CarrierIQ, and the carriers ( AT&T, Verizon, etc ) are not "fucked" as you put it at all.
The basis for all the "evesdropping" and "wiretapping" accusations and laws, include the phrase "without authorization" but when you read the TOS contracts and privacy policies that everyone with cell phone service from a carrier signs and agrees to, they clearly state that device information and usage information is collected. The service contracts and privacy policies clearly spell out that you essentially have no privacy, with the caveat that at least Verizon claims to anonymize the data before they share it. If you don't believe this, the laws and contracts are on the web for everyone to read. Check it out.
For all the lawsuits and illegal activity accusations, its pure politics, because currently, the carriers are well within the law because they have notified everyone in their privacy policies that as a customer of the service you have little expectation of privacy.
There have been alot of comments concerning Google and Android being/not being involved. After having read Verizons policies at least, they state that Verizon can share the information with third parties. This is where Googles involvement *might* come into play. Who is to say, that Google hasnt allowed the carriers to install Android and use it in a commercial environment after modifications, in exchange for your usage information ? Im not claiming this is happening, but merely that the policies that users agree to would easily allow for this.
According to http://source.android.com/source/licenses.html... "The preferred license for the Android Open Source Project is the Apache Software License, 2.0 ("Apache 2.0"), and the majority of the Android software is licensed with Apache 2.0." The Apache license states "6. Trademarks. This License does not grant permission to use the trade names, trademarks, service marks, or product names of the Licensor, except as required for reasonable and customary use in describing the origin of the Work and reproducing the content of the NOTICE file."
So, the trademark "Android" appears to be protected, while the OS itself appears to be open source. A quick search of the trademark database returned the following URL http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4009:ksf9at.2.45... "Owner (APPLICANT) Google Inc. CORPORATION DELAWARE 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View CALIFORNIA 94043." Google appears to own the trademark of "Android" for mobile phone operating systems.
Connecting the dots, one can see where Google, wielding its trademark ownership, which is not part of the Apache license for the software itself, can in exchange for allowing carriers to use Android(tm) in its marketing, receive all of the usage data users agree to allow the carriers to collect and share with third parties.
The rabbit hole is deep.
Comments apply to US environment. Other environments of course, are subject to other laws.
You are ignoring the very real scarcity of the original copy. In doing so, you are saying "the creations of artists, authors, and software engineers have no value, therefore, I an entitled to them."
Free as in freedom is fine, so long as the creator has granted you those rights. Free as in you did what you want regardless of law, or the rights of the creator, is just another "I am entitled to your work" socialist taker argument.
The scarcity is not created by copyright. X amount of real, scarce, food, clothing, water, housing, and computers, are required to create a digital work. This expense is born by the author of said digital work. Copyright serves to allow said author to recoup this very real expense.
People who claim "It's digital, I can just copy and share it at no cost." fail to finish the statement. The complete statement is "It's digital, I can jut copy and share it at no cost to me. Screw the author and his expense for creating the original copy."
The original slashdot article is not about retroactive extensions. It's about Switzerland allowing people to use the products of other peoples efforts without payment. I went looking for statistics on the size of the swiss software industry, relative to other countries, but failed to find them. I did, interestingly enough, find a statistics on financial sector expenditures in IT, and they were quite large. It will be interesting to know what effects the swiss decision has on the industry. Only then can anyone determine if it's good, bad, or otherwise.
As for you using retroactive extensions as an example of rent seeking, I would agree with you that it is. Producing software products and charging a fee for their use, however, is not rent seeking, and is also not monopolistic behavior. It is producing a product of value in exchange for payment, same as any other service or product produced. If society determines that software producers, musicians, artists, and authors, do not have protections of copyright in order to recoup their expenses and investment, then I say fine, so long as I can eat the farmers crops, drive the car makers cars, wear the miners gold, and live in the carpenters house, all for free, without paying for the benefits the use of said items bring.
