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Software Piracy At the Workplace?
An anonymous reader writes "What does one do when a good portion of the application software at your workplace is pirated? Bringing this up did not endear me at all to the president of the company. I was given a flat 'We don't pirate software,' and 'We must have paid for it at some point.' Given that I was only able to find one burnt copy of Office Pro with a Google-able CD-Key, and that version of Office is on at least 20 computers, I'm not convinced. Some of the legit software in the company has been installed on more than one computer, such as Adobe Acrobat. Nevertheless I have been called on to install dubious software on multiple occasions. As for shareware, what strategies do you use to convince management to allow the purchase of commonly used utilities? If an installation of WinZip reports thousands of uses, I think the software developer deserves a bit o' coin for it. When I told management that WinZip has a timeout counter that counts off one second per file previously opened, they tried to implement a policy of wait for it, do something else, and come back later, rather than spend the money. Also, some software is free for home and educational use only, like AVG Free. What do you when management ignores this?"
Do what you're told. Look for another job.
Acts 17:28, "For in Him we live, and move, and have our being."
Unfortunately ignorance of the law is no defense. The same is true for not saying anything when you witness a crime being committed. It's called obstruction. So, CYA: leave the company as soon as you can. Assume you WILL be held accountable in the future.
They have a rewards program that will pay you money for turning in your company.
Sig Follows: "Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." -- Mark Twain
I can see two honorable paths here:
You can find them FOSS substitutes for their existing software.
You can find another job.
If you want to be optimistic you can stand your ground with the managers and state: "I will not install software unless I'm certain we have a proper license for it." And see if they show you the door, or attempt to find some kind of compromise. People that take the time to look seriously at Open Office often like what they find. So there is a slim hope, but odds are, these are not the class of people you want to make a career with, and you'll be happier working somewhere that ethical compromises are not a daily expectation.
For most purposes, reasonably people look at the available data first and then infer a conclusion. When it comes to "moral" matters, though, you get a certain subset of people who work in the opposite direction.
Instead of saying "Well, I do seem to be surrounded by CD-R copies of commercial software activated with leaked VLKs, I must be a dirty pirate." they say "I'm obviously a good person, and good people don't do bad things, therefore the things that I have done could not possibly be bad."
This would be merely harmless idiocy, were it not for the fact that most of those people are completely wrong.
Security essentials is free for business, so replace AVG with that:
http://www.microsoft.com/Security_Essentials/
7Zip is free and OSS. Replace Winzip with that. Heck, XP has its own zip handler installed. A lot of techies assumed that XP needs a zip program because 2000 didnt have one. Get rid of it.
http://www.7-zip.org/
PDFCreator is free and OSS. It can make PDFs. Most people just need to make them, not 'edit' them.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/
For utilities like winzip, replace them with open source stuff like 7zip. Explain that it's ok to be used for commercial use, and it avoids annoying licensing costs. As for the other stuff, shoot an email to your management about it and print it out. If they refuse to listen, at least you have a hard copy on record showing that you tried to warn them. Then, if anything ever happens legally you've tried to notify them and you can't get canned. If they do, they'll have a hefty wrongful termination lawsuit on their hands. If it really bothers you, find a new job and call the BSA. Tattletale. :-P
If they're dishonest in one area, well, they're dishonest, period. You'll get dicked over if you stay there. Frankly, I have no qualms about calling the BSA about places like this....
Do you have ESP?
Document everything and then turn them in. Of course the previous look for another job applies as well.
I eat Karma for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. That's why I don't have any.
Anonymously to the BSA. And start looking for a new job.
First off, you shouldn't need to use Winzip, every computer since like Windows 95 has had its own method of compression to send files. Toss that out, and just use the right click "Send to compressed (zip) folder".
Secondly, If your boss is saying that you had to have paid for software at one point, tell him that you're going to have to buy licenses for each time that software is used.
This means that either
A) Your IT Budget is going way up
or
B) Other Departments are going to have to expense their own software, and you just aid in the installation and support.
If your IT Manager is content with what software you've got going on, either knowing full well that its trial version or doesn't care, than its really not your place to challenge that, and you go with it.
If YOU are the IT Manager, you need to get some backbone and tell the Chief that you are at serious risk of lawsuit.
Instead of accsing the company of piracy (even if they're guilty), use another approach.
Say, I'm concerned that renewing future licenses will be very expensive. Say, the 1,000 copies of Winzip at $30 each is $30,000. 7-zip is a free alternative that actually works better, and will save the company $30,000 the new time those licenses need to be renewed. Alnd OpenOffice saves $400 per license over MS Office. OpenOffice comes with free PDF export functionality, which saves the $500 Acrobat license.
You may get approval to install free, legal alternatives and get rid of the pirated software. Even better, instead of being seen as the problem (the person who has a moral objection to their piracy), you'll be seen as a solution.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
If piracy is really that bad -> https://reporting.bsa.org/usa/home.aspx
It is what they are there for.
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
The ethical thing to do at this stage in the game is to drop a dime on'em. The sensible thing to do is to ensure that you still have an income afterwards. Count on the boss finding out and retaliating; whether that is illegal or not, factor that into your plans.
"My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."
Quit the company. Get an attorney. Claim there is a hostile environment because you know they are breaking laws and you are asked to break the laws too, and then report the company to BSA and sue them? (for the hostile work environment)
Seriously, 7-zip is not only free, but in many aspects faster and better than WinZip.
In office environments like this, management's stand is very unlikely to change. Trying to change their minds will be an exercise in futility, so you need to just focus your decision making on whether or not you are willing to stick around and be a part of it, or would rather look for another job.
Shawn Asmussen
You have to go legit. There are small things you can do to help bring them in compliance, like install 7-zip rather than WinZip, but it's damning that you've been ignored by management after mentioning the problem.
I'd feel better reading about your situation if management had said "yeeeah, it's a big problem, we're working towards being legit". Bald faced denial means you have to get the hell out of there.
You are going to have to find another job. After you're out of there, you can forget all about it or report them to the BSA based on how big a dick you want to be. I'd usually never advise reporting a company to the BSA but if they've basically forced you out of your job I think it would be fair play.
I started this post with the idea that I would make a joke similar to what RMS says about piracy requiring guns and ships but when I stopped to think about the words pirate and piracy, it really is odd that they're used when software is executed outside the limits of a license. It's totally reasonable in the face of ridiculous license terms to want to get past all that and just use the software. That's why we've gone from no product keys to product keys to activation and now to automatic auditing like Windows Genuine Advantage. With invasive tools like WGA that can scan your system and send who-knows-what back to the developer even holding your system hostage against bug and security fixes, I'm starting to feel like piracy is closer to what's happening on the developer side of the equation. Just another reason to shift to free(as in freedom) software...
I was in this situation once and I flatly refused to install the unlicensed software. If you have mentioned the issue to management, they already see you as someone they can't trust. You may as well report them to https://reporting.bsa.org/usa/home.aspx or the like, because your days are numbered at this company.
Damping absorbs vibrations. Dampening is caused by moisture.
If you Dare http://www.fastiis.org/our_services/enforcement/reportingPiracy/
If you don't like your job, get a new one and then as you leave, snitch to the BSA for the bounty money.
Test your net with Netalyzr
Offer a solution. If you go to your boss's office and tell him he is a thief he's not going to be happy. But if you get in there and offer a free alternative it should be a good way of bringing things up.
Openoffice can do the job if everybody switch together. 7-zip is a good replacement for winzip. I'm pretty sure lot's of software has free (like in open source) alternative. Try, you'll see where it lead you. :-)
Document, CYA, think about finding a new job (under the principle that this is one symptom of management that is likely poor in lots of ways).
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
How 'bout the IT Crowd piracy ad? Too bad it's only for movies...
P.S. It's just a small business, give 'em a break. If they don't care that they are breaking the law, why should you?
A friend of mine was uncomfortable with using the pirated s/w at her company and so switched her computer and work products
from (pirated) Office to OpenOffice, (pirated) MatLab to Octave, and VBA to python. She also brought the overall issue up with the CEO, suggesting
that the company should pay for its payware, or switch to FOSS.
Needless to say, not long afterwards, she was terminated with some lame excuse but it's clear it was for not being a "team player".
The 95% of the technology startups in our town are laughingly underfunded
(e.g. reverse mortgage on CEO's house and small contribution from Aunt Tilly's bakery), so they have no
money for legit licenses. Unfortunately, the management at many are too stupid to understand that there are perfectly good FOSS
alternatives for all of it.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
I am a sysadm/web developer for a smallish manufacturing business. When I got here, there licensing was a complete and utter mess. They had about half the number of Office licenses as needed (And half of those were Home/Student Edition), they had a centralized AV solution that they were still getting updates for but hadn't paid for in three years, and just overall were NOT compliant.
I brought it to the company president's attention. Buying 40 Office licenses at a time (Probably around $10000 for Small Business) as well as 70-80 AV subscriptions (Maybe another $2000), and various other server and client software (Around $12,000 more) was not something they wanted to do. They did agree to take it slow and get legit over a period of time. During that period, I did install Office on more machines but they bought the licenses over a period of 18 months. In the end, I am happy to say we are nearly 100% compliant.
So I guess instead of going to him with a HUGE bill, maybe write up a plan to go legit over the next year or two. They may balk at a one time large sum of money but be willing to pay $1000 here, $2000 there or something. Worked for me. If the company is too cheap to even do that, you probably aren't going to you as an employee and are probably better off starting to look around....
If you like the company and/or your job, I would get a copy of the license agreement for the software that you believe is pirated and show it to the boss. Explain how what you have observed violates the license and suggest that the company either pay for the software or make the transition to free software. Alternatively, if you don't like the company, I'm sure you've seen the BSA ads all over Slashdot.
Asked and answered.
Don't think that the company president who "didn't know he was using pirated software" won't serve you up as the sacrificial lamb to the Powers That Be in a heartbeat when some disgruntled ex-employee rats to the BSA. At that point, you'll be out of a job the hard way, with the kind of black stain on a record that no young IT guy wants to have.
AVG is only for home use - even educational institutions have to buy it.
Will you get fired for non installing illegal software? Probably not.
Only install legit software or you are complicit.
Who the hell uses a crappy shareware version (let alone a crappy paid-for software) for zipping? I mean, Office I can barely understand if the company runs some proprietary document management server like Citrix, but there is no excuse not to use 7-zip.
I agree - ethical, legal, or not, they'll find a way to get rid of you. Or at least make working there so intolerable you quit (better for them, btw, so I'd expect this). So secure another job or be ready to tough it out until you do.
But yes, as much as I hate them, it's time to document, document, document and then call the BSA. Your business is blatantly violating licensing terms. Declaring compliance by fiat - aka, "we don't pirate software, therefore violating the license terms isn't piracy" - is somewhat like trying to declare yourself a virgin when you're already pregnant.
interface is shit
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
Make sure you have written documentation expressing your concern, then move on. Then if they ever just royally screw you over, you can tell on them!
Browse at -1 to keep an eye out for abuses.
Tell your boss that this is important, and that the company needs to pay for it, and you feel obligated to report it as you will be liable also. Then offer helpful suggestions as to who you can lay off in order to allocate money to pay for the software. Will it be friendly Bob, or the pregnant lady in the accounts department? Alternatively you can just shut your mouth and get another job like everybody else said.
Don't play their game.
Piracy is ship to ship armed robbery. Unless this company is boarding a ship full of software with cutlasses drawn... it isn't piracy. Calling infringement piracy makes it seem worse than it is and makes light of what is happening off the coast of Africa.
Cue the descriptivists....
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
Another good one:
http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/103759/?tag=Master+P
We've been over this ground many times.
Document (as in "make sure the decision maker is aware of it") the need for an audit of software licenses. If they refuse to permit that, cover your ass as best you can and start looking for another job.
If they permit the audit, do it. If you come up short in the licenses-to-installed copies ratio, document that. If they refuse to mitigate (buy licenses or delete installations) cover your ass as best you can and look for another job.
It is your job to make the decision makers aware of the licensing terms, show them how the organization is or is not in compliance with those terms, and to educate them as to the consequences of failing to comply. If you are not allowed, at the very minimum, to do these things, rest assured that it will be you who is blamed when that willful negligence comes back to bite the organization. Cover your ass and get the documentation that shows you at least tried to get them to do the right thing.
I don't have all the answers for you, but at least try not use shareware. Try to use freeware if you can help it. For instance, WinZip used to be good may be ten years ago, but now there are many much better, and easier to use, freeware alternatives (thought, out of all those candidates, you'll have to read their licenses to make sure the one you select is pure freeware. These days, there are many shareware programs that falsely advertise themselves as freeware).
Second, don't mention the specific software in question.
Third, find a new job quickly now that this information is out.
I'm not a lawyer, but isn't the idea behind a corporation such that individuals are not held legally responsible for crap like this, but the company as a whole is?
I worked for a company eight years ago that bought a software company. They were all about getting tough on piracy that they created a task forced headed by the top legal counsel in the company. In meetings, they talked about the steps they took, smacking down pirates.
Everyone of those anti-piracy motherfuckers were just as bad as the people who they were cracking down. They all traded cracked copies of shit out of the meeting. I didn't think it was that bad until I was at work late one night. The head counsel visited my desk, asked for a cracked copy of photoshop, then borrowed one of my photoshop books. No joke.
This company is still in business today. I don't know if those people are still there, but they ran that small software division into the ground.
The funny thing, that's when I started posting on Slashdot. Jesus Christ, I can't believe I've been visiting the same web site for eight years. I need a life.
Sorry, I don't understand you. You were trying to explain how endangering one's job to avoid engaging in unethical behavior is a cowardly thing to do?
I dunno about bootleg software, but on the next Talk Like A Pirate Day I'd love to put my computer in "Arrrgggg, Matey" mode.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
CYA, CYA, CYA. Document the crap out of your findings and suggestions to Management. If they don't listen then you have proof that you informed them of their evil ways. Then you can jump ship and call the SBA. Personally, I made it my job to uninstall every piece of illegal software in my organization. People didn't like it. People complained. But included in my job description was "ensuring the proper use of software". So, that's what I did. I became the BOFH very quickly.
At this point, you feel a little queasy, but probably not enough to quit your job... it probably doesn't seem like a big enough deal over which to quit. But, your boss is demonstrating that he does not feel queasy which means that if this trend continues, you may be doing something very unseemly for him before you know it. Ethics is a hard one because you need to work and minor offenses that your boss approves don't really reflect on you, right? You are doing what you are told and you even wrote something on Slashdot which should help clear you conscience.
That fact is that all companies do some unethical things (which is why companies should be highly regulated IMHO). We should consider what it really means though for you to follow orders in this case.
First, you are validating your bosses bad behavior and in effect telling him that he's doing a good job.
Second, you are encouraging other people to copy software.
Third, you are not taking a stand and demonstrating to others that your own ethics might be less-than-stellar.
Lastly, there is the legal issue. You might just go to jail.
Other than quitting, you can simply find out the costs, present them to your boss as a plan for upgrade, and give it to him every few weeks. That way, you are taking initiative, demonstrating that you care, and showing that most software doesn't really cost very much. Also, encouraging the company to use open source might just push him toward being more ethical and get you a promotion.
You mean, somebody's likely to start a religion around his company?
If the masses can keep you down, you're not the Ubermensch.
Sometimes companies do have valid licenses (usually purchased in bulk) but no one has any idea where they are and what the heck happened to the software keys. Not every company is blessed with IT departments or people - so from their point of view, they paid for it, and they just use whatever method they can to get it working, this is especially true on the other side of the world where calling the local Microsoft or vendor office won't get you much help. And no way they are going to call a US hot-line to get it resolved
In a local court of law, especially one where software rights are acknowledged, sometimes the actual software and license key is irrelevant as long as the paper trail holds up
but my policy on this is to not install pirated/mislicensed software. In three IT jobs, none of them have pushed me to "just do it anyway", but maybe I'm just fortunate that way.
That being said, about 50% of the time they just got one of my coworkers to do it instead, and quit asking me to pirate things for them. And about 20% of the time they actually bought the software, found a free alternative, or did without.
It'd take a pretty stupid manager to press such an issue to the point of firing you. That'd make for an entertainingly short discussion at your unemployment review, and would start a rather heavy boulder rolling.
The new windows tech here is having quite an annoying time trying to sort out all the pirated software that the previous tech was using. He too refuses to help with piracy, and I've simply advised him to tell the managers here we need to buy xxx. And if they say we already have it, just point out it's pirated and we can't use it. I don't think they'll have a problem with replacing the pirated software with legit. I'm glad I don't work somewhere where the CIO is a "pirate wherever you can to save a buck".
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Declaring compliance by fiat ... is somewhat like trying to declare yourself a virgin when you're already pregnant.
Hey, it worked at least once. Maybe the CEO is trying to start a new religion.
End of lesson. You may press the button.
every single company I have ever worked at uses pirated software... and sometimes a lot of it. you're going to be hard pressed to find a company that doesn't.. in my experience...
I worked at one place that had a mirror of usenet servers and got everything pirated.
If you're so concerned about CYA, why don't you install any of the freeware alternatives to WinZip that blow the freakin' doors off it? It would take you all of ten seconds at a site like SnapFiles or MajorGeeks to track one down. Same with any other shareware that concerns you.
You could also suggest freeware alternatives for the pirated stuff, along with the advantages of being able to update the stuff.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
You know software like Adobe Acrobat has licenses where you can use the key multiple times? Are you really sure there isn't an invoice about 20 office licenses somewhere in a file?
Because If you decide to take this to the law and you're wrong.. you are the offender.
I quit a job back in april with one of main reasons being their blatant use (or misuse) of unlicensed software. Especially in regards to pirated XP and Office 2007. (In an effort to "make things right" they were trying to install student editions in place of the pirated copies). I was directed several times to install this software, and just plain forced to if I dared to object to the usage.
Unless they cleaned up their act a lot in the last 7 months (which I highly doubt), would it be smart to contact the BSA?
The best case scenario is that you can migrate them to free software and be hailed a hero. Don't expect it though. Here are the best of the many ideas I've seen posted to slashdot on this recurring topic.
1. Consider putting a lawyer on retainer. Not as expensive as you might think and an hour or so's conversation can ensure that you document all the appropriate recommendations to keep you out of the BSA's sights and do so in a legally admissible fashion.
2. Don't make it look like a crusade so avoid being confrontational. i.e. "We need to find out who uses $software_package so we can put upgrades/support in next year's budget" or "Investigate free-for-commercial-use $kind_of_software to avoid budgeting needs entirely"
3. Document any time you bring it up with your boss. Use email or written word as much as possible. BCC an external email address and/or take backups of your exchanges home. (again, see #1 for region-specific laws)
4. Any time you are given a verbal pat on the head, do an email follow up later and if at all possible put the responsibility of license management on them. "I installed Office on the 2 new-hires' PCs. We have $quantity copies of Office installed to date. Let me know when we are getting close to our license limit as I may be able to remove the software from $clueless_user's PC."
5. List any of your little victories as fiscal savings during reviews or status reports. "Have replaced Adobe Acrobate Suite with $freeware_PDF_exporter, which will lower our licensing overhead by $250/user and allowed for widespread distribution"
6. Be prepared to be thrown under the bus. Companies willing to operate unethically are, by definition, unethical. Even if you never report them to the BSA, someone else might and you, as the IT guy, may be thrown to the wolves. Having that documentation of all the times that the CFO/CEO was stated to be in charge of license management and that you had no knowledge of the licensing limits, plus the fact they knew how many instances of software will at least ensure you get your unemployment and that the BSA won't come after you.
7. If you report them to the BSA, make sure to get the bounty and put your lawyer on notice. The BSA has a vested interest in concealing their informants, but stuff can come out and unethical people do unethical things. They often say or do things that are defamatory in the process. Whistleblower laws should ensure you can get compensation for lost wages, compensation for defamation, damage to career, etc.
I've been on slashdot so long I'm starting to get out of touch with the cool stuff if it ain't on slashdot.
P.S. It's just a small business, give 'em a break. If they don't care that they are breaking the law, why should you?
I simply remind the CEO that each infraction would cost us $10k in fines per infraction if we were audited due to a disgruntled employee. Which makes that $500 license suddenly look a lot less expensive.
At the same time, we're moving as fast as possible away from software that requires licenses. The major pieces that we still pay for? Windows XP/7, MS Office, and really useful tools like JASC PaintShop Pro, UltraEdit32 and SecureCRT. Everything else has been moved to free tools where we don't have to track licenses.
Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?
If the boss won't listen, perhaps you're talking to the wrong person. This company have a legal department? Talk to them and point out the potentially cripplingly liability that the company is subjecting itself to by using pirated software.
I'd start looking for a new job, regardless. The kind of company that is fine with cutting some illegal corners to get the job done is not a good place to work.
and then it's every man for himself. You want to protect your own butt so you might want to be the first to call the BSA. You'll want to do this so the people at previous company doesn't frame you for it.
You just admitted you typed the CD-keys of software into google. Google doesn't do anything to keep what people search for hidden, in fact they go out of their way to publish it. Sure it's hard to find things that are only searched for once, but I'm certain that sharing the CD-Keys with a third party - even google - is prohibited by the license agreement
Send this very informative link to your management. Don't Copy that Floppy!
Trolling is a art,
Write a brief (1 to 2 page) plan for the CEO about how to 'better manage' licenses on company computers. The plan should focus on incremental improvement (what to install on new computers, what to install when asked on existing computers).
Have the plan oriented to save money and reduce obligations of share ware. Give a few options, but don't preach about software philosophy.
Advise the CEO, NOT IN WRITING, of some of your concerns for legacy computers, and show him that you're committed to continuous improvement in this area. Remind him that the BSA wields a heavy hammer, and to be mindful of angry ex-employees who might take advantage.
CEO's like plans with no immediate funding requirement, low stress on the organization, and continuous improvement. Write your plan assuming the BSA will eventually read it - that is, don't incriminate yourself or the company.
1. Take a software inventory. Figure out what is installed where, and which license codes/CD keys are being used.
2. Pull records. We get a lot of our PCs pre-loaded with MS apps and Acrobat. Those OEM installs stay with the machines, though many places try to move them forward from machine to machine (thus creating the impression that "we must have bought it sometime").
3. Check online sites, like Microsoft's eOpen site, or contact specific vendors (e.g., call Autodesk or your VAR) and ask them to send you a summary of your current licenses.
4. Document your level of usage against your level of compliance. Include all costs for becoming compliant. Be sure to include one time costs (e.g., buying additional seats) and any recurring costs (e.g., maintenance, back maintenance, reinstatement fees).
5. Educate management that software is licensed, not purchased.
6. Include information regarding the legal liability related to pirated software. Include references to any cases you can find, including actual fines, as well as potential fines (caps). Note the reputational risk to the company as well.
7. Prepare a plan for bringing the company into compliance. Include possible stop-gap measures and alternatives (e.g., limiting the number of users with a specific pieces of software, buying one additional license per year, using OpenOffice).
8. Compile everything into a well-documented report/memo (depending on your company's preferred style), and be sure to present it personally (don't just email it off). Offer to meet at another time, if necessary, but you must make it clear how important this is. Offer to meet with the entire management team. Communicate, communicate, communicate.
9. Let management know you don't plan on blowing the whistle (they'll surely say "nobody knows, so we're fine"), but make them aware that any disgruntled employee could make a call in to the piracy hotline. If you have the intestinal fortitude to do so, you could even make it clear (if it reflects your beliefs) that you value your integrity and that you cannot, in good conscience, help the company steal software/violate contract terms. Of course, that means you need to be ready to put up or shut up.
All that being well and good, you can take some practical steps to start getting things into compliance going forward:
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
A call to the BSA is not something you want in your job history and it's not our duty to police and report software licenses.
If your companies asset tracking program is that bad and it makes you that uncomfortable, by all means seek more suitable employment but if I was ever checking a reference and it was inferred that the employee had done something like this I would immediately move them off of my list. If you want to do the right thing explain the problem and if they still don't take interest you can explain this is why you'll be seeking employment elsewhere.
Narcing for money (or revenge or misplace moral 'duty') is about as sleazy as using unlicensed software for business.
Quack, quack.
Same with the sanctimonious "music piracy is copyright infringement, it's not theft or stealing", blah blah blah.
My company is more careful about not violating OSS licenses than making sure they don't pirate any shareware
Most small businesses have a hard time dealing with software licensing. Any money that they have to spend on software is less money for them to spend on other things like employee salaries, power bills to keep the lights on, toner for the printers, etc. It sounds to me like the OP has already shot himself in the foot by bringing it up to management.
If pirated software really bothers you then find another job (good luck with that in this market). However ratting your employer out to the BSA is a dickhead move. Whether you like it or not, they are currently paying your salary, and the salary of at least 20 other people. The odds of them getting audited for license compliance are just about zero, unless someone rats them out.
I'd take a long hard look at the situation. There isn't an easy answer. Either you rat out your employer and impose significant costs and lost productivity on a company in a struggling economy, or you live with being a thief for a while until you can find another job. If I were in that situation, I'd just suck it up and start looking for another job. I wouldn't cry myself to sleep if Microsoft loses out on the licensing revenue for 19 copies of Office. And I certainly wouldn't torpedo a company that is providing employment to my community just so that the BSA and Microsoft can earn a couple thousand dollars.
Declaring compliance by fiat - aka, "we don't pirate software, therefore violating the license terms isn't piracy" - is somewhat like trying to declare yourself a virgin when you're already pregnant.
</quote>
In 2009, one of those is a logical fallacy, and the other is technically possible.
I'll leave it to the reader to decide which is which.
Report them to BSA.org! They even have a rewards program if they net money, they'll share with you!
Stop being a sanctimonious bitch about it. If you make a personal decision not to pirate, that's cool. Running around trying to be everyone else's conscience, not so much.
What you SHOULD have done I think depends on what your job function is. If you are paid to be responsible for licensing issues, then yes, you should bring it up. If you are not, then you shouldn't... A regular employee shouldn't be spending their work time nosing around the issue of compliance. Imagine instead if an "I care a lot about strict building codes" software developer or secretary were looking around/inside cube partitions and discovers that the wiring is done slightly incorrectly, but not harmfully, but if directly shown to the city building inspector would force a costly change. The employee would likely be canned or shunned for sharing what amounts to an equivalent concern to the software licensing. You can debate whether the two are "equivalent" (i.e. you might think pirating software is worse than a slight building code violation), but the company/manager's opinion of the question of importance is what matters. They may likely see you as being just as bad as the person complaining about a slight building code violation.
This is commonplace. At the software vendor (Yeah, a business that makes money on consulting and software licensing) I used to work at back in 1994 we started rolling out Thinkpads, first to management and Sales then to other customer facing employees. Someone handed me a single copy of Act and told me to install it on ten systems. I refused. He did so himself and spread rumors that I wasn't a team player. Meanwhile the new data center manager institutionalized software piracy. We had a single copy of MS Project which was installed on the systems of anyone doing project management. This pattern was repeated for other software. My complaints were ignored and I was told to stay out of it. The data center manager was finally canned after telling someone in senior management that it would take three or four days to buy a modem cable through the vendor he was using. High stress thankless job working for cheapskate hypocrites.
Your employer is stealing. Quit.
Go find an honest employer. And no, government work doesn't count.
