I wasn't trying to dis python, but the point is that
most python programmers (even the ones who are interested in performance) are probably thinking "I want this to be as fast as possible on average", not
"someone (possibly the programmer) will die if this code does not run in 0.05ms. In one case, you're interested in average case performance, in the other you're interested in worst-case.
For most web applications, you only care about average case, but for embedded systems, medical equipment, air traffic control systems, etc, worst case may also be very important.
The advantage of the latter over hashtables is a solid bound on the worst case running times.
Another key advantage, is that RB trees are automatically sorted.
I'd suppose they use hashtables because they're interested in good average case performance, especially for large tables. I doubt they'd care
about worst-case performance -- I suspect that most time-critical code is not written in python.
If the speed of execution of python scripts can be made comparable to compiled C/C++ code, then it would be awesome.
Out by an order of magnitude, and not getting closer any time soon. Last I checked, it's out
by a factor of 100 or so for small operations (loops, etc)
But this isn't a problem in practice -- one can code the speed-critical stuff (whether that be objects, or functions) in C or C++, then wrap them in python, and enjoy all the benefits of python.
Also, it often happens that 1% of the speed of C and C++ is actually good enough. Sounds slow, but only compared to C and C++ which may be well over 100x faster than what's required.
Python programs can never be as fast as compiled code, but if the difference in the speed is not significant, it will be a big win for Python
It is much slower, and unavoidably so. It's a very dynamic language, and this has consequences as far as performance is concerned.
Re:more grammar stupidities from the illiterate
on
Python 2.3 Final Released
·
· Score: -1, Offtopic
My favourites:
lose / loose
your / you're
rediculous
My favourite grammar glitch is ending a question with a period.
Actually, no I wasn't...if POSIX is dictating where SYSTEM FILES live, I think that is completely distinct from "the api you should support", which would indicate that these two things should be seperating into independent specs.
POSIX consists of many different SPECs. They're not really as independent as you might think. For example, it would not make much sense to have chmod work completely differently from chmod()
I guess my point is that people program to libraries, not directly to the OS...so instead of having one big monolithic calcified "OPERATING SYSTEM COMMANDMENTS FROM GOD", instead let each language community come up with standard APIs for *their language* and then map them to the particular system as necessary
The problem is that C and C++ don't do this, and have very good reasons for not doing this. The main reason is that the system API of an operating
system reflects several capabilities and features of that operating system, and the C and C++ language committies have enough to worry about without getting into the business of operating system feature specification. These languages also do not want to access abstraacted features of the
o[perating system -- as low level languages, they
are supposed to be able to directly access kernel-level APIs, specification of which again, is way beyond the scope of the standards committees for C and C++.
This way, the operating system just has to support the concepts in some manner or another instead of supporting explicit API calls,
How does it support those "concepts" ? If you have a chmod command, why not an accompanying chmod () function ? If a pwd, why not a getcwd() etc etc ?
Is is not advantageous to provide to programmers this functionality which is available to sys admins ?
What does POSIX have to do with the standard C library?
POSIX predates the standard C library. UNIX
and C were developed concurrently. ANSI/ISO C-99 did not exist when the first UNIX was written.
We live in a world where C is no longer the only language used.
Yes, we do now.
Why can't the spec be split into "system stuff" and independent "cross-platform (your favorite language) requirements"?
Not sure what you mean here. The point is that these calls are supposed to work in a cross-platform manner. One can provide hooks to other APIs. However, most popular languages already have built-in operating system functions that wrap APIs (perl, python, java, ruby, tcl), and the notable exception, C++, can easily call C directly.
But this is the essential issue: Society is all of us, not just corporations, and we empower the laws in the first place.
Right, I agree with this. However, I also believe that the interests of society (not just corporations) are served by the production of creative/intellectual works, and the production of
such works (usually) requires financial compensation. Even the free riders are ultimately served by the very mechanism that they cheat, because they depend on others to fund the works that they enjoy.