Well, I spent $200 on food this month. I don't have any more money for food, but I'm still hungry. I'm going to break into your house, and eat your food, and it's okay that you starve as a result, because the earth will grow more food. And its okay that you and your children starve, because I didn't have the ability to buy a Big Mac when I desired one.
The design and creation of a computer software product, by virtue of all that is required to support the humans who produce software, is a limited resource, and if you actually knew squat about software development you would realize this.
Truth is... you don't know shit, except, that you want something, and its okay if you just take it without payment.
I've been caught stealing;
once when I was 5...
I enjoy stealing.
It's just as simple as that.
Well, it's just a simple fact.
When I want something,
I don't want to pay for it.
I walk right through the door.
Walk right through the door.
Hey all right! If I get by, it's mine.
Mine all mine!
-- Copyright (c) Janes Addiction. All rights reserved.
You must have thought this was an instruction manual on how to behave, as opposed to, a cautionary tale and statement on the greed and selfishness of some and the detrimental effects the lack of personal responsibility and accountability can have on society as a whole.
You are claiming there is no physical limit on software products. You are completely ignoring every physical aspect required to create the software in the first place. Programmers are a finite resource. Computers are a finite resource. Electricity is a finite resource. Office space is a finite resource. Food and housing and clothes and transportation to and from work are also. Everything required to produce the software you want so badly yet have no understanding of how it came to be, is a finite resource. You just can't see it, because you are ignorant, which, greedy lazy "other people owe me happiness" consumer, is some stupid shit to argue.
You are calling a software product, an idea, when it is in fact, the realization of an idea, not just an idea. Im sure it is difficult for you to differentiate between the two, because you seem to have lots of ideas, but none of them are based in reality.
In economics, rent-seeking is an attempt to derive economic rent by manipulating the social or political environment in which economic activities occur, rather than by adding value. An example of rent-seeking is the limitation of access to skilled occupations imposed by medieval guilds.
Also
The simplest definition of rent-seeking is the expenditure of resources attempting to enrich oneself by increasing one's share of a fixed amount of wealth rather than trying to create wealth. Since resources are expended but no new wealth is created, the net effect of rent-seeking is to reduce the sum of social wealth.
Are you trying to say that a software products existence, like say, Autocad, is of no added value to society ? If engineers and draftsmen went back to pen and paper, the costs in time and labor would increase exponentially. For other scenarios, there are products that would never exist were it not for design software that facilitated their creation. That is why Autocad exists. Its existence does in fact add value. Also, the people who invested time and effort in creating Autocad, have created wealth. They have no merely manipulated social constructs, they have actually produced a product of value. This is definitely not rent-seeking.
As for the "monopoly" part of your argument, there is no monopoly on CAD software. Market forces will produce software that competes with Autocad, so it is also not a monopoly. Software patents, the mess that they are currently, is more likely to produce a monopoly. Copyright does no such thing.
Yes. The insurance company just shifts the cost to the customers. The same is true of software. The cost just gets shifted to the paying customers, while the pirates who don't pay but still use the software get a free ride and benefits of use they didn't pay for.
That's completely irrelevant. When you steal a car, someone loses something (the car). When you download something, no one loses anything that I am aware of. Not time, money, or anything else, from what I see. Well, the artists might lose hypothetical profit, but I certainly wouldn't call that theft.
The pure act of simply downloading something, is a non issue. Download anything you want. Just don't use it. It is when you "download and use" that the act of denying others begins.
Your logic could be applied to car insurance. You paid $300 for car insurance, then you purposefully destroyed your car and collected $10,000 for its value. You just committed fraud, which resulted in an increased expense to the insurance companies other customers, who now have to pay for the benefit that you received that you were not entitled to.
This is what you are doing when you "use" pirated software ( as opposed to your claim of just downloading it and letting it sit there). You are receiving benefit that you are not entitled to, at the expense of others who have not willingly granted you said benefits.
