Software Piracy Seen as Normal 1032
Spad writes "The BBC is reporting that people don't see downloading copyrighted material as theft, despite concerted efforts by the games, music and movie industries to convince them otherwise. The report, titled Fake Nation, claims that '[People] just don't see it as theft. They just see it as inevitable, particularly as new technologies become available...The purchase of counterfeit goods or illegal downloading are seen as normal leisure practices,' However, they also found that while people are generally not buying counterfeit software from dodgy dealers on street corners, they are still happy to purchase them from people they know at the office/pub/school in addition to downloading them.
Nobody can really be that suprised by the 'popularity' of downloading pirated software, but I was a little thrown by the apparent willingness of people to pay for pirated copies of it."
Not surprising (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Not surprising (Score:5, Interesting)
"He who receives an idea from me receives it without lessening me, as he who lights his candle at mine receives light without darkening me."
I'm sure he didn't refer to an iso of GTA: San Andreas found on a Swedish bittorrent page, but the counter-argument at that time also could have been "Candles cost MONEY, I think I deserve something back for the flame you just infringed upon" or "Do you know how much TIME I used to come up with that idea? Now I might have to work the fields instead of thinking out new stuff in the future"
Re:Not surprising (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not surprising (Score:5, Funny)
+1: Surprising. Use of the world "chandler" in a contextually correct sentence.
--Rob
Re:Not surprising (Score:3, Insightful)
This is like starting more than one cigerette with a match (which was considered unlucky, a superstition most probably started by match manufacturers.)
To go from this story to candle theft is to not get the "piracy is illegal, but it isn't *theft*" ar
164 year old prophecy comes true (Score:5, Insightful)
There's Chinese proverb that states: many laws make many criminals. It isn't just that reasonable activities are criminalized; it's that acts that ought to be criminal become more respectable by association.
Unauthorized use of software somebody has created with the idea of supporting himself through selling it most certainly is theft. It is not theft of the work, it is theft of the revenue that the author could expect. Granted, the author can't name any arbitrary price the way SPAA does in press releases; it's ecnomically naive. But pirates don't have a moral leg to stand on: they can't say this thing has no value so I shouldn't pay for it; if it had no value they would not pirate it.
The problem is that the entire system of intellectual property has become imbalanced, incomprehensible harmful to the public good. In part this has to do with bad laws like DMCA, in part with legal practices like blending licensing and copyright in mass market sales. But nonetheless, the public can't work productively with the current IP situation. One great overlooked advantage of F/OSS is that it is comprehendable. The most complicated F/OSS license is GPL, which (a) is not complicated by commercial license standards (b) standardized and widely used and (c) completely safe for anybody who isn't in the business of selling software.
Lord MacAulay (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a pity he's not around today when some of his targets are getting to be so big again.
Re:164 year old prophecy comes true (Score:3, Insightful)
A good has to be taken from the legitimate owner for the act to be theft.
I don't take the software away from anyone. It's a copy.
I don't take revenue from anyone when I make a copy of something. He still has all the revenue he had before I made the copy. If a is the same as b, then the difference a-b (which is what is removed) is 0, zero, nothing.
Everything else is just wishful thinking. Like, if 10% of the people who pirate Photoshop would buy it, Adobe could buy Microsof
Re:164 year old prophecy comes true (Score:5, Insightful)
No. Piracy of PhotoShop is one of the prime reasons it is unchallenged as an image editor. If every aspiring graphic artist had to cough up hundreds of dollars for a legal copy, many of them would think seriously about the much cheaper alternatives (PaintShop Pro, [until recently], Gimp, Ulead, PhotoPaint, etc). There would be many more if there was a market, but there isn't. If you're poor you use pirated PhotoShop, when you get a job in the field you insist on using it and the company buys it. Pretty much the same way that MSWord became the de facto standard. Consider that though MS and Adobe make a lot of noise about piracy in the Third World, the only time they do anything serious is when countries decide to get honest, and start looking at Linux instead of Windows, for instance. Then MS brings out the hugely discounted version. Until then, they were happy for the pirates to build their market share, knowing that if the economies grew to the point of being able to afford to buy software, they would be already locked in. Adobe has brought out several cut-down versions of PhotoShop for similar reasons, like PhotoDeluxe, which was bundled with scanners and such, to fend off other cheaper image apps that would have been bundled otherwise and obtained a foothold in the market.