Recognizing a large enough constituency is't 'pandering', it's being responsive to voters.
Free riders, by definition, do not serve the interests of society. Therefore, serving the interests of free riders is in direct conflict with serving the interests of society.
Now one could argue that a relatively high piracy rate is due to prices being "too high". I suppose this is ultimately what you're getting at when you say that the people are making a fairly clear case for lowering prices by their economic choices.
However, I simply don't buy this. I believe the reason people pirate is because they can.
I think we agree that this is in fact a large part of the reason. Ferraris are, IMHO, also "too expensive", yet they aren't stolen as frequently as music and software are pirated. One of the main reasons this is the case is that it is much harder to steal a car and get away with it.
Re:what about small shareware coders?
on
QT 3.2 Released
·
· Score: 1
to them a $1500 charge is *huge*...
... which is why Trolltech aren't that interested in marketing to them. There's nothing wrong with being a shareware coder, but I can understand why Trolltech aren't very interested in that part of the
market.
No, they are not. They are quite different. To produce a copy of an existing creative/intellectual work is not comparable to having produced the original.
If the value of a copy has become essentially nil then what is the purpose of falsely propping up a higher value?
It is not the copy itself that has the high value.
It is the right to enjoy a creative work that has
value. That is why people are willing to spend money on CDs, software, etc.
And since there was obviously creative work done in prior times when there weren't such restrictive and draconion laws in place as protections as there are today, why should we tout our own system as better?
There are a number of reasons. One is that it wasn't cheap to copy until recently. The consumer tape recorder is only about 30 years old.
Another reason is that the economy has changed since then. Production of physical goods is increasingly automated, and brain-work is increasingly more important. For example, is it often more economical to automate a lot of work, and pay the person who designs the automation system. Brain work is no longer merely something to keep the idle and wealthy amused -- it is a critical part of the modern economy.
Thats right, and it follows that if people are obviously willing to pay for the right still but the corporate/legal entities are arguing that they're not that the true issue is one of distribution controls and pricing.
I'm not qwuite sure what you're saying above, so excuse me if I get it wrong --
but I think the issue here is that if the right to enjoy the creative work were conditional on payment, more people would be willing to pay. I think it's being argued that a lot of people are looking for a free ride.
Since the people grant the distribution control in the first place by granting copyright and the people are making a fairly clear case for lowering prices by their economic choices then I don't see what the problem is
That's like saying that we should lower prices to
reduce shoplifting. Society has no interest in pandering to the whims of freeloaders and whiny slashdot kiddies.
More intellectual/creative works devalue each other, since there is a finite amount of money to spend upon each.
A subtle but important distinction you have missed here is that between an intellectual/creative work (an intangible object) and a copy of that work. Obviously, if it becomes easy to copy a work, the value of a copy goes down a long way.
Technology is changing the dynamics of supply & demand more than anyone is "stealing music".
It is changing the supply and demand of copies of
the artistic/intellectual works. This merely means that it's cheap to copy those works. It does not mean that the work itself is less valuable, and it does not mean that people will no longer be willing to pay for the right to enjoy the benefits of these works.
Just because you can try to legislate artificial supply bottlenecks doesn't mean that you're right to do so.
Well, of course. "because I can" is never a morally just reason. However, it is you and not I
who makes that argument (That because intellectual works can easily be copied, they should be)
THere are a lot of laws that are easy to break,
but that doesn't mean that those laws do not serve a useful purpose.
Horse carriages are far from valueless either, that doesn't change the fact that they aren't as intrinsically valuable now that technology has made them so.
Technology makes creative and intellectual works more valuable, not less so, because the production of physical goods becomes increasingly automated, which means that more people spend more time doing "brain work".
Your 'more modern' economy is simply changing faster than you seem to give it credit,
Perhaps, buyt the changes have nothing to do with devaluaing intellectual/creative works.
and tomorrow's economy is one where the technological genie can't be put back in the bottle
This is an argument-by-slogan. It can't be refuted in this form, because you're not saying anything.