Are you actually trying to claim, that if it takes me 5 years to produce a software product, and I charge $1,000 for use of the software product, because it will save people the expense of producing their own at a cost of 5 years of effort and $500,000 of expense, that I am participating in "rent-seeking" behavior and attempting to manipulate a market ?
You are out of your mind.
As for my understanding of value. The information on a CD, which costs next to nothing to copy, can in fact be the result of billions of dollars worth of research and effort. It is you sir, who do not understand the nature of the term "value." Perhaps when you decide to produce a product of your own, instead of taking everything you can from other people at their expense without payment, your understanding will grow and mature.
You must not be able to comprehend what TFA said. People still spend AS MUCH AS THEY CAN on entertainment. So the pirate could not pay NancyBoy the artist even if he wanted to. What the pirate did get was enjoyment from his NancyBoy 's product and NancyBoy the artist got some PR (maybe the pirate told all his friends to buy the album). Maybe in the future the pirate will consider buying NancyBoy the artists album because he really liked the last one, or maybe if the album goes on sale and the pirate can afford it he will buy it.
I comprehend what people say just fine. People still spend AS MUCH AS THEY CAN on automobiles. So the car theif could not pay BobBuick the car maker even if he wanted to. What the car thief did was get enjoyment from his BobBuick product and BobBuick the car maker got some PR ( maybe the car thief told all his friends to buy a buick). Maybe in the future the car thief will consuder buying BobBuick the car makers car because he really liked the last one, or maybe if the car goes on sale and the car thief can afford it he will buy it.
Both scenarios ignore the fact that the expense to produce a product, it amortized across the people who pay for its use, and receive benefit from it. Using software for free, and benefiting from it, is no different than using cars for free, and benefiting from it. It raises the cost of software and cars, for the customers who do pay for their use, and denies them of a lower cost. It is theft. Theft in aggregate, not direct 2 party theft, but still theft.
You seem to assume that every download is a lost sale
I do not assume this at all.
As for your justification about all the pirated software you received benefit from... it would seem you are greedy as hell, and the publishers just wanted to get paid for their work. You expect to get paid for your work, don't you ?
As for the utilitarianism of it all.. what you, as a consumer, spend on products, has no bearing on what CompanyA, as a producer, spends to produce a product. Nor does the amount you spend, have any bearing, on the value of CompanyAs product.
Make no illusions. CompanyA is not in business, producing games, to make you happy. They are in business, producing games, to make a profit, and feed their family. Now that you are an adult, working, getting paid, surely you can understand that. You couldn't possibly feed your family, if your customers ( or your companies customers ) had the means to just take the benefits of all your efforts without compensating you for them.
Producers and consumers both need protection when it comes to this issue.
To continue making analogies and pursue your question, shouldn't every work that falls out of publication for some set duration enter the public domain for preservation of our culture?
Absolutely. I do not at all think that copyrights should be extended for indefinite periods of time. This is the opposite extreme of allowing everyone to copy anything they desire, simply because they can.
There must be balance, as other people have pointed out.
If a society fails to protect the production of products, said society will not have nearly as many innovation useful products, products that the society relies on to exist in its current size and state. At the same time, if society fails to protect consumers of said products, then waste / abuse / corruption / fraud etc would be allowed to flourish.
I am not at all for indefinite copyright assignments, nor am I for severely punishing people who violate copyrights. There has to be a balance that benefits everyone, equally, and protects everyone, equally. Where that balance point is I do not know.
However, claiming that an abstract concept like information has a human desire, is alot like claiming love wants the frog by the creek to have sex with my cat.
What is the value of something that can be replicated perfectly, forever. For near zero cost...
Logic says... Near zero.
If it's of no value, then why is there a debate over the subject ?
If it is of no value, then why do producers want protection from pirates ?
If it is of no value, then why do pirates want to copy it ?