Re:164 year old prophecy comes true (Score:3, Insightful)
Using a VCR or PVR to record video and archive it is certainly easier and of better quality than downloads (in general) but it does not solve the problem of accessibility. Most television shows, movies, music, books, etc. are not available for sale in stores and are not played on television. Many of these are available for download on the internet. It's not just price but availability that drives piracy.
Re:164 year old prophecy comes true (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:164 year old prophecy comes true (Score:3, Insightful)
I think you have something backwards.
I won't use the word respectable, but acts that ought to be minor offenses, or even non-offenses, are turned into major criminal acts. Robbing the muisic store at gunpoint and taking some CD's will get you less time than what the RIAA wants you to get for ripp
Re:Not surprising (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not surprising (Score:3, Informative)
"i wasn't gonna pay for it anyway, so it's not stealing"
because it isn't stealing.
Re:Not surprising (Score:4, Insightful)
It's called copyright infringement. Calling it theft, piracy, etc is a manipulative attempt to confound discussion by depicting copyright as a piece of owned property which can be stolen when in actuality it is nothing more than a government run incentive program to fund the arts.
Not too many people will stand up and say that they think stealing someones car is appropriate behavior. Not too many people would say it's appropriate to steal a CD from a music shop. But if you ask them "Do you think it's appropriate behavior for people to borrow their friends CD and make themselves a copy", you find a very different response. Case in point, the article.
For all those people out there who constantly parrot "Whatever, it's stealing" whenever the subject comes up, do stop. It makes you look stupid, it's rather offensive to regurgitate such transparently manipulative crap in a forum that's presumably frequented by more intelligent people, and it rather quickly kills any discussion of the real issue: Should copyright be granted at all, why, and what limitations on its scope will result in the greatest benefit TO SOCIETY.
Re:Not surprising (Score:5, Informative)
" 2 fig. The appropriation and reproduction of an invention or work of another for one's own profit, without authority; infringement of the rights
conferred by a patent or copyright. "
It goes on to illustrate this with a few quotation, the earliest of which dates from 1771.
Re:Not surprising (Score:3, Informative)
It's not "piracy" in the traditional sense, the GP post is accurate on this point. The OED definition (note the 2 at the beginning, denoting a 2nd meaning) was intended to explain current usage of the word. i.e. It's not piracy, but we're gonna call it that anyways, so the definition of piracy needs to be updated to include the new meaning.
Re:Not surprising (Score:5, Insightful)
However Piracy originally meant pretty much what the GP said with respect to sea-going enterprises.
I imagine that definition is still a good laymans translation of most leagle definitions of the word. I don't know that you would be charged with piracy if caught making 2000 bootleg copies of a Brittny Spears album (poor taste perhaps, copyright infringement certainly).
IIRC it's derived from 'privateer' which meant essentially a private ship with one countries official permission to attack the vessels of another country they were at war with. A pirate was simply a privateer without such a letter, and perhaps no particular care as to the targets nationality.
It's an interesting aside that the 'jolly roger' skull and crossbones flag wasn't an identifier of pirates per se, but rather of intent- no quarter given or asked. It took alot of anger to raise that flag.
Mcyroft
Re:Not surprising (Score:3)
The entire English language is made up of nothing more than common usage. There's no committee to decide it. If it's common and common enough to be part of the dictionary, it's part of the language, definitely.
The crimes you get charged with aren't the only thing the offense is called. If you were to physically steal something the offense might be called larcenry or something. Doesn't mean you weren't stealing.
I'm pretty sure you're bac
Re:Not surprising (Score:3)
I did not intend to apear to be arguing for static language, or even 'just because it's in the dictionary doesn't make it so' or any such thing.
I was mearly trying to point out the distiction between common usage and more precise usage that may be needed for a specific argument or in law.
It seems to me some people are getting bent out of shape over whether the usage is good bad or ugly. It seems to me it's sp
Re:Not surprising (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Not surprising (Score:5, Insightful)
I would find the dictionary definition far more relevant than the legal one. We aren't (in most cases, at least) lawyers, and this is not a court. What matters is the subject at hand, and the meanings of the terms "copyright infringement", "IP theft" and "music/software piracy" are clear to everyone in this context.
