities copying. This would mean that EULA's have no effect (You really shouldn't need extra permission from the copyright owner to run the copy you bought!).
Hm
-Stu
One of the things that can end your chances at reproduction is contracting a major STD. The urge to get ones face close to the genitals of one's prospective partner comes from that. If you aren't exclusive, you can at least look and see if they have sores. If you think you are, you can potentially smell any other sex partners they have on their crotch.
Homosexuality is evolutionary, too. In the same way that drone ants or bees who don't themselves breed are evolutionary, homosexuals can help their relatives procreate. They can give same sex realtives early experience that helps them get a mate (I know, sounds gross. Evolution often is.) They can also form same sex pair bonds that reduce violence and increase goodwill. If my two brothers and my cousin, between them, carry all of my genes (statistically likely) then helping them procreate will pass on my genes to the next generation. Genes don't care how they get passed on. Whatever works.
As far as victimization, choice, and consequences go, try reading Mark Twain's essay, "What is a Man?" for an interesting take on things.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
People don't view copying as theft, because it is not theft. It's copyright violation. Copyrights are an artificial means of protecting ideas.
If I liked a shirt you're wearing, and made an exact copy of it for myself, you wouldn't accuse me of stealing your shirt. You still have it.
The reason why this is such a problem in the digital realm is that the costs of copying (manufacturing) bits is practically free.
What will happen when the cost of copying physically stuff is just as easy? Will companies be be crying for piracy laws to prevent me from making a backup of my favorite coffee mug, in case I break it?
Did the author's sales really go down? Can you prove it? If that's true, why are some authors offering up their books for free on the Internet in the hopes of increasing sales?
The author of the software had the software before, and had it afterwards. He/she was deprived of nothing except an opportunity, and even that is debatable. It could easily result in increased sales and increased publicity.
Mens Rei actually means "guilty mind", and it really measures the degree to which you intended to hurt someone. If you hurt someone "negligently", i.e. you didn't mean to hurt anybody, but someone was hurt by your actions, then that's the weakest form of "Mens Rei" recognized under the law. If you did something in order to hurt a particular person/entity, then that's the strongest form recognized.
If you copy an MP3 and thereby infringe on the IP rights to the songs owned by Britney Spears' record company with the intention of hurting their bottom line, that would be purposeful infringement. If you copy the MP3 because you want to listen to the song, but are absolutely convinced that it will do nothing to hurt their bottom line, then that's either reckless or negligent. The whole "Mens Rei" thing is a distraction though. The real issue should be whether a given level of copyright infringment hurts or helps the copyright holder, and whether or not that IP should exist in the first place.
How is the "Progress of Science and Useful Arts" promoted by Britney Spears songs? Should a sound recording even be protected? It's neither a writing nor a discovery.
Songs would exist without copyright. Look at how much stuff is available under "Creative Commons" licenses! Look how much music (and other creative work) was made before these things were copyrighted. Maybe it's true that a certain level of IP protection is useful to the general public, but what is that level?
As for the author being harmed by unauthorized copies of their work being shared without their permission, that isn't the issue. What if there was a law that said "All black people must work for white people without pay". Black people refusing to do that would cost white people... but does that mean that the black people are wrong to refuse, or that the law was wrong?
Only morality deals with right vs wrong.
Legality deals with legal vs illegal.
Ethics deal with norm vs taboo.
Now, regarding the issue in question (exercising your right to share information when the author prefers that only e can share it):
Morality: It is right for one to share information and benefits society. It is wrong for the author to try to deny people of their rights.
Legally: Copyright law attempts to grant the author the power to deny everyone else of their rights to share information. Sharing information when the author does not want you to is currently illegal.
Ethically: Sharing information is the norm in most of the world. Nowhere (AFAIK) is it taboo.
Luke-Jr