As for the greed comment, this shows your lack of understanding. People work to make a profit, not because they are greedy ( although of course *some* people are in fact greedy ) but because of property taxes. In order to nest and reproduce ( ie build a house and raise a family ) a human being requires land. In order to use land, one must pay taxes on said land, annually. Taxes payable in currency, which is kept artificially scarce in order to promote production. This is why everyone has an "occupation." We literally spend our time, occupied, with an activity which benefits society, in order that society will allow us the use of land to nest and reproduce.
Welcome to natural selection as it applies to hairless social apes.
So, if I understand your logic correctly, you deprived me of the ability to build a house, the moment you purchased the exclusive right to use the land on which your house sits. Given that this exclusive right has been extended to you in perpetuity, so long as you continue to pay taxes on your land, I am being continually denied my right to build a house on your land, which used to be in the public domain. Given this situation, the proper course of action I should take, is to build my house on your land anyway, because I want it, and it used to be public land, and refuse to recognize your exclusive use rights ?
Software is not just a "string of numbers" as proponents of copyright infringement claim. Software is in fact, stored knowledge, in a specific unique form. Knowledge that required time and effort to gather, assemble, and mold into a product. No different than gathering raw materials to produce a physical tool.
You are using the ease of which a transgression against a productive person can be made, as a justification for transgressing. "The software is really easy to copy, therefore, the people who created it have no right to payment." By this logic, a human life is remarkably easy to extinguish by any number of technological means, therefore, anyone who's life you decide to deprive them of doesn't deserve protection and you don't deserve punishment for having taken it.
I should add, that criminals, always have a justification for their actions. It doesn't make their actions any more or less damaging, it just allows them to continue their criminal activity and satisfy their own internal moral conflict.
No, you're depriving me of a physical object that I don't have accessible to me afterwards. If you however e.g. copy an ebook I have written I will still have the ebook in my possession, too.
If Software/Music/Movie ABCD v2.0 costs $10 to create, and 10 people pay $1 for it to receive the benefit of it, everything is great, the world is utopia.
When NancyBoy the pirate enters the picture, and receives the benefit of ABCD without paying for it, he just stole $1, collectively, from the 10 people who paid to receive benefit. If NancyBoy the pirate had paid, the cost to the 11 benefit receivers would be $10/11 or approx $0.91. NancyBoy the pirate has stolen money, and permanently deprived 10 people of property.
The physical object argument does not matter, and here is why. A car started out as dirt in the ground. Someone had to mine the dirt, extract the iron, make steel, form it into a car, etc. When you buy a car, you are paying for the labor and time of people who molded dirt into a car. The same is true of software, movies, and music. You are paying for the labor and time of people who organized information and molded it into a product.
The time they spent to produce the software is a constant, it doesn't change according to the amount of people using the software.
The time required to produce the product is a constant indeed. But the expense is amortized by the number of people who will benefit from using the software. Copying and using software without paying for it, is similar to shoplifting, in the sense that, by you not paying for the right to use the product you stole, increases the price that people who do pay for the right to use an item. When you steal a candy bar from Walmart, the loss is spread to the customers who pay for their purchases.
Not really. A software product is already done, the time on it has been spent already whether or not you're using it.
This is just an excuse on your part. You are receiving the benefit of someone elses labor, without paying for it. It's the same situation if you screw the painter. You receive the benefit of his labor without paying him for it.
If a company hired you to work for them, and the company received the benefit of your labor, then refused to pay you for it, you would be outraged. But when you want to receive the benefits of other peoples labor without paying for it, you justify it by saying "It's okay because its really easy for me to copy it and receive benefit without payment."
By your logic, its okay for me to steal your car because I have a screwdriver and I know how to disable alarms and hotwire it. It only took 30 seconds. It was so easy for me to steal it that you don't deserve a car.
Slashdot Mirror
CarrierIQ, and the carriers ( AT&T, Verizon, etc ) are not "fucked" as you put it at all.
... "The preferred license for the Android Open Source Project is the Apache Software License, 2.0 ("Apache 2.0"), and the majority of the Android software is licensed with Apache 2.0." The Apache license states "6. Trademarks. This License does not grant permission to use the trade names, trademarks, service marks, or product names of the Licensor, except as required for reasonable and customary use in describing the origin of the Work and reproducing the content of the NOTICE file."