Ehh, sure, but everyone else on the planet who did NOT buy it, would not be bound by the EULA and hence could copy it without a problem.
No, they couldn't. They wouldn't have a way to legitimately acquire the product without agreeing to those terms and conditions. So for them to redistribute would be much like trafficking in stolen goods -- they are not direct infringers, but they are party to an infringement.
As with patents, if you *really* don't want other people to listen to your music for free then just don't release it to the public.
Why shouldn't he be able to release it to the public with conditions of use ?
Because as soon as you do, it becomes data or information, and as such is copyable.
Yes, someone can enter into a usage agreement in
bad faith. But don't go crying when they get their pants sued off for doing so.
In the end, people have to actually choose to pay you for your work and fining people hundreds of thousands of dollars or putting them in jail for 5 years for listening to it seems a bit counterproductive to me.
I agree -- make the punishment fit the crime. I think freeloaders should be sued or fined. The best way to punish a cheapskate is to take his money.
If I didn't give you the right to make a living on it in the first place then the whole thing would be a non-issue. Copyright is a granted right, something understood by Thomas Jefferson and clearly not by yourself.
Even without copyright, one could distribute music
etc with a EULA that would explicitly forbid copying. The right to enter into a contractual agreement is hardly an artificial construct, and the expectation that a contract will be enforced
in a court of law is something that exists in any
civilised, free society.
Just because someone wants to make a living by selling horse carriages doesn't mean that the government should protect them at the expense of the automobile.
The idea of putting value on intellectual and creative works is far from obsolete. In fact, the trend over the last 100 years or so has been to place more value on such works, and the more modern the economy, the greater the likelihood that
such work is recognised as valuable.
My only question is, how, at $6k/yr, are they going to pay back the student loans for roughly $40k
Are F1 students eligible for student loans ? That's news to me. My understanding is that most of them either have to pay upfront, or get financial support (for example, TA positions)
I'm not sure that I see the point of your argument.
The point is that the examples you cited (early 19th century artists) making money without copyright did not make money from recorded music. One could make money using similar business models, by not recording anything and just using live performances (and indeed, a lot of bands do this), but there is demand for recorded music.
While such demand exists, the questions is, how do es recorded music get funded ?
Incidentally, sound recordings didn't become copyrightable until 1972. (previously all that was protected was the musical composition and the lyrics themselves) If, say, an orchestra performed a piece of public domain music and recorded it, they'd be SOL unless there was some state law remedy. This didn't seem to have stopped them.
This is close to the time that the cassette recorder became available. Before then, technological limitations were still a substantial
obstruction to copying.
Personally, I think that a reform to reduce the scope, availability, protection, and subject matter of copyright is in order. I don't advocate the abolition of copyright altogether, however.
I'd actually take the position that even without copyright, a contractual licensing model (much along the lines of EULAs) would take its place. Copyright is somewhat artificial (in that it's a social contract imnposed by constitutional law), but binding contracts
are not only perfectly natural, they are an essential part of all evolved economic systems.
Without copyright, reverse engineering and redistribution would be legal, so copyleft wouldn't be necessary.
Not true. You could have a contractual software licensing system with or without copyright. You certainly wouldn't be obliged to give away source code of your software, so proprietary binary-only GPL derivatives released under an NDA would be legal.
Re:Illegal versus unethical
on
All The Rave
·
· Score: 1
[snip]
The question is not whether _my_ actions could be universalized but whether one could universalize the original posters actions by downloading rare songs that he deemed "hard to find".
Right, and the other poster pointed out that he believed that one could universalise his actions.
You may disagree with this contention, but it is a
reasonable argument.
Now imagine if everyone acted on this same belief, with the same maxim. Would everyone be morally justified? How do you think the artists would react? What about the record companies?