Software engineers, designers and the guys who advertise and sell the software want to be paid! Get your free info by generating it yourself.
Why bother
A trip down memory lane:
"Selling games is strictly self-serving also. Apparently, you think its fantastic for companies to be driven by greed, but the customers should be selfless? Same old shit as the banks - capitalise the profit, socialise the loss."
(damburger 24 Oct Score: 5)
"In what you gave as an analogy, the hypothetical person STOLE food from the restaurant- the restaurant is out the food and drink the person took by not paying. In the case of infringement, someone merely takes a copy thereof- and nobody's out anything save maybe a cash transaction that might or might not have happened. They're not out their original copy, so it's not theft."
(Svartalk 24 Oct Score: 5)
"If I copy something that an artist produced, it doesn't cost that artist either time or effort. The time and effort has already been spent, they have no way of getting it back.
The only possibility is that they might get payment in compensation for it. As long as anything I do does not affect their chance of getting this compensation, I see no possible way in which it can be immoral. Therefore, as long as I can be sure that I am not going to pay for a copy, I see no way that making my own copy is immoral."
(julesh 24 Oct Score: 4)
"Yeah just like getting bit by an ant 'hurts' me, but not really. It's just an ant. Nothing to have a hissy-fit over like IRAA and the BSA seem to be having.
BSA: 'Oh noes! We've been bit an ant. The end is nigh'
US: 'Stop being a wuss.'"
(commodore64_love 12 Oct Score: 4)
I think what's going on here is most people see business purchases of commercial software as a way to justify their own piracy, like this person:
"Through college I had the full version of Matlab/Simulink. I used toolboxes that the school didn't have when doing class projects. I learned everything I could about it and the toolboxes available.
Now, 6 years later, I was able to talk my boss into buying a few extra special toolboxes for the work we do. Something close to $30k a seat a year. Had I never 'pirated' all that software I would have never been able to sell my self to my company, nor sell my company on Matlab toolboxes."
(0100010001010011 12 Oct Score: 4)
P.S. It's just a small business, give 'em a break. If they don't care that they are breaking the law, why should you?
Because, given some bad luck, he could end up in jail together with, or even instead of, his boss?
If only it were that easy.
<Complete your profile by adding a signature!>
Make an attempt to switch them over to free for commercial use products as mentioned (e.g. 7-Zip, whatever free PDF software). That might get them into the mood to switch over to more FOSS or pay for licenses once it's shown to be a success. Then ask "what should we do with the remainder of the license issues" that they are more hesitant to switch from (e.g. Office) pointing out that a disgruntled employee or ex-employee could turn them in for a bounty. You want to appear that you are helping them to avoid a potentially huge fine. They will either go along with it or possibly fire you. If they fire you drop a dime and collect additional unemployment benefits.
Ask for a brown paper bag full of cash in exchange for your silence.
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyAY06IcH4Y
First, document everything, and be honestly prepared to walk away from the company and report them to the BSA if needed.
Then, show them the possibilities. Whether that is through FOSS, or buying legitimate licenses... Whatever route you think you may actually have a chance of convincing them to follow
If they take the opportunity you present them to become legit, all is well. If they balk, you walk... and report tham.
because he'll have people asking "where's my winzip" and then "install winzip please". non-techies are pretty upset when you force them to take time out of their already busy day to learn some new technology. zip is probably a bad example, but going from MS office to openoffice is incomprehensible for the average office worker.
The difference is that there are over a million /. uids. While one subset is all for pirating music and movies, there is another subset that is against software piracy.
Obviously said by someone who's never put a lot of work into a program, video, script, or anything else that requires creative work, then wondered why he wasn't making money on it.
If I build a house, I get paid by the people who use it. If I put the same effort into, say, a film script, that might take anywhere from 6 weeks to a year to write, why should people get it for free?
Interesting how the kiddies who've never had to work for a living thing they should get everything for free and don't have the backbone to produce anything worthwhile in exchange. They're the real users or AOLusers -- use and use and too impotent to produce on their own.
It sounds clear they're not going to change business practices. There's always reporting them to the BSE or some other software piracy watchdog then going through a very painful (from what I hear) audit. You've already made known pirated software bothers you and if all of a sudden a watchdog group shows at your door with a warrant or whatever they use... You're screwed as far as continuing with this company. Likely you'll be fired for some unrelated subjective cause.
You can shut-up and look the other way or you can leave and report them. You cannot force them to change, you cannot report them and stay. Do your own math...
-[d]-
The OP should care because he's probably gonna be the one who's ass the company serves up on a platter when the BSA comes calling.
Either get licensed or get a new job - seems to be the running theme here. I agree. As the license manager (and product expert) for Adobe Acrobat at my company I can honestly say that if you don't have the support of leadership to get and stay licensed you really need to get a new job. Software worth using is software worth paying for. Many software companies really would rather you became compliant rather than have to deal with litigation - no one wins. And in these economic times your negotiation power is that much greater. You can always threaten with the 'I really like your xyz product, but if terms aren't favorable I guess we will just have to go with the FOSS abc tool. Yea, we are willing to take the functional hit.' Two things - be willing to back it up. Be reasonable in your requests. Sorry - you will never get Acrobat Pro for less that $250/seat unless you are handing over at least seven figures. But by then, you are already at CLP Level 4 pricing - which is a significant discount against list - that you can leverage across ALL your Adobe products (CS, Flex, etc.) For Acrobat - Yea, it's expensive but it does a lot of things that are hard to do with FOSS* tools. You may also want to investigate just 'lower cost' alternatives - Nuance's is pretty good along the solution from ArtsPDF. With some negotiation you may be able to get Nuance's sub $10US/seat. Stay away from PDF995 and other such really low-cost tools - they aren't worth the hassle. The primary problem with them is the way they handle the conversion. Most are implemented as a GDI printer which tends to have problems with some graphics and layout accuracy. Direct to PDF is the best (e.g. Adobe CS tools), but if the underlying library is bunk that makes the PDF bunk. Second best is through PostScript, but it has it's limitations. PDF, as a filetype, is much, much more complicated than many folks realize. A lots of ways to screw it up - not so many to do it right. * Sorry if I rub some folks wrong here - but I have yet to find a FOSS implemented PDF library that is any good. The GNU library, and products based on it (OpenOffice, GhostScript, FOP, etc.) really produce poor quality PDFs in the production world. For quick, one-off work it works just fine. But when you have to take their PDF output and use it as input into another system (or even just to combine them) they tend to breakdown. Or the PDF becomes overly bloated. Yes, the Adobe library is expensive, but I know what I am getting and don't have problems with them. PDFlib is also a really good production-grade library and isn't all that expensive. Licensing terms are more than generous. More language bindings and platforms than you can shake a stick at (even native z/OS - not just USFHFS). We had some reasonable success with iText for on-the-fly generation but in a production print workflow, not all that good.
Endangering one's job, no, since you are only an anonymous snitch. And doing so to avoid unethical behavior? Please. You can get a different job to avoid that. It's obvious that those that snitch to the BSA are just interested in the "rewards of up to $1,000,000 for qualifying reports." Cowardly, indeed.
Where?
The cold hard fact is that right now in most first-world countries, companies are getting rid of IT staff and farming them out to SE Asia.
The few IT professionals left in FWCs really can't leave, because they are considered expendable. Companies know that because of this, they have the IT pros right where they want them. "Do as we say or you will never work again!" And it's more real than most people think. Former IT pros can't get service jobs unless they lie on their apps (to say they have less education than they actually have). Take it from one who's tried. The service jobs don't want educated people because (a) they are more likely to question their work when things get unethical and (b) the company feels they can't count on a long-term commitment from an employee who would at a moment's notice bolt for a better job if anything comes down the pike. A manager from Speedway SuperAmerica actually told me this back in 2005.
It used to mean a college education meant a better chance at a real job. Now, unless your education is in one of the few remaining non-farmable jobs (like health care), it means a one-way ticket to the unemployment line for the rest of your life.
The person stuck in this situation is quite literally in a 'damned either way' situation. He will lose his job, either by whistleblowing as revenge, or by being thrown under the bus when the company gets found out.
Not necessarily.
If it's within your purview, you can always try ordering licenses for the software in question, or submitting the purchase request through proper channels. When asked why, explain that you cannot find any licensing information, and you're looking to protect the company's interests.
That said, it's not your job to make policy, nor is it your responsibility to protect the financial interests of the publishers of the software in question.
So, keep a record of all of your meetings and document all conversations you had with any superiors regarding the situation. Obviously you don't want to include any especially damning details one way or the other -- your goal here is not retribution, it's job and career security. If you said nothing to management about a problem you knew about, then you're at fault. At the same time, you don't want to take the fall if/when someone reports your company. Keeping records will help to defend against either scenario, and improve your job prospects should you be "let go." It's evidence that you were trying to be a team player. CYA -- Cover Your Ass -- but don't rock the boat unless you're prepared for the consequences when everyone ends up in the water (including yourself).
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Seriously...winzip sucks use 7zip instead, its free, opensource and provides alot more options and imho better compression then winzip
"WebTV: bringing the Internet into the shallow end of the gene pool since 1995" - Martin Bishop
Your president is being pretty crappy putting you in this situation. This is much like how accountants have ethical guidelines they are to follow. Management often "leans" on them tell "little white lies". In the case of accountants they are held legally liable for the documents they sign, no matter WHY they actually did it.
In your case the only group you are likely to run afoul of is the BSA. When it comes to making an example of someone, fining them and then getting them to license the software they are after your president, not you.
It's your call on how you handle it. Call the BSA and report them. Do a memo to the president and keep a copy. Explain to him that he will be held liable for fines and jail time if any disgruntled employee or competitor called the BSA. That the BSA is the FINAL arbitrator of what is legit and what is not. That your current setup will net you a perp walk on TV, the company shut down and millions in fines. (Yes, I know they will settle but that it how it starts).
You can try offering alternatives such as freeware. Moving to hosted things like google docs (look a built in backup plan). Ultimately I would look for another job. You WILL not be happy there in the long run. If the president won't pay for software, I promise you that they will fire you when they can find someone who will do your job for less. You have just been hit with a cluestick. You are going to have to find a new job. Your president lied to you when YOU told them that the software was not legit and they said they were sure it was. They have NO ethics and no problem doing something illegal to save a buck. Firing you to replace you with someone cheaper is not nice but is is leagal, why wont they do that? The only questions is do you get to do it while you are still working and can ask for MORE money from a new employer or after you are fired and can only ask for less money.
P.S. The memo that you sent to the president. Is a get out of jail free card when you refuse to install pirate software. Because if you are let go, all you have to do is claim you were terminated in retaliation for NOT committing an illegal act. And yes, the BSA is actually right on this point. It is illegal to pirate software.
Also it bothers me when someone wearing a $500 suit and lives in a mansion want ME to pirate a copy of a $500 program when they spend more than that each month on their favorite hobby.
vi +
If I build a house, I get paid by the people who use it. If I put the same effort into, say, a film script, that might take anywhere from 6 weeks to a year to write, why should people get it for free?
If you build a house you get paid ONCE by the people who use it. Why should one effort at a film script (or software or music, etc.) grant you income for life? Maybe you should just get paid for it for 6 weeks to a year or however long it took to create. The idea that you should be paid for life (plus!) for a relatively short period of work is as ridiculous, if not more so, than people thinking they should get everything for free.
Just be sure that when you call a Z4 driver a tool, you're ready to back it up.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
If you build a house you get paid ONCE by the people who use it. Why should one effort at a film script (or software or music, etc.) grant you income for life?
That's just a matter of accounting. The writers could just charge more up-front and end up with the same amount earned at the end of the road.
The issue is not with how long they're paid, it's with how much they're paid. Do you think writers are overpaid? What do you base this on?
It's based on the assumption that the individual doesn't have the money to buy the things (software, entertainment media) they're told they need due to inequitable income or pricing structures while also assuming companies definitely have that money. That of course stems from the philosophy (or at least subconscious mode of action that demonstrates the belief) that if something is needed but cannot be obtained legally, it's acceptable to obtain that thing illegally. (Strain theory derivative)
won't serve you up as the sacrificial lamb to the Powers That Be in a heartbeat when some disgruntled ex-employee rats to the BSA
Documentation is key. When you bring up formal complaints with management, document them. It's quite hard for them to paint you as a sacrificial lamb when you have a paper trail stating the opposite of their claims.
Also, as other have said, if the complaints fall on deaf ears, it might be a good idea to jump ship for a more reputable company.
There is also the possibility to educate your manager/boss about the serious risk of using unlicensed software and the potential financial consequences. This would require you to risk getting really honest with him.
As you educate, you may offer FOSS alternatives and have him make the choice. You can also educate him on how difficult it is for you to partake in an ambiguously legal activity by fulfilling his requests.
This has the potential to create a more honest environment, more connected relationship with the person you work for, and more integrity for the company.
No need to be a hardball and issue ultimatums. Rather, offer solutions and convey where you're at while retaining clear boundaries. And, next time you install something, you may ask for a legally obtained serial, and possibly educate him about the one-license per employee concept.
Good luck.
I'd prefer this Z4 over the car.
Give the company a solid chance to come clean and fix up their licensing issues, with enough information to decide whether they want to. A lot of these issues can be cleared up with truly free software. Some things, like the WinZip delay thing, are technically not illegal but sure can't be helping internal feelings about the company's compliance (in other words, they are obvious signs that the company has licensing issues, and therefore might make a disgruntled employee a nice severance package courtesy of the BSA).
Make sure you have CLEAR documentation that you are undergoing that effort and are actively communicating your findings to management. Make sure that said documentation points out the cost and risk of not complying, and make it clear that while you have no interest in profiting by reporting it, others easily might. That may include citations of the BSA's cut and how much a disgruntled employee could potentially make if they decided to.
Don't threaten to blow the whistle yourself, but make it clear that someone easily could, and try to work with them to get things cleared up. At the same time, be sure it is well documented that you are a driving force for compliance. That way, if the company decides to screw you over and make you the scapegoat, you have plenty of evidence to demonstrate that the problem was there long before you were, and that you were trying to get them in compliance.
If, after all of your effort, the company decides that they would rather continue operations as-is, you have to let your conscience and circumstances be your guide on that one. Generally the proper thing to do is leave the company and contact the BSA. But you have to call the shots as you see them - if your employer is your father-in-law or has a title of of "Don", or both, you might want to simply become a very respectful advocate for truly free software and hope you can cop a plea if the company ever gets caught. And do what you're told because Guido can make the BSA boys look like rank amateurs, and a few years in prison with intact kneecaps is better than doing a personal verification to see if cement footwear is waterproof. I mean, I like the water and all, but...
As far as your immediate "what do I do about the computer in front of me" issue... Personally, I have refused and will continue to refuse to install software on company hardware unless it's clearly legal to do so.
I can also say that really easily - I've only had one company ever ask it of me, and they had some serious compliance issues, but the decision was easy. After a long meeting with a few executives about the risks to the company and an honest assessment how much money the company was really "saving", they decided it was best to spend the money on valid licenses and have me remove anything that was not in compliance until we could clear things up.
This was also a financial management company that had a lot of customer data in their possession and processed checks and other monetary instruments by the thousands every day - having the word hit the street that they couldn't count licenses or were knowingly engaging in piracy could lead to an exceptionally unpleasant visit from people far less forgiving than the BSA. They had also never had an IT resource before - each department bought their own software and I was their first foray into a centralized IT "organization", if you want to call a young snot-nosed kid happy to have a folding table in the server room as his desk on his first IT job an "organization".
The uninstall/buy/reinstall process was VERY ugly, but at the end we had a fully compliant company with a clear sheet of purchased licenses and a clean process for transferring licenses from computer to computer, and all the install media was locked away. I won't say we hit 100%, people still brought in pirated software (this was in the Windows 3.11 days, much harder to prevent it back then). But we had pretty clear documentation that we were doing our best to keep things clean.
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
First off, if you write a film script, you likely do get paid once. Say you get $500k for a script that turns into a $100 million dollar grossing movie. Most writers don't get "points" or residuals.
Conversely, if you built Disneyland, even though you built it once, you get reoccuring income from that investment.
Your analogy that people shouldn't pay for IP because you assume the creator of IP is getting rich for life is asinine.
Creators of content deserve the right to be paid for the work. End of story.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
agreed, anyways if someone else rats them out and he has left there isn't any guarantee someone else won't try to hang him out to dry - even after he's left. Get another job, rat them out, go to a competing business, rat them out, get out asap and call on your first day off of payroll.
Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism
This is a dangerous position to be in, since **** rolls downhill when someone calls the BSA. First thing to do at this point is get some documentation. Email the CEO with your same concerns, maybe add in some of your research, and get his response via email, then print it out & save it! Then, when the audit happens and he points the finger at you, you can defend yourself. Otherwise, your conversation with the CEO (and his response) is irrelevant. Remember: if it isn't written down, it never happened -- the CEO could say you were installing unlicensed software without his knowledge, and then its your neck on the line.
And as far as calling an audit goes, think VERY carefully before calling the BSA in. It's going to be pretty obvious to the CEO who called the BSA, especially after you've been coming to him with these concerns. They may not know 100% for sure, but that's not going to stop them from finding some way to get rid of you. More importantly, if your CEO is networked well within your local business community, he may be able to blackball you from getting another job. Based on the information you've given, I would personally go for a paper trail where the CEO tells you NOT to fix the licensing issues, save that, and look for employment elsewhere. If you're going to call the BSA, wait until ~6 months after you're happily employed elsewhere before burning those bridges by calling an audit.
Don't confuse ethics with law. While one may believe that all software should be free, the government says that the software owner deserves a huge sum of money because you illegally used their software that they intended to get paid for. It's the difference between "what should be" and "what is". That's assuming that you believe free software is the ethical choice. Some may assume the other way around.
Because just because you put effort into it doesn't guarantee you can make a profit off of it, even if you intend to do so. Houses are scarce resources; information is reproducible and not scarce. It's not that you don't "deserve" compensation or that it "should" be free, it's that simply that technology is changing everything. Because I put effort into mowing my lawn, does not mean I should be able to charge people for looking at it or making copies of a photograph of it. It's ludicrous to say that you own a particular configuration of 1s and 0s, just as it would be ludicrous to say you own a particular wavelength on the electromagnetic spectrum or particular frequency of sound. Same going with those ridiculous patents on genes/genetic codes.
If houses could be copied and replicated through future technology then I will say the same thing in that case as well.
There's a certain amount of liability in using non-freeware. Even if you purchased a license for the software, without proof you're in for a world of hurt if anyone makes an issue of it (and, Business Software Alliance members like Microsoft do periodically audit licensees and companies they reserve tips about). An audit is a pain in the butt, but the cost in responding if you don't have the information can be pretty rough. And, if it turns out they want to make a case of it, keep in mind there's a $200,000 fine and possible jail time for any willful violation (if it gets as far as court).
If you want to indemnify yourself, the first order of business is to write an e-mail to the senior management (and legal, if you have a legal department) simply stating that you are reviewing the software license compliance and find that the documentation is lacking. Point out that the licensors due reserve the right to audit the company, and there's ample precedence for them doing so to small and medium-sized businesses. Note that failure to document compliance properly is a potential liability.
Wait for a response. If they tell you not to worry about it, then you need to decide whether you need to report suspected piracy to the BSA or vendor, or whether you'll sit tight. Chances are pretty good that you won't get audited, but if you do, you're going to probably be partially responsible. If you report to BSA - they won't tell your company why they are knocking at the door, but your boss is likely to have his/her suspicions.
From the CEO's point of view, there's a cost/benefit to consider. Compliance comes at a cost. Non-compliance has a potential cost which could be much higher, but the probability of that cost occurring is low. If the cost of non-compliance times the probability of getting caught is lower than the cost of compliance, then non-compliance is a lower risk/cost. For a company that has a mandate to be profitable, compliance with laws and regulations only makes sense if the cost of compliance is cheaper than the cost of non-compliance.
Personally, I'd sell my company up the river if I thought the blood-letting would be reasonably contained to the management responsible. If I felt that it would kill the company and endanger innocent people's jobs, I'd look for a new place to work becuase I'd recognize that my job was only going to last until someone becomes disgruntled and reports the company out of spite (which is how BSA usually gets most small to medium-sized businesses).
Send out an email to the entire company asking for licenses, CDs, and product keys for a license reconciliation.
Before or during this time, send out resumes. Do not proceed until you have another job lined up.
Send another email enumerating all of the unlicensed software. This can be sent to management only if you prefer (but be sure to include everyone in the chain of command above you up to the president/officer level). Retain hard copies of any messages and responses---you won't want to advertise that you're retaining copies though.
Your email should include numbers---e.g., we have XXX copies of Microsoft Office XP installed and only YY valid licenses/keys. Conclude with a list of products and the number of licenses of each that must be purchased in order to be legal.
Await shit storm. Remember licenses will always have some hardcopy either in the form of a key code, certificate of authenticity, or printout from the vendor web site. If necessary, send out a followup with amended numbers once they provide documentation of additional licenses.
Eventually, they will either buy all the necessary licenses or tell you not to worry about it. At this point, you resign and take your new job.
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
If they bought the licenses, your resume can now include "improved license tracking, software license validation, and asset reconciliation". Congratulations on the new skill set and your new job.
If they did not buy the licenses, you can call the BSA. I believe they have some sort of reward program for whistle blowers. Congratulations on the windfall and your new job.
Oh yeah... Be sure to retouch upon the licensing issue every week or two until you resign as a demonstration of due diligence. This ensures that management is aware of the issue and it is their negligence rather than your own which lead to any license violations.
Either way, you win as long as you play your cards right and plan ahead. Good luck.
---
According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=up863eQKGUI
That is a must-watch video.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUCyvw4w_yk
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Ok this is a blatant troll but I'll bite anyway. Copyright is not theft. Endless copyright may be wrong but that will change eventually. In the mean time we have laws and I still want to get paid. So whether you think so or not, copyrights and patents are there for a reason most of which involve me being able to eat and make the rent in order to continue to produce more software for you (collective not getting personal) to pirate.
Why bother
Begin looking for another job as soon as possible. Document your communications with your manager and attempts to get them to go legit. But leave as soon as possible.
The reason is simple: a company who believes it is okay to do what they're doing is not going to appreciate what YOU do. Your raises will never be good, the respect you garner from upper level management will be negligible, and you will always be treated as a second class citizen that is there only because the world requires it. The companies that do what you're describing are those who view technology as a "necessary evil" and "money sink" rather than the enabler it should be.
My reality check bounced.
Send emails with read receipts and save offline copies of all replies. Make it clear that the business in jeopardy because of pirated software. Explain how one employee can call in a claim and the business could be raided by the BSA backed up by police. Express genuine concern about the importance of this. Explain there are open source alternative that cost nothing. If the owner actually says *in writing* that he still doesn't care about purchasing licenses or switching to FOSS, then tell him you cannot continue working under these conditions. You have to do it. If not, as the IT person, you may become liable. Stress the fact that you are being asked to do something ILLEGAL and cannot continue. If he doesn't connect the dots and lets you leave, immediately go to the BSA with your documentation and do exactly what you said "one employee can do." I'm no friend to software companies, EULA, or the BSA--but its the way it is with our current laws and you have protect yourself. Remember, the whistleblower law will protect you as you long as you go the proper authorities first.
Bull-shit...no one DESERVES the right to get paid. That's a moral/ethical argument that has nothing to do with reality. It may be true (I hold to it personally...probably in a lesser way than you), but that doesn't matter when reality comes into the picture. Truth is, economically speaking, the MARKET determines who DESERVES to get paid or not...not you or I. The frustrations that many have is the artificial legislation of who deserves pay. It disrupts the entire market and takes the decision-making out of the hands of those who are paying, leaving consumers bitter and angry at the fact that they can't even choose who or what to pay for (hence why people hate taxation time).
At least quit arguing from an emotional standpoint...take the time to make informed and reasonable arguments rather than dragging your moral/ethical standpoints in. I hate some of this crap too, but it doesn't have to be a part of the argument. It sounds like you may have a personal stake in this. If so, think about it from this way...Would it bother you if I demanded that your right to choose be taken away from you because I think that I deserve something? Ya, it might be a little extreme in some cases, but, the arguments that you make really do boil down to such a plea.
Oh and Kudos for actually having a name!
Why bother
IANAL, but do you know who's good at documenting things as they pertain to the law? In fact, I bet if you went to management with a recommendation from an attorney, they might be more inclined to listen... Likely no need for the BSA at all.
I have worked in a software company for 17 of the last 22 years.
My company, in particular the CEO and senior management, know copyright law pretty well and have our CIO take steps to ensure we only install and use software that A) we have a valid license for (paid for if closed source, proper license if free, etc.) and B) that we only run the allowed numbers of copies based on the license and C) that we always abide by our licenses.
Now, me being the V.P. in charge of our Quality Assurance Division, I found a piece of software "Beyond Compare", and bought a copy. I found that it was extremely useful for a good portion of the work I have to do, namely, review code changes from version to version to ensure all of our coding standards are fully applied, including commenting, format, naming conventions, etc. It was so useful, that I did a short study of how often I used it, how long it took me with other tools I had used for the same thing, figured out time savings, compared costs, etc. and put up a request for purchase for a five copy license for use by our Product Managers (with their input as well). Company bought the five copies.
Now, in your shoes, I can only offer this: You must, to protect your own butt, in writing, inform the company what the license terms for the software are and that there are possible legal issues if they continue to utilize the software in violation of the license, then propose the solution (having done your home work on cost, etc.) of getting the software properly licensed. If management comes back and tells you to mind your own business, or anything of the sort, if it was me, I would find a new job. Because, if the crap hits the fan over the practices of violating license agreements, eventually, the BSA (yes, I hate them too), will come knocking at the door and then management will get a very very rude awakening. It is in the company's best interest to either abide by the licenses for software they are using or to not use such software at all.
Personally, as much as I hate Microsoft (due to their anti-competitive practices and some other key things), I still abide by their licenses, just like I do for any other software I have or use. I have an aversion to jack-booted-thugs coming in and raiding places. :)
Wow. What a great justification of illegal activity. Sorry, but djheru is right. Threatening to report illegal activity unless it is stopped is not blackmail. Threatening to report it unless I get some money is, but blackmail involves the blackmailer benefiting.
You've basically made the argument that no one ever has the right to threaten to go to the police if the criminal activity doesn't stop. That's beyond absurd.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Pure logic.
Creating a product that others use entitles you to get paid. You deserve the get paid.
How MUCH you get paid is set by market value.
I can't help that you're all upset by your moral/ethical values to the point that you can't comprehend the SIMPLEST of logical statements.
If you can't keep up, then don't bother posting.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Because just because you put effort into it doesn't guarantee you can make a profit off of it, even if you intend to do so.
totally. its a logical fallacy that by putting work into something you therefore get something in return/own product of work... it could be that your work is just 'lost' and you gain nothing besides the value of the work itself. its up to the society to chose which is rewarded - if you put work in and don't obtain ownership, society should ensure that your work benefits all and not just a privileged few.
There are two major components here to consider:
1. You want to stop the piracy.
2. You do not want to be blamed for it.
What you have to do to fix these two problems simultaneously is to present a business case. The BSA will fine your company X dollars when you get found out. Find out what X will be. Remind your boss that whomever reports the business to the BSA will get a percentage of X dollars. "I'm perfectly happy here, but do you have anyone in the entire company that's upset? Has anyone been fired? Does anyone hold a grudge against us? Will anyone ever be upset with us?"