... "Owner (APPLICANT) Google Inc. CORPORATION DELAWARE 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View CALIFORNIA 94043." Google appears to own the trademark of "Android" for mobile phone operating systems.
The basis for all the "evesdropping" and "wiretapping" accusations and laws, include the phrase "without authorization" but when you read the TOS contracts and privacy policies that everyone with cell phone service from a carrier signs and agrees to, they clearly state that device information and usage information is collected. The service contracts and privacy policies clearly spell out that you essentially have no privacy, with the caveat that at least Verizon claims to anonymize the data before they share it. If you don't believe this, the laws and contracts are on the web for everyone to read. Check it out.
For all the lawsuits and illegal activity accusations, its pure politics, because currently, the carriers are well within the law because they have notified everyone in their privacy policies that as a customer of the service you have little expectation of privacy.
There have been alot of comments concerning Google and Android being/not being involved. After having read Verizons policies at least, they state that Verizon can share the information with third parties. This is where Googles involvement *might* come into play. Who is to say, that Google hasnt allowed the carriers to install Android and use it in a commercial environment after modifications, in exchange for your usage information ? Im not claiming this is happening, but merely that the policies that users agree to would easily allow for this.
According to http://source.android.com/source/licenses.html
So, the trademark "Android" appears to be protected, while the OS itself appears to be open source. A quick search of the trademark database returned the following URL http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4009:ksf9at.2.45
Connecting the dots, one can see where Google, wielding its trademark ownership, which is not part of the Apache license for the software itself, can in exchange for allowing carriers to use Android(tm) in its marketing, receive all of the usage data users agree to allow the carriers to collect and share with third parties.
The rabbit hole is deep.
Comments apply to US environment. Other environments of course, are subject to other laws.
You can have the benefits of my labor for free when you pry them from my cold dead hands.
You are ignoring the very real scarcity of the original copy. In doing so, you are saying "the creations of artists, authors, and software engineers have no value, therefore, I an entitled to them." Free as in freedom is fine, so long as the creator has granted you those rights. Free as in you did what you want regardless of law, or the rights of the creator, is just another "I am entitled to your work" socialist taker argument.
The scarcity created by copyright is artificial
The scarcity is not created by copyright. X amount of real, scarce, food, clothing, water, housing, and computers, are required to create a digital work. This expense is born by the author of said digital work. Copyright serves to allow said author to recoup this very real expense.
People who claim "It's digital, I can just copy and share it at no cost." fail to finish the statement. The complete statement is "It's digital, I can jut copy and share it at no cost to me. Screw the author and his expense for creating the original copy."
The original slashdot article is not about retroactive extensions. It's about Switzerland allowing people to use the products of other peoples efforts without payment. I went looking for statistics on the size of the swiss software industry, relative to other countries, but failed to find them. I did, interestingly enough, find a statistics on financial sector expenditures in IT, and they were quite large. It will be interesting to know what effects the swiss decision has on the industry. Only then can anyone determine if it's good, bad, or otherwise.
As for you using retroactive extensions as an example of rent seeking, I would agree with you that it is. Producing software products and charging a fee for their use, however, is not rent seeking, and is also not monopolistic behavior. It is producing a product of value in exchange for payment, same as any other service or product produced. If society determines that software producers, musicians, artists, and authors, do not have protections of copyright in order to recoup their expenses and investment, then I say fine, so long as I can eat the farmers crops, drive the car makers cars, wear the miners gold, and live in the carpenters house, all for free, without paying for the benefits the use of said items bring.
The design and creation of a computer software product, by virtue of all that is required to support the humans who produce software, is a limited resource, and if you actually knew squat about software development you would realize this.
Truth is
I've been caught stealing;
once when I was 5...
I enjoy stealing.
It's just as simple as that.
Well, it's just a simple fact.