Realistically ? I think the record companies would
be unhappy about it. The artists probably wouldn't
care for the most part, because the big artists would be unaffected and the small fish would be happy to get the extra exposure.
But that's not central to the applicability of
Kant anyway -- it's enough that the original poster
believes that his behaviour, universalised, would have acceptable consequences.
Is not everyone included in Kant's categorical imperative?
No. Kant's categorical imperative does not ask that everyone find satisfactory the outcome of your conduct being universalised. It is a test that you are internally consistent.
Would society be served?
The problem is this question -- who gets to decide
whether or not society would be served ? The categorical imperative only requires that one believes that ones behaviour universalised would be
good for society. So for example, the categorical imperative does not address issues like self-serving bigotry (because some people may benefit when bigotry is practised on a wide scale). Moving towards the point you seem to be trying to make, the categorical imperative does not
say that it is wrong to behave in a way that makes
musicians and record comapny execs unhappy.
When you act for _yourself_ you are not serving society as Kant was trying to point out.
Sometimes, acting for yourself does serve society,
and sometimes it doesn't. Kant is suggesting that
being internally consistent is a good way to begin (serving society)
[snip]
Re:Illegal versus unethical
on
All The Rave
·
· Score: 1
Is there some downloader board of ethics that can weigh this question?
Try reading about Kant's categorical imperative. This is the principal he was appealing to earlier in the thread -- the question is, would you wish your own behaviour to be universalised ?
Free riders do not adhere to this general principle, because they are essentially subsidised by others. He made an argument that even if everyone adopted his behaviour, the effect on the music industry would not be undesirable.
Right and wrong are all relative. In your mind you think it was ok. In my mind you are just like me, a thief.
You're entitled to put whatever you like in your mind, but unless you are able to present a coherent argument, you will not be taken very seriously.
Again, there are credible moral principles that he
appeals to. So not only is he morally "better than you", he also appears to be considerably more intelligent.
Compensation would still be forthcoming - anyone who needs new and original code written, and can't write code, would be a source.
The problem is that with a lot of software, none of the users have the funds to pay for the software they are using. For example, who has the resources to fund the next Quake ? On the other hand, there are hundreds of thousands of users who are able to chip in for the development of such a game, and willing to pay if that's what's required .
For this reason, society will try to find a means to:
fund development (compensate the authors)
make the right to use the end product conditional upon payment (otherwise it's not in anyones interests to pay. this rules out street performer protocol or any other scheme that panders to freeloaders)
allow potential users to defer financial commitment until after the product is released (rules out "street performer protocol", for example)
Ultimately, the end result of this would be some form of software licensing. IMO software would be
largely unaffected, because software licensing has been moving towards a contractual model for some time. Music would probably be forced in the direction of software (technical anti-piracy measures, EULAs) which would be most unfortunate.
In my experience, the anti-infringement measures make life difficult for casual users.
...
but the pirates, against which the technology is apparantly targeted, are tech savvy enough to work around such things.
I think you answered your own question. The measures are designed to stop casual pirates. The "casual pirate" is the ordinary home user who pays for some software, but has a few shareware apps that haven't been paid for, and maybe an illegal copy of photoshop (for example). Since these users
aren't going to spend hours shopping for "serialz" on the internet, fairly simple protections are good enough. OTOH, most measures are probably not going to be effective against "hard core" pirates.
The freeloader crowd also constantly abuse terms like "information", and "sharing". However, the constant sophistry coming from the propoganda machines on both sides of the debate is not relevant to court cases. The law has its own terminology and definitions, and in court, it is not the sophistry of the propogandist (whether the propogandist is a slashdot freeloader or an MPAA drone) but the legal definitions that count.
Slashdot Mirror
For most web applications, you only care about average case, but for embedded systems, medical equipment, air traffic control systems, etc, worst case may also be very important.
Another key advantage, is that RB trees are automatically sorted.
I'd suppose they use hashtables because they're interested in good average case performance, especially for large tables. I doubt they'd care about worst-case performance -- I suspect that most time-critical code is not written in python.