Present solutions, such as "implementing 7-Zip instead of WinZIP will cost $0 materially and deploy in one week. This will save us $Y in labour per year, creating a ROI of ($Y / time it will take you * hourly wage) in one year.
You can come up with other solutions for the other products. You might have to licence the software if they will not move on the products. You can usually get site licences for AVG, Office, etc. My company buys the licence by the boatload. (i.e. everything is a site licence)
This will fix the problems with overlicencing (the most common form of piracy)
Make graphs. Bosses like graphs that tell them when they start making money off a venture. "Switching to this allows for an increase in productivity, giving us an ROI of Z after 6 months." Use Microsoft's data.
It is simply unacceptable to continue in this manner. You are breaking laws, and doing so commercially. It is one thing to download a cracked version of PhotoShop to participate on Fark / Photoshop Phriday on your home computer or download mp3s for your own amusement. It is a completely different situation to install unlicenced software on a work computer that is being used to make money. The latter is commercial copyright fraud, and it is a Federal Crime in the US. (As far as I know; I'm Canadian and not a lawyer.)
You can fix the problem. That's how to do it.
That's the easy part. The second part is in not getting blamed for the piracy after you leave. If you leave unexpectedly, perhaps 10-15 minutes after presenting your case to the boss, then you will assuredly be pointed at as the cause of the problems. "Oh, I'm not too good with computers. Mr. Smith came in and talked to me about how much we could be saving, something about piracy, and then he was installing this one copy of Office on all the computers."
Now, let's say you go into your boss and he says, "Get... out... you're fired." Tell him, "I am trying to keep you and this company out of jail and bankruptcy. What we are doing is against the law."
Resist the temptation to say, "I have copies of all these emails." That's for later.
So you must: Document, document, document! There's a reason that email programs have BCC on them, and THIS IS THE TIME TO USE IT. BCC your personal email account so you have a record of all these emails. If you get fired, let's say two months later, ostensibly "for no reason, but we're moving in a new direction", you can look at the first severance offer carefully. Then reply, "It looks pretty bad that you are firing me just two months after I told you to stop pirating software. I've got copies of every email I sent you, telling you to stop breaking the law. I've brought this up at company meetings in front of lots of disgruntled former staff that owe you no favours. I would get $X from the BSA if I call them on my cell once I leave the building. What's your _real_ severance package?" (The CEO laughed and said, "fuck, all this time I thought you were just a pushover.")
And that is basically how I lost my first job out of University. They're bankrupt now, but that was due to an unsustainable business model, not anything I did.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
I sent an email to the person who should have been in charge and was greeted in much the same way. We had placed a 'free' evaluation copy of winzip in our corporate image and built it out on literally thousands of machines. after being told to 'shut-up' I covered my a$$ with a dated email and then from the public library dropped the BSA and win-zip/niko-mak BOTH an email detailing the issue. The company settled with both for a LARGE payment and cleaned the desktop image of any 'grey-ware' that was free for NON-COMMERCIAL use. Unless you are in a position to be held responsible I'd recommend just doing NOTHING, safer career wise in the long run...
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
I'd suggest you try to make sure you have written records that you raised this with your bosses (and preferably of the content of their responses too).
You could do this subtly by, say, raising it via e-mail or memo. If you have to talk to them in person, you can still consider writing an acknowledgement e-mail, along the lines of "Dear , Thank you for the discussion about SOFTWARE LICENSING, on the basis of your instructions I intend to take forward the following actions but understand that the existing software is licensed correctly". Print the e-mail out. That way at least they can't deny that the discussion took place, so if the BSA raid your place you can attempt to demonstrate you tried your best on this issue.
There's a reason why things are like this, and that's because no one would bother writing professional-quality software if they didn't get paid enough for it. Think all you want about how immaterial things should be free, but if all information somehow had to be free then you wouldn't have anymore professional software around, you'd be stuck with crap like GIMP or Blender and would never again see anything like Photoshop or 3DS Max. There's thousands of man-hours of work that go into each such commercial program, man-hours from highly qualified and well-paid people. Someone has to pay for that work, cause if no one does then these people won't touch that ever again and look for a real job that pays.
It's ludicrous to say that you own a particular configuration of 1s and 0s
That's the stupidest fucking argument on the topic I've ever heard. If everything comes down to just a bunch of 1s and 0s, then why don't you just create them as you need them? Oh, what's that? Creating what you want is non-trivial and the only way to create that is to do it the way it's currently done, which costs money? By the way, not believing in private property is communism. It's like, someone painstakingly creates something and then some wanker like you comes up and goes "this is now property of the people, thank you".
TL;DR you sound like a broke ass basement dweller who wants all his porn, games, movies and music for free cause has no money, and who'd never create anything worth a dime, so it's easy for you to whine and demand that everything is offered to you for free. I'm a self employed software developer and make a living off a program I created all on my own, I create value with my work, you wouldn't know what that means.
You just got troll'd!
What is this "floppy" object they describe? ...and, "manuals." What were these things?
... how badly do you need this job?
First, remind the managers that there's a real legal liability issue at stake. This company that you're working for is literally 1 disgruntled employee away from a BSA audit, a lawsuit, and all sorts of court-imposed damages. If your managers still don't realize that they're sitting on a powder keg, then that's their business and you have to decided whether you want to be a part of this.
I'd keep working there and keep steering the company toward free alternatives. Why are you using Winzip, for example, when 7zip is not only free, but so much better? But by staying there and knowing about this, you're complicit it all of this.
You voiced your concerns so you'll be the number one target if they're reported by anyone. So look for another job and then drop them in the shit.
When I was faced with this problem in my first job out of college, I tried the "carrot" approach, pointing out that we'd get a user's manual with each legitimate WordPerfect or Lotus 123 license we purchased. Obviously that won't work today.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Information, yes; a newly-created something-or-other (script, novel, song, etc) not so much. Sure, all the words and everything were already there, but the act of creativity needed to put them together in a new and different way... that's something worth being compensated for if/when someone(s) find it worthwhile. Yes, technology is changing everything -- by making it far too easy for people to simply copy the efforts of someone else without compensating that person.
To use your lawn analogy, it's as if you put a lot of time and effort into growing a nice flower garden, and everyone that passes by takes one of the flowers. Of course, in this example, we're dealing with a physical object (the flowers), versus the intangible of a created work, but the underlying principle still applies: person A putting time and effort into the act of creation, and persons B thru n+1 taking it without paying. It is that particular configuration of 1's and 0's that represent the end result of that creativity.
--- Asking inconvenient questions for over 30 years...
Standrad IANAL disclaimer applies...
Using the example of WinZip (or any other small dollar software package), just issue a PO (WinZip is $170 for a 10-pack).
If you can officially let a PO, this is a small enough amount to bring your point to the attention of management without too much fuss.
If you do not have the official ability to let a PO, you'll definitely make an impression on management. If they follow your convictions, you'll catch a little heat, but you may help open their eyes. If they come after you, it is a small enough amount so as to not be a felony. You also have whistleblower protections on your side, so if they push the issue, it comes back onto them.
Either way, you need to push forward on this issue. By bringing it to the attention of management, you have effectively painted a target on your back. They could can you for forgetting the paperclip in your pocket as you walk out the door. Bringing the issue up after the fact won't be worth zip. Pushing forward on your convictions now is the only way to keep yourself straight (whether you remain employed by your company or not).
Information does not want to be anthropomorphized. It hates it when you do that.
Use the whole of the RIAA's rules.
When you build a house, the people who live in it don't own it, they only have a right to use it. They may not allow anyone else to use it, so no friends coming over for a party. No pictures containing any portion of the house may be shown to friends/family. They are not allowed to sell it, since they don't own it. Any people driving past you house that accidently see it, must pay a fee to the realtor.
As for paying you to build it, you'll have to wait to get your cut from the realtor after he takes his percentage, advertising, packaging, etc. Don't wory, the $2.00 you make on each house is all yours, after taxes, union dues, manditory donations, etc.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
The problem here is that both consumers and producers want value for their money/time spent, but neither have a good way to measure that value. Producers of copyright content want to get paid, but instead of always charging upfront for the total cost of production they want it to be paid over time; the problem has crept in where in hope of getting more and more money the time that they "require" for full payment had become too long to outweigh its possible benefits to the creator versus its toll on society as a whole. The consumer, OTOH, want to pay as little as possible for as much as possible. Now that content can be distributed so cheaply that most consider it "free", we've hit smack up against the creators wanting to get their payment over time as people won't keep paying. The solution? Patronage. Pay up front for creations which are societally valuable; either through NEA grants, or private co-operatives (like businesses) that pay for the production of a product and first release, then let the product be copied at will. The creator gets paid (maybe not what they'd like to get paid, but they can always find another job), and the consumer gets the price that they want. There would be a contracting effect on content creation in that it will drive out the people who are only in it for the money, but can't you tell when a product has been created out of love (Primer) rather than greed (*cough*Transformers*cough*)already ?
The measured value problem doesn't go away completely, but it's alleviated to a great degree. After all, right now people think that they get their music and movies for free and try to ignore (or get angry with) the deferred cost of worrying about prosecution for copyright violation, the cost of having their politicians bought by media interest groups that otherwise wouldn't have been motivated to buy so many congresscritters, and by the more and more draconian laws that are developed. As you pointed out above, people disconnect between the taxes they pay and what is purchased with that money. Everyone loves roads, but no one likes to pay tolls. And people really forget that they are voting every time they pay or don't pay for a product which they consume, when they ignore political debate, and even when they decide not to vote.
I don't think it's nearly that serious. As a software developer, I like it when people pay for software. A small company like this will pay for the software if they become successful and get bought. It's obviously sad that they do not take software licensing seriously but I don't think it's ethical to destroy a business just because it takes a cavalier perspective toward licensing. You can offer proposals for licensing (i.e. present quotes from M$ or Nullsoft, etc.) I wouldn't do it too often, though. M$ and Nullsoft offer licensing schemes to help a company like yours become compliant. Someday they will pay for the software and it seems highly unlikely that anyone will sue or prosecute you. Pretend that they are on the "No-Payments-Until-2014" plan.
So you do everything else... suggest OpenOffice, 7-zip, etc., document the issue, etc., and they still want change. Then what? Simple. Quit, report the bastards to the BSA yourself, and collect a bounty for your trouble. This place is a ticking time bomb that will explode in your face if you stick around. May as well get some money to compensate you for loss of job.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
BS. Licensing is and always will be management's responsibility. By management that means accounting. So, just send a list of the number of copies of software and the number of licenses to accounting and let them deal with it. It's the same as paying taxes, or not misstating revenues on an annual report. If they claim the software as an asset they never paid for, that can also bite them big time. But, it's not IT's job to ensure that the copies are licensed, just that accounting knows. Don't worry, they can't do anything to you. Only the company ownership will pay, no matter what. The worst that can happen is you'll get fired afterwards.
Cool! Amazing Toys.
I agree. Basically, all you can really do is just CYA. Type up a letter or email to your boss which doesn't necessarily state what you think the company should do. Just have it detail your findings. Something to the effect of "I have only been able to find X legitimate licenses for software 'xyzzy', yet we have Y copies installed. Whether or not we actually purchased Y licenses at some point, we would not be able to demonstrate this if we were ever audited. It would cost $Z to bring us into full compliance with software 'xyzzy'".
In doing this, you're not taking a position on the matter. You're merely letting the boss know about a potential problem, so you're stand less of a chance of appearing as an anti-piracy crusader. The boss can either act on your information or not. Either way, you'll have documentation that they know and, if funds aren't made available to bring the company into compliance, then I think you'll be less "on the hook".
Still, your boss probably isn't an idiot. He/she will probably see your letter/e-mail for what it really is: an attempt by you to put them on the hook for this instead of you. (There's a great example of something like this in the Watergate scandal where John Dean was telling Nixon about how the situation was getting very dicey. Nixon then asked Dean to type up a full synopsis of the situation for him in writing. Dean realized that Nixon was going to use that written report to claim that he was unaware of the entire situation until initially receiving the report. THe lesson here is that, any time someone sends a written synopsis of a situation after a history of discussing it informally, there's a good chance that it's being done to have legal evidence that the recipient was aware... in anticipation of the sh*t really hitting the fan). So, I doubt your boss will appreciate your attempt to put them in the crosshairs. So, keep your resume up-to-date.
The better (business) solution is to speak to management in terms they can understand - money.
I'm not saying that they need to feel threatened. Instead, point out that you are looking out for the interests of the company and want to ensure all bases are covered in the event of a short-notice software audit.
Then you outline a plan to audit the computers on your network and a plan for remediation (buying licenses, uninstalling software, and/or using some sort of network-wide metering package). Again, this should be done with the focus on how much this will cost the company versus not complying and getting caught with unlicensed software. Remember, management really only cares about budgets and how much of it needs to be expended. It might also help to explain that your own ass is on the line as the IT admin and that, by formally notifying management (you *are* documenting this formally, right?), they are just as culpable if/when a BSA audit occurs.
Part of a good admin's job is to audit the environment regularly for such things, anyway. Even if no action is taken on the findings, at least you know where you're starting from when action ultimately does need to be taken - for any sort of project, not just software license management.
My sources are unreliable, but their information is fascinating. -- Ashleigh Brilliant
Endless copyright may be wrong but that will change eventually
You're not very good at extrapolation, are you? I'll admit I share a very tiny sliver of your hope, but I'm certainly not holding my breath. If any kind of sane copyright laws get enacted during my lifetime, I'll be very surprised.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
I agree with everything you said, except for the thing about communists not believing in private property. I've been assured they do, they just believe everybody should have some.
Seriously. Audit all the systems so you have an accurate count of what software is intalled and whether or not it's legal. Then quit and call the BSA. The company will be summarily shutdown for pirating software and you'll get a nice reward that you can live on until you find a better job.
You might want to warn them what the fine is for pirating software and even give them the opportunity to purchase legal copies slowly (a few at a time), but if they continue to tell you to shut your face, just follow the above advice. Chances are, when someone else gets pissed, they'll call the BSA and then you'll still be out of a job and possibly held partly responsible.
Your taking a flower from the garden does not apply because the flower is a scarce and not-producible. If you could make a copy of that flower, then you would have an analogous argument.
The BSA rules for rewards that the person turning in the company was never complicit in the piracy. If he installed any of the pirated software as ordered, he won't get a dime.
But when the owners decide to sell, the builders don't get a cut. When people go in and out of the building the builders don get a cut. Copyright holders are trying to do both. I'm saying this because the builder example is a poor one.
I've yet to work for or hear of a company that didn't pirate software on some level, either through simple reuse of licenses, buying student licenses, or even using key-gens and cracked copies. Unless it's your own business, finding another job where there isn't pirated software is a pipe dream.
If anon really wants to cut down on company piracy, push open source. And be willing to do most, if not all, of the re-training.
Too true; the same logic has been used to cast things like the free market, republicans, and the catholic church as beyond reproach.
You make a pretty big leap, saying that disagreeing with the current application of intellectual property laws is the same as not believing in ownership of private property.
If you make something, you deserve to charge money for it. It's a big jump to then say that your great great great grandchildren should also make money from it. An even bigger jump to say that you can transfer your rights to someone else who can then make money from it in perpetuity and an even bigger jump to say that the people who buy your product don't really own it but are only leasing it for however long you say and not a moment longer.
The notion that intellectual property rights have certain limits, especially on the length of time you can claim those rights has been part of the laws of copyright and patent for a very long time. Given the ephemeral nature of ideas, this makes sense and has been a system that works. It's only since certain people, usually not the people who actually come up with the ideas, have started trying to assert longer and longer copyright periods, limiting the rights of the purchaser and coming up with perverted notions such as "licensing" products to consumers instead of "selling" those products, that there has been a serious pushback from consumers.
Making things and buying and selling those things is a two-way transaction that has been part of the social contract for a long time. Recently, one side of that transaction has decided to assert their financial power by making the rules of the transaction less equitable. That has caused many people on the other side of the transaction to believe the whole setup is bad, which leads to widespread rulebreaking.
You can say that the people breaking the rules are criminals or communists or even terrorists, but it would be easier to swallow these assertions if those on the supply side of the transaction had acted in good faith from the beginning. Unfortunately, "taking advantage of a powerful position" has become a sacred rite in the religion of free market economics. So, you end up with a surprising number of people who lose respect for the entire transaction. Maybe it's in the nature of human societies that every so often, when a transaction becomes unbalanced, that there is a widespread breakdown in following the rules which escalates until the system can be retooled. This seems to be what's happening in the realm of "intellectual property" (and, I can argue, in the entire system we know as "capitalism").
Behaviors that should have ended with feudalism now become "good business practice". No wonder so many people now believe that all of free market economics is a scam. One thing for sure, it's unlikely the system is going to be fixed by escalating the inequity of the transaction.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I wonder if you recognize it but your position here is not that much different from a criminal gang. "Snitches get stiches" and all that.
It's neither cowardly nor immoral to report someone for breaking the law, especially when not doing so could lead them to scapegoat you. Let the BSA deal with them and laugh all the way to the bank. Pirates deserve what's coming to them.
Many of these comments assume that the boss is an unethical jerk. My experience is that most business-minded people are both ethical and reasonably smart.
I suspect that you went to the boss and said "I can't find the licenses", and the boss heard "here comes a lot of cost, for zero benefit, being recommended by the new guy just because he doesn't know where the records are".
Your approach really should be that you, personally, don't want to do anything unethical. Do you think ANY company in their right mind would NOT want an employee with that attitude?
So
a) go on record that you have sought out the licenses and can't find them, and that your boss is sure that they are legally licensed software installations. (Keep in mind that there is NOTHING illegal with installing licensed software and not keeping good records.)
b) Do your best to HELP the boss get the licensing under control. The Software vendors have really made this a nightmare. Your boss may not know. So present your boss with a software inventory (what's installed), and ask him or her to give a best guess as to how many transferable licenses you have for each software product. Then ask HIM/HER to accept responsibility for that number, and stick within those parameters.
c) If there's a huge discrepancy between what he's willing to sign off on, and what is needed for the business, put a plan in place to decommission or license the unlicensed software. This is RISK MITIGATION. You can explain the risks to the boss, and recommend the spreading of the costs over a year or two (explaining that the longer the period, the higher the risk), If your budget can't support purchasing licenses, then look for free alternatives. (Look for free alternatives either way,)
Mostly, you just need to put it in terms of a business proposition. There's a business risk of having poor license-records. You want to get that under control within a fixed period. There should be absolutely NO Issue in getting this under control within 5 years (as most everything will be replaced by then, I would think - just make sure that license records are kept on all new purchases, and nothing new gets installed without license). Your goal should be to make sure that this period of risk is within the company's tolerance level for risk. Can you resolve it within 2 years? 6 months?
Software license records are like other business risks. There's a price for perfection. Like physical security - SOME risk is ok. You should be working to help minimize the risk over time - not on day 1.
Report them to the BSA at https://reporting.bsa.org/usa/home.aspx and make a boatload of reward money. Then start looking for another job as you wait a couple years for your check while they sort it all out.
I am constantly amazed at the relationship the average slashdotter has with management. it looks something like this: slashdotter : always has the right answer / opinion management : to stupid to see / understand / do what I said. obviously this is NOT reality. In my opinion the typical reason for this sort of relationship is poor communication from the technical side. I've worked with HUNDREDS of management teams, and yes there are certainly inept or incompetent ones. But to the original poster, as an IT pro, it is your job to couch technical needs/issues in terms a businessman can appreciate. So please disregard what so many people here are telling you about not being able to get management to do anything here... here is what you need to do: Document ALL available licenses, regardless of how old (as in old unused versions - sometimes will show them what they thought they bought is no longer used). talk to accounting, and have them find ALL purchase records, even if there are NO physical media, licenses, etc. You need to have every scrap of info, so you can then ask "what am I missing? when your boss says they bought it already. Document ALL installed software (ocsinventory-ng is a great tool for this) Suggest options, with costs associated. (as indicated by previous posters, 7zip, and OO.O, are options, or they can pay the licenses OR compare that to what a BSA audit could cost, and how easily it could come) Once you have clarified it all, my guess is that a reasonable decision will be made. It might not happen immediately, but you should be able to spec a project to phase the changes in. I once had a client who was similarly refusing to pay for software, despite my warnings "this could be a problem" and "you aren't licensed for this". I continued to install unlicensed versions, largely due to inexperience, and "the customer is always right" attitude. They got a threatening letter from the BSA, and quickly turned to me and said "we'll you are taking care of this for us, so how could we be out of compliance". I basically converted them to the FOSS shown in this thread, and made them buy the rest. MAde sure all was kosher, and then said see ya. lessons learned. I simply am unwilling to be out of compliance now, for my personal sanity. because once you wave multiple $250k fines in someones face, they will look for a scape goat somewhere... you need to be ahead of the game on this. Had I done my job, and PROPERLY instructed them on the risks of their decisions, it would never have gone down like it did. These folks were douchey, but I believe that had I expressed the needs correctly the situation would never have occurred, because at the end of the day they are businesspeople, and money talks.
You are confusing the utilitarian aspect of someone (i.e., the government) protecting original ideas versus a morally justified right to having that idea protected.
I like how you implied I don't believe in private property because I believe scarcity is the main factor in property rights--I argued that anything scarce should be considered to be property. Anything that cannot be informationally copied. That's the difference between stealing and transcribing a book.
A more easy way to look at it is the level of arbitrariness involved in protection of this "property." Intellectual property rights are entirely arbitrary--the number of years you have a right to it, what IS and ISN'T considered fair use, those are all completely arbitrary and vary from nation to nation. You cannot merely know without being told beforehand what your intellectual property "rights" are. With scarce property, such as a chair or so on, your rights are pretty intuitive and more basic.
There's a reason why things are like this, and that's because no one would bother writing professional-quality software if they didn't get paid enough for it. Think all you want about how immaterial things should be free, but if all information somehow had to be free then you wouldn't have anymore professional software around, you'd be stuck with crap like GIMP or Blender and would never again see anything like Photoshop or 3DS Max. There's thousands of man-hours of work that go into each such commercial program, man-hours from highly qualified and well-paid people. Someone has to pay for that work, cause if no one does then these people won't touch that ever again and look for a real job that pays.
Again, that is a utilitarian argument and not a moral one. Or more accurately, that is an argument out of convenience and not out of whether it's right or wrong, and you have not established why it's wrong to copy software, merely that negative consequences will result (and I do not deny that).
That's the stupidest fucking argument on the topic I've ever heard. If everything comes down to just a bunch of 1s and 0s, then why don't you just create them as you need them? Oh, what's that? Creating what you want is non-trivial and the only way to create that is to do it the way it's currently done, which costs money? By the way, not believing in private property is communism. It's like, someone painstakingly creates something and then some wanker like you comes up and goes "this is now property of the people, thank you".
I'm not saying people are owed or deserve that software for free, merely that copying software is not unethical because information is not [i]materially scarce[/i] (your usage of scarcity was an equivocation).
Saying that because thinking up or implementing a good idea grants you magical exclusive rights to it is ridiculous. It is like arguing that being the first to think of and implement a new scientific experimental paradigm grants you the exclusive right to that experimental paradigm. It's ridiculous.
I would say that you do deserve to get paid for your software, but given your hysterical yet amusing attitude I would be interested in knowing what program you made so I can torrent it :) Who knows... maybe I'll start really soon :)
1. Find new job.
2. call BSA.
They'll never learn otherwise. I am normally loathe to suggest involving BSA as they are generally scumbags who go after businesses trying to do the right thing and just want their money. But if this company really is doing what you say they deserve it. Not like they can say they didn't know and you didn't warn them.
Anyway, you are equivocating with the word "scarcity." I am referring to material scarcity, while you are referring to scarcity of originality. But an original idea no more belongs to someone than an original sound. It's like saying the first person to ever make a pizza has the exclusive rights to the pizza recipe. He has exclusive rights to the pizzas he makes, but not to "pizza" in general. And yet that is exactly the idea behind so-called "intellectual property".
...in those cases, top management can be criminally responsible and spend jail time (up to 3 years) for pirated software. Don't laugh, I'm serious. The proverbial hammer doesn't just fall on the person responsible for IT, it falls straight into the manager/ceo/big fish of the company as well.
It was a really nice way to make the people with responsibility open the eyes for the problem, instead of just blaming the small guy.
If I ever need to draw attention to the problem of pirated software, and the "boss" just dismisses me, I can just whisper "3 years in jail for you if we are caught"... That should give full attention ehehehe
"A sysadmin is a cross between a detective, a police officer, a gardener, a doctor and a fireman"
"What does one do when a good portion of the application software at your workplace is pirated? Bringing this up did not endear me at all to the president of the company. I was given a flat "We don't pirate software," and "We must have paid for it at some point." Given that [examples...] What do you when management ignores this?"
Others have already suggested it, but I'll say it again: document the instances. But suggest alternatives. I don't know what you said to the president, or how you said it, but the president is going to want to hear suggestions - not just "complaining" that the company uses pirated software. Remember that your president is focused on the company's bottom line, and if he/she feels that they can scrape by while using pirated software, they will turn a blind eye to piracy. You need to frame this as way to save money, not just spending money. Avoid mentioning the BSA - that will look like a "threat".
You didn't say what your role was at the company. Are you a sysadmin, LAN/desktop admin, or CIO? Your level really identifies the scope of your actions, but doesn't change what you should do.
(Note: if you are none of these things, i.e. your job doesn't involve responsibility for software, the president probably doesn't want to hear this from you. Go talk to one of the admins or the CIO instead of the president, let them take it from there.)
Inventory the software in use on all the systems ... how many installs of Windows, how many copies of MS Office, Acrobat, Photoshop, etc. Put this in a spreadsheet, date it, print it out, stick it in a file.
Next, inventory your licenses. Focus on the software licenses you know you paid for. If you think something is pirated, the best you should do is put "??" or "cannot locate" in the "license code" field. Put all this in the same spreadsheet, so you can match up how many valid licenses you have of MS Office, etc. compared to how many are deployed. Date it, print it, put it in your file.
Sounds like you've already done this, or at least are on the path. So let's focus on the next steps ...
Are there any $0 alternatives to the software that you think is being used without a valid license? Start looking into these options. Others here have suggested some $0 alternatives for you to use. Just be sure to check the license - sometimes, software may be "free for personal or educational use", which means business need to pay for it. Avoid being too dramatic - while I'm a Linux advocate, this is not the time to suggest moving the company from Windows desktops to Linux. Instead, find free Windows programs to replace the shareware/commercial Windows programs. OpenOffice instead of MS Office, 7Zip instead of WinZip, etc. You may need to write up a separate analysis that compares the features of the commercial software with the free software. Make it short, but identify each software completely. (If you use screenshots, no more than 1 screenshot per program.) Use tables rather than lots of text to talk about it. For example: a list of features that your users actually use/want and a check mark to indicate if this feature is present in the (pirated) software you have vs the free software options.