I find it rather hypocritical that those on the anti-copyright side of the debate so frequently attack the other side for using the terms "theft" and "piracy" in an emotive way, while at the same time insisting everyone should reject common language that's been in use for centuries and use the fluffy-bunny-friendly-sounding "copyright infringement" instead.
I look at it this way: if we're debating the ethics of beating someone up, the discussion is likely to use terms like assault. Technically, in a legal sense, we probably mean battery, or ABH, or GBH, or wounding, or attempted murder, or manslaughter, or murder. The one thing we almost certainly don't mean is assult, since this doesn't (in most jurisdictions) require physical abuse. However, what matters is the ethics, the common language is "assault", and accepting and using that term is a far more effective way to debate those ethics.
To put it another way, everyone on every side of every debate uses language that tends to support their position. Language is not neutral, and probably never can be. However, if the best argument you've got is an attack on language, then you've got no attack on substance. And in debating terms, that's the same as having nothing at all.
Re:Not surprising (Score:3, Interesting)
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But if you ask them "Do you think it's appropriate behavior for people to borrow their friends CD and make themselves a copy", you find a very different response.
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It actually IS appropriate in most of the EU, since we pay a levy on recordable CDs, DVDs and cassettes, regardless of whether we will use them for backing up our own digicam photos/homemade music/downloaded freeware or for copying borrowed films and music. That levy makes me feel OBLIGED to sometimes download films via
Re:Not surprising (Score:5, Insightful)
But enough about language nitpicks. The point of the article was not that many people think that the definition of "stealing", as laid down in dictionary, does not exactly fit the crime of copyright infringement". The point was that many people do not see copyright infringement as immoral, or at most as a minor misdemeanor.
As to your last point: There are some people, myself included, who believe that artists should be able to reap the fruits of their work, and retain full rights to them. I think that copyright is a basic moral right that in principle belongs with the artist, and is not something to be lightly toyed with in order to maximise the benefit to society, as if we're communists dividing up the harvest.
Re:Not surprising (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, there are some people who feel that way, particularly amongst those who have a vested interest in such a system being perpetuated. But, like the article says, people who feel that way are in the minority.
One thing that "basic moral rights" generally have in common is that a person needs to initiate an interaction with you in order to violate them, and that if people just leave you alone, your basic moral rights end up being respected. Like the right to life... to violate that right I must kill you. I can't think of any "basic moral rights" that can be taken from a person without interacting with that person.
But copyright isn't like that at all. You can write a song and perform it, someone overhears you and sings it walking down the street where I hear it and write it down and sing it around the campfire. Not only have I not interacted with you, unless you go running around trying to catch people, you won't even be aware that I've done it. And if you aren't a musician by profession who earns their livelihood by their music, I've done you no harm whatsoever.
As far as your comment about "toying with things in order to maximise benefit to society as if we're communists dividing up the harvest", lets get real for a minute here. Copyright would not exist if it weren't for "societies" resources being used to compel compliance. Laws are ALWAYS about maximising the benefit to society except in cases where the laws are not imposed by the society but by a non-representative ruling body. There is no other reason for a law to exist in a democracy. We outlaw murder because we collectively determine it's a benefit to us all to do so, and worthy of the resources we allocate to preventing it from occurring. We don't outlaw picking your nose because, even though it's kind of gross and distasteful, wasting our resources enforcing such a law isn't in our best interest.
So yeah, perhaps I'm wrong and you really DO have some moral right to come into my life dictating that I must stop singing a song I like unless I meet your terms, even if I don't know who you are and wasn't even aware you existed until you came looking for me. But unless it's in our collective best interests as a society to support cops, lawyers and judges while they look for me and take me to task for violating your so-called moral rights, we shouldn't be doing it.
Re:Not surprising (Score:4, Insightful)
As to your last point: There are some people, myself included, who believe that artists should be able to reap the fruits of their work, and retain full rights to them. I think that copyright is a basic moral right that in principle belongs with the artist, and is not something to be lightly toyed with in order to maximise the benefit to society, as if we're communists dividing up the harvest.