Out by an order of magnitude, and not getting closer any time soon. Last I checked, it's out by a factor of 100 or so for small operations (loops, etc) But this isn't a problem in practice -- one can code the speed-critical stuff (whether that be objects, or functions) in C or C++, then wrap them in python, and enjoy all the benefits of python.
Also, it often happens that 1% of the speed of C and C++ is actually good enough. Sounds slow, but only compared to C and C++ which may be well over 100x faster than what's required.
Python programs can never be as fast as compiled code, but if the difference in the speed is not significant, it will be a big win for Python
It is much slower, and unavoidably so. It's a very dynamic language, and this has consequences as far as performance is concerned.
lose / loose
your / you're
rediculous
My favourite grammar glitch is ending a question with a period.
POSIX consists of many different SPECs. They're not really as independent as you might think. For example, it would not make much sense to have chmod work completely differently from chmod()
The problem is that C and C++ don't do this, and have very good reasons for not doing this. The main reason is that the system API of an operating system reflects several capabilities and features of that operating system, and the C and C++ language committies have enough to worry about without getting into the business of operating system feature specification. These languages also do not want to access abstraacted features of the o[perating system -- as low level languages, they are supposed to be able to directly access kernel-level APIs, specification of which again, is way beyond the scope of the standards committees for C and C++.
This way, the operating system just has to support the concepts in some manner or another instead of supporting explicit API calls,
How does it support those "concepts" ? If you have a chmod command, why not an accompanying chmod () function ? If a pwd, why not a getcwd() etc etc ? Is is not advantageous to provide to programmers this functionality which is available to sys admins ?
POSIX predates the standard C library. UNIX and C were developed concurrently. ANSI/ISO C-99 did not exist when the first UNIX was written.
We live in a world where C is no longer the only language used.
Yes, we do now.
Why can't the spec be split into "system stuff" and independent "cross-platform (your favorite language) requirements"?
Not sure what you mean here. The point is that these calls are supposed to work in a cross-platform manner. One can provide hooks to other APIs. However, most popular languages already have built-in operating system functions that wrap APIs (perl, python, java, ruby, tcl), and the notable exception, C++, can easily call C directly.
Right, I agree with this. However, I also believe that the interests of society (not just corporations) are served by the production of creative/intellectual works, and the production of such works (usually) requires financial compensation. Even the free riders are ultimately served by the very mechanism that they cheat, because they depend on others to fund the works that they enjoy.
Recognizing a large enough constituency is't 'pandering', it's being responsive to voters.
Free riders, by definition, do not serve the interests of society. Therefore, serving the interests of free riders is in direct conflict with serving the interests of society.
Now one could argue that a relatively high piracy rate is due to prices being "too high". I suppose this is ultimately what you're getting at when you say that the people are making a fairly clear case for lowering prices by their economic choices.
However, I simply don't buy this. I believe the reason people pirate is because they can. I think we agree that this is in fact a large part of the reason. Ferraris are, IMHO, also "too expensive", yet they aren't stolen as frequently as music and software are pirated. One of the main reasons this is the case is that it is much harder to steal a car and get away with it.
No, they are not. They are quite different. To produce a copy of an existing creative/intellectual work is not comparable to having produced the original.
If the value of a copy has become essentially nil then what is the purpose of falsely propping up a higher value?
It is not the copy itself that has the high value. It is the right to enjoy a creative work that has value. That is why people are willing to spend money on CDs, software, etc.
And since there was obviously creative work done in prior times when there weren't such restrictive and draconion laws in place as protections as there are today, why should we tout our own system as better?
There are a number of reasons. One is that it wasn't cheap to copy until recently. The consumer tape recorder is only about 30 years old.
Another reason is that the economy has changed since then. Production of physical goods is increasingly automated, and brain-work is increasingly more important. For example, is it often more economical to automate a lot of work, and pay the person who designs the automation system. Brain work is no longer merely something to keep the idle and wealthy amused -- it is a critical part of the modern economy.