Create a new document, where you can summarize the inventory of software in use, and the inventory of your licenses. Just state the facts plainly, simply. Don't put in any personal statements, let the numbers speak for themselves. Make sure to call out where the company is using software where you don't have enough licenses. Include an estimated cost to "true up" on the licenses. Identify in your document the $0 alternatives you have discovered. The important step will be to highlight these as savings to the company. Identifying as "savings" will make it more actionable. Ideally, you'll put these in a column next to the "true up" cost, so it's obvious.
Again, date it, print it, put it in your file. Also, share this document with the CIO
As someone who has been there and done that, my advice is to start activly looking for a new job today. It's one thing if management doesn't know what's going on but it's different if they know and don't care. In my case, I mentioned in several meetings that I needed to get legal and when my next review came around they needed someone with a different skill set. My two reviews before that were above average. The point is that if they are to cheap to get legal they are also to cheap to give you raises and support you and your job in other ways. Other places where I have worked that had no pirated software policies in place also had HR policies in place for cost of living and merit raises that were fair to the employee. Just get out of that place as fast as you can and you will be glad you did.
This intrigues me. If I build a house and then sell it the new owners are free to do whatever they want to it. They can modify it, they can rent it, they can sell it (for profit), they could even destroy it. What about movie scripts (books)? It seems to me the same things are possible and even likely to happen. Why exactly is software different? Should it be different?
(Please bear in mind that I didn't read the grandpappy post, just the bit you quoted and your response.)
The FOSS movement does not equate the two concepts "a particular configuration of 1s and 0s" and "creat[ing that sequence of 1s and 0s] as you need them" as you have. The problem is in the notion of doing something cool once and then making money off of it for the rest of your life when there is zero cost to mass produce (i.e., make digital copies). This is where the FOSS movement and I part ways a bit, because FOSS says that it's "unethical" to do this. I'm not quite sure what that means, but I know if the cost of mass producing something is negligible, it's certainly impractical at the very least.
From the standpoint of a healthy capitalist society, I regard software more as a service (and don't confused SaaS here, I'm talking about box software like Windows) than a product. Capitalism is supposed to reward people for doing useful work. Patents and copyrights were originally conceived to do this, but over time they've become more and more about allowing one to rest on one's laurels and live a life of luxury for having done that one cool thing. I'm not exactly sure where this expectation of entitlement comes from...what other line of work doesn't require you to show up everyday to get a paycheck?
The "service" part of software comes in the form of extension and support. If I make something cool and release it for free, I may be paid to support it (ongoing labor), or even extend it (short-term labor at a particular customer's behest). Even in the case of being paid to do an extension I otherwise would not have done, I as the developer and strongly incented to release it for free to all because it presumably makes my original software more valuable and will drive further business.
Not coincidentally, this is actually how most commercial software companies actually work. I used to work for a well-known company that made marketing software, and they would routinely cut their prices 50%, even up to 90% to make a big sale. That sounds crazy until you understand the logic of it, which was to lock up the far more valuable support contract. In other words, what the market was saying is that the software itself wasn't valuable to customers—the support and ability to get feature requests answered, on the other hand, was. And so the pricing structure reflected that...give (or nearly give) the software away, and charge the real bucks for what the buyer is actually willing to pay for.
This happened on nearly every deal at that company, and it led me to wonder why they even bothered with charging at all...why not just give it away for free download on the website? Sure, a lot of small fish that otherwise wouldn't be able to afford it would start using it without ever paying a dime into the system...but so what? We weren't going to make money off of them anyway, and by removing the barrier to entry we open the door to at least small or one-time support fees, get better feedback for laying out our roadmap, and potentially deprive a competitor of a sale, increasing our own marketshare.
but have you considered the following argument: shut up.
sane copyright laws will have a chance to come when people no longer buy kitsch with round black ears (M-i-c k-e-y you get the idea)
"If still these truths be held to be
Self evident."
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
If you invent a concept as fundamentally useful to humanity as a house you certainly deserve to be well-cared for throughout the remainder of your life.
Unsupported assertion. What do you base this on?
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Yeah, that's nice, but that's off-topic. No one talked about Walt Disney making money off Mickey Mouse for a thousand years, right now we're talking about piracy and whether or not everything binary should be free. Whether or not my descendants will be able to make money off what I do now doesn't even begin to matter.
You just got troll'd!
....Or you could come up with a business plan that works, and doesn't rely on government enforcement.
I manage to get by without a single piece of "professional software"...in fact, I thrive without it, and do my best to avoid having to deal with or support it.
I think you missed his point about the 1's and 0's. It's not that they're easy to put together a certain way; but ownership of what amounts to one big number is hard to support. Maybe you should get paid for organizing them (so to speak) instead of claiming ownership after the fact.
When Can an Employee Disobey? Adjudicators support management's rights to direct employees, but have concluded that some situations permit the employee to refuse to obey. They can refuse IF: #1 the order would have placed the employee in danger and contravenes the Labour Code #2 the order was to commit an illegal act - such as being told not to enforce the Act for a particular company #3 the order was not job related - such as running personal errands for the supervisor ************** See #2.
Find new job, report old employer, get reward https://reporting.bsa.org/usa/rewardsconditions.aspx .
there are other considerations for society as explicitly discussed in the case law and other sources. however, i'm not necessarily even that put out by lifetime copyright, even though the original term of copyright was 10 years (and authors could lose copyright protection before their books were even well known due to the means of travel and communication of the time (horse and sailing ship)).
The problem with infinite copyright is that it stifles innovation the same as no copyright does. People are restrained by copyright from riffing off prior work. This can have negative societal consequences as political, social, and philosophical works frequently need to reference the current art. It's very onerous to tell people to buy 100 books because they're all still under copyright when excerpts would be more appropriate.
In addition, my biggest beef is the continual extension of copyright beyond the lifetime of the author solely to preserve Disney's profits because they're too lazy to invent new content or use trademark protection for mickey's damned ears.
Walt Disney's dead. Unless he's a follower of ancient Egyptian religion, he can't take it with him. His kids need to figure out how to make money themselves.
"If still these truths be held to be
Self evident."
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
Not really: there is no private property because everything belongs to the state, I'm the King, I'm the state, everything belongs to me but still there is no private property. This happened many times in the history of the world before the idea of communism was born. And even communists had their kings. They just used other names to call them.
Moral aspects? Who fucking cares! Seriously. All that matters is what you call the "utilitarian aspect". I fail to see how anything else matters. Maybe it matters to you, but I don't care about what's fair or what's deserved, cause that's very arbitrary and subjective and it doesn't matter much anyway, I only care about the actual consequences. Actually, I even pirate software. Is it wrong? Who cares!! See?
Ah and if you want to torrent my program you'll have to buy it first and seed it because I checked and it's nowhere to be found. Which would be welcome given that my sales are low these days and I'm running out of money.
You just got troll'd!
You could also get stuck with crap like the Apache web server that nobody uses, instead of the extremely popular and much loved and bug free IIS, built by our good friends in Redmond.
For pay can be better than free, but it doesn't have to be.
If I build a house, I get paid by the people who use it.
You get paid once, not every time they walk in the door.
If I put the same effort into, say, a film script, that might take anywhere from 6 weeks to a year to write, why should people get it for free?
On the other hand, why should you still be earning money from a film script after you're dead? It's possible to make the revenue structure for a film script (or any other published work) match that for building a house: see assurance contracts and The Contingency Market. You put a bounty on your work, and once you attract enough pledges, you get paid for licensing the work Freely.
So you think the writers are doing the suing? (Hint: RIAA does not produce content. They distribute it.)
well played, sir/madam.
"If still these truths be held to be
Self evident."
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
... Wrong. Please read up on economics. His point is quite valid. No one "deserves" to get paid. The only reason you get paid is because the other party sees that as the only viable way to get what they want. (example: they could steal it from you. but then there might be repercussions when your village raids their village. so they buy it. or maybe you're not part of a village. so they steal it and kill you. except they can't get the goods from anyone else, so they pay you to continue producing what they want.) You say that your argument is logical. I put it to you that you don't know what logic is. It is a formalized way of expressing things that follows very strict rules. For instance, given that A > B and A B. That is logic. "creating a product" does not imply "you deserve payment". It has only taken on this meaning due to our culture and a type of cost-benefit analysis whereby we decided that civilization was better than anarchy.
You don't like free things? Are you stupid or something?
There are several free (or one-time use) software audit tools available. Download them from below and run them. Then give the output reports to your CIO and/or CFO. Keep copies for yourself, and document that you did the audits.
This is not a matter to shrug off. I used to work at a company that got fined $40,000 for not being able to document our licenses. I actually believe we were in compliance, but we couldn't prove it.
http://www.bsa.org/country/Tools%20and%20Resources/Free%20Software%20Audit%20Tools.aspx
http://www.bsa.org/country/Tools%20and%20Resources/For%20Employers.aspx
Well, the "service" business model doesn't work for everything, for example it wouldn't work with my program for which no support is needed. And as for the "sitting back and getting money for the rest of your life" argument, well so what, it's not the only case where that happens. People get lots of money from doing much less. Are you actually asking for how long are you entitled to receive money from the work you did after you stopped doing anything to it? Sounds like what you're pondering to me! Is it fair to reap the fruits from something you did 20 years ago? What's fair?
The elephant in the room here is that you all want to copy those immaterial works for free, and because of this you come up with bullshit moral justifications to get as much as you can for free. I pirate everything too, but I'm not an hypocrite, I don't try to disguise my not wanting to pay for things I can have for free as a moral war against injustice. You might think it conflicts with me selling software, but to me it doesn't, because there's no morals involved anywhere on either side of the equation. I pirate anything I want cause I need it/want it and I don't have the money for it and even if I did I'd rather not pay for what I can have for free, and on the other hand I need to make money, selling software is one way, and if my sales went down too low for a reason or another I'd look for job (which I'm actually in the process of doing, software sales are too irregular and make me just enough for a very modest living).
You just got troll'd!
The retraining needed for moving to the current version of OpenOffice is no greater than moving to a new version MS Office from an older one except for the transition away from Access.
And guess what database program a lot of small businesses use as a platform on which to build their operations. For example, the popular Stone Edge Order Manager is a VBA app that runs on Microsoft Access, using either a Jet back-end or an SQL Server Express back-end.
Your first error was taking this job without making it clear you do not pirate software and will not install and support pirated software on company systems. I'm a consultant who makes this very clear when I come in to a new customer, and although I've lost a few potential customers, my serious customers have understood and respected this.
The first thing I do is explain that I will not report them to the BSA-mafia or anyone else. I will simply not install pirated software or support it if the fact that it's not legal will cause problems (for example, if I need to install updates or reinstall an application to solve an issue). Next, I explain to them the issues of what software piracy will do to their computer environment: how many cracks and other such workarounds tend to be unstable, or often trojaned, that they prevent updates and upgrades from working, and that I cannot have access to official support for such software. Finally I will suggest a progressive plan to buy legal licenses, to work with their budget to correct their situation progressively. I will often suggest alternative software (either cheaper versions or FOSS software), explaining the drawbacks and advantages of each solution. Working with schools specifically, I make sure they are aware of the educational pricing they can get on a lot of commercial software, and will point them to organizations that resell used computers to such institutions.
If he explores all forms and substances Straight homeward to their symbol-essences; He shall not die.
Copying doesn't make the original go away.
That means piracy is the wrong term, because certainly the pirates didn't just duplicate your stuff and leave..
That's also why your house analogy is worthless here. If you build a house and it is taken away you're out raw materials and a house. If you write a song and I sing it, you're out nothing.
What, you can't engineer a cushy life writing music that way? Tough. It's how the world works - sounds can be copied - and I don't care to try to distort reality for you. Get a job that doesn't require the government to protect your secrets.
We're talking about why people who should know better (the company that's breaking copyright laws) is so willing to ignore the law. And further, why a large number of otherwise law-abiding people are willfully breaking those copyright laws.
That's hardly off-topic. In fact, in my opinion it's the key to the issue.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Do you think writers are overpaid? What do you base this on?
I know they want to be.
If they sold a chair they'd be getting compensated once despite people enjoying that chair for years.
But they write something and they think they should be paid every time it's experienced...
Sane copyright laws will come about when we can regain control of our government and elect people without a commercial axe to grind. As long as money makes the rotunda go round we lose!
Why bother
I have studied marketing and economics. I understand that need in a market determines overall value, but producing a product that people consume always produces some value. If there was zero value, the product would not be consumed.
It is a simple logic statement.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
So would you rather they have legit software OR you have a job ? Since the cost of the software is probably > than you.
How often do you write a check to the family of whoever coined the phrase 'content creators'? And yet you shamelessly use a phrase they invented to grub for money. Similarly, the person who conflated murder on the high seas with copying a CD - you own them big.
It's amazing how only some types of content count to you.
I'd contact an employment attorney first and figure out what my options were when the boss fired me after I ratted him out to the BSA, and depending on the attorney or practice, have them document what your potential legal exposure may be if you turn the business in.
It may be possible to have the attorney contact the BSA anonymously on your behalf; your work with the attorney is protected as privileged communication so they may not be able to find out who turned them in, even if the BSA wanted to tell them.
At least this way you'd know what you'd be up against and would have everything lined up in case the employer tried to retaliate. In some cases you may be able to set them up so that you *want* them to retaliate so you can respond with a civil action.
Or you could come up with a business plan that works, and doesn't rely on government enforcement.
Actually it doesn't, it relies on my software just not being out there for everybody to use for free. If you want access to the full version of my program, you need to chuck $40 my way. What's "broken" about such a business model? There's nothing broken about a business model that makes all the money it should.
It's not that they're easy to put together a certain way; but ownership of what amounts to one big number is hard to support.
That's a bullshit question, because it deprives that "big number" of a context. See, it's like the number 42. In itself it's an utterly worthless number, but if you know what question it answers to then it's very worthy indeed. What if my program coincidentally shares the exact same binary sequence as a Britney Spears song? Then who owns that big number? It doesn't matter, because the fact that both would be made of the same thing is irrelevant. In other words, your "big number" is worthless if you don't know what it is for, if you don't know what file extension to give it. It's like that hexadecimal sequence from some DVD player that the creators claimed ownership to. It's silly to claim to own the number, but it's not silly to not want it disclosed, because when you know what this number is for it stops being a useless number like all the others. They don't want you to spread it around just like you don't want anyone to spread around your passwords or credit card number and codes, or SSID, which are all just numbers, and not even such big ones as that. 3025 is just a number like all the others, but if you know what door it opens or what credit card it is the code to then it stops being just a number. I personally find it silly to focus entirely on the technical nature of things and derive principles from them rather than focus on practical aspects.
You just got troll'd!
Yes, take example of a company that sows clothes,
20 employees
3 who use a computer
Business is struggling
But OH NO of the 3 computers, 2 use Excel, but they only have a license for 1 Excel copy.
One uses Excel more then once per week.
SUE THE BASTARDS!!!!
Exception Duck - may or may not contain chicken.
It only works for things with a very wide appeal, like web browsers, word processors or web servers. But if you want something that less than a million people would have a use for or that less than 10,000 would be willing to work for free for, then you're out of luck, if you need something that does the job you need to pay for it.
You just got troll'd!
They are a lot worse than that. Enterprises, whose explicit goals are maintaining and raising the prices of their members' services, what are they, but the cartels? Why is it, that most of the society wants pizzerias and plumbers to compete, but sympathize with workers, who want to stop competing? Why aren't they subject to the anti-trust laws?.. Why is it, that when their violent members break the law, they aren't treated under Federal anti-racketeering legislation?
They are objectively bad for economy and the country too... But most of all, they are illegal under the already-existing legislation — at least, under the spirit of it:
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
As I just said in another post, free software gets only as good as how many people want the program in question and how many people are willing to work on it. That's why we have great free web browsers, servers and compilers, good free operating systems, passable 3D editors and not so great highly specific things that few people use.
Without software copyrights the only ones who would really suffer are the ones who make the programs with a lot of seeds on BitTorrent. It would make things worse for them because "piracy" wouldn't be fought as arduously. But for niche developers like me, it wouldn't impact us too much because we control access to our product more easily, that is, if you want my program you need to pay me, there's no other way you can get it, and copyright law or not if ever I caught anyone distributing his copy I'd deactivate his license.
You just got troll'd!
We're talking about why people who should know better (the company that's breaking copyright laws) is so willing to ignore the law. And further, why a large number of otherwise law-abiding people are willfully breaking those copyright laws.
Oh, oh, I know why, because money doesn't grow on trees and people think twice before spending money when they don't have to? All the moral and ethical bullshit and the legal consideration is just a smoke screen to hide that fact. Can't blame people for masquerading greed (which I'm not condemning) into something morally justified.
You just got troll'd!
Bull. Turn them into the BSA, and let the fuckers get fined. use the reward money as income until you find your next gig.
Technlogy is NOT "changing everything." Not many peope can write software, compelling stories, make good movies, video games, etc. As long as THAT doesn't change (and I don't see it changing anytime soon), copyright is just as valid today as it was 200 years ago.
Someone is providing a benefit, which, while not physical property, does mean they deserve to be paid.
Unless you don't want USEFUL software.
You're an idiot or a troll. Take your pick.
First off, I've never received a dime for using the phrase content creator.
Common sense, legislation, and a free market govern what constitutes actual original content. A common two-word phrase that is used ubiquitously is not the same as a movie, a CD or a video game.
Poor analogies and hyperbole are only tools that you hope will obfuscate the issue. People who produce content that others digest deserve to get paid.
If you can find one example of anything I've ever said in my life where I said only certain types of content should be paid for, or that certain groups of content creators don't deserve compensation, I will concede my hyprocisy to you. But given that I've never suggested that in my life, I'm calling you a liar.
Anytime I've pirated personally, it was because I was young and didn't have the money to purchase the items I wanted. Never however did I claim that I was really entitled to do so, nor that the content creators didn't deserve to be paid. As I grew older, I was less and less comfortable with the practice. As I am both wiser and more wealthy, I believe in paying for what I consume.
I am especially concerned that some of the content creators I valued as a child are no longer producing content today due to lack of financial success, I am even more aware that if you don't financially support things you enjoy, they may disappear.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Steve
Fifty years of Yippie! 1968-2018
If I build a house, I get paid by the people who use it.
No, no, no. That's a very misleading way to think about it.
If you build a house, you get paid by the people who asked you to build it (who may or may not be the same people who end up living there). They hire you to perform a service, and once that service is done, you no longer have any connection to that house.
If I put the same effort into, say, a film script, that might take anywhere from 6 weeks to a year to write, why should people get it for free?
They shouldn't. Just like with the house, you should demand payment from the people who asked you to write it.
But no one asked you to write it, you say? You just decided to do it on your own? Well then, I guess you'll need to think of a different business model.
If you build a house of your own accord, you can make money by selling that house -- in that case, you're not really being paid for your labor, you're selling an object. Likewise, if you write a film script of your own accord, you can make money by selling that script (that is, a stack of papers, or a CD-ROM containing a file). But that means you can't go around showing it to everyone before you've been paid, because they'll have no need to buy a copy from you if they already have enough information to make their own copy.
Interesting how the kiddies who've never had to work for a living thing they should get everything for free and don't have the backbone to produce anything worthwhile in exchange. They're the real users or AOLusers -- use and use and too impotent to produce on their own.
For the record, I've been a professional developer for ten years (as well as a freeware and OSS developer). I like to think I've produced plenty that's worthwhile: during PAX 2009 I was pleased to see a girl in dragon wings stand up at a panel Q&A and mention a freeware project I've worked on; the software I've been writing for my day job is the first in its niche and has attracted the interest of some major domestic and international players.
But I suspect you'd still classify me as one of those "kiddies" because I believe copyright should be abolished. I've managed to earn a living as a programmer without relying on the ability to limit copying, and if I can do it, I'm pretty sure you can too.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
I guess you don't care about Troll moderation, but anyway, if you said "violation of property rights" instead of "theft," the meaning would be basically the same, but it wouldn't provoke knee-jerk reaction as much.
I ran into pretty much that same situation a few years ago. I had a long conversation with a friend of mine (retired CEO of a large multinational). He recommended that I bring the issue to the attention of the company president and, if things were not made legal, quit immediately. I followed his advice. It sucked to be me. OTOH, I was legally clear and slept well at night.
If you continue working there, knowing that piracy is occurring, you stand in the cross-hairs if one of the software vendors gets uppity. Even worse, you might wind up being your employer's scape goat.
Get out of Dodge.
linquendum tondere
"Endless copyright may be wrong but that will change eventually."
I beg to differ. History as well as current trends show that copyright law is getting more and more restrictive, less and less fair, and will continue to do so, UNLESS the people stand up and say, "Enough is ENOUGH!"
That ACTA treaty that is secretly being worked out scares me. The "IP Holders" seem to have all the say on it. As an international treaty, it will trump national law once a nation signs on to it. It seems that "3 strikes and you're out" will be an integral part of the treaty. But, NO ONE KNOWS anything for sure, because the *IAA's of the world are in, and the public is out of any discussion.
Copyright law could conceivably be as bad as anything Orwelle envisioned. It could even require police ware on your computer, which will report anything you do. Insane.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
If you want access to the full version of my program, you need to chuck $40 my way.
Well, I can promise you, I don't use either version of your program.
I'd be interested to hear you address the point brought up earlier: if houses could be cloned for free, people would start 'pirating' houses. Carpenters could start complaining how they ought to get paid, because they built that house. They should get paid any time a person sleeps in it (or any copy of it)! Would that be 'fair'? Should the government then stamp out housing piracy?
Your business has changed. So has publishing, and media creation, and others. I feel for you, but I'm not going to support your efforts to fix your current business model in place. As far as I'm concerned, creation of software and support thereof is a valuable service, and it'll continue to be lucrative. Ownership of ('the rights to') said software, after it's finished, is as valuable as...well, you can even do the equation: (difficulty of making a copy + fear of punishment + guilt). That pool is drying up.
The big number thing...if you don't own that, what exactly do you own? I kind of agree that a number can be many different thing...that just highlights the difficulty of claiming ownership of one. So, you'd rather claim ownership of the 'idea' or something...
[it relies] on government enforcement.
Actually it doesn't, it relies on my software just not being out there for everybody to use for free.
See, exactly, and there's your problem. The cost of any person from making a copy is effectively $0. How can you fight that? With laws (i.e. government enforcement), or....?
That's a great comparision! A image manipulation program to painting and manipulation program and then a 3d modeling, skinning and rendering application to a modeling, animation, surface generator and rendering package.
I see what you did there! You compared opensource utilities to none-equivalent proprietary ones to prove a point! I applaud your tact at discrediting Opensource.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
But the people who can write the software, stories, movies, music, and games might do well to find a model where they get paid in advance... You're right, they're performing a valuable service; but once that service is performed, there's no particular reason why they should continue to reap benefits off of it forever. Is there?
Live performers have a harder time finding venues now than they did at the turn of the (previous) century. Movies had record audiences, percentage-wise, in the 1930's and 40's, and they've been declining ever since. Things changed; recorded music and VHS tapes (well, and other forms of entertainment) appeared, respectively. That's fine, the creators found new models. The models didn't involve smashing vinyl disks or herding people into theatres at gunpoint, even though they'd done something beneficial, and thus deserved to be paid. They adapted to their environment. Now it's time for them (and you, I presume) to do that again.
Good luck with that!
And what economy do you expect to have when there's no incentive to become the next Microsoft? I agree, our PTO is far too lenient with the idea of "nonobvious" when applied to software patents, but they're that way because we are not a post-industrial economy. We have better things to do than create more widgits, especially when so many have a college education (even though many can't make use of it (libarts degree), it still stretches the mind in a way public high school only did 50 years ago).
This is why I don't care anymore when people complain about not being able to use Hulu and such outside the US-- tough, you don't have a). buying power or b). the products we have, so the advertisers dollars are going to waste. You want our IP? Buy it.
Tougher IP laws == lower US trade deficit! :)
Make him read articles which show how much inadvertant copyright infringement has cost companies, and mention that he's doing it willfully so the BSA members would show absolutely no mercy in his case.
Are you an engineer? If so you had to have taken ethics at some point. The answer is obvious: refuse to contribute to their felonious actions.
Need office, but don't want to pay for it? Show him OpenOffice.org and KOffice. If you want "free" software, choose free software. Don't "steal"[sic] encumbered software.
A CD-R is not proof of purchase -- obviously. Hell, during BSA raids they don't even consider a CoA to be proof of purchase.
osalt.
Need Winzip? Check out 7zip.
Yeah, or the owner of the business needs to pay a fine or go to jail.
. . . which is more costly than paying for the software.
You document it, inform your manager they have no choice but to correct the issue, and blow the whistle to the BSA and to the copyright holders. When they fire you in retaliation, bring all the documentation to a good attorney and collect a minimum of several years' salary. Not paying a few thousand for software will cost your boss hundreds of thousands in statutory fines PLUS several years of your salary when he retailiates by firing you.
Copyright holders get their due. You get paid time off, and the unethical businessman is put out on the street and his business will probably be siezed and/or closed down. Everybody wins!
Why "steal"[sic] software when there are free alternatives that do the job perfectly well?
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
For niche developers, they often cannot hope to ever compete against any bigger products because no matter how good you make it, how close you make it to some larger proprietary suite, it will prove to be extremely difficult to generate any interest in your product.. Why?
Take a look at the photo manipulation and paint software out there. Photoshop sits right at the top and so many other products that close in feature set and quality are not really that known or ever considered. If people can't afford photoshop, they won't look at the next second best offer, they won't even consider anything else. They'll just get Photoshop for free. This piracy hurts the software industry as because of the pirating it just reinforces people to stay with this single piece of software and other software never gets enough following to generate interest or get developers the resources needed (money) to continue working on the product and thus after a few years they die out.
If you look closer at the photo manipulation and paint software, right now the only proprietary software that seems to have a chance are those funded by large corporations that can spend money on it as a side project (without making much of an income at all on it) or have been in the software industry for so long, they had a foot in the door before photoshop became king.
Piracy has a negative impact on competition, doesn't matter if it's opensource or proprietary. Why would you go with opensource or other proprietary solutions that has a few features less when you can get something you are completely used to, trained to use in school and fully functional which everyone else uses for free (piracy)?
The majority of people who own computers wouldn't go with anything else simply.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
It may not be his job to protect financial interests of would-be vendors, but it is his ethical obligation to ensure that his employer is not violating the law, and it is in his own personal best interest to refuse to install "pirated"[sic] software, since he would be sharing in the liability if/when BSA members find out.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
If this truly bothers you, then start looking for a new job.
I have been in this situation, and here is how I handled it:
I used free alternatives where possible, and explained the security risk and other issues associated with pirated sofware, then I explained that pirated software isn't really free when you consider the security risks and and support issues it creates. It costs more than a lot of people realize; but I am also a realist and not anal about that kind of stuff - so I am not going to sweat it if I can't see licensing details for a copy of acrobat - then again though, I work for a small company, and they're great about paying for things that are supposed to be paid for.
Between developer programs and other special deals (like academic versions, etc) you can always usually find a way to get legit software at an affordable price.
Personally I think that ratting them out to the BSA is fucked unless they screw you over or expect you to obtain pirated software or something like that. Sometimes people just don't realize the deal when it comes to software licensing, and educating them is better than ratting them out.
Especially because it's always possible that the president of the company is correct that some of it was paid for at some point. I guess my attitude is that unless you KNOW it was pirated, and see telltale signs of that, as long as you feel your workplace is treating you fairly and doesn't balk at paying for appropriate software going forward, I wouldn't wory about it.