And there are some, from a capitalistic point of view who believe that monopolies are bad, even monopolies on distribution of your own work.
The whole thing with "stealing" is that it is too far from the truth, and implies things that are wrong. When you copy copyrighted works without authorization, you are breaking an artificial (as in "non-natural") monopoly granted by governments in order to encourage people to share their creative works. Not a human right, like life, or freedom. An deal between governments and creators. If the conditions change, that agreement can change. It has changed into an agreement that gives nothing to the governments in exchange of their enforcement of such monopolies, but that's another thing, and it can change back, because it's an agreement, not an inherent human right.
"Stealing" is much farther from the truth than "standing up against an artificial monopoly", because the latter, although strongly slanted, is completely true, and applies completely to "copyright infringement". Of course, nobody calls it that, because they don't want to alienate those that think different, I just ask the same as the GP, that people stop trolling and calling copyright infringement, "stealing". There have been enough discussions here to clarify that point.
piracy is not just a naval term (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Not surprising (Score:3, Insightful)
Is it fair that people be able to give these to eac
Re:Not surprising (Score:2)
His point is that if it's not stealing it's not theft. So it is not theft.
Re:Not surprising (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Not surprising (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Not surprising (Score:3, Insightful)
Pirates are not stealing, they are making an unauthorized copy.
Maybe the people that say pirates are theives should look up the facts, i.e. read the law.
Re:Not surprising (Score:2, Insightful)
Because you are not actually removing the property simply copying it software piracy doesn't actually come under the heading of theft, it comes under breach of copyright.
I also disagree with all the complaints of lost revenue from software houses. Every pirate copy is not necessarily lost revenue. The person may not have ever considered buying the copy in
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not surprising (Score:5, Insightful)
Common sense might even tell you that increasing peoples exposure to varied creative works makes them more creative by inspiring them, makes them more intelligent by exposing them to various ideas and forcing them to decide amongst them, makes them more tolerant of others by increasing their awareness of cultural diversity and enriches their lives.
Common sense might even tell you that copyright legislation harms our society and everyone who lives in it, and that we should take a serious look at getting rid of it.
Have you noticed how uncommon common sense is these days?
Re:Not surprising (Score:5, Insightful)
Calling copyright infringment stealing and getting the public used to acknowledging it as the same only paves the way to introduce laws declaring it as stealing. After they are successful, you won't find it offensive or even concerning when your brother in law serves five years in jail and pays thousands in fines for downlaoding the latest Metalica blunder. Right now people see it as the big corps trying to punish the little guy who cannot afford to pay thier extorionate fees. Wait until file swapper are disliked as much as the welfare families that drain tax dollars from important projects like ball stadiums just because they think they have a right to eat and live.
Re:Not surprising (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not surprising (Score:4, Interesting)
It's exactly the same thing as companies who are against software patents while anyway patenting software: That's not hypocrisy, that's staying in business. You may want to change the rules, but as long as you can't, you still need to play by them.
Likewise, I agree with the GP that piracy isn't theft, by definition. That doesn't make it either agreeable or condemnable -- there are other condemnable things than theft (murder, for example). It just means that it's not theft. However, that doesn't mean that I can just go around in public and pirate stuff. As long as the party with the most force behind it (the government, for example) doesn't agree with me, it doesn't matter what I think. If they think it's theft, I'll be thrown in prison for theft regardlessly of whether it actually is theft. It's not hypocrisy, it's common sense.
Re:Not surprising (Score:5, Informative)
theft (n)
the action or crime of stealing.
steal (v)
verb (past stole; past part. stolen) 1 take (something) without permission or legal right and without intending to return it. 2 give or take surreptitiously or without permission: I stole a look at my watch. 3 move somewhere quietly or surreptitiously. 4 (in various sports) gain (a point, advantage, etc.) unexpectedly or by exploiting the temporary distraction of an opponent.
Re:Not surprising (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not surprising (Score:4, Insightful)
The only fair comparison is taking a picture of a painting and showing it to your friends. The museum receives less traffic, the artist may receive less interest in his work because you took a picture. But the museum still has the artwork and the artist hasn't lost anything, other than future revenue. Which, incidentally, is the express purpose of copyright.