When I want something,
I don't want to pay for it.
I walk right through the door.
Walk right through the door.
Hey all right! If I get by, it's mine.
Mine all mine!
-- Copyright (c) Janes Addiction. All rights reserved.
You must have thought this was an instruction manual on how to behave, as opposed to, a cautionary tale and statement on the greed and selfishness of some and the detrimental effects the lack of personal responsibility and accountability can have on society as a whole.
You are claiming there is no physical limit on software products. You are completely ignoring every physical aspect required to create the software in the first place. Programmers are a finite resource. Computers are a finite resource. Electricity is a finite resource. Office space is a finite resource. Food and housing and clothes and transportation to and from work are also. Everything required to produce the software you want so badly yet have no understanding of how it came to be, is a finite resource. You just can't see it, because you are ignorant, which, greedy lazy "other people owe me happiness" consumer, is some stupid shit to argue.
You are calling a software product, an idea, when it is in fact, the realization of an idea, not just an idea. Im sure it is difficult for you to differentiate between the two, because you seem to have lots of ideas, but none of them are based in reality.
... no costs of producing a digital object there is also no losses to be spread over.
Open up a text editor. Type the source code for Windows 7, compile it, debug it, and post the binary for the entire world to use for free.
Get back to us when your done, and you have the experience to determine how expensive of an effort that was.
In economics, rent-seeking is an attempt to derive economic rent by manipulating the social or political environment in which economic activities occur, rather than by adding value. An example of rent-seeking is the limitation of access to skilled occupations imposed by medieval guilds.
Also
The simplest definition of rent-seeking is the expenditure of resources attempting to enrich oneself by increasing one's share of a fixed amount of wealth rather than trying to create wealth. Since resources are expended but no new wealth is created, the net effect of rent-seeking is to reduce the sum of social wealth.
Are you trying to say that a software products existence, like say, Autocad, is of no added value to society ? If engineers and draftsmen went back to pen and paper, the costs in time and labor would increase exponentially. For other scenarios, there are products that would never exist were it not for design software that facilitated their creation. That is why Autocad exists. Its existence does in fact add value. Also, the people who invested time and effort in creating Autocad, have created wealth. They have no merely manipulated social constructs, they have actually produced a product of value. This is definitely not rent-seeking.
As for the "monopoly" part of your argument, there is no monopoly on CAD software. Market forces will produce software that competes with Autocad, so it is also not a monopoly. Software patents, the mess that they are currently, is more likely to produce a monopoly. Copyright does no such thing.
Yes. The insurance company just shifts the cost to the customers. The same is true of software. The cost just gets shifted to the paying customers, while the pirates who don't pay but still use the software get a free ride and benefits of use they didn't pay for.
There are 3 basic classes of consumers, not 2.
1. Those who pay for software, and use it.
2. Those who pirate software, but would pay for it if they couldn't pirate it.
3. Those who pirate software, but would not otherwise pay for it.
#3 seems to be what the Swiss decision is based on.
I know of has a business model where each for the ten original customers get sent $0.09.
Look at the Japanese health care / insurance system. People get refunded excess premiums paid which minimizes costs for everyone.
That's completely irrelevant. When you steal a car, someone loses something (the car). When you download something, no one loses anything that I am aware of. Not time, money, or anything else, from what I see. Well, the artists might lose hypothetical profit, but I certainly wouldn't call that theft.
The pure act of simply downloading something, is a non issue. Download anything you want. Just don't use it. It is when you "download and use" that the act of denying others begins.
Your logic could be applied to car insurance. You paid $300 for car insurance, then you purposefully destroyed your car and collected $10,000 for its value. You just committed fraud, which resulted in an increased expense to the insurance companies other customers, who now have to pay for the benefit that you received that you were not entitled to.
This is what you are doing when you "use" pirated software ( as opposed to your claim of just downloading it and letting it sit there). You are receiving benefit that you are not entitled to, at the expense of others who have not willingly granted you said benefits.
