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

Not surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

Piracy isn't theft. Theft is the action in wich one denies others acces to the stolen goods. Piracy doesn't deny anoyne acces to the pirated goods. So piracy is per definition not theft.

Re:Not surprising

[Zebidiah]

Using your logic, my refusal to buy a particular music\movie is theft whether I "pirate" it or not.

Re:Not surprising

[Zebidiah]

There are two words for it: "Copyright Infringement"

Re:Not surprising

[DrHyde]

Yes, it is piracy. From the OED:

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

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

Re:Not surprising

[temcat]

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.

Re:Not surprising

[autophile]

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.

+1: Surprising. Use of the world "chandler" in a contextually correct sentence.

--Rob

People don't mind paying

[Zebidiah]

People don't mind paying for software\music etc. They just don't like being ripped off with overly inflated prices.

Re:People don't mind paying

[nurhussein]

This is *especially* true in developing countries where people just can't afford to buy legit stuff, since the content cartels all want to push it at US prices.

A legit DVD movie is around 80-120 ringgit* in Malaysia. That's enough money to eat for one or two weeks. Would Americans pay the equivalent of a week of meals for a single DVD? I doubt it.

Try selling at prices people are *willing to pay*, like the pirates do (10-12 ringgit per DVD), and they'll be more than happy to do so.

--
* ringgit == unit of Malaysian currency. 1 US dollar is 3.8 ringgit.

Re:People don't mind paying

[ShieldW0lf]

I do, at least where music and literature are concerned. I find the idea that a few large corporations "own" all the music I grew up listening to and uses that "ownership" to prevent the vast majority of humanity from being allowed to listen to more than a fraction of it to be downright criminal. That being the case, I won't give them one thin dime of my money, and I'll go out of my way to make a free copy for anyone who wants it so I can further deprive them of operating revenue.

As far as I'm concerned Universal, Sony/BMG, Warner and EMI are the enemy and I'm happy to do my part in destroying them utterly.

That's because it isn't Theft

[jawtheshark]

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.

Re:NEWS FLASH!

[PakProtector]

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.

Pirate goods aren't worth it

[RichardX]

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.

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.

Re:Breach of contract isn't theft

[Peaker]

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.

164 year old prophecy comes true

[hey!]

From Lord Macaulay's 1841 speech on copyright extension:

I will only say this, that if the measure before us should pass [...] there will soon be a remedy, though of a very objectionable kind. Just as the absurd acts which prohibited the sale of game were virtually repealed by the poacher, just as many absurd revenue acts have been virtually repealed by the smuggler, so will this law be virtually repealed by piratical booksellers. At present the holder of copyright has the public feeling on his side. Those who invade copyright are regarded as knaves who take the bread out of the mouths of deserving men.
[...]
Pass this law: and that feeling is at an end. Men very different from the present race of piratical booksellers will soon infringe this intolerable monopoly. Great masses of capital will be constantly employed in the violation of the law. Every art will be employed to evade legal pursuit; and the whole nation will be in the plot.
[...]
Remember too that, when once it ceases to be considered as wrong and discreditable to invade literary property, no person can say where the invasion will stop. The public seldom makes nice distinctions. The wholesome copyright which now exists will share in the disgrace and danger of the new copyright which you are about to create. And you will find that, in attempting to impose unreasonable restraints on the reprinting of the works of the dead, you have, to a great extent, annulled those restraints which now prevent men from pillaging and defrauding the living.

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.

No surprise

[Peaker]

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?

Re:NEWS FLASH!

[Kjella]

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