Theft is gaining something, arguably of value, and taking that valuable object from someone else, depriving them of said value. Copying the object may decrease the value, but the object remains, with no possession lost. If anything, it costs the pirate MORE money to make copies and distribute those for free, compared to simply stealing outright, as making copies constitutes money invested with no outright gain.
Re:Not surprising (Score:3, Interesting)
That's the problem with literalism. Semantic gymnastics far too easily can lead to absurdities.
Now you only consulted the dictionary (which is the wrong place to look in the first place since the judiciary does not consult the dictionary to interpret the law but that's beside the point)
If you next appy the same reasoning to the bible or the koran, you'l
Re:Not surprising (Score:3, Insightful)
Why does everyone think everything was invented by microsoft these days?
We were using piracy to describe copying back when I was at school, and that predates Windows.
Re:Piss, whine and moan (Score:3, Insightful)
Wouldn't care to argue Actus Reus though, that's certainly debatable.
Re:Piss, whine and moan (Score:3, Insightful)
Did the author's sales really go down? Can you prove it? If that's true, why are some authors offering up their books for free [craphound.com] on the Internet in the hopes of increasing sales?
Th
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not surprising (Score:3, Informative)
Where the fuck did you get that cockamamie idea? You clearly have absolutely no idea how electricity works. If I don't turn on my 1200kW arc furnace, that's 1.2MW of load that doesn't need to be carried by a turbine somewhere. The water behind the dam, the coal or gas for the boiler, or the uranium in the core needed to generate that 1.2MW is subsequently not used. You're a fucking moron.
People don't mind paying (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:People don't mind paying (Score:5, Insightful)
A legit DVD movie is around 80-120 ringgit* in Malaysia. That's enough money to eat for one or two weeks. Would Americans pay the equivalent of a week of meals for a single DVD? I doubt it.
Try selling at prices people are *willing to pay*, like the pirates do (10-12 ringgit per DVD), and they'll be more than happy to do so.
--
* ringgit == unit of Malaysian currency. 1 US dollar is 3.8 ringgit.
Re:People don't mind paying (Score:2)
Re:People don't mind paying (Score:3, Interesting)
All of a sudden, I get the feeling that the implications of the term "global market" have yet to sink in for some of the big boys...
Re:People don't mind paying (Score:5, Insightful)
As far as I'm concerned Universal, Sony/BMG, Warner and EMI are the enemy and I'm happy to do my part in destroying them utterly.
Re:What is that price? (Score:2, Insightful)
There is no self justification in my post. My post stands on its own merits. People don't mind paying for music or movies at overly inflated prices. They don't seem to mind paying what they consider to be a fair price.
Taking from the rich has never been seen as theft (Score:4, Insightful)
This is because it is thought that the person doing the work of farming had more than enough to feed himself and his family, after all, he's got huge tracts of land and will sell the amount he doesn't keep for himself at the market. What little scraps are taken by the passing beggar will hardly be missed.
The same attitude exists with regards to copyrighted materials. "I, one lone person, can't possibly make a dent in the amount of revenue that the copyright owner will make." (It's the same reason many people don't vote.) And they are correct. Individually, they make no impact on the final numbers. They aren't even a rounding error in many cases. But in large numbers, all these individuals refusing to pay for the material (to the copyright owners) make a huge impact.
When every vagrant takes their "fair share" from the outer ring of a crop field, the crop gets smaller and smaller until the farmer and his family starve.
Re:Taking from the rich has never been seen as the (Score:2)
How would you stop the criminal side of the trade? For example, with marihuana, many have said that de-criminalising personal usage and growing of limited amounts would lead to less money made by the criminals, less crime.
If by the same token, copyright owners would (use modern technology) lower the costs then piracy would not be profitable and people would be less i
Re:Taking from the rich has never been seen as the (Score:2)
But here's where your analogy fails. One, by taking crops to his/her heart's desire, the vagrant denied both the farmer and others from it. That is stealing. However, 'pirates' do no deny others from partaking in media they are 'pirating'. That's the difference.
The second point is that there is no evidence that the 'pirate' would consume the product if (s)he could
Re:Taking from the rich has never been seen as the (Score:5, Interesting)
In Ireland at least, the warning that piracy (of films in particular) supports terrorism, is quite true. While those actually pirating the stuff themselves aren't, those who buy pirated movies at the market, etc., are most likely buying from the equivalent of an IRA high street store. One of the IRA's rackets is pirated goods (the others being smuggled cigarettes, diesel, etc.)