Thats right, and it follows that if people are obviously willing to pay for the right still but the corporate/legal entities are arguing that they're not that the true issue is one of distribution controls and pricing.
I'm not qwuite sure what you're saying above, so excuse me if I get it wrong -- but I think the issue here is that if the right to enjoy the creative work were conditional on payment, more people would be willing to pay. I think it's being argued that a lot of people are looking for a free ride.
Since the people grant the distribution control in the first place by granting copyright and the people are making a fairly clear case for lowering prices by their economic choices then I don't see what the problem is
That's like saying that we should lower prices to reduce shoplifting. Society has no interest in pandering to the whims of freeloaders and whiny slashdot kiddies.
A subtle but important distinction you have missed here is that between an intellectual/creative work (an intangible object) and a copy of that work. Obviously, if it becomes easy to copy a work, the value of a copy goes down a long way.
Technology is changing the dynamics of supply & demand more than anyone is "stealing music".
It is changing the supply and demand of copies of the artistic/intellectual works. This merely means that it's cheap to copy those works. It does not mean that the work itself is less valuable, and it does not mean that people will no longer be willing to pay for the right to enjoy the benefits of these works.
Just because you can try to legislate artificial supply bottlenecks doesn't mean that you're right to do so.
Well, of course. "because I can" is never a morally just reason. However, it is you and not I who makes that argument (That because intellectual works can easily be copied, they should be) THere are a lot of laws that are easy to break, but that doesn't mean that those laws do not serve a useful purpose.
Technology makes creative and intellectual works more valuable, not less so, because the production of physical goods becomes increasingly automated, which means that more people spend more time doing "brain work".
Your 'more modern' economy is simply changing faster than you seem to give it credit,
Perhaps, buyt the changes have nothing to do with devaluaing intellectual/creative works.
and tomorrow's economy is one where the technological genie can't be put back in the bottle
This is an argument-by-slogan. It can't be refuted in this form, because you're not saying anything.
No, they couldn't. They wouldn't have a way to legitimately acquire the product without agreeing to those terms and conditions. So for them to redistribute would be much like trafficking in stolen goods -- they are not direct infringers, but they are party to an infringement.
Why shouldn't he be able to release it to the public with conditions of use ?
Because as soon as you do, it becomes data or information, and as such is copyable.
Yes, someone can enter into a usage agreement in bad faith. But don't go crying when they get their pants sued off for doing so.
In the end, people have to actually choose to pay you for your work and fining people hundreds of thousands of dollars or putting them in jail for 5 years for listening to it seems a bit counterproductive to me.
I agree -- make the punishment fit the crime. I think freeloaders should be sued or fined. The best way to punish a cheapskate is to take his money.
Even without copyright, one could distribute music etc with a EULA that would explicitly forbid copying. The right to enter into a contractual agreement is hardly an artificial construct, and the expectation that a contract will be enforced in a court of law is something that exists in any civilised, free society.
The idea of putting value on intellectual and creative works is far from obsolete. In fact, the trend over the last 100 years or so has been to place more value on such works, and the more modern the economy, the greater the likelihood that such work is recognised as valuable.
Are F1 students eligible for student loans ? That's news to me. My understanding is that most of them either have to pay upfront, or get financial support (for example, TA positions)
The point is that the examples you cited (early 19th century artists) making money without copyright did not make money from recorded music. One could make money using similar business models, by not recording anything and just using live performances (and indeed, a lot of bands do this), but there is demand for recorded music.
While such demand exists, the questions is, how do es recorded music get funded ?
Incidentally, sound recordings didn't become copyrightable until 1972. (previously all that was protected was the musical composition and the lyrics themselves) If, say, an orchestra performed a piece of public domain music and recorded it, they'd be SOL unless there was some state law remedy. This didn't seem to have stopped them.