And go back to before you opened your trap where you should have kept it closed.
First, assuming you're not responsible for license management, you should have ignored it. It's simply not your responsibility any more than it is for you to go inspect registrations in the motor pool.
However this particular cat is out of the bag. I'd suggest finding a different job or hoping that the company replaces the president (whichever you think would be faster) since your chances for advancement are now zero.
The most valuable lesson you can learn in or out of work is "when to keep your mouth shut." Some things require immediate action (like if you found out that your company was sweetening their products with antifreeze) and other things require "not noticing" (like software licensing) if you plan on keeping your job. Licence management is the company's problem, they can either purchase the correct licenses and not worry or use stolen software and run the risk of being caught. In either case, it's not your responsibility unless you've specifically been tasked with license management. There is no "up side" to doing anything about it, since telling your boss or his superiors will make them angry or nervous, and telling the vendor will get you fired when they figure out who squealed.
Now if they want you to obtain or install stolen software, that's a horse of a different color, but even then, I wouldn't walk in and accuse anybody of theft, I'd just say "Sorry, it's not worth the risk." One of the things you can't ever get back is virginity. Once you install the stolen software, you're in it with the rest of them.
guy1: "It's not that you don't "deserve" compensation or that it "should" be free, it's that simply that technology is changing everything."
guy2: "There's a reason why things are like this, and that's because no one would bother writing professional-quality software if they didn't get paid enough for it."
guy1: "It's ludicrous to say that you own a particular configuration of 1s and 0s"
guy2: "That's the stupidest fucking argument on the topic I've ever heard."
I think your both right to some extent. What happens when nano forges are common place and anyone can build a Mercedes Benz in their garage in one night from a pile of dirt? The same thing that is happening to 1's and 0's now.
I've often wondered why the big software companies haven't moved more aggressively to software as a service models. I think one of the reasons, is that a certain amount of piracy is considered a good thing by software companies. Growing up with windows or mac os and photoshop leads to a designer expecting those items from their future employers, for example. Exposure and market penetration are always a good thing for any product. Companies often give their product away for free for that very reason.
I think eventually we'll see software moving away from a boxed, tangible product model, and into the realm of software as a service. It will be a slow road, but we'll eventually need to be paying for services, and not a static set of 1's and 0's running locally. Most likely initially as a hybrid service, data local, 50% of the software remote.
If the music industry had moved towards more of a cable company, streaming service, multiple packages, unlimited viewing, service oriented model, instead of still trying to sell discs, they would have been much better off by now.
Sell me ease of use. Sell me being able to listen to any set of artists in my packaged deal, on my stereo, tv, computer, freely downloadable to any device, for 20-40 bucks a month. There would be customers for that. They simply have to move to a service model at some point.
Why? Well what happens when someone can download or swap music collections in a split second? Say, the entire archives of Warner Brothers in a split second. It is mildly annoying now to wait for downloads, or to find what you want, but computer speed and search power isn't going to go backwards.
The only reason we software/music/movies as a service wouldn't replace the tangible "in a box" product that we have now, is if the levels of piracy are acceptable as a means of market penetration and exposure. But I think that the levels are only going to go up over time, as searching, indexing, bandwidth, tor, etc.. become more powerful.
But that does not explain why there have not been similar leaps in other crime rates besides copyright violation.
I'm betting that most of the filesharers using bittorrent would never pick someone's pocket or shoplift or steal a credit card. Yet, in this one area of copyright violation, the willingness of otherwise law-abiding citizens goes way up.
There's obviously something at work here besides "money doesn't grow on trees".
But if you have more insights similar to the ones you have already expressed about why intellectual propertly laws are so widely ignored, I invite you to share them here. I'm sure there are a few readers here who can use a chuckle.
You are welcome on my lawn.
For niche developers, they often cannot hope to ever compete against any bigger products because no matter how good you make it, how close you make it to some larger proprietary suite, it will prove to be extremely difficult to generate any interest in your product.. Why?
If you're considering getting into something and don't see how you're going to have any sort of competitive edge then you're a dumbass and should leave entrepreneuring to people who have a clue what they're doing.
But you're right that piracy devaluates the market.
You just got troll'd!
Are you really saying that the GIMP and Photoshop cannot be compared? They're none(sic)-equivalent? lol... so why's everybody touting it as the alternative to Photoshop? Dumbass.
And what comes closer in FOSS to comparing with 3DS Max but Blender? Nothing, it's as close as it gets? Just what I thought. Moron.
I applaud your tact at discrediting Opensource.
And I applaud your tact (lol?) at using words which meaning you don't seem to know quite well.
You just got troll'd!
But that's just it: they don't have to buy it. And apparently there's a large segment of society that does not feel such an impulse to respect intellectual property laws. That's the point of my argument here.
The only time we've seen such a large portion of society openly willing to break a law has been prohibition against alcohol and marijuana. And one of those laws fell and the other is weakened every day.
That's why it's important to look at the reasons behind the public's unwillingness to respect intellectual property laws. There's more at work here than just the fact that suddenly otherwise law-abiding citizens have decided to become criminals. And those on the supply-side of content creation and patents (including me) better think about this situation very carefully because simply escalating penalties to scare people, setting up snitch 800 numbers and suing the pants off college kids and old ladies is not going to get the job done.
You are welcome on my lawn.
What's at issue here? There are legal, personal, and ethical reasons for doing a number of things here, and as IT personnel, it's your job to plot a path through this mess. You know there are wrongs, and those should stop. You know what would be right, and it's your job to ensure that happens (and sooner, rather than later).
So what do you do? Well, first off, keep everything on record, via e-mail BCC'd to one (or twenty, if you're paranoid) personal e-mail accounts you set up specifically for the purpose of documenting this.
First, you need to inventory what's going on. How many machines do you have, what software are they running? How many licenses do you have? Make a database of all of your licenses.
Secondly, it's your obligation via your position (as well as ethically) to let your employer know what's going on. It needs to be completely transparent to them what the current situation is, and how illegally the company is currently operating. If your boss is an unethical jerk; it's your job to tell HIS boss (if it's that large of a company) what's going on. Tell everyone who might get their ass kicked by the BSA what's going on. Yeah, they probably should know. But it's your job to make damn sure they do.
Third, propose options for fixing what's wrong. It'd be a lot easier on you to report them to the BSA, collect a fat check (maybe?), and go to Tahiti. It'd take some real gusto to actually break out a bucket o' elbow grease and fix this stuff. Find out what software you have and do an analysis if you really need it all. You mention Office, Acrobat, WinZip, and AVG, most of which have previously mentioned FOSS replacements. No, they won't be as *good*, but they will be legal, and in most cases they will do all that you need them to do. They will also be less likely to contain malware / keyloggers / other crap that I'm sure your employers would rather forego dealing with. You might even be able to find some commercial, non main-brand replacements for some apps (I recall some companies making PDF creators / editors that don't cost an arm and a leg, and will probably get the job done).
What were you hired for? Your company counts on you to:
1) make sure everything works so that business can continue
2) make sure everything is legal & licensed
3) minimize the cost of running the IT department while maximizing value
It's that last step that can lead people to consider employing unethical practices. We all want to save a couple of bucks. If you want to do your job and be able to look yourself in the mirror, you need to do everything you can to enact a swift transition to new practices. By all means, cover your ass by documenting your efforts and if need be quit your job & report the company, but try to do your job as much as you can before you resort to that drastic measure.
In my opinion, you'll be a hero if you can suggest some sort of a compromise that won't kill your company, but still make them legal. No, you can't go and uninstall every illegal piece of software right away, because the company will go under from a loss of productivity. But do try everything you can to fix the situation, write up a nice and pretty report that you can cc to all company management that gives them a good idea of what's going on (make sure to give them a summary that explicitly states the urgency of the situation), and for jc's sake put all the work you do on your resume.
In the end, you're doing this job for yourself. Don't accept the morals of the lowest common denominator, try to raise the lowest common denominator. Do some real good and bring another company up to compliance. People like you who want to do what's right are rare, and people who are willing to work 16 hour days for a week to get this done ASAP are even rarer. Work your butt off for a little while to bring more than just problems to your management, help them by bringing them solutions too.
What'll make you feel better? Sinking your company and dozens of jobs because of ignorant management, or convincing that management that you're doing everything you can to save them money and act legally, potentially saving the company and all those jobs from disappearing with one BSA report?
Just know what you're getting into first and make sure you're ready for that. Getting calls from lawyers from your previous job on your current job usually doesn't earn you cool points with bosses no matter how right you were...
I'm not negating doing the right thing and getting in compliance.
I'm stating a simple fact. A commercial software provider would *much* rather you not pay for their software and use it. Why? Because they know if you get used to it, chances are very high you will become a paying customer.
Why exactly do you think it's the case that breaking most anti-copying schemes is a PITA, but not impossible? As examples, Microsoft and Adobe could *both* go to hardware dongles and not be *immediately* harmed. What would happen is other software vendors would then become the cracked standard in Office/Graphics whatever and from then on out, Adobe and Microsoft's software market share would decline. Too much BSA enforcement would do the same thing.
So, most of you, like the author of the question, are in fear of a situation that is very unlikely to occur. Do your CYA and plan an orderly exit if you don't care for these kinds of ethics. But don't live in perpetual fear of the compliance boogeyman BSA.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
I'm saying they're designed for different purposes. GIMP is designed to be an image manipulation program, nothing else - Hence why it stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program.
Photoshop is a multi-tool, designed for doing print work, image manipulation and paint software too.
Not everyone. A lot of people who are in the know aren't stupid enough to go around screaming, "USE GIMP INSTEAD OF PHOTOSHOP TO MAKE YOUR PRINT WORK AND ARTISTIC ARTZ!". Infact, most of the time, what I see on Slashdot is people recommending using the GIMP over the Photoshop for doing image manipulation (which it does quite well), not because it is so superior, but because it's free, multiplatform and because the advanced super features that somewhat rely on Photoshop's painting abilities among other things aren't going to be that useful for the majority (thus not worth pirating, being locked into a certain OS or spending huge cash on).
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
If they're pirating Microsoft software, then you should gleefully comply. Because Microsoft is the devil and they deserve to get ripped off.
If they're pirating shareware software then you should report your bosses. Because your bosses are the devil and the shareware authors deserve to be paid.
Thus sayeth the wisdom of /.
PEBKAC means "Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair". Like quite a few thousand other people, I've used OO for years without difficulty.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Why is it all the advice is 'find a new job' or 'suck it up, and do what your told' and 'Your boss is the devil'.
When I started at my current situation, pirated software was rampant. It was really a situation that should not have happened but it was a person trying to save the company money. The cost to instantly convert the entire company over to licensed software would have severly cripled the company.
Together with the finance department we developed a strategy that allowed for licensed software for every new station and if new person started at a station we would buy a new license. On top of that we developed stategies to eliminate or reduce the software necessary, such as using a custom web application instead of an Access based system. IT department also stepped up the station turn over as alot of the existing stations were more than 2 years old.
In a short time we had removed the unlicensed software, and now have a better handle on who needs which software.
It is all about communication. Develop a strategy, and find ways for the company to remove the unlicensed software so neither you nor your company are in jeopardy of being in the unemployment line.
- my $.02? - you can't have it...it's all I have!!
Your business has changed. So has publishing, and media creation, and others. I feel for you, but I'm not going to support your efforts to fix your current business model in place.
My business only exists thanks to the Internet and the distribution it makes possible, not despite it. And despite your wishful thinking my business model works perfectly well. You guys like to pretend like things aren't the way they are with hypothetical bullshit. But back in the real world there's no such problems.
Your question about "house piracy" is flawed in that what costs money in a house isn't the plans but actually building one, whereas in software making a copy is nothing, it's the design that needs being paid for. So a open source house could be free, but if you get an architect to make you a design well you gotta pay him.
The cost of any person from making a copy is effectively $0. How can you fight that? With laws (i.e. government enforcement), or....?
False premise, you can't make a copy of my program, because you have nowhere to get it from except by paying me.
The big number thing...if you don't own that, what exactly do you own?
Geez, here's a fucking hint : everytime I release a new version, that I change a single file in the ZIP or even that I change the compression settings, the "big number" changes. So guess what, the binary content is completely irrelevant. If you want to go somewhere towards relevancy, I own the source code, plus the website, plus my name's all over the fucking place. Babbling about "big numbers" I own is like saying that a bakery owns the donuts it sells you.
See, exactly, and there's your problem.
No, not really, I don't have a problem, because you can't copy my program. Even if you did, you wouldn't get all you get if you bought it, which is a link to download updates.
You just got troll'd!
That's just a matter of accounting. The writers could just charge more up-front and end up with the same amount earned at the end of the road.
No, it's more than that. Charging up front means you decide on a value for your time, and once you collect that amount, the transaction is complete.
Charging per copy means the value of your time is unknown. You could sell one copy, or you could sell a million; you did the same amount of work either way, but the amount you get paid can vary wildly. And since there's no upper bound on the (retroactive) value of your time, you'll never be satisfied with any amount.
Think about it. When was the last time a well-known artist or author said "hey, I've made enough money on this work already, I'm going to release it into the public domain"?
The issue is not with how long they're paid, it's with how much they're paid.
The issue is with how they're paid, and how that payment scheme impacts the rest of us.
If writers collected payment up front, and moved on once they'd done their work and gotten paid as agreed, there'd be no need for infringement lawsuits, no royalties or licensing restrictions. That would open the door to free production of derivative works and allow many more people to enjoy the completed work.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
Yeah, right, but what comes closer to replacing Photoshop than GIMP? Nothing? So, if it wasn't for Photoshop you'd still be stuck with crap like GIMP that's useless for "print work and painting". Thanks for helping me prove my point.
You just got troll'd!
As a long time user of Photoshop (13 years now?) I will boldy pop into this thread and inform you GIMP is like Photoshop from ~10 years ago minus easily obtained plugins. Going further, the CS4 suite has zero threat of losing market share to open source alternatives in the professional realm.
Blender, on the other hand, is quite useful for modelling in such an environment. It doesn't hold a flame to Maya, but there is much less of a rift than GIMP vs Photoshop.
If everything comes down to just a bunch of 1s and 0s, then why don't you just create them as you need them?
For the same reason I don't cut my own hair: the barber is better at cutting hair than I am.
Oh, what's that? Creating what you want is non-trivial and the only way to create that is to do it the way it's currently done, which costs money?
Yes, which is why I pay a barber to cut my hair instead of demanding that he do it for free. But of course, I only pay the barber when I get my hair cut, not every time I comb it!
Cutting hair is a service: he does it, I give him money, and then we both move on until the next time I need my hair cut.
Programmers can use the very same model. Writing code is a service. Give a programmer money, he'll write code, and then you can both move on until you need another program written. There's absolutely nothing about software development that requires you to pay for a copy of a program instead of paying for the act of writing it.
I'm a self employed software developer and make a living off a program I created all on my own, I create value with my work, you wouldn't know what that means.
For what it's worth, I'm a professional developer as well. But my business model doesn't depend (directly or indirectly) on controlling the number of copies. My living comes from writing code, not making copies.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
No, that was quite obviously said by someone using something called "sarcasm". You might want to look it up.
As for why people should get software for free, that's simple: because the creator(s) wanted them to have it for free. That's why many people release their software under Free licenses. If you don't want to do that, that's fine too. But don't complain if your paycheck depends on your copyrighted software, and someone releases a work-alike program for free and your business goes down the toilet. Part of being in business is looking for places where people are willing to pay money for a product or service you provide. With some things, that's pretty easy, such as if you specialize in a skill that not many people have, but lots of people need. With other things, it's idiotic: no one is going to pay you for bottled breathable air, for instance, since it exists all around us for free. So if you want to make money on software, find something that no one is going to bother making a free version of, or be like many OSS developers: go to work for a large company that is happy to pay them to work on FOSS software which is then released for free.
Obviously the moral threshold for "committing copyright infringement" is countless orders of magnitude lower than for robbing other people. You could have figured that out on your own if you weren't such a dumbass.
There's obviously something at work here besides "money doesn't grow on trees".
Besides in your wishes? Nope, just a money-saving "crime" that ranks much lower in amorality than spitting your gum on the curb. No one gives a crap about copyright laws besides a handful of basement armchair revolutionaries like you. If you think most people who pirate even ever gave as much as a half-assed thought about the whole issue of copyright and the morality of infringement you're giving them way too much credit.
You just got troll'd!
Actually it doesn't [rely on government enforcement], it relies on my software just not being out there for everybody to use for free. If you want access to the full version of my program, you need to chuck $40 my way.
Well, no, they don't. They can get the full version much cheaper from anyone who already has a copy (or a crack/keygen, depending on what protection measures you've used).
If you expect to be the sole provider of copies, then you do need to rely on government enforcement.
They don't want you to spread it around just like you don't want anyone to spread around your passwords or credit card number and codes, or SSID, which are all just numbers, and not even such big ones as that.
The danger in spreading around passwords, credit card numbers, social security numbers, etc. comes from what those numbers can be used for. If I could be guaranteed that no one else would use my CC# to make fraudulent charges, I'd have no reason to care who had that number.
So, what's the danger in spreading around the number that represents a program or a song? The danger that someone might feed it into their own computer and run the program, or feed it into their own MP3 player and hear the song? Those don't affect you in any way; you'll probably never even be aware of them.
To put it bluntly, it's none of your business what numbers someone else feeds into their own equipment. It is my business what charges someone makes on my account, because I'm going to have to pay for them, or at least spend my time getting them removed. That's the difference.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
Information, yes; a newly-created something-or-other (script, novel, song, etc) not so much. Sure, all the words and everything were already there, but the act of creativity needed to put them together in a new and different way... that's something worth being compensated for if/when someone(s) find it worthwhile.
Why are you treating the "act of creativity" differently from any other act that people get paid for?
Do mechanics go around fixing cars for free, expecting to be compensated "if/when someone(s) find it worthwhile"? Do barbers give out free haircuts hoping to be paid later? Do accountants calculate everyone's taxes, unsolicited, and then demand to be paid when those tax forms are filed?
Of course not. If you perform a valuable service, the time to get paid is at the time when you perform the service -- not at some undefined future time, possibly years later, when someone derives a benefit from your service.
Also, other people who perform valuable acts calculate a finite value for their time and expect to be paid that amount, no more and no less. The price of fixing your car doesn't depend on how many miles you drive later that week; it depends on how much time the mechanic spends working (and how expensive the parts are).
If you want to go into business performing the valuable act of writing, then what you ought to do is come up with a value for your time, find buyers who are willing to give you that amount of money, and then release the completed work into the public domain. After you've been compensated, it's none of your business how many people make copies or derivative works.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
Technlogy is NOT "changing everything." Not many peope can write software, compelling stories, make good movies, video games, etc. As long as THAT doesn't change (and I don't see it changing anytime soon), copyright is just as valid today as it was 200 years ago.
No... you're conflating copyright, a government-granted monopoly on making copies and derivative works, with the ability of creative people to make money. What you should have said is "as long as THAT doesn't change (and I don't see it changing anytime soon), people will still be able to earn a living by creating this stuff."
But technology is still undermining the validity of copyright. Copyright is an artifact of a relatively brief era in which it was feasible for a small number of wealthy entities to mass-produce copies, but infeasible for the masses to do the same. That era is now fading. You can't enforce copyright against billions of people in their own homes the way you can enforce it against a relative handful of publishers and factory owners.
Someone is providing a benefit, which, while not physical property, does mean they deserve to be paid.
Yes, they absolutely deserve to be paid for their work, just like anyone else who provides a valuable service. But that doesn't mean they deserve to be paid per copy, or paid for years and years long after they did the work. No one is forcing them to do any work without getting paid for it; if they aren't selling as many copies as they'd like, then maybe selling copies is a bad business model and they should come up with a better way to get paid for their work.
Everyone else who provides a valuable service manages to do it without a government-granted monopoly, so why can't writers, programmers, filmmakers, and musicians?
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
If your employer truly does not have money for MS Office and the like, it is up to you to present the free and inexpensive legal alternatives to 99% of what most users need. (For the rest of the stuff, either pay or accept the risk of shut down.)
If the ethics of your employer are that it is OK to screw your software vendors, there is every probability that they will eventually take other actions not in the interests of their employees, their customers, or their own long-term financial security.
You think Bernie Madoff STARTED big time? No, he got away with little stuff and eventually became the monster that ruined so many lives.
I've become a moralizing old fart and I feel just fine about it.
Live Long and Prosper - Thanks Leonard. You are missed.
I would say the opensource Krita, honestly. Krita is designed to be a image manipulation tool, printing (hence the CMYK support) and paint tool.
Nope. I will admit though that when it comes to image manipulation, I have a tendency to use GIMP over Krita for it's advanced selection tools that Photoshop doesn't even have.
What point?
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Can't there be room for both models?
Let's leave the "chair building" analogy behind and look at some other stuff. A chair is too little effort compared to writing a book or a script.
Some builders get an order for a house and build it to order. Others build it speculatively - they have a good idea what they'll be able to sell it for once it's done, but they don't really know, and they get what the market will bear when they do finish it and sell it.
Some salespeople are paid an hourly rate. Whether they sell something or not, they get the same amount. Others don't get paid anything if they don't sell, but get a commission on it. Depending on what they're selling, that salesperson may have been working on the sale for months before it happens.
Why should creative people only be able to sell "to order" instead of writing something, putting it out there, and seeing what the market will bear? Why shouldn't a blockbuster book or movie be a windfall for its creator?
I'm sure some writers think that they should get $5 every time someone reads their book, whether they read it at the library, bought a paper copy, or downloaded a copy.
My guess is that most of them are probably perfectly happy with the "paper copy model" - every copy that leaves the manufacturer (or really the retailer) gets them some money.
That breaks down in the eBook world, though, when there's no barrier to manufacture and anyone can manufacture a perfect copy. No barrier except DRM, and their readers mostly don't like DRM.
The preferred solution is to not have a problem.
But the people who can write the software, stories, movies, music, and games might do well to find a model where they get paid in advance... You're right, they're performing a valuable service; but once that service is performed, there's no particular reason why they should continue to reap benefits off of it forever. Is there?
Yes, because we've been down that road. It means the works will largely end up in the control of one person. The purpose of copyright isn't just to reward creative people, its to encourage common culture. Imaigine if something like 1984 was funded by a single person. It may never have gotten the chance to influnce our culture.
As I said, if YOU don't want useful software, then continue with your thinking. But I for one am glad that someone else is writing an OS for me at an affordable price.
I feel that the best option is to document the use of pirated software, arrange a meeting with the stake holders and discuss options. If they reply "we are going to use it anyway" refuse to install it on any new machines. This is not reusing to do your job, this is refusing to break the law for your boss. I doubt any judge in the country will fall on the employers side in an employment dispute if it comes to that.
Your philosophy only works for "work for hire." Much creative work is not work for hire.
If I write a piece of software and try to sell it to the world off my own little web site, who, exactly, am I charging up front?
If I write the great American novel, working on Saturdays for two years, then find a publisher who's willing to publish it but not to pay me except based on sales, why shouldn't I be paid per copy sold?
Take it back a level; suppose we're talking about a script writer on a movie. Suppose the writer gets paid by the studio a fixed amount, with no percent on net. That doesn't mean it's ethical to make and distribute free copies of that movie; the studio has money invested in it and has a reasonable right to a return on that money.
If the studio can't make money off their movies, they will stop making movies and invest their money elsewhere instead. In that world, the only movies that will be made are the crappy little "l love making movies" movies that show up on You Tube. If you get lucky, occasionally you'll get a real gem like "Doctor Horrible's Sing-Along Blog" made by people who really love what they're doing. But mostly you'll get dreck like this.
Just because it's a big company you're being an ass to instead of an individual doesn't make it right. I'm not going to say "stealing" because that's a loaded word and there's a lot of debate around here about whether a copyright violation is a theft. But I do think you're being an ass if you copy someone's creative output without their permission.
The preferred solution is to not have a problem.
Write something - whatever is typical in your workplace - to your direct supervisor about this issue.
Explain the possible financial (and criminal, if any, I have no idea) repercussions.
Ask permission to gather software utilization statistics and determine a cost to put things right. Don't run off and take inventory of installed software, and don't work up a price at this point.
Save a copy for yourself.
And get on with doing what you're told.
If you don't like what you're being told to do, find another job.
The preferred solution is to not have a problem.
If I build a house, I get paid by the people who use it.
No you don't, you get paid by the people who decide to buy it. Whether they decide to live in it, demolish it to the ground or simply keep it as an 'investment' is irrelevant, after that sale you hold no control over it whatsoever and if, for some reason, you don't like the number of people living there and think you deserve to get more, you're fucked.
If I put the same effort into, say, a film script, that might take anywhere from 6 weeks to a year to write, why should people get it for free?
If I put the same effort into, say, getting a nice, unique haircut, why should people get to look at it for free? capitalism doesn't reward effort, only need. And once the script is done, your work isn't needed anymore so what you should be doing is pitching your script-writing capabilities to a studio that may profit from it, not artificially trying to restrict the supply of a commodity so you can control it.
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
There's a reason why things are like this, and that's because no one would bother writing professional-quality software if they didn't get paid enough for it.
Wrong. Fewer perhaps, but "no one" is patently false.
Think all you want about how immaterial things should be free, but if all information somehow had to be free then you wouldn't have anymore professional software around, you'd be stuck with crap like GIMP or Blender and would never again see anything like Photoshop or 3DS Max.
Next time, try picking your examples better. Blender originated as a commercial, closed-source application and was only made open-source later.
There's thousands of man-hours of work that go into each such commercial program, man-hours from highly qualified and well-paid people. Someone has to pay for that work, cause if no one does then these people won't touch that ever again and look for a real job that pays.
There are other ways to finance software development other than artificial scarcity. If you were truly a part of the field you'd know it already, as most of the world's software doesn't rely on it.
By the way, not believing in private property is communism. It's like, someone painstakingly creates something and then some wanker like you comes up and goes "this is now property of the people, thank you".
And government-granted monopolies are socialism. Your point, if you had any?
TL;DR you sound like a broke ass basement dweller who wants all his porn, games, movies and music for free cause has no money, and who'd never create anything worth a dime, so it's easy for you to whine and demand that everything is offered to you for free.
Funny, you sound like a broke ass basement dweller who wants to get paid by every one of his farts cause he has no money, and who'd never do honest work so its easy for you to whine and demand that everyone pay tributes to you for the priviledge of looking upon the crap you did years ago.
I'm a self employed software developer and make a living off a program I created all on my own, I create value with my work, you wouldn't know what that means.
Mustn't be a very good living, otherwise you wouldn't be crying off here, would you? get a real job, learn how the world truly works, then come back here and repeat your little rant if you can.
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
Actually Communists distinguish personal property (what a person owns and uses directly) and private ownership of the means of production (that a person uses to take control of the fruits of others' labor).
Socialist countries (what you, Americans, call "Communist countries") had banned the latter but not the former. People could own anything from thumbtacks to livestock and shares in the buildings under construction, however only government could own a factory, road, bank, etc. Considering that this made government bureaucrats better at management than most of managers and executives I have ever seen in US, I don't see any problem with this.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Email is legally considered admissible in court as evidence. Get your boss telling you to install the software, express your concerns. Get it in email, export the PST with all the tracking. Cover yourself, then start looking for another job.