Not sure how true the ad at the start of the movie is in the States, but just to let you know, it's not as crazy as it sounds.
Re:Taking from the rich has never been seen as the (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, but isn't "piracy" such a lovely broad term? you can prove almost anything with it.
Let's look at your argument.
Re:Taking from the rich has never been seen as the (Score:3, Insightful)
What's fair? (Score:5, Insightful)
But are the people asking for charity here people who would ever give the same to us? They claim to be in need, and us to be able to help; but if we are in need, will they help? Will Microsoft ever lower its prices just because it can afford to and it would save us money? Or do they price their software wherever it makes them the most money?
If corporations base all their decisions entirely on their own personal profit, how can they ever expect us to sacrifice our personal profit for their good? Is that fair?
I believe in sharing, but when I share with others, and they don't share back, I stop sharing. I only pay for free software.
propaganda (Score:5, Informative)
Here (germany) these TV-commercials are as bad as the mainstream (streamlined) popmusic. They are without heart. In cinemas they often get booed at. They are even less convincing than the products these guys want to sell.
That's because it isn't Theft (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:That's because it isn't Theft (Score:3, Interesting)
Color me surprised...not (Score:5, Interesting)
Fast forward that to the present: IT'S STILL EASY! Games, movies music are so readily available(for free) i'd be embarassed if i produced any of it. For the less techno-savvy people under us, it's still relatively easy, maybe a magnitude or 2 less, plus they now have a little disposable income to throw around for the sake of convenience, so they might buy the latest movie released from some dodgy bloke out of his trunk. Is this right? NO. Is this illegal? YES! Is it easy? You bet! They're basically doing it because it's convenient, easy, cheap and they've been doing it for years.
Having said that, personally i'm now working and have a lot more money to spend, so i'm buying stuff all the damn time. The solution to all of this: I have no clue, but DRM-short-of-a-gloved-hand-up-the-ass isn't the way to do it.
Because it isn't theft. (Score:3, Interesting)
What's sadder is that the BBC is going along with this campaign of misinformation. They imply that there are only two viewpoints: It's theft, or it isn't a crime at all. Way to inform your readers... not.
Isnt theft... (Score:2)
If I download a piece of software made by NoWares Corp. on eMule, does the NoWares Corp. immediatly feel that they are missing one copy of their software product?
No matter how you put it - Software piracy is not theft. Even if there are pirated 100.000.000 copies of any give software, the "offended" company can still sell a billion copies to anyone.
Software Piracy is just what it is. When will people get that apples != oranges, and that piracy != theft?
Piracy == piracy != theft
Also
Re:Isnt theft... (Score:2)
Just as you're not actually stealing anything,neither are you plundering vessels at sea and brutally murdering their occupants!
You may be right in justifying it as less bad than stealing, in the same way that mugging someone is less bad than murdering them, but the fact is it's still illegal.
The content owners really ought to make a better
piracy is just a natural phenomenon (Score:4, Informative)
> [People] just don't see it as theft. They just see it as inevitable, particularly as new technologies become available...
Userfriendly has hit the nail on the head with this explanation [userfriendly.org] of the economics of software piracy. The costs of piracy had hit companies way back in late nineties, these days the piracy factor is calculated into the initial pricing. Where I was working before, they had estimated ~19% piracy rate for a mobile phone app. It is slowly starting to become a market force for the software industry - and the companies hate that. (price it too high, we'll pirate !)
The american corporate's blood sucking is slowly starting to show on the economy. what price for - America Inc (specializing in mergers with oil rich countries with dictators) ?.Can we agree? (Score:3, Insightful)
In fact, one torrent supplier of rare Star Wars stuff always points out to *NOT* buy stuff from the "Dark Side Dealers" and make copies available so those trying to cash in on piracy can't.
I'd copy Windows, Office or even UnixWare for you no problem - but if I saw you selling copies of any of these I might just kick you in the nuts.