Are you actually trying to claim, that if it takes me 5 years to produce a software product, and I charge $1,000 for use of the software product, because it will save people the expense of producing their own at a cost of 5 years of effort and $500,000 of expense, that I am participating in "rent-seeking" behavior and attempting to manipulate a market ?
You are out of your mind.
As for my understanding of value. The information on a CD, which costs next to nothing to copy, can in fact be the result of billions of dollars worth of research and effort. It is you sir, who do not understand the nature of the term "value." Perhaps when you decide to produce a product of your own, instead of taking everything you can from other people at their expense without payment, your understanding will grow and mature.
You must not be able to comprehend what TFA said. People still spend AS MUCH AS THEY CAN on entertainment. So the pirate could not pay NancyBoy the artist even if he wanted to. What the pirate did get was enjoyment from his NancyBoy 's product and NancyBoy the artist got some PR (maybe the pirate told all his friends to buy the album). Maybe in the future the pirate will consider buying NancyBoy the artists album because he really liked the last one, or maybe if the album goes on sale and the pirate can afford it he will buy it.
I comprehend what people say just fine. People still spend AS MUCH AS THEY CAN on automobiles. So the car theif could not pay BobBuick the car maker even if he wanted to. What the car thief did was get enjoyment from his BobBuick product and BobBuick the car maker got some PR ( maybe the car thief told all his friends to buy a buick). Maybe in the future the car thief will consuder buying BobBuick the car makers car because he really liked the last one, or maybe if the car goes on sale and the car thief can afford it he will buy it.
Both scenarios ignore the fact that the expense to produce a product, it amortized across the people who pay for its use, and receive benefit from it. Using software for free, and benefiting from it, is no different than using cars for free, and benefiting from it. It raises the cost of software and cars, for the customers who do pay for their use, and denies them of a lower cost. It is theft. Theft in aggregate, not direct 2 party theft, but still theft.
You seem to assume that every download is a lost sale
I do not assume this at all.
... it would seem you are greedy as hell, and the publishers just wanted to get paid for their work. You expect to get paid for your work, don't you ?
.. what you, as a consumer, spend on products, has no bearing on what CompanyA, as a producer, spends to produce a product. Nor does the amount you spend, have any bearing, on the value of CompanyAs product.
As for your justification about all the pirated software you received benefit from
As for the utilitarianism of it all
Make no illusions. CompanyA is not in business, producing games, to make you happy. They are in business, producing games, to make a profit, and feed their family. Now that you are an adult, working, getting paid, surely you can understand that. You couldn't possibly feed your family, if your customers ( or your companies customers ) had the means to just take the benefits of all your efforts without compensating you for them.
Producers and consumers both need protection when it comes to this issue.
To continue making analogies and pursue your question, shouldn't every work that falls out of publication for some set duration enter the public domain for preservation of our culture?
Absolutely. I do not at all think that copyrights should be extended for indefinite periods of time. This is the opposite extreme of allowing everyone to copy anything they desire, simply because they can.
There must be balance, as other people have pointed out.
If a society fails to protect the production of products, said society will not have nearly as many innovation useful products, products that the society relies on to exist in its current size and state. At the same time, if society fails to protect consumers of said products, then waste / abuse / corruption / fraud etc would be allowed to flourish.
I am not at all for indefinite copyright assignments, nor am I for severely punishing people who violate copyrights. There has to be a balance that benefits everyone, equally, and protects everyone, equally. Where that balance point is I do not know.
I am aware of the origins of the term.
However, claiming that an abstract concept like information has a human desire, is alot like claiming love wants the frog by the creek to have sex with my cat.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wishful_thinking
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection
What is the value of something that can be replicated perfectly, forever. For near zero cost... Logic says... Near zero.
If it's of no value, then why is there a debate over the subject ?
If it is of no value, then why do producers want protection from pirates ?
If it is of no value, then why do pirates want to copy it ?