There's room for many models. It is the entertainment industry that is trying to force the economics of content into the same model as used for physical goods such as chairs.
Actually, they don't stop there, they want it both ways. Treated as information when it impacts their bottom line, treated like physical property when it's your bottom line. They sell downloads, however grudgingly, reaping huge savings in distribution costs from doing all the copying and delivery electronically. Then they try to insist their customers not do what they do by threatening legal action if people don't treat downloads as if they were physical objects, pushing idiotic DRM schemes, making insultingly ludicrous analogies, and when all else fails making disgusting appeals to our sympathies with the "starving artists" and "support capitalism" baloney. Those are like listening to Madoff give a speech on the virtues of honesty and financial probity.
I really do think copyright has to go. If we as a society want to encourage art beyond what can already be done with the incredible advances in technology, there are other ways than hogtying ourselves with these antiquated, nonsensical laws. What I mean is that before the 20th century, we lacked the means to record performers. Copyright was useless to them. They had to earn all their income from live performances. And those were to audiences of a few hundreds at most, with only clever amphitheater design to make them audible to their listeners. Performing to a different 1000 every weekday for 10 years would get a 19th century performer heard by fewer than 3 million people. Today, not only can we record performances, we can do all kinds of studio work to make recordings better than live could ever be. And we can broadcast performances all over the world, and amplify sound so tens of thousands of people can enjoy a single live concert. Yet the industry hinders the engineering wizards who made that and them possible, endlessly fighting every technological advance. Take away this weapon called "copyright" that they've been gouging and smashing lives with, and set down a few more ground rules to stop their abuse of musicians.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
I lol'd
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
Think all you want about how immaterial things should be free, but if all information somehow had to be free then you wouldn't have anymore professional software around, you'd be stuck with crap like GIMP or Blender and would never again see anything like Photoshop or 3DS Max.
Last I checked, AVG and Avast were better than Norton and MacAfee. As in way way way better.
Ahahaha, such self-righteous indignity from a hypocrite. No wonder you are so spiteful, nobody is buying your shit software. Sorry dude. For someone bragging about creating shit you're too small time to even matter and you're apparently becoming increasingly irrelevant.
You don't care about fair or deserved or the moral/justified aspects yet you're willing to whine and whine about how you "deserve" money and how it's all communism so on so forth? Yeah, OK buddy.
So let me see if I get the general drift of most of your comments right: Without societies, censors or authority over us, we're all immoral and unethical? What happened to individual choice? All you guys out there (used in a non-sexist way) are telling me that stealing is okay, provided you, taking the best suggestion I read before I stopped in horror, that you document your going along with it to simply CYA? If I found myself in this position, I would take part of that same suggestion to document the whole problem. I'd make a list of all the software which should be bought to make the company legal. Present it to the boss. And if he doesn't instantly implement a plan to acquire it, look for another job if you need the paycheck - else resign immediately. Morals, ethics and honesty - you have them or you don't and there's almost no ambiguity about it (you may be forgiven for stealing a slice of bread to feed your hungry child). This philosophy still seems to me to be the best going: do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
A poorly aimed cumshot at the end of a hand job can get a virgin preggers...
Obviously said by someone who's never put a lot of work into a program, video, script, or anything else that requires creative work, then wondered why he wasn't making money on it.
Whether someone makes money from their work or not is not anyone else's problem. Lots of people put money into things that fail. Its called free market capitalism. Should every small business that fails get a subsidy from society?
You are making lots of invalid assumptions. One is that the only way to make money off software.
Also, remember that open source software is generally as good as or better than proprietary alternatives, despite having a much smaller user-base. I am sure you can find examples where the proprietary alternative is better, but if the open source version had the same user base (and the extra funding that implies) how good would it be then?
Lots of people including myself, do not find the proprietary alternatives for what we do better: in fact they are usually worse (except Excel, and the extra features are ones I would use rarely, it at all these days).
Incidentally, Blender seems to have a lot of professional users for "crap".
I'm a self employed software developer and make a living off a program I created all on my own
So your argument comes down to: I need government created monopolies for my business to be profitable, so they are a good thing. From your point of view yes, but some of us prefer a free market economy.
Incidentally I am in favour of sensible copyright (say 20 years, and no protection for encryption, and no criminal offenses), but not for software.
self-righteous indignity |...] hypocrite [...] your shit software [...] irrelevant
I smell butthurt. Did somebody get.. troll'd?
You just got troll'd!
Like I said in countless other posts, free software is only better when the appeal is so broad you have thousands of people who'd want to work on the project. Doesn't work so well on more niche sectors.
You just got troll'd!
And yet, we are told that breaking copyright laws is exactly that: "theft".
If breaking copyright laws is no greater crime than spitting on the sidewalk, then why are we discussing it as a worldwide problem that threatens the free enterprise system?
You yourself conflated copyright infringement with Communism, and now you say it's barely an issue?
You are welcome on my lawn.
Too late. Copyright has already lost the veneer of respectability. There is no social stigma attached to breaking it, nor bangs of conscience, so now the copyright cartels have switched to Three-Strike Law and other draconian measures - which, of course, only serve to further paint pro-copyright people as vile villains and the Pirate Bay guys as heroes a shining armor.
We do indeed have laws. When those laws are considered a nuisance by the majority, they are impossible to enforce (see Prohibition for an example). Maybe you could sue Disney for damages - their Mickey Mouse Protection Acts are a large reason why copyright is given the same respect that "Don't fuck virgins" -laws that some states still have.
In other words: you want to be paid for every copy in use and little city girls want ponies. Little girls's wishes are far more realistic.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
If writers collected payment up front, and moved on once they'd done their work and gotten paid as agreed, there'd be no need for infringement lawsuits, no royalties or licensing restrictions.
MANY writers (and other artists) would be happy with that arrangement. In fact, a lot of them work under that arrangement now. Ever hear of a book contract? It's a risk/reward ratio. You can either choose to take a small compensation for your work, but know for a fact you'll get it, no matter how well it sells, or you can opt for royalty payments, but may have to wait years to get the full value out of the work.
Sometimes, the pay up front model just isn't realistic. SOMEONE has to fork over the large sum of money for the artist to get paid. Either you have to collect all the orders up front, or someone has to gamble on the outcome and hope to recoup the cost later. In that event, we're right back to royalty payments, instead now it's not an artist getting paid. It's not someone who has both an emotional AND financial attachment to the project. It's going to be a soulless corporation, the only goal of which is to maximize the potential profit. And there's nothing wrong with that, but it doesn't really help the problem for which you implied that up-front payments were supposed to solve. The corporation can very well carry on the infringement lawsuits itself.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
you "deserve" money
Good point! That means you wouldn't even have Blender if it wasn't for commercial software!!
There are other ways to finance software development other than artificial scarcity. If you were truly a part of the field you'd know it already, as most of the world's software doesn't rely on it.
Oh no, you hit me with a "you don't agree with my view so you're not a real real developer". And as for your "artificial scarcity" thing, that's a stupid point, because once again you're focusing on what doesn't matter, the nearly costless distribution, and not on what costs money, developer work. In other words, people don't pay for the copy, people pay for the service of me developing it. I know it must be hard to get that to replace your dumbass view that "hurr durr copying is the only part that gives something value".
And government-granted monopolies are socialism.
What god damn monopoly? Do you even know what a monopoly is? No ones granting me any monopoly, so what the fuck are you babbling about?
Funny, you sound like a broke ass basement dweller who wants to get paid by every one of his farts cause he has no money, and who'd never do honest work so its easy for you to whine and demand that everyone pay tributes to you for the priviledge of looking upon the crap you did years ago.
Oh noes, you trolled me by comparing my hard low-paying work to farts! And no, I live in Europe, we don't live in basements here. Yeah, nice try.
Mustn't be a very good living, otherwise you wouldn't be trolling off here, would you?
FYP. There's little funnier to do on Slashdot than trolling suckers like you into trying to explain why everything should be free. Which is where you disappoint me, nowhere in your post are you arguing for why you think things should be the way you'd like them to be, two thirds of it is personal insults on me and my work which you know nothing about in a pathetic effort to counter-troll me, the rest is in essence quoting random bits I said and saying "no ur wrong".
get a real job, learn how the world truly works, then come back here and repeat your little rant if you can.
Try starting your own software company with no funds, find out for yourself how much it takes to make even a modest living out of it, see how well the sales keep up when you stop working on the program and stop promoting it (hint: nothing sells itself), then come back here and repeat your trolling attempts once you have a clue what you're talking about.
You just got troll'd!
Mmmh, misquoted the first one, it's supposed to quote the thing about GIMP starting off as a commercial program. Clipboard usage fail.
You just got troll'd!
Well, no, they don't. They can get the full version much cheaper from anyone who already has a copy (or a crack/keygen, depending on what protection measures you've used).
No, what would make you think that? No one would share their copy because then I'd deactivate their license, but also because most people are honest and don't try to screw me and know that if I don't get my money I'll stop working on the damn thing. Again, that's wishful thinking from you that you could get my program for free. Lots of niche programs are nowhere to be found on warez sites. So you see, I still don't rely on government enforcement, mostly when dealing with people from countries in which there's no such enforcement, I only rely on technological measures and social mechanics.
The danger in spreading around passwords, credit card numbers, social security numbers, etc. comes from what those numbers can be used for. If I could be guaranteed that no one else would use my CC# to make fraudulent charges, I'd have no reason to care who had that number.
Exactly, and if you make software then people distributing binaries or serials impacts you in that you'll make less money, so in the same way it'll cost you money. Don't you see how this is the same thing?
The danger that someone might feed it into their own computer and run the program, or feed it into their own MP3 player and hear the song?
No, you fucking dumbass, cause you're on the criminal side, so obviously the downsides aren't on your side.
To put it bluntly, it's none of your business what numbers someone else feeds into their own equipment.
Well if you want to feed my numbers into your equipment you're gonna have to put some numbers preceded with a dollar sign into my bank account. What's hard to understand about that?
You just got troll'd!
Yes, which is why I pay a barber to cut my hair instead of demanding that he do it for free. But of course, I only pay the barber when I get my hair cut, not every time I comb it!
When you buy my software it's more like you get a home barber machine.
Programmers can use the very same model. Writing code is a service. Give a programmer money, he'll write code, and then you can both move on until you need another program written. There's absolutely nothing about software development that requires you to pay for a copy of a program instead of paying for the act of writing it.
That's the stupidest fucking suggestion I've heard in this entire thread. That's as if you told musicians, don't get paid for your albums, get paid to make your albums in the first place. You know, like Mozart got paid for pieces, and that's how he was always broke besides being a fucking genius? I don't even know how that's supposed to work for software, are you really suggesting that someone with deep pockets pays for Adobe to develop Photoshop from scratch? That's stupid as fuck.
But my business model doesn't depend (directly or indirectly) on controlling the number of copies. My living comes from writing code, not making copies.
Yeah, because you have the convenience of having a boss (or a client who commissioned your work, which is the same thing as a boss except with less direct management) who writes your cheques whose concern it is to find a way to make money out of what you do. I'm the boss, I'm the one who's striving to maximise profits out of my market. And giving my product away for free isn't exactly the way to do it, but you wouldn't know, I'm the entrepreneur here, you're just a code monkey with no need for any sort of business sense.
You just got troll'd!
I was pointed out that Blender was originally a commercial program, so that weakens my comparison I guess.
And yeah, no open source alternative comes close to threatening Adobe Photoshop, no matter how free they are, but that won't stop any FOSS zealot here from arguing that everything should be free to make the world a better place in every aspect.
You just got troll'd!
You yourself conflated copyright infringement with Communism, and now you say it's barely an issue?
No, that's just wishful reading, I never said that copyright infringement was like Communism, I said that demanding that everything (in digital works) should be available for free is communism. As in, some people out here believe that both Adobe and I should give the products of our labour for free and not make any money of that "artificial scarcity" which is not giving everything we do away.
And yet, we are told that breaking copyright laws is exactly that: "theft".
You tell me, I'm not telling you that.
If breaking copyright laws is no greater crime than spitting on the sidewalk
Again, learn to read what's actually written, I talked about moral threshold for people who might consider committing that, nowhere did I mention any consideration for the actual consequences of either of those things. I'm just explaining how it works for people on all sides of the issue, I'm not talking of morals, ethics, principles, ideologies (although I did compare the FOSS zealot ideology with communism, which is to give a perspective on actually what some of the people involved want), I'm just trying to explain you dumbasses why your ideology of "give us everything for free" cannot work as it's rarely a viable business model when you're in the business of making software, which most of you seem to want to ignore.
You just got troll'd!
And guess what: that would be just fine with me. I can't afford Photoshop or 3DS Max as is. The people who can, and need such tools, could simply pool their resources and pay programmers to make them - a bit like happened with Apache, PostgreSQL, Linux etc. In fact, I'd imagine that both Gimp and Blender would receive a lot more development resources, making them better faster.
The thing is, "professional software" is simply software made by people who are getting paid. You don't need copyright to have paid programmers; you simply need someone who needs software and has money.
The current scareword is terrorism. And the issue under consideration is not private property, or any property for that matter, but restricting people's ability to communicate certain data to other people in order to give financial benefit to unrelated people, called "copyright holders".
It's more like some wanker comes and says I can't tell this neat thing I heard to anyone else and I go "fuck you".
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Think about it. When was the last time a well-known artist or author said "hey, I've made enough money on this work already, I'm going to release it into the public domain"?
John Carmack?
Insn't that the same as when musicians (etc) sell their rights to a publisher? Somehow that's considered wrong round these parts.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Sometimes, the pay up front model just isn't realistic. SOMEONE has to fork over the large sum of money for the artist to get paid. Either you have to collect all the orders up front, or someone has to gamble on the outcome and hope to recoup the cost later.
So collect all the "orders" up front. The same internet that makes it possible to share a million copies of a song, one peer-to-peer transfer at a time, also makes it possible to collect a large sum of money, one small payment at a time. The model has already been demonstrated for political contributions.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
That's rich. First you disregard the correct terms the law has set for copyright infringement and theft of property, then you admonish people for not obeying that same law. All without the use of proper punctuation!
No one would share their copy because then I'd deactivate their license, but also because most people are honest and don't try to screw me and know that if I don't get my money I'll stop working on the damn thing.
If that were true, there would be no piracy. But there is piracy, because DRM doesn't work perfectly ("deactivate their license"?) and people don't always care about funding future development when they already have what they need.
Again, that's wishful thinking from you that you could get my program for free. Lots of niche programs are nowhere to be found on warez sites.
If there were sufficient demand for your program, it would be on the warez sites. Relying on your program's unpopularity is an interesting and probably effective approach, but it's not for everyone.
Exactly, and if you make software then people distributing binaries or serials impacts you in that you'll make less money, so in the same way it'll cost you money. Don't you see how this is the same thing?
No, it isn't. Losing money is not the same as not-gaining money.
If you make a fraudulent charge to my credit card, that costs me money (-$50). The alternative is that you don't make a fraudulent charge, which costs me nothing ($0).
If I pirate your program, that costs you nothing but you gain nothing ($0). The likely alternative is that I don't pirate your program, in which case you still gain nothing ($0). See the difference?
No, you fucking dumbass, cause you're on the criminal side, so obviously the downsides aren't on your side.
Then where are they? What is the "downside" of someone running your program without having paid for it? Don't assume they would have given you money otherwise: most P2P users have far more content than they'd be willing or able to obtain if they had to pay for it.
Well if you want to feed my numbers into your equipment you're gonna have to put some numbers preceded with a dollar sign into my bank account. What's hard to understand about that?
It's not hard to understand, it's just naive and unrealistic. That may be what an unenforceable law says, or what your hubris has led you to believe your DRM system is capable of, but it's not how the world works.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
Firstly, if you want to be paid a wage to live off of, your client has to pay an enormous sum for the product (relative to today's price). Let's say you're really good and can bang out a decent piece of software in one week. Now, assuming you're getting paid $30,000/yr [...], that's still $625. That's a hell of a lot for a product that only took one man one week to write (ie, either complex but buggy or simple and therefore already out there). Copies amortise this cost [...]
Yes, that's a large amount of money, but no, selling copies isn't what amortize it today. Having more than one client is what makes software affordable today, and that wouldn't have to change if you charged up front. If you find ten people who want you to write this program, they'll only have to pay $62.50 each.
Now, any moderately intelligent person will either trade or give away (ie, "buy goodwill") in order to get other people's software, thus saving themselves trouble in the future. Soon, there's enough free software out there to fill every need, and everyone's out of a job [...]. And before some smartypants points out "but there IS free software out there, and yet programmers can still find jobs!", I'd point out that this is because most F/OSS coders cannot dedicate the amount of time or resources required to make a project up to the standard people have come to expect from software
Uh...
If I understand this correctly, you're suggesting that programmers asking for money up front will lead to a massive wave of free software rising up to fill every niche, crushing commercial software development.
First, can I have some of what you're smoking?
Second, even if this came to pass, why would it be a bad thing? You're suggesting that the world's demand for software would all be satisfied by volunteers. If people are actually willing to give their time away to write every desired program for free, why should we stop them? Why should we prefer a system where volunteers can't do that?
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When was the last time a well-known artist or author said "hey, I've made enough money on this work already, I'm going to release it into the public domain"?
While I do agree with your argument, I am going to have to refute this one point.
When you buy my software it's more like you get a home barber machine.
No, a home barber machine would replace a barber. A copy of your software does not replace you.
That's as if you told musicians, don't get paid for your albums, get paid to make your albums in the first place.
Yes, exactly. People do get paid to write and perform music today, and most bands make more from performances than album sales anyway. Mozart didn't have a web site where fans could pay him directly; he didn't even have as many fans as many bands today.
I don't even know how that's supposed to work for software, are you really suggesting that someone with deep pockets pays for Adobe to develop Photoshop from scratch?
One individual with massive pockets? No. I'm suggesting that thousands of people pool their funds to pay for it.
Yeah, because you have the convenience of having a boss (or a client who commissioned your work, which is the same thing as a boss except with less direct management) who writes your cheques whose concern it is to find a way to make money out of what you do.
Incorrect. I wrote "directly or indirectly" for a reason: the business model does not depend on restricting the number of copies in existence. We don't sell software, we provide solutions, and the software exists to enable those solutions. The disc with the number burned onto it is useless without the uncopyable goods and services we provide.
And giving my product away for free isn't exactly the way to do it, but you wouldn't know, I'm the entrepreneur here, you're just a code monkey with no need for any sort of business sense.
Entrepreneurs know how to innovate. You're no entrepreneur, you're just another businessman who's so stuck in the past that he doesn't even know what his "product" really is.
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Neither of those are public domain: the authors still assert the right to control how they're distributed. The Quake III engine (and only the engine) is GPL, or $10,000 for a non-GPL license, and as far as I can tell, Tribes is just plain old freeware.
So while it's true that the authors have (at least partly) given up on making money from those works, they haven't really moved on.
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How about you simply do the sociopath thing for yourself ? Report them, collect the reward. If you want to be able to honestly say you didn't do it, have your wife report them and collect the reward.
You should not allow criminals to dictate the rules, which will obviously immunize them from responsibility for anything. You'll get fired, frustrated, and nothing will be solved. Instead, you should use the rules they set for themselves : report them (which makes you feel better), and don't tell them (which they don't do either). You should not feel guilty about this.
Oh and, needless to say, once you reported them, you've done your duty. Keep your mouth shut after that. Don't report them from inside the office either. Plan ahead to mention the unfairness of stealing software 2 more times (but plan the dates you do this well in advance, and don't deviate from them, no matter what).
These days I always ask a democrat to pay a medical bill whenever I get one. None of them ever did it, no matter how much "moral urgency" and "fairness" they thought such acts were graced with. And no, they didn't think that not paying my bill justified anyone calling them rich, selfish stealing capitalists. When I took one democrat's wallet, and took out the money, just like he wants the government to do, he got aggressive. They did not, in fact, thought that not doing so even made them selfish. You should use people's own rulebook against them. Some actually got it.
As in, some people out here believe that both Adobe and I should give the products of our labour for free and not make any money of that "artificial scarcity" which is not giving everything we do away.
No one is saying that you or Adobe should not get paid for your labor. They're saying that you and Adobe should only get paid for your labor.
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In 1997, the company I worked for was using copies of software illegally. I pointed this out to my manager and presented a plan to implement a policy of "budget for it or lose it" across the company. He told me no, that a business decision had been made to use the software in spite of it being illegally.
I told him that as systems administrator, I was genuinely concerned that if we got audited, I would be on the hook for the violations that were taking place, and that I wanted an e-mail or written letter stating the business decision to continue using unlicensed software. I explained that we were one disgruntled employee away from losing everything, and that our churn rate was very high.
To be honest, my boss was a twit, and I honestly thought that once his boss and upper-level management found out what was going on, that he was putting the company at risk, I would be complimented for a job well done, and he might even be replaced. Of course, that was when I was a bit more naive than I am today, and after following up our meeting with an e-mail about the company's non-compliance and my plan to get everyone legal, I was terminated. In my termination letter, it never mentioned the software explicitly, but it did mention something about a "disregard for business policies." (They were actually really grasping. My termination letter also said that I had taken "unauthorized vacation" when I missed a day of work after an automobile accident to deal with injuries, insurance, and acquiring another means of transportation.)
In a job interview a year ago, I was asked if I had ever been fired from a job. I honestly answered that yes, I have. I could tell that the interviewer got a little uncomfortable, and I explained the story. I told him that during the whole ordeal, my focus was on looking out for the best interests of the company even above my own short-term interests. I told him that even though they screwed me over and I probably had them dead-to-rights on flagrant licensing violations if I had turned them in, I chose professionalism over revenge and didn't do it. I told him that if I'm hired, I'll look out for his company's interests the same way. I might not always tell him what he wants to hear, but I'll always tell him the truth.
I guess it was convincing enough because I was hired and I'm still working for that company today. Needless to say, life is much better for me these days, and I've prospered over the years much more than the company that fired me.
To the submitter, stand firm. DO NOT do anything illegal, or you'll be just as culpable as they will. I know it sounds trite and in this moment and in this economy, it seems like the end of the world to think about getting fired, but in five or ten years from now, if you stand up to your boss today on something that is so clearly immoral that he is asking you to do, I guarantee that you will be better off. Trust me, "Future You" will thank you for it.
With politicians you know, more or less, what you're going to get. This lot hate $group and like $other_group, that lot are the other way round, and the other lot hate everybody.
It just doesn't stretch to something like a movie. I'll pay to see a movie that I like, and I have some degree of confidence on my decision because I've seen reviews and clips. I can see those reviews and clips because - get this - it's already been made.
But would I pay that money up front on spec? No, and neither would the vast majority of people. That's why you don't see the distributed patronage model except for a few obscure niches.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Yes, because we've been down that road. It means the works will largely end up in the control of one person.
No, it doesn't. Today we have global communication and payment systems. You don't need to get all your funding from one person.
You'll have a much easier time collecting $10 from a million people than collecting $10 million from one person, and of course that's what happens today anyway when tickets and copies are sold. You can still tap into that same demand if you treat your work as a service and get paid up front.
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The elephant in the room here is that profits for movies and music have been going up in recent years. In the last decade the number of films produced per year has doubled and movie studio's profits have never been higher. Music is doing very well too, now that they figured out kids want downloads and ringtones rather than CDs any more.
There is no more opportunity for artists to get paid for their work than ever before. New markets are opening up too, such as the various App Stores and downloadable console games. You can now even self-publish your book in electronic format and people can read it on the train thanks to eBook readers.
Furthermore, the idea that if people can get stuff for free the won't pay for it is ludicrous. You have been able to get free music on the radio (which you can tape), free movies on the TV (which you can tape) and free books at the library for 50+ years.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
With politicians you know, more or less, what you're going to get.
But with political contributions, you have no idea what you're going to get. You don't know what the money will be used for, and you certainly don't get a refund if your candidate loses.
Yet people are still willing to give millions of dollars to campaigns, $20 or $100 at a time. They're just as passionate about art and music, and there you can offer them something concrete.
But would I pay that money up front on spec? No, and neither would the vast majority of people.
Maybe you wouldn't, but most people would contribute (1) if the price were right, or (2) if the producer had a good reputation. I know I wouldn't hesitate if a band I enjoyed needed money to record their next album -- would you?
That's why you don't see the distributed patronage model except for a few obscure niches.
The reason you don't see the distributed patronage model is that copyright is more convenient for producers, as well as more exciting (just like playing blackjack is more exciting than buying bonds).
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Abolishing copyright is not the solution to that. That would just make it so they don't get paid AT ALL for what they produce. OK, maybe you could implement an honour system but that's very untested, and there are a lot of immoral people out there who will take the content, think it's fantastic and never pay for it. I happen to think that's immoral and should be (financially) punishable.
That depends on what the writer agrees to in contract, they could refuse to sell it without profit sharing (i.e. writer gets paid % of total profit) which you think might be an idea for a script you're selling for 500k! But then it could flop (as many films based on high value IP have, just look at all the sequel flops out there). So you can get guaranteed 500k, or get a fair bit less, 100k and a % of profits. You accept the 100k and % but the director sucks and the film doesn't break even. Whoops. Or you take the 500k and abandon 5% of profit sharing on a movie which makes 100million profit. Again, whoops. It's just a matter of good business decisions, as you see everywhere in the world.
That would just make it so they don't get paid AT ALL for what they produce.
Radiohead, Trent Reznor and the developers of world of goo would beg to differ.
there are a lot of immoral people out there who will take the content, think it's fantastic and never pay for it
and how is that different from what happens under the current system? People pirate stuff whether or not there is a law against it. If you look at the sales for those examples i gave above, a fairly significant proportion of the consumers paid nothing or one penny. Yet the artists still raked in an amount of money they were more than happy with. The question is how many of the people who pay for music/games/movies at the moment do it because they want to pay the artist or simply because they fear punishment? It seems the fear of punishment plays little or no part in how well an artist does from sales of recordings of their work. If the law does nothing to help anyone and so much to hinder culture and destroys the lives of those it decides to make obscene examples of, what possible ethical, moral or practical reason is there for its existence? How much more agile and healthy would the ecomony of art be if there were no bureaucratic barriers to tie up billions of dollars in an "industry" of litigation that is little more than a self-financing toll gate?
(1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
your position here is not that much different from a criminal gang
Correct, protection rackets, conspiracy, and murder are quite similar to pirating a few copies of MS Office. How did I miss that?
Leaving is pretty much the only non-cowardly approach to that, if management won't listen to you. Man up, sir. Such petty games are for weaklings.
No, it doesn't. Today we have global communication and payment systems. You don't need to get all your funding from one person.
If a well known and highly regarded author can't make this work for a simple book, what makes you think this would even come close to funding something like a Hollywood movie.
You'll have a much easier time collecting $10 from a million people than collecting $10 million from one person, and of course that's what happens today anyway when tickets and copies are sold. You can still tap into that same demand if you treat your work as a service and get paid up front.
You won't get a million people to pay for something that hasn't even been created. What happens when they don't like the final product? Will people get thier money back if they end up not liking it? How much say does each individual have in the making of the work? How do you get 10 million people to agree on direction? Or do you expect them to pay their $10 and shut up? You really think that would fly?