Pay for it? (Score:2, Insightful)
I, too, can't understand why people would pay for copied software. I suppose people just don't have the time to technical knowledge to get it for free. Perhaps they also kid themselves that they are helping a poor self employed buisness man. Who knows?
While I don't condone wide spread piracy there are some types of pircay that I don't have that much of a problem with. For example, go back a few years, you were interested in ray tracing and 3d modelling. You had a choice of pov-ray and coding all the scene
This doesn't surprise me at all (Score:3, Insightful)
And every time there is a ripple of giggles. The more serious and ominous the warnings, the harder people laugh.
For better or worse, most people just don't think that copyright infringement is a serious crime. Most people acknowledge that it is "wrong", but probably regard it as no more serious than eating a penny sweet from the pick-and-mix. I am of the generation that grew up home taping (LPs, CD, Spectrum/C64 games), most of my friends don't see a little low level piracy as being a bad thing, in fact most would say they discovered new bands from friends tapes and ended up buying more (some would be lying, but not all).
The media world has got an uphill struggle before it convinces people that casual copyright infringement is anything like the serious crime they think it is.
Paul
changes (Score:3, Interesting)
"The government has spent millions of pounds to change public awareness of drink-driving and smoking.
"As a society, we need to go through a similar process for creativity and intellectual property."
This isn't the change that needs to happen, and it won't happen. People don't see downloading material as wrong because it isn't wrong: nobody gets hurt by it.
I think big change is required, and the new system should consider these points as axioms:
1. The transfer of digital information deprives nobody of anything, and should be lawful.
2. People who create digital works that society considers desirable should be compensated.
This suggests to me a system whereby the creators are paid once, up front, for their creation, and then it must be freely distributable.
Of course, that's the thinnest shell of a new system, and it would raise many questions and problems. But people aren't going to drop their belief in points 1 and 2, and I see this sort of system as the only way of resolving them.
What are they really paying for? (Score:2)
So, are my friends (and probably the people in the article) really paying for the pirated software?
Too late. (Score:2)
Breach of contract isn't theft (Score:5, Informative)
In order for something to be theft, there has to be an "intention to permanently deprive". You have to take something away from someone. That's the legal definition.
If you copy something, the original is still perfectly usable. Nobody is deprived of the original for a moment.
The copyright "industry's" attempts to equate breach of copyright with theft has fallen upon deaf ears because people aren't that stupid; they know the analogy is stupid from the start.
Bodies which name themselves using the phrase "copyright theft" are open to public ridicule, because everyone knows that breach of copyright absolutely not the same nor even similar to theft.
Re:Breach of contract isn't theft (Score:5, Insightful)
Copyright for unlimited times has no basis in the Constitution, and thus it is legally wrong.
Copyright in the information age is restricting everyone's freedom far more than it promotes "Science and Useful Arts" which is its purpose. Copyright never goes into the public domain which means it limits society's freedom without giving back to society! Binary code is copyright-able, which means it helps only the copyright owner, and does not help society create derivative works in the future (which is, again, the purpose of copyright). Thus it is morally wrong, as well.
The question of whether to copy or not to copy, when paying for the copy is out of the question affects not the creator of the original, and thus it is ethically neutral.
You are wrong on all accounts.
Re:Breach of contract isn't theft (Score:3, Insightful)
That's not theft either. People who "might" not buy something isn't theft.
Otherwise you could say that anyone who gives away second-hand clothes is stealing from clothes shops.
Theft is a very specific, very clearly defined crime; intention to permanently deprive the owner of a physical object. Breach of contract or fail
Actually... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Actually... (Score:5, Insightful)
That copyright infringement is wrong is a difficult case to make; directly it hurts no one. That copyright is wrong is much easier; it directly deprives most people of access to most of the world's artistic work, and also prevents us from doing a lot of great things.
From an economic perspective, copyright is just a very bad mechanism to fund a public good. Copyright infringement, on the whole, most likely increases the efficiency of the mechanism, by increasing the number of copies, and thus the value, of the copyrighted works.
white collar crooks (Score:3, Interesting)
Spoiler Alert
Raising the question of what Tony does for a living, Meadow asks bluntly, "Are you in the Mafia?" Tony replies that some of his money comes from illegal gambling, and probes, "How does that make you feel?" Meadow replies, "Sometimes I wish you were like other dads. Like Mr. Scangarelo, for example. An advertising executive for big tobacco."