As for the greed comment, this shows your lack of understanding. People work to make a profit, not because they are greedy ( although of course *some* people are in fact greedy ) but because of property taxes. In order to nest and reproduce ( ie build a house and raise a family ) a human being requires land. In order to use land, one must pay taxes on said land, annually. Taxes payable in currency, which is kept artificially scarce in order to promote production. This is why everyone has an "occupation." We literally spend our time, occupied, with an activity which benefits society, in order that society will allow us the use of land to nest and reproduce.
Welcome to natural selection as it applies to hairless social apes.
It is a natural reaction for people to demonize that which they do not understand. It is also the nature of genius to be misunderstood.
So, if I understand your logic correctly, you deprived me of the ability to build a house, the moment you purchased the exclusive right to use the land on which your house sits. Given that this exclusive right has been extended to you in perpetuity, so long as you continue to pay taxes on your land, I am being continually denied my right to build a house on your land, which used to be in the public domain. Given this situation, the proper course of action I should take, is to build my house on your land anyway, because I want it, and it used to be public land, and refuse to recognize your exclusive use rights ?
Software is not just a "string of numbers" as proponents of copyright infringement claim. Software is in fact, stored knowledge, in a specific unique form. Knowledge that required time and effort to gather, assemble, and mold into a product. No different than gathering raw materials to produce a physical tool.
You are using the ease of which a transgression against a productive person can be made, as a justification for transgressing. "The software is really easy to copy, therefore, the people who created it have no right to payment." By this logic, a human life is remarkably easy to extinguish by any number of technological means, therefore, anyone who's life you decide to deprive them of doesn't deserve protection and you don't deserve punishment for having taken it.
I should add, that criminals, always have a justification for their actions. It doesn't make their actions any more or less damaging, it just allows them to continue their criminal activity and satisfy their own internal moral conflict.
No, you're depriving me of a physical object that I don't have accessible to me afterwards. If you however e.g. copy an ebook I have written I will still have the ebook in my possession, too.
If Software/Music/Movie ABCD v2.0 costs $10 to create, and 10 people pay $1 for it to receive the benefit of it, everything is great, the world is utopia.
When NancyBoy the pirate enters the picture, and receives the benefit of ABCD without paying for it, he just stole $1, collectively, from the 10 people who paid to receive benefit. If NancyBoy the pirate had paid, the cost to the 11 benefit receivers would be $10/11 or approx $0.91. NancyBoy the pirate has stolen money, and permanently deprived 10 people of property.
The physical object argument does not matter, and here is why. A car started out as dirt in the ground. Someone had to mine the dirt, extract the iron, make steel, form it into a car, etc. When you buy a car, you are paying for the labor and time of people who molded dirt into a car. The same is true of software, movies, and music. You are paying for the labor and time of people who organized information and molded it into a product.
The time they spent to produce the software is a constant, it doesn't change according to the amount of people using the software.
The time required to produce the product is a constant indeed. But the expense is amortized by the number of people who will benefit from using the software. Copying and using software without paying for it, is similar to shoplifting, in the sense that, by you not paying for the right to use the product you stole, increases the price that people who do pay for the right to use an item. When you steal a candy bar from Walmart, the loss is spread to the customers who pay for their purchases.
Not really. A software product is already done, the time on it has been spent already whether or not you're using it.
This is just an excuse on your part. You are receiving the benefit of someone elses labor, without paying for it. It's the same situation if you screw the painter. You receive the benefit of his labor without paying him for it.
If a company hired you to work for them, and the company received the benefit of your labor, then refused to pay you for it, you would be outraged. But when you want to receive the benefits of other peoples labor without paying for it, you justify it by saying "It's okay because its really easy for me to copy it and receive benefit without payment."
By your logic, its okay for me to steal your car because I have a screwdriver and I know how to disable alarms and hotwire it. It only took 30 seconds. It was so easy for me to steal it that you don't deserve a car.
Face it: Information is meant to be public.
This is a euphamism for "people like to get something for nothing."