Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
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!?"
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
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.
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
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.
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...
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.
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?
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
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.
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.
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