Uh, no, and it appears you're trying to save face now. Amusing.
If there were sufficient demand for your program, it would be on the warez sites. Relying on your program's unpopularity is an interesting and probably effective approach, but it's not for everyone.
Well, I've had over 300 sales. That's not much, but so far it still didn't pirated, so even if I had one leak every 300 sales that probably wouldn't be any big deal.
No, it isn't. Losing money is not the same as not-gaining money.
It is when you're in business. Think about it.
It's not hard to understand, it's just naive and unrealistic. That may be what an unenforceable law says, or what your hubris has led you to believe your DRM system is capable of, but it's not how the world works.
That's how it effectively works for me, sorry if it goes against your wishful thinking. You couldn't get a free copy of my program if your life depended on it. The facts are on my side.
You just got troll'd!
There's a difference between saying that people don't "deserve" money for software and the fact that people who may copy software aren't doing anything unethical.
The second is not a form of the first.
No, a home barber machine would replace a barber. A copy of your software does not replace you.
I'm not a barber, dumbass, I'm the engineer who made the barber machine that replaces the barber.
I'm suggesting that thousands of people pool their funds to pay for it.
Fool, get the fuck out of your basement and get a clue of how things really work. No one's gonna give $300 to a company for them to eventually build them a program and two years later perhaps deliver. That's just a retarded thing to suggest. I mean seriously, how the fuck am I supposed to have a serious discussion with some dumbass who suggests some dumb crap like that that not even a fool would do.
Entrepreneurs know how to innovate. You're no entrepreneur, you're just another businessman who's so stuck in the past that he doesn't even know what his "product" really is.
What the hell are you babbling about, what I did is pure innovation. That's so innovative, I measure my performance by minds blown an hour. It's just a case of not doing things your way being the wrong way. Time to put up or shut up : my program is an innovative kind of program worth $40 that is quite technical but very unique and powerful in what it does. All the revenue made from it comes from letting people try a demo version of the program then buy a license to get the full version. What "innovative" "entrepreneurial" steps do you suggest for me to maximise my profits?
You're not getting away with a bullshit answer, either you tell me what's wrong with what I do and what I should do in a concrete way instead in order to maximise profits, or I'll see myself forced to accept your apology.
You just got troll'd!
What is there to save? You insulted someone you don't know and their work which you have never heard of, in a most gratuitous way. That's obviously a butthurt counter-trolling attempt.
You just got troll'd!
Given that I was only able to find one burnt copy of Office Pro with a Google-able CD-Key, and that version of Office is on at least 20 computers, I'm not convinced.
To be fair, the copies of Windows XP that my university had for sale to students all used the same CD key, and googling for it reveals hundreds of sites with the same key listed. I believe such a thing is said to be "site licensed".
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
If a well known and highly regarded author can't make this work for a simple book, what makes you think this would even come close to funding something like a Hollywood movie.
What makes you think a well known and highly regarded author couldn't make it work for a simple book? It hasn't been tried.
(Perhaps you're thinking of Stephen King's The Plant, but his model for that book was not what I'm advocating. It doesn't matter what proportion of readers pay; what matters is how much money you collect in total.)
You won't get a million people to pay for something that hasn't even been created. What happens when they don't like the final product?
Then you have a conflict. How it gets resolved depends on what the conflict is about.
What happens if I don't like my haircut? I probably get a refund or at least a discount. Partly because they want me to come back, partly because I probably told them how I wanted it cut and they did something else instead.
What happens if I hire a VP to run my company, and after a year, I don't like the decisions he's been making? No refund. I hired him to use his judgment, which he did; it just turned out that his judgment wasn't what I really wanted.
Will people get thier money back if they end up not liking it?
If the author failed to deliver on his promises, then yes, he broke the deal and owes them a refund. If he delivered what he promised but people imagined that would mean something else, oh well, they're only out $10.
How much say does each individual have in the making of the work? How do you get 10 million people to agree on direction?
That's for them and the author to work out. It'd be interesting to see what sort of models for group decision making came out of this. One extreme would be "none": the author describes his idea and people either support it or don't. The other extreme would be "everything": people vote on what they want and then an author steps in to provide it.
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It is when you're in business. Think about it.
No, it really isn't. Losing money means you're poorer today than you were yesterday. Not-gaining money means you're no richer and no poorer. By your logic, you're "losing" the $20 in my pocket right now.
That's how it effectively works for me, sorry if it goes against your wishful thinking. You couldn't get a free copy of my program if your life depended on it. The facts are on my side.
If you've really created uncrackable DRM, why are you still writing software that only 300 people want? Media and software companies would pay billions for the secret of how to perfectly prevent copying. Why don't you sell it to them?
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I'm not a barber, dumbass, I'm the engineer who made the barber machine that replaces the barber.
Then what you need to be worried about is a "home engineer machine" that would do your job for you. But there is no such thing. We still need people to write programs, so as long as we need new programs written, programmers will be able to make money by doing it.
You're not getting away with a bullshit answer, either you tell me what's wrong with what I do and what I should do in a concrete way instead in order to maximise profits, or I'll see myself forced to accept your apology.
Why should I care about maximizing your profits? The innovations you're missing are innovations in business model.
You still think that the valuable thing you provide is licenses, not labor. That's antiquated thinking. As copyright becomes harder and harder to enforce, and as your magically uncrackable DRM is revealed to be as flawed as every other scheme that's been tried, that antiquated thinking is not going to help you adapt to a world where you can't rely on selling copies.
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There's more at work here than just the fact that suddenly otherwise law-abiding citizens have decided to become criminals.
Copyright is a bargain, a compromise that people submit to like civilized adults - but only in so much as it's perceived to be fair. Once eternal copyright was enacted the fairness of the proposition ended, as did the voluntary compliance. This was predicted long ago:
I will only say this, that if the measure before us should pass, and should produce one-tenth part of the evil which it is calculated to produce, and which I fully expect it to produce, 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. Everybody is well pleased to see them restrained by the law, and compelled to refund their ill-gotten gains. No tradesman of good repute will have anything to do with such disgraceful transactions. 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. On which side indeed should the public sympathy be when the question is whether some book as popular as Robinson Crusoe, or the Pilgrim's Progress, shall be in every cottage, or whether it shall be confined to the libraries of the rich for the advantage of the great-grandson of a bookseller who, a hundred years before, drove a hard bargain for the copyright with the author when in great distress? 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.
-Thomas Macaulay
Copyright holders have by getting what they want ended their advantage.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
And as for your "artificial scarcity" thing, that's a stupid point, because once again you're focusing on what doesn't matter, the nearly costless distribution, and not on what costs money, developer work. In other words, people don't pay for the copy, people pay for the service of me developing it.
Then charge for the service of you developing it, not for the individual copies. As nearly the entire industry does today.
What god damn monopoly? Do you even know what a monopoly is? No ones granting me any monopoly, so what the fuck are you babbling about?
Copyright is a time-limited, government-granted monopoly. That's how it was first defined, and that's how it still works.
There's little funnier to do on Slashdot than trolling suckers like you into trying to explain why everything should be free. Which is where you disappoint me, nowhere in your post are you arguing for why you think things should be the way you'd like them to be, two thirds of it is personal insults on me and my work which you know nothing about in a pathetic effort to counter-troll me, the rest is in essence quoting random bits I said and saying "no ur wrong".
At least you do admit to being a troll. Thing is, I don't *think* copyright should be eliminated so I can hardly argue for it here, it's just your arguments against it are pathetic and make the rest of us look like lazy, greedy bastards.
Try starting your own software company with no funds, find out for yourself how much it takes to make even a modest living out of it, see how well the sales keep up when you stop working on the program and stop promoting it (hint: nothing sells itself), then come back here and repeat your trolling attempts once you have a clue what you're talking about.
Why would I? the standard "you pay, I write" model pays better, takes less work, and isn't threatened by basic human nature. Again, get a real job and stop crying about the 'dirty' pirates 'stealing' your work.
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
Copyright is not theft.
Then you need to do some serious studying.
Using copyrighted material without paying for the right to do so (except for fair use situations), IS theft.
Your comments are not insightful, they are downright ignorant.
f you build a house you get paid ONCE by
Because only ONE group of people can use it at any one time!
You are missing basic and fundamental parts here:
a) Cost of creation. If creation cost X million, but sale of individual items is small fraction of X, then of course you need to sell many items b) Created item may benefit many people at once or only a few people at once, or one person at a time. If if benefits many people at once, and they get more from using than they pay, why is that wrong, why should the creator not be rewarded? They've still benefited each user of the item to a greater extent than the user of the item has paid.
When you finally get around to creating a digital work that takes much time (in my case, years) to create, you'll understand why your attitude is so ignorant. If you want my work, you can pay for it, or create it yourself.
That has caused many people on the other side of the transaction to believe the whole setup is bad, which leads to widespread rulebreaking.
You are right. A whole bunch of people have realised that people are benefiting from their work without being paid for it. And now they want to be paid for it. People steal my work daily. It does not help pay the mortgage, or cover the cost of creating the work. You seem to think its perfectly OK to steal from me. BTW, the software I create, you'd only want to use it if you are in business, and thus making money from using it. People steal because they think they can and should, not any other reason.
I abhore software patents and I do not wish for any extension of copyright law.
I pirate everything too, but I'm not an hypocrite
Yes you are. You want to be paid for your software works, but refuse to pay others for their software works.
That is the definition of hypocrisy. Say one thing, do the other.
I, on the other hand, want to be paid for my work. And I damn well pay for the software I use from other vendors.
I agree.
For what it is worth, when I run into someone who just needs to fiddle with photos they took on their fancy new camera; I always recommend the GIMP.
If they say "I want to learn to build a professional looking website and do all my own content creation including mastering video", then I'll suggest Adobe's suites.
It worked for radiohead and reznor because they were already very well known and got plenty of publicity for it (in addition to all the fans who would have bought the album anyway). I myself almost downloaded Reznors despite not listening to any of his work pretty much ever.
World of goo also rode the publicity wave being one of (if not the) first to do the 'pay what you want' thing in the games market. If you read that article you linked it mentions that Steam sales (fixed price, more conventional) had a very significant 40% increase from the promotion. And this was a fairly popular 'casual' game by that time anyway (a lot of people I know had it around january, myself included). Add in that the production costs for it were very low and yes, that model can work. My point however was that would not work for products with more significant development costs which do not already have a large following.
I can sadly relate. The company I work for has *severe* licensing issues.
What makes it more ironic/depressing/hypocritical is that we are a software development company.
Based on my position in the company, I report to the IT Manager, who reports directly to the CEO. No matter how much I push, I’ve not been able to get any real change.
Basically the CEO is tight and doesn’t want to spend money, at all. We have one (legit) MSDN subscription which is used by ~80 developers, in addition to powering all our production servers. Not to mention we’ve got a *ton* of shareware on people’s desktops which is never paid for.
I talk to my boss (IT Manager) about it who basically shrugs and goes “yeah? What do you want me to do about it?”
Given that the company is fairly laid back, I actually went direct to the CEO – he’s well aware of the problem, but his excuse is that “We’re a software development company, when we make a sale, Microsoft makes a sale” (eg. Our software will only work on a Windows system, so we’re apparently making Microsoft money by writing our software targeted at a Microsoft platform)
I’ve brought up the issues about the rewards for people to turn them in, and the general manager of the company basically said to me “Look, I know what we’re doing is wrong, and I know we’re going to be found out eventually, it’s just a matter of time – our plan is just to plead for mercy when Microsoft finally does come knocking”.
For me personally, the best I can do is to distance myself from the topic as best I can. I’ve ensured that my concerns have been heard, and are actually in writing, if the time ever comes that I may need to rely on.
I’ve made (very small) changes, I’ve stopped installing evaluation versions of WinZip/WinRAR and replaced it with 7-Zip, I’ve stopped installing TextPad on developer’s machines and replaced it with Notepad ++.
Other than that, all I can do is cringe when a staff member comes up to the IT department and says “Hey, I need installed on my PC, do we have a license for that?” and my boss says “Yeah, sure, no worries, we’ll have it installed by tomorrow”
(and sorry BSA et al. I am paranoid, so posting this from a newly-created throw-away account via Tor)
Think about it. When was the last time a well-known artist or author said "hey, I've made enough money on this work already, I'm going to release it into the public domain"?
Search Wikipedia for "Steal This Album!" Make sure to include the exclamation point or it points to a different article. That's the reason I didn't link to it because the ! gets cut off in the link and it points to the wrong page. To be clear I don't like the way that copyright laws are going but System of a Down proves that not all content creators are evil greedy monsters. Just 99% of them.
The notion that intellectual property rights have certain limits, especially on the length of time you can claim those rights has been part of the laws of copyright and patent for a very long time.
More than that. Copyright *requires* giving away everything you made for free. That's the core basis of it. The government just encourages release of information by giving a temporary limited monopoly to that information to encourage even more donations to the Public Domain. But it is impossible to claim copyright protections for a regular work without releasing it to the Public Domain (time release, but released non the less).
So, anyone that believes in Copyright as done in the US (and I'd guess the rest of the world as well) believes in the core tenet that everything is necessarily Public Domain and the purpose of Copyright is to get the most material possible into the Public Domain. All copyrighted works belong to the public, so anyone that copyrights something is obviously a communist.
Learn to love Alaska
They are the ones financially and legally responsible, just cite precedence about how the FBI kills people under "military orders" when they clearly know what they shot at was civilian. Oh yeah, thats just murder. You fuckin violated some copyrights son, you screwed.
"They confiscated everything, even the stuff we didn't steal!"
This could be evidence of Ethics Violations, and if you work for a company with an Ethics Hotline, or if you work for the Government or Department of Defense, it may be your duty to report this problem if it is not taken care of in a timely fashion. They take this sort of thing pretty seriously, and if I recall correctly, they recently passed some rules about just this sort of thing.
Document your observations and the notice you gave to management, then go about your job and don't worry about it.
If you have a moral issue with piracy then also look for another job, but don't expect it to be much better at the new place.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Copyright is a time-limited, government-granted monopoly.
A monopoly on what, copyrights?
Then charge for the service of you developing it, not for the individual copies. As nearly the entire industry does today.
How the fuck is that supposed to work? Am I supposed to say "hey random people, I want to develop a program that does this and that. Please gather up $10,000 to give to me and in 6 months I'll give you the program in question"?
At least you do admit to being a troll.
Humm yeah, do you have signatures disabled or something? That's like a disclaimer right there.
Thing is, I don't *think* copyright should be eliminated so I can hardly argue for it here, it's just your arguments against it are pathetic and make the rest of us look like lazy, greedy bastards.
Who's talking about copyright? I wasn't, I never mentioned copyright, I talked about wanting everything for free.
Why would I? the standard "you pay, I write" model pays better, takes less work, and isn't threatened by basic human nature.
Who the fuck is supposed to pay me for something I haven't done yet? I don't know in what market that's supposed to work, but in my market (commercial audio apps for people who make music), it doesn't work this way at all, and no one does it this way.
Again, get a real job and stop crying about the 'dirty' pirates 'stealing' your work.
Again, wishful reading. How can I cry about people stealing my work when no one's stealing my work to begin with?
You just got troll'd!
But there is no such thing. We still need people to write programs, so as long as we need new programs written, programmers will be able to make money by doing it.
No shit, tell me something I don't know.
Why should I care about maximizing your profits? The innovations you're missing are innovations in business model.
I accept your apology.
You still think that the valuable thing you provide is licenses, not labor. That's antiquated thinking. As copyright becomes harder and harder to enforce, and as your magically uncrackable DRM is revealed to be as flawed as every other scheme that's been tried, that antiquated thinking is not going to help you adapt to a world where you can't rely on selling copies.
Dude, Bill Gates is like the richest mother fucker on Earth, all from selling software, even though every single of his products get pirated before they're even released. Piracy isn't such a big deal when it comes to revenue, so it really doesn't threaten that business model unlike what you wishfully like to think.
And tell me, how am I supposed to be paid for my work when I haven't done any work yet, as you suggested? Oh wait, I already asked you for a real answer to that and you refused to answer under the pretence of apathy. More like because you have no fucking clue what should be done, your just pushing your bullshit ideology on me but when it comes to explaining how it can work for me and how it can make things better there's no one left to answer. So all the fuck you're doing is talking shit about what I do and insulting me and my work while you don't have any fucking clue what I could do better. So shut the fuck up.
You just got troll'd!
No, it really isn't. Losing money means you're poorer today than you were yesterday. Not-gaining money means you're no richer and no poorer. By your logic, you're "losing" the $20 in my pocket right now.
So by that logic if the guy who writes your pay check writes $20 off your pay check you're not losing anything, but if he's stealing $20 from your wallet then you're losing something. You're the dumbass who's arguing that the net effect for you isn't the same. Just drop the dumbass semantics.
If you've really created uncrackable DRM, why are you still writing software that only 300 people want? Media and software companies would pay billions for the secret of how to perfectly prevent copying. Why don't you sell it to them?
My sarcasm detector is tingling. I didn't write an uncrackable DRM, actually my program can be cracked under a minute. The thing is, in order to get the program, you need a serial number appended to your download link, and to get this you need to send me money. Theoretically someone who would have bought it could crack it and release it or not crack it but release it along with his license, but no one's done it so far despite 300 sales, so even if one day someone eventually warezes it it's no big deal. Actually I was gonna try to work on something harder to crack, but I was advised by people who've been there and done that that I'd lose more by wasting my time trying to prevent piracy than I'd lose by eventually getting pirated (don't even bother to argue that I wouldn't lose anything in either case, I got it). And I didn't get pirated despite this number of sales, much to my surprise. Actually someone even argued to me that pirating an old version of my program could improve my sales by improving my visibility (i.e. people try the old pirated version and want to buy the new one for its new features or whatever, give how an old full version does arguably less than even the (latest) demo version), I even gave the cracked version of the initial release for someone to leak it, but it didn't catch on and is nowhere to be found...
You just got troll'd!
And tell me, how am I supposed to be paid for my work when I haven't done any work yet, as you suggested? Oh wait, I already asked you for a real answer to that and you refused to answer under the pretence of apathy.
No, the question you asked before was about maximizing your profits. Now you're asking a different question, which I will happily answer.
The way you can be paid for your work when you haven't done any work yet is, quite simply, the same way everyone else does it. This is a business model that's been used for centuries. It's the same way you pay for haircuts, landscaping, day care, accounting, or any other service.
You have a couple choices: you can get someone to promise you money beforehand, then you do the work, then you get the money. Or you can get someone to actually give you the money first, in exchange for your promise to do the work. Either way, if one of you holds up his side of the deal and the other doesn't, the other can sue for breach of contract.
So all the fuck you're doing is talking shit about what I do and insulting me and my work while you don't have any fucking clue what I could do better.
As you may recall, you're the one who started with the insults, and I'm not trying to "make things better" for you. I'm explaining a business model that eliminates the problem of piracy. If you don't think piracy is a problem, then feel free to ignore it.
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So by that logic if the guy who writes your pay check writes $20 off your pay check you're not losing anything, but if he's stealing $20 from your wallet then you're losing something.
Correct. One makes me a little less rich than I should be, the other actually makes me poorer.
The difference between pay checks and software sales is that there actually is an answer to the question "how much should I be getting paid?", but there is no answer to "how many copies should I be selling?"
My pay check is set by the terms of my employment. Your sales, however, are set by the whims of your customers. If I work X hours, my employer is obligated to pay me $Y under the terms of our mutual agreement, but no one is obligated to pay you anything.
If they download your software but don't pay for it, you get $0. On the other hand, if they read a bad review and choose not to use your software at all, you also get $0. Are you "losing" money when they read that bad review? Is the reviewer stealing money out of your pocket? Of course not. The only difference is that the pirate gets a copy of your software -- which costs you nothing -- and the guy who read the bad review doesn't. It's different from his perspective, but not from yours.
So if you're going to compare the "net effect" of piracy to theft, then you'd better make the same comparison for bad reviews... and competing software... and economic downturn... and every other reason that someone might decide not to give you their money.
I didn't write an uncrackable DRM, actually my program can be cracked under a minute. The thing is, in order to get the program, you need a serial number appended to your download link, and to get this you need to send me money. Theoretically someone who would have bought it could crack it and release it or not crack it but release it along with his license, but no one's done it so far despite 300 sales, so even if one day someone eventually warezes it it's no big deal.
Heh. How do you think most software gets pirated? Someone buys a copy, cracks it if necessary, and shares it with the world. 300 sales is hardly a big enough sample to conclude that your customers are less inclined to share your software than, say, Adobe's customers.
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There are three assumptions in you argument that I would contest -
My argument is that none of those assumptions are necessarily true, and in my opinion none of them are.
The argument that expensive or obscure projects are difficult/risky to make a profit on applies whether or not copyright exists. If an absence of copyright laws reduces revenue by say 50% then all that does is increase the incentive to be more efficient and produce better work for less money.
I think the bone of contention here is how much of a reduction in revenue would a lack of copyright laws create? As I understand it, you're arguing that the reduction would be great enough that it would make production of a lot of works untenable. I think that all it would do is change the way works are produced. And I also think that there would be a lot of cases where projects would make more money or would even become actually feasible only because of an absence of copyright laws.
There are also the gains to society as a whole to be made from the abolition of copyright. How much time and money are tied up in wasteful bureaucracy create by the copyright industry? How much culture and knowledge are obscured and partitioned away from the poorer members of the population? How many works are unrealised due to the costs associated with copyright issues/disputes?
(1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
You have a couple choices: you can get someone to promise you money beforehand, then you do the work, then you get the money. Or you can get someone to actually give you the money first, in exchange for your promise to do the work. Either way, if one of you holds up his side of the deal and the other doesn't, the other can sue for breach of contract.
And who on Earth in my specific market would pay for that? Let me guess, a software company that would then sell copies to individual users? Yeah, a middleman, that changes everything.
you're the one who started with the insults
Aduh, dumbass, I always start with insults, that's my arguing style. That's not the point, the point is all you did was talk shit and the little you did that wasn't insulting was stupid and short on practical details.
I'm explaining a business model that eliminates the problem of piracy. If you don't think piracy is a problem, then feel free to ignore it.
Like I said in my other post, it's not a problem. Maybe you'd know that if you actually dealt with the business side of things that deals with end users.
You just got troll'd!
Correct. One makes me a little less rich than I should be, the other actually makes me poorer.
Yep, still semantics, which all comes down to the same net result. So, I was right all along and you're a dumbass who likes to make bullshit arguments. And who obviously likes to make them drag the fuck on, I mean come on!
The difference between pay checks and software sales is that there actually is an answer to the question "how much should I be getting paid?", but there is no answer to "how many copies should I be selling?"
The difference is illusory, because practically lower odds of a sale are the same as being paid less money. That's the law of large numbers for you.
Is the reviewer stealing money out of your pocket?
Is your employer stealing money out of your pocket when they write $20 out of your pay check? Yep, dumbass rhetoric question that has no regard for net effects.
300 sales is hardly a big enough sample to conclude that your customers are less inclined to share your software than, say, Adobe's customers.
Moron, you'll put words in my mouth just for the sake of having something to argue, won't you? No one said anything about my customers being less inclined to pirate my software than Adobe's, only that at that point it proves that the problem of piracy isn't important enough for me to care.
I like posting on Slashdot to discuss things and troll at the same time, but let's face it, you're obviously a pretty stupid person, and you try to make up for your lack of intelligence and points to make with stubbornness. This conversation stopped being worthwhile a long time ago. How about you just drop it, I'm not interested in your ideology-fuelled suggestions on how to solve an inexistent problem and in the process make less money, or even your infeasible approaches to business, only making more money. See, you're just an armchair expert discussing things you have no first hand experience with, things which happen to be my business and livelihood. You're just wasting my time, I have little curiosity left for your worthless and misinformed opinions on how I should run my business.
You just got troll'd!
The difference is illusory, because practically lower odds of a sale are the same as being paid less money. [...] Yep, dumbass rhetoric question that has no regard for net effects.
So you're just going to ignore the fact that bad reviews have the same "net effect" on your odds of a sale that piracy does? For someone who claims to only be interested in money, it's amusing how selective your outrage is over the potential loss of revenue.
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And who on Earth in my specific market would pay for that?
If your claims can be believed, there are at least 300 people who benefit from the existence of your software and have demonstrated a willingness to pay for its development, so you can start with them. Or did you just make up that number?
Let me guess, a software company that would then sell copies to individual users? Yeah, a middleman, that changes everything.
Heh, and to think you accuse me of putting words in your mouth just to argue against them.
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Good points. Starting with the simplest (i'm mainly looking at the music industry here) 2) is not really true, while protools has lowered the entry price for 'garage bands' the production of more mainstream successful albums takes expensive equipment and expertise which can't be reduced. It would be very true for the blockbuster movie industry, then untrue again for the majority TV series which are on lower budgets (though this is more guesswork) 3) is certainly not true, marketing is only really an important expense in the popular market where there are a large number of products of similar quality and market presence seems to determine success. In other circles 'word of mouth' is more important.
1) This is very hard to determine empirically, for my opinion I'm working off the assumptions
a) given a choice of what to pay, people will pay a lot less than current retail
b) lowered cost will not increase sales of individual works sufficiently to offset the price decrease assuming all products in the market undergo the same price decrease.
b depends on peoples buying habits, I'm making an assumption that people who are currently forced to spend x amount to get everything they really want would given the choice, buy more items at a lower price but still spend
The other issue with abolishing copyright is plagarism / IP theft, which is an issue even with the copyright system. Granted the current system is unfair to those who are plagarised by parties they do not have the funding to challenge legally but there is a lot of theft it currently prevents.
I Am Not A Lawyer, but theoretically a lawyer would understand that "copyright infringement" and "theft" are different things. Theft deprives someone of property(Yes, theft can have a broader meaning, but under that broader meaning murder is theft, too). Copyright infringement deprives someone from exercising their limited-term(and limited-scope) monopoly.
This doesn't mean that copyright infringement is okay; just that it's different in important ways when someone steals a CD rather than pirate the MP3s.
All that said, I think you missed the original poster's point, which is that "copyright is not theft", not that "copyright infringement is not theft".
It all comes down to how much you lose/fail to make. I don't know whether or not bad reviews would have worse an impact that piracy, it would probably depend on who does the bad review and how widespread the piracy.
And I'm not outraged over potential loss of revenue, I'm 'outraged' (although that's not the best term) that people would demand everything for free for the sake that it's supposedly the thing to do. Not only they but they insult my sense of business and even my work for not complying with their ideology that origins in trying to justify their greed and turning it into a moral higher ground.
You just got troll'd!
If your claims can be believed, there are at least 300 people who benefit from the existence of your software and have demonstrated a willingness to pay for its development, so you can start with them. Or did you just make up that number?
None of them would have given a dime for the promise that eventually such a program would be made, mostly when nothing of it would exist to show what would exist. I mean seriously, how fucking stupid can you be to seriously think it could possibly work? And also, you want the same people who paid me to be able to use my work immediately to instead pay me, then wait months or a year, and finally getting to use what they paid for?? Really?? Just for the principle that I'd be 'paid for my labour' instead of 'paid for distributing'. Fucking moron, stick to typing code and stay away from any business aspect that pertains to marketing. You're just a cretin who because he gets paid to write code thinks that everything should work like this without any clue or regard for how things really work outside his tiny bubble. Clueless opinionated dumbass.
