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."

Comments

Color me surprised...not

[Willeh]

From my own experiences, it's absolutely true what they're saying. I was copying c64 games for my friends (not for profit ofcourse) back when i was about 7-8. It moved on over the years (tape swapping in school, more games copying). It sort of snuck in. Why? Because it was so damn EASY. That's right, morals got conveniently put on the backburner, just to listen to the latest tunes or play the latest shit-hot game with my friends.

Fast forward that to the present: IT'S STILL EASY! Games, movies music are so readily available(for free) i'd be embarassed if i produced any of it. For the less techno-savvy people under us, it's still relatively easy, maybe a magnitude or 2 less, plus they now have a little disposable income to throw around for the sake of convenience, so they might buy the latest movie released from some dodgy bloke out of his trunk. Is this right? NO. Is this illegal? YES! Is it easy? You bet! They're basically doing it because it's convenient, easy, cheap and they've been doing it for years.

Having said that, personally i'm now working and have a lot more money to spend, so i'm buying stuff all the damn time. The solution to all of this: I have no clue, but DRM-short-of-a-gloved-hand-up-the-ass isn't the way to do it.

Re:Not surprising

[mkro]

Since we like quotes from old American geezers ("...deserves no liberty at all"), here is one from Thomas Jefferson:

"He who receives an idea from me receives it without lessening me, as he who lights his candle at mine receives light without darkening me."

I'm sure he didn't refer to an iso of GTA: San Andreas found on a Swedish bittorrent page, but the counter-argument at that time also could have been "Candles cost MONEY, I think I deserve something back for the flame you just infringed upon" or "Do you know how much TIME I used to come up with that idea? Now I might have to work the fields instead of thinking out new stuff in the future"

Re:Taking from the rich has never been seen as the

[zoney_ie]

There's another problem with piracy, besides the theory that the producers are out of pocket as a result.

In Ireland at least, the warning that piracy (of films in particular) supports terrorism, is quite true. While those actually pirating the stuff themselves aren't, those who buy pirated movies at the market, etc., are most likely buying from the equivalent of an IRA high street store. One of the IRA's rackets is pirated goods (the others being smuggled cigarettes, diesel, etc.)

Not sure how true the ad at the start of the movie is in the States, but just to let you know, it's not as crazy as it sounds.

Actually...

[DuranDuran]

Actually from my own research, it's much more likely that the participants knew that it was wrong but have developed fairly compex ways of justifying their activity. It's called "neutralization", whereby deviants 'neutralize' the social controls that normally inhibit illegal behaviour. This theory was originally put forward in 1957 by Sykes and Matza, and you can read about it here and here.

Morality

[keean]

When justifying war, the argument is often made that the death of a few is justified by the saving of many more.

We often say the moral action is the one that brings the greatest benefit to the largest number of people.

Therefore copying software, many gain something for free, at the cost of depriving a few of income.

By the above argument you have a moral obligation to copy as much software as possible... Or the justification for 'moral-war' is invalid. Both cannot be true as that would be a self contradiction.

You could argue that by copying, people will stop writing software - but that is obviously rubbish as we can see from the free-software movement.

Besides, if people stop writing generic software because of piracy, people will have to pay programmers directly to adapt free software to their needs. If the ammount of money available to invest in new software is constant - more money will now be spent on new features and entirely new software products... In other words copying software stops companies writing one product and then sitting back and collecting money for effectively doing nothing.

Lord MacAulay

[panurge]

I can't help adding that Lord MacAulay practically wrote the Indian legal system himself, and that anyone who gets past his nineteenth century writing style will discover, as I did, that far from being some stuffy legal figure he was a serious progressive. He argued for greater democracy, for the abolition of the privileges of the aristocracy, and (although he had to be very careful how he wrote in those days) he would clearly have supported the abolition of the monarchy and the introduction of a republic. He also attacked the use of religion to exclude groups from society. Even his popular stuff, like his Lays of Ancient Rome, need rereading. The last of the Lays is an attack on the aristocracy in support of popular democracy, and they are supposed to represent the evolution in understanding as the Roman empire developed. My English teacher at school rubbished the Lays because, she said, they contained many errors and were unrealistic. It was only years later that I read MacAulay's own commentary where he explained that he had deliberately tried to write them from the standpoint of someone knowing no more than a Roman of the time, and with the exaggerations that a verse writer would put in. MacAulay 2, English teacher 0.

It's a pity he's not around today when some of his targets are getting to be so big again.