This is close to the time that the cassette recorder became available. Before then, technological limitations were still a substantial obstruction to copying.
Personally, I think that a reform to reduce the scope, availability, protection, and subject matter of copyright is in order. I don't advocate the abolition of copyright altogether, however.
I'd actually take the position that even without copyright, a contractual licensing model (much along the lines of EULAs) would take its place. Copyright is somewhat artificial (in that it's a social contract imnposed by constitutional law), but binding contracts are not only perfectly natural, they are an essential part of all evolved economic systems.
But there was no recorded music.
The musicians must have been making money somehow.
Whatever they did, it did not involve recording music.
Not true. You could have a contractual software licensing system with or without copyright. You certainly wouldn't be obliged to give away source code of your software, so proprietary binary-only GPL derivatives released under an NDA would be legal.
[snip]
The question is not whether _my_ actions could be universalized but whether one could universalize the original posters actions by downloading rare songs that he deemed "hard to find".
Right, and the other poster pointed out that he believed that one could universalise his actions. You may disagree with this contention, but it is a reasonable argument.
Now imagine if everyone acted on this same belief, with the same maxim. Would everyone be morally justified? How do you think the artists would react? What about the record companies?
Realistically ? I think the record companies would be unhappy about it. The artists probably wouldn't care for the most part, because the big artists would be unaffected and the small fish would be happy to get the extra exposure. But that's not central to the applicability of Kant anyway -- it's enough that the original poster believes that his behaviour, universalised, would have acceptable consequences.
Is not everyone included in Kant's categorical imperative?
No. Kant's categorical imperative does not ask that everyone find satisfactory the outcome of your conduct being universalised. It is a test that you are internally consistent.
Would society be served?
The problem is this question -- who gets to decide whether or not society would be served ? The categorical imperative only requires that one believes that ones behaviour universalised would be good for society. So for example, the categorical imperative does not address issues like self-serving bigotry (because some people may benefit when bigotry is practised on a wide scale). Moving towards the point you seem to be trying to make, the categorical imperative does not say that it is wrong to behave in a way that makes musicians and record comapny execs unhappy.
When you act for _yourself_ you are not serving society as Kant was trying to point out.
Sometimes, acting for yourself does serve society, and sometimes it doesn't. Kant is suggesting that being internally consistent is a good way to begin (serving society)
[snip]
Try reading about Kant's categorical imperative. This is the principal he was appealing to earlier in the thread -- the question is, would you wish your own behaviour to be universalised ? Free riders do not adhere to this general principle, because they are essentially subsidised by others. He made an argument that even if everyone adopted his behaviour, the effect on the music industry would not be undesirable.
Right and wrong are all relative. In your mind you think it was ok. In my mind you are just like me, a thief.
You're entitled to put whatever you like in your mind, but unless you are able to present a coherent argument, you will not be taken very seriously.
Again, there are credible moral principles that he appeals to. So not only is he morally "better than you", he also appears to be considerably more intelligent.
The problem is that with a lot of software, none of the users have the funds to pay for the software they are using. For example, who has the resources to fund the next Quake ? On the other hand, there are hundreds of thousands of users who are able to chip in for the development of such a game, and willing to pay if that's what's required .
For this reason, society will try to find a means to:
Ultimately, the end result of this would be some form of software licensing. IMO software would be largely unaffected, because software licensing has been moving towards a contractual model for some time. Music would probably be forced in the direction of software (technical anti-piracy measures, EULAs) which would be most unfortunate.
but the pirates, against which the technology is apparantly targeted, are tech savvy enough to work around such things.
I think you answered your own question. The measures are designed to stop casual pirates. The "casual pirate" is the ordinary home user who pays for some software, but has a few shareware apps that haven't been paid for, and maybe an illegal copy of photoshop (for example). Since these users aren't going to spend hours shopping for "serialz" on the internet, fairly simple protections are good enough. OTOH, most measures are probably not going to be effective against "hard core" pirates.