Heh, and to think you accuse me of putting words in your mouth just to argue against them.
Yeah well, what else was I supposed to infer from your suggestion? You sure can't be blamed for giving too many details.
Love the brown light next to your name, it reads 'Freak', it should rather read 'Butthurt' :D
You just got troll'd!
What makes you think a well known and highly regarded author couldn't make it work for a simple book? It hasn't been tried.
(Perhaps you're thinking of Stephen King's The Plant, but his model for that book was not what I'm advocating. It doesn't matter what proportion of readers pay; what matters is how much money you collect in total.)
The point was that he didn't collect enough to make it worth his time to write more books, I don't think he'd care if only 10% paid if he was able to do well enough to encourage him to write more.
If the author failed to deliver on his promises, then yes, he broke the deal and owes them a refund. If he delivered what he promised but people imagined that would mean something else, oh well, they're only out $10.
Who said anything about failing to deliver what he promised? Even good directors or authors make duds once in a while, which is part of the point. Oh, and I don't think many people (especially now) are going to be like "oh well, its only $10." People will bitch about $0.50. And yes, I've seen people demand (and get) their money back for not liking a movie.
That's for them and the author to work out. It'd be interesting to see what sort of models for group decision making came out of this. One extreme would be "none": the author describes his idea and people either support it or don't. The other extreme would be "everything": people vote on what they want and then an author steps in to provide it.
I don't see that working, for the simple reason that if people are only going to be paying a small amount, its not ever going to be feasible to allow any feedback. And of course it will only take a few times of not having input and not getting what they want to discourage this model in the future.
If your idea was workable, we'd be doing it already.
If you create something, than you can put it to work for you as long as you live and that's great. That's why you did it. For life + is just saying that some people are free to put the deceased's creativity to work for them while others can't even use it without paying this handful of people. Now which one respects the property owner more?
I do not have a sig. You are hallucinating.
I submit that there is an excellent chance your program is worthless from an economic standpoint. Unless you have done something that no one else on earth knows how to do, there is nothing stopping an open source developer from rewriting it and releasing it. Perhaps no one has done this yet—but to me, that means there isn't much demand for whatever you've done or it would have been a priority to the open source world.
Please don't confuse what I'm saying with some kind of value judgment on your work. I'm not slamming it, I'm only saying that a thing's utility and economic value are very different. And I have a pretty good handle on the economic value given the fact that you're posting here on /. instead of skiing down an Alpine mountain while drinking Cristal and eating filet mignon.
Sure, there are outliers, but by and large people who accumulate a lot of wealth do so by creating value for society. I'm sure you can point to individual examples, but can you point to a significant demographic of the population that gets a lot for "doing much less"? I submit that you cannot...because if you could, there would be an influx of people wanting that job...salaries they could demand would go down, etc.
No, I'm not asking that. I'm saying what actually happens, and what people actually do, per the example with the marketing software company I worked for.
Look, if I tell you that I've created this epic application and I'll never update it or extend it or release it for others to work on or support it again, it's done for now and ever and nothing is ever going to happen with it from here on out, would you pay me for it? If you go through the list of software you currently have on your computer and ask yourself that question for each and every one, what percentage of apps in that situation would you still pay for? Not many, I expect.
See, this is exactly what I'm saying. You pirate software why? Because you'd get no value out of paying for it. There's no incentive for you to do so. To you, buying it and stealing it result in the exact same situation...there's no more benefit to you one way or the other. In your zeal to argue, you've proven my point...you yourself are not willing to pay for something that can be digitally mass produced for free.
On the other hand, if you can get people to pay you for something you've done once, great, more power to you. I'm just saying that it's not a sustainable business model across the industry, even though there are small pockets like perhaps you've found, if you scaled your business up you'd find diminishing returns unless you provided ongoing work on it. (Especially once it became popular and someone made an open source knock-off.)
but have you considered the following argument: shut up.
Pft. Not at all. I share to at least 250% when torrenting!
Really though, who is the leech? The person who hears and song and wants to share it with their friend, or the person who through legal means totally and unwillingly financed by masses has obtained a government monopoly on that sound?
It might have made sense when the only way to duplicate things, books, records, etc, was in a studio and that meant that copying was someone specifically taking distribution profits from the right people. When someone's making money, sure, why not conspire to make sure the author gets some.
But today recordings aren't the domain of specialized studios. Since the 70s tape recorders were common and today I've got five nearby devices that record audio/video - not counting actual cameras.
For there to be laws that criminalize recording or sharing environmental sounds (which often include radios, movies, etc) is just ridiculous. Times change.
Get your tax collectors and lawyers out of our lives, leech!
I suggest you anonymously tip off your compliance department if you have one. If you don't have one then suggest that it will work in the short term but come up with a plan to come into compliance or a real alternative which meets your budget and requirements. If all else fails then look do what you're told or look for another job. Keep some documentation in case they come looking for somebody that you were told to do that even when you objected. When you change jobs, if you want to burn bridges then report them to the software authors.
I am even more aware that if you don't financially support things you enjoy, they may disappear.
Sure.
How often do you write a check to the family of whoever coined the phrase 'content creators'?
First off, I've never received a dime for using the phrase content creator.
You benefit from its use. It illustrates points you want to make. You could say a generic "someone who created content" but that doesn't have the same polish, nor does it imply a creator/consumer dichotomy. Without that, how do you paint this as a greed thing?
Common sense, legislation, and a free market govern what constitutes actual original content. A common two-word phrase that is used ubiquitously is not the same as a movie, a CD or a video game.
That's just what seems reasonable to you on the surface. But why shouldn't people who create phrases like that benefit when you use them to achieve your goals, especially where money would be involved?
Throw in a few 'piracy' of 'intellectual property' phrases and you've made it sound like those people who merely don't support patents are vicious murderers.
Poor analogies and hyperbole are only tools that you hope will obfuscate the issue.
Exactly.
People who produce content that others digest deserve to get paid.
Does the goatse.cx guy get paid? Or the cameraman? For the number of views, or intentional views? Does the same standard apply to the makers of Gigli? Should he own the rights to derivative works?
Do they deserve full opening-night rates, or some sort of pro-rated sum based on reviews? How much does a screen-shot in a textbook, illustrating bad technique, cost?
Does Ted Bundy deserve royalties from the news/movies about him and his actions, etc.
Let's stop using words like deserve and quit making hard and fast rules. Instead, how about just remembering "if I care to see this remain, how do I help?"
The point was that he didn't collect enough to make it worth his time to write more books, I don't think he'd care if only 10% paid if he was able to do well enough to encourage him to write more.
Well, he did care. The terms were that he would keep writing if 75% of readers paid a fixed price (first $1, then $2). He got over 75% for part 1, around 70% for part 2, 75% again for part 3, and finally 46% for part 4 after raising the price to $2.
There are a few problems with this model. One is that it doesn't map to reality: the proportion of readers who pay isn't really relevant, because people who read but don't pay pose no additional cost for the author (other than bandwidth). Setting a fixed price would accurately capture the value of the author's time.
Another problem is that this model doesn't give anyone much chance to influence the outcome. If I really like the work and am willing to pay more than my "fair share" to continue it, I'm still only one person. It's a lot easier for me to just write a big check toward a fixed goal than to influence the proportion of paying readers. Also, if there's a fixed goal, we all know how close we are to meeting it, and progress can only move toward that goal; if we're looking at the proportion instead, that number changes with every new reader, and it may move backward.
Who said anything about failing to deliver what he promised? Even good directors or authors make duds once in a while, which is part of the point.
Like I said, the same thing happens in every industry. When you pay people to do something for you, sometimes you'll be disappointed. Whether you get a refund depends on (1) whether they actually broke their promises or whether you just expected something different, and (2) how much they want your future business. People have been dealing with that situation for centuries, and it works just fine.
If your idea was workable, we'd be doing it already.
I don't think so. Playing the copyright lottery is more convenient and more exciting for authors, even if it's financially worse in the long run, and consumers likewise find it more convenient to buy a disc in a box than to pay for development directly. My idea isn't competing on a level playing field, because the current business model is effectively subsidized (by the money we spend enforcing copyright and by the rights we give up).
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You're just a cretin who because he gets paid to write code thinks that everything should work like this without any clue or regard for how things really work outside his tiny bubble. Clueless opinionated dumbass.
Yes, that's what you tell yourself. But of course you know it's not true, which is why you've become so insecure that you're punctuating every sentence with an insult.
Yeah well, what else was I supposed to infer from your suggestion?
A real entrepreneur would've thought through the possibilities. You, on the other hand, are incapable of considering anything other than what you're used to: charging for distribution is all you know, so you assumed it must still be involved.
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And I'm not outraged over potential loss of revenue, I'm 'outraged' (although that's not the best term) that people would demand everything for free for the sake that it's supposedly the thing to do.
Ah, I see. You're confused: no one is demanding anything for free. My only demand is that you don't tell me what I can or can't do with my own equipment and media, or what I can or can't send and receive over the internet. Beyond that, you can charge whatever you want for whatever you want.
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So you've already complained to the president and gotten shot down?
Any PHB with that kind of an attitude probably doesn't give two shits about ethics...and worse yet, by opening your trap you probably set off a few alarms and got a target on your back.
Get into CYA mode right now and document everything.
Oh, and start looking for a new job. The higher ups are probably already scheming of a way to get rid of you before you cause any more trouble...part of which would come up with a plausible enough of a bullshit excuse to make sure their hands are clean.
Your next conversation should be with your lawyer. Particularly since by your own awareness of copyright infringement you could potentially be considered an accessory.
Plagiarism is a completely different beast. Copyright violators are not claiming authorship, plagiarists are. Copyright need not be violated to commit plagiarism, as for instance if a student steals another student's essay out of a locker and hands it in as their own work. Or, if several students conspire to claim authorship of another student's work on behalf of one of them, so that it isn't one student's word versus another, it's many students' word versus one.
It is unfortunate that many are confused on this point, and seem to think that copyright prevents plagiarism. It only stops plagiarism in the same way that tax laws stop drug dealing. We don't need copyright to handle plagiarism. We shouldn't keep copyright for a reason like that.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
You, on the other hand, are incapable of considering anything other than what you're used to
No, I've considered your dumbass suggestions and deemed them stupid. You have yet to come up with an alternative course of action that even makes sense.
Yes, that's what you tell yourself. But of course you know it's not true, which is why you've become so insecure that you're punctuating every sentence with an insult.
lol, oh yeah? Well you're so insecure that you have to respond to my insults to you by claiming that I'm insecure so it reassures you. Or if you prefer, NO U!
You just got troll'd!
Right, that's TOTALLY consistent with the entire discussion we've just had.
You just got troll'd!
I submit that there is an excellent chance your program is worthless from an economic standpoint.
If it makes money (over $13,000 since January so far) then how does it make it economically worthless? I guess it only does only if you go "if X and Y and if Z then your program is worthless". Let's see if that's the way you go...
Unless you have done something that no one else on earth knows how to do, there is nothing stopping an open source developer from rewriting it and releasing it.
Well, what I did was fairly unique, and no one has rewritten it and released it, so what you're saying is "if an open source developer rewrote the exact same thing and released it for free then your program would be worthless". Yeah, that's a pretty big if.
Perhaps no one has done this yet—but to me, that means there isn't much demand for whatever you've done or it would have been a priority to the open source world.
So what you're saying is "your program must be worthless cause if it was worthy then someone would have taken the aforementioned steps to make it worthless". Makes you wonder how any software can be worth anything the way you view things. But again, if you were right my program wouldn't have made $13,000, which it did, so you're wrong that it's worthless, unless you have a definition for 'worthless' that somehow can be reconciled with "makes significant sums of money".
As I've argued in a post of mine you may have not read, open source is only able to compete with commercial programs when the appeal is, to developers, wide enough, and how feasible the task is to them. In my market, audio programs, there's very little FOSS software that compares with commercial programs, except for very trivial things that no one would pay more than $5 for. You can't even find a decent FOSS audio editor. So for something cutting edge like my program, I have little to fear, it's not just about anyone who could do something like this, and if they could they'd be stupid to give it up for free. And to use your style of self-proving argument, I'll submit that someone smart enough to write a program like mine wouldn't be stupid enough to release it for free ;-).
Just so you know what you're talking about, here's the program in question. The FOSS program that comes the closest is the FOSS project of mine it was based on, ARSS, which is a command-line utility, so yeah, doesn't really compare.
And I have a pretty good handle on the economic value given the fact that you're posting here on /. instead of skiing down an Alpine mountain while drinking Cristal and eating filet mignon.
You love arguments that magically prove themselves, don't you? I think the fact that John Carmack posts on Slashdot invalidates that, but I'm not rolling on gold either, although I do make a living off my program, which is in itself quite extraordinary considered what my program is and how not straightforward it is to convince people they need it (let alone pay for it).
Sure, there are outliers, but by and large people who accumulate a lot of wealth do so by creating value for society. I'm sure you can point to individual examples, but can you point to a significant demographic of the population that gets a lot for "doing much less"? I submit that you cannot...because if you could, there would be an influx of people wanting that job...salaries they could demand would go down, etc.
Dude, I work hard and make half the minimum salary. It won't be hard to find people who make ten times what I do while working less hard.
Look, if I tell you that I've created this epic application and I'll never update it or extend it or release it for others to work on or support it again, it's done for now and ever and nothing is ever going to happen with it from here on out, would you pay me for it?
I can tell you that even if you don't tell anyone that then no one will pa
You just got troll'd!
So if a company 'cheats' the system, as in they do not pay for a license then they do not legally have to accept an audit without a court order. However, if a company is legitimate and buys a proper license then they have to legally accept an audit?
Sounds like the safe solution is to cheat the system.
Indeed it is. Glad you're finally catching on.
If everyone is allowed to use their own equipment, media, and internet connection as they see fit, selling copies will cease to be viable: why should anyone buy a copy from you when they can get a copy for free from someone who's willing to share?
Charging for your labor, on the other hand, will still work just fine: they can't copy what hasn't been written, so if they want new software and no one will write it for free, they have no choice but to pay a programmer to write it.
Again, no one is demanding that you do anything for free. If no one is paying you to write code, and you don't feel like writing code for free, then don't write it. One of three things will happen: they'll find someone else who does feel like writing code for free, or they'll pay you to write it, or they'll realize they don't need that code written after all.
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Oh God, when is this going to end. Just wondering, do you often make discussions drag the fuck on for like 20 replies, or are you doing something special for me? If stubbornness could win you arguments you'd have a shot at winning this one.
why should anyone buy a copy from you when they can get a copy for free from someone who's willing to share?
And we've come full circle, so I'll have to repeat what I've said in my earlier posts. because they can't find it anywhere else.
Charging for your labor, on the other hand, will still work just fine: they can't copy what hasn't been written, so if they want new software and no one will write it for free, they have no choice but to pay a programmer to write it.
Shut the fuck up, dumbass. No ones gonna pay you for you to do shit unless they're a company. I don't cater to companies, I cater to individual users, home and studio users.
Again, no one is demanding that you do anything for free. If no one is paying you to write code, and you don't feel like writing code for free, then don't write it.
God damn, how fucking dumb can you be? So your suggestion is, if you're not going to do things the ass backwards way I suggested of getting people to pay for the promise you might do something, then deprive yourself from making any money when you can make some? I've talked to a lot of stupid people on Slashdot, abysmal cretins, morons with delusions of intelligence, but out of them all you're the winner, because you don't only say stupid things, you dismiss any explanation of what's wrong with the stupid things you say and you keep repeating them in the hope they'll eventually stop being stupid. I say bravo!
One of three things will happen: they'll find someone else who does feel like writing code for free, or they'll pay you to write it, or they'll realize they don't need that code written after all.
OK imagine you're that Ford guy. Who's gonna pay you to build cars? Who's gonna build them cars for no profit? Who's gonna sit down and say "well who needs automobiles anyway"? Oh, what's that? That's not the way it works at all? What is it? First you build and market the cars and people decide whether or not they want to buy some and that's how it's worked for mostly anything since the dawn of time? Well what do you know!
You just got troll'd!
For non-profits looking to acquire licenses to get compliant take a look at sites like TechSoup.org. Lots of Microsoft and Adobe software, as well as others at greatly reduced prices ($16 bucks per license for Office 2007). For MS stuff, you can acquire up to 50 licenses for up to 6 titles every two years (with product assurance, if that matters to you).
I'm not tense. I'm just terribly, terribly, alert.
Oh God, when is this going to end. Just wondering, do you often make discussions drag the fuck on for like 20 replies, or are you doing something special for me? If stubbornness could win you arguments you'd have a shot at winning this one.
I'm not "making" anything happen. I'm replying to your messages and you're replying to mine.
And we've come full circle, so I'll have to repeat what I've said in my earlier posts. because they can't find it anywhere else.
Fair enough. You also said earlier that you don't think that will change: you don't think people will share your program once they buy it. Is that correct? You don't need copyright?
So your suggestion is, if you're not going to do things the ass backwards way I suggested of getting people to pay for the promise you might do something, then deprive yourself from making any money when you can make some?
Not at all. If you think you can make money selling copies of your software without relying on a government-enforced monopoly, go right ahead.
Can you do that? You say you don't rely on a government-enforced monopoly, but can you put your money where your mouth is? Because if you're willing to make a legally binding promise not to take any legal action against people who distribute or crack your software, I'll applaud your wise choice, and I just might buy a copy myself.
OK imagine you're that Ford guy. Who's gonna pay you to build cars?
People who want to travel faster than they can on horseback, I suppose. But that's beside the point, because...
First you build and market the cars and people decide whether or not they want to buy some and that's how it's worked for mostly anything since the dawn of time? Well what do you know!
... you've completely missed the distinction between goods and services.
A car is a good, a physical object. If you take a pile of metal and turn it into a car, you can hang onto that car and make sure no one else takes it, which means you can sell it: selling a car means taking money in exchange for letting go of it. If anyone else wants a car, they have to either pay you or find their own pile of metal.
A program is not a physical object. It can be copied at virtually no cost and without you even noticing, and there's nothing you can do to stop that. You can't hang onto it, so any business model based on being able to sell copies profitably is on shaky ground: you can sell discs or downloads, but you'll be competing with others. The best you can do is pray that no one will want to compete with you for distribution, or that your DRM system won't be cracked.
Sure, selling goods has been around since the dawn of time. But you know what else has? Providing services for money. The "world's oldest profession" is a service, not a good. The scarcity in services is in the labor, not the end result: just like the scarcity in software is in the programming labor, not in copies of the compiled program.
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Fair enough. You also said earlier that you don't think that will change: you don't think people will share your program once they buy it. Is that correct? You don't need copyright?
That's correct, I don't directly need the protection offered by copyright. Not saying that I'd fare as well in a copyright-less world, but my business model doesn't really rely on copyrights.
Not at all. If you think you can make money selling copies of your software without relying on a government-enforced monopoly, go right ahead.
Good! Well, maybe you're not that stupid and stubborn after all!
Can you do that? You say you don't rely on a government-enforced monopoly, but can you put your money where your mouth is? Because if you're willing to make a legally binding promise not to take any legal action against people who distribute or crack your software, I'll applaud your wise choice, and I just might buy a copy myself.
Dude, I'm broke, and even if I had the money I couldn't be arsed to take legal action on anyone. See, there's this dude I know of who used the output from the demo of my program in a commercial release, he recorded the output because the file saving is disabled in the demo, when you're supposed to buy a commercial license to be able to use your work in a commercial release. I'm not going after him, I don't really give a crap, plus he's kind enough to write me a testimonial lol. And that licenses thing is bullshit too anyway, I have two licenses, one commercial and one non-commercial, but every single difference in licensing terms is bullshit as far as I'm concerned. That's more like pay me $40 if you want, or pay me $145 if you prefer. Although while I wouldn't take any legal action for anything I still would disable licenses, so that's reason enough not to distribute your license around. And I'm no dummy, I won't advertise "hey it's cool if you pirate me" ;-).
And you've completely missed the fact that software is a good. I know it sounds counter intuitive, but think about it, a book is a good, a DVD is a good, yet they're all information on a media, and could be made immaterial. And if you get a movie, music or e-book online, you might consider it a service, but in reality it's the online store that sells you it that's a service, just like the book store is a service, but you still buy a good. So I sell goods, immaterial goods, even if to further blur things it's bundled with a couple of services, like support or updates. A good doesn't magically become a service because it goes immaterial.
Providing services for money. The "world's oldest profession" is a service, not a good.
Yep, but that's not my primary business. My primary business is, selling a good, an immaterial good. You wouldn't argue that a computer program isn't a good if it was sold as something like a ROM, and that the only way for someone else to duplicate it was to make a forged copy. But at that point the forged copy is no different than a forged Rollex, so you see, it's still all like a good, it's just easier to forge and distribute.
And the ultimate point that will enlighten things : how do you pirate and copy a service? You can copy the distribution service, but it goes together with the bookstore as a service example. You can't copy and distribute a service, you can't copy the services of a prostitute (unless you yourself become one, at which point that's not copying but becoming legitimate competition, which is what you do when you choose to distribute my immaterial goods, you become a competition for my distribution service), you can't copy the services a nurse, of a marketing agency, of a personal coach, of an accountant, and so forth. So software itself isn't a service, cause if it was it couldn't be copied. Making the software is a sort of service (although often enough done not for the end users but done for the distributi
You just got troll'd!
Dude, I'm broke, and even if I had the money I couldn't be arsed to take legal action on anyone.
Not quite as strong a statement as I expected. If you really think you can sell copies of software without relying on copyright, why not put that theory to the test by making a clear, unambiguous statement: "I promise not to take any legal action against any person for redistributing or cracking my software"?
And you've completely missed the fact that software is a good. I know it sounds counter intuitive, but think about it, a book is a good, a DVD is a good, yet they're all information on a media, and could be made immaterial.
The moment they become immaterial, they stop being goods.
A book is a good, but the story is not. A DVD is a good, but the movie is not. A CD-ROM is a good, and arguably a digital download is a good, but the program is not. Only the physical forms are goods.
A good doesn't magically become a service because it goes immaterial.
Right, it becomes information, which is neither service nor good. The number representing a program isn't a good any more than the number representing the speed of light is a good. You can charge someone for the act of coming up with that number (production service) or for telling them that number (distribution service), or you can write the number down and sell a physical copy (a good), but the number itself is just a number.
You wouldn't argue that a computer program isn't a good if it was sold as something like a ROM, and that the only way for someone else to duplicate it was to make a forged copy. But at that point the forged copy is no different than a forged Rollex, so you see, it's still all like a good, it's just easier to forge and distribute.
There's nothing "forged" about it. It's a perfect, identical copy, every bit as good as the copies you're trying to sell. The physical form or the delivery mechanism might be different, but the information itself is the same no matter where you get it.
So software itself isn't a service, cause if it was it couldn't be copied.
Likewise, software itself isn't a good, because if it were, it could only be in one place at a time, and you'd be able to detect when someone was "taking" it and stop them.
Making the software is a sort of service (although often enough done not for the end users but done for the distribution service), and you can't copy that. You can only copy the resulting good created by the service.
Yes, that's mostly right. Programming is a service, and a physical copy of the software is a good. But the software itself is neither.
You can't copy services, and that's precisely why selling the service is a more stable business model than selling copies.
(You can't copy goods either, you can only make new competing goods, but these particular goods are very easy for other people to make. In a fair market with no government-enforced monopolies, you wouldn't be able to sell copies for much more than the cost of making them, at least not for long.)
Actual program you get : immaterial goods, which is why you can copy them.
There is no such thing. If it can be copied like that, it's not a good.
The program is information: not an actual thing, just an attribute of a thing. It's no more a "good" than the speed of light or the color red. A red piece of paper is a good, but red itself is not, no matter how much work you put into mixing the perfect shade of red.
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Again, I'm not making a qualitative judgment, but $13k for nearly a year of sales is small potatoes...it's not like you're going to retire on that. Not that it's a bad deal—I'd love to have that extra bit of money for something I did, for sure...but it's incidental income. (More relevant to this discussion, why have the customers you've got paid you? Is it just that there's no place to steal it, or they otherwise would have?)
You're missing the point...you're looking at it from an emotional standpoint of having a dog in the fight. From a standpoint of purely rational analysis, if something can be had for no money, the value the economy is assigning that item is zero. Any amount paid for it over zero is inefficiency in the market, and if we accept that optimal markets are efficient markets... (Again, notwithstanding ethical and legal issues.)
The way a rational actor that is aware of this system works is by adjusting pricing to correspond with the valuation assigned to the item by the market. That way, there's no inefficiency, and no friction between seller and buyer. Example: if cable providers charged you on a per-show basis, you'd go out of your way to reduce the number of shows you watch (or that are measured, more like). So if you could watch the Daily Show on your TV and pay, or you could set up your computer to download it and transfer it to your DVR and watch it for free, you'd do the latter. Pricing of cable doesn't work this way, however, because that would be assigning value to a show that is economically worthless. What is not worthless to consumers is the service of providing easy access to the show. Consumers pay for cable because it's the service of easy delivery to their screen that they value, and so the cable company charges them for it.
What I've said so far seems reasonable unless you ask: if the service is valuable to the consumer but the individual shows are not, that would seem to imply that all shows are created equal, which we know is not true. Yet, what seems to come out of this economic model is that, if all shows are equally worthless to the consumer and only service is valued, then as long as the service is delivered the consumer will continue to pay...which we know is not true. So for this to be right there must be some actor in the mix that places more value on the Daily Show than other shows.
Indeed this is true. To advertisers, all shows are not created equal. Because TDS gets more viewers, it is worth more to that market. How much more? Easy, just look at ad rates.
It's a bit counter-intuitive, and again, you have to be willing to divorce your own value judgments about things from your economic understanding of them to make sense of it, but that's how it works.
I disagree. I'm sure you believe you work very hard compared to other people, but again, these kinds of subjective judgments have no place in economics. Let's look at what you've written from a dispassionate standpoint informed by economics...
Every day when I wake up and go to work, I am presented with a choice. I can (a) go to a job where I make X dollars with Y effort, or I could (b) go to a different job where I make 10*X for <Y effort. Every morning, I choose (a). If this is really what you mean to say, then I'd say that you're crazy. Why not do less work for 10 times the money if that option exists?
In fact, that option does not exist, or I'm sure you'd take it. The reason you d
but have you considered the following argument: shut up.
Do you really expect me to read all of that?
You just got troll'd!
The free software, or the free informaion about pirated software, or the free money the BSA offers for denouncing software piracy?
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A humanist position would be that which most benefits humanity and human beings. Corporations are not human beings. Money, profit margins, products, economic principles, social systems, concepts, traditions and laws are not human beings. Opposing violence and ignorance in all forms is at the core of humanist proposals. The free flow of information, ideas, and communication benefits humanity. Copying information qualifies as communication, the flow of ideas. So "copyright" and "copy-no-rights" and patent law is censorship, simply. Which is clearly demonstrated by the raids, prosecutions, arrests, spying, censorship, etc on anyone who openly disobeys the copyright law. Yes, the economic systems create diffculties, too.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
Nope...it's clear I'm not going to convince you, so that response is to convert everyone else to my way of thinking. ;-)
but have you considered the following argument: shut up.