If you can handle the sex, violence, copulatory interjections, and (most difficult) the moral ambivalence, rent the episodes and pay attention. It might haved saved the poster of this topic from his career in gormhood.
Pirate goods aren't worth it (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought I was getting a bargain when I bought a bunch of stuff off this pirate I met in a pub, but I later found out that the parrot was in fact dead, and not just pining for the fjords as he claimed, the eyepatch was for the wrong eye, and the cutlass was made of plastic.
Still, at least I didn't feel quite as ripped off as the time I bought a DVD from this bloke I know - he works in a place called "HMV". Paid £20 for the DVD, I did.. what what do I find when I get home and pop it in my player? I'm forced to sit through a bloody two minute intro lambasting me for my evil criminal pirate ways, and how I, personally, am causing the entire film industry's collective children to die a horrible death from starvation. And it was all encrypted so I couldn't (legally) make a backup of it for my own personal use.
Bloody inferior quality goods. I've learnt my lesson. I'm sticking to Bittorrent in the future.
I know loads of good FTP servers... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm lucky. I know lots [gnu.org] of [kernel.org] really [apache.org] fast [postgresql.org] FTP [kde.org] servers [php.org] with lots of high quality software on them. And best of all? It's completely free, and legal.
Re:I know loads of good FTP servers... (Score:4, Funny)
Remember kids, knowledgeable computer users only use legitimately licensed software! [microsoft.com]
Morality (Score:5, Interesting)
We often say the moral action is the one that brings the greatest benefit to the largest number of people.
Therefore copying software, many gain something for free, at the cost of depriving a few of income.
By the above argument you have a moral obligation to copy as much software as possible... Or the justification for 'moral-war' is invalid. Both cannot be true as that would be a self contradiction.
You could argue that by copying, people will stop writing software - but that is obviously rubbish as we can see from the free-software movement.
Besides, if people stop writing generic software because of piracy, people will have to pay programmers directly to adapt free software to their needs. If the ammount of money available to invest in new software is constant - more money will now be spent on new features and entirely new software products... In other words copying software stops companies writing one product and then sitting back and collecting money for effectively doing nothing.
Should people decide ? (Score:3, Insightful)
But I was wondering about the bigger picture here. If the public at large condones such behavior and doesn't see it as a crime, should it NOT be a crime in the legal sense?
If laws and guverment are put in place to represent 'the people' shouldn't they reflect the people's view?
Here I'm thinking of: illegal downloading, speed limits, ID cards, airport security checks and other laws that differ from the general public's view.
Richard
Re:Should people decide ? (Score:3, Insightful)
What exactly are you proposing? That we abolish copyrights? Patents? Cut their time limits? Enable use right that allow for unlimited copying of music, software, books and movies? Do you understand that there will be economic consequences to the industries that produce these media?
Someone actually make a real proposal for a soluti
No surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
And no, folks, it is not meant to reward authors.
Copyright has for a long time stood without legal basis (Violating the "Limited Times" clause), but for the last 20 years, its also violating its original purposes.
Lets restore the original copyright:
1. Limit all copyright times to the minimum required to pay back for creation costs (along the lines of 5 years).
2. Cancel copyright on functional information (such as software). The power it grants the copyright holder over its user, even in a limited time, is too great. Software creation, in most cases, requires little to no financial incentive, and in niche cases where it does, payment to programmers is still possible.
3. Allow copyright, but only apply it to inter-legal-entities copying. This would mean that EULA's have no effect (You really shouldn't need extra permission from the copyright owner to run the copy you bought!).
4. Disallow copyright of the binary-form of software and creations. Only allow copyrighting Software in source form (And yes, music in its "source" forms). This is because copyright is all about making the derivative works possible in the future, in order to grow society's information base. You can make derivative works from public-domain software source, but you cannot make derivative works from binary blobs, even if they go into the public domain. How does it promote Science and Useful Arts to create dead-end pieces of information?
You have got to be kidding me (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't understand how this comment gets modded +5 Insightful with no dissenting opinions on a forum for computer technology professionals. When did the average Slashdot moderator become a warez kid?
How else could I explain such support for cancelling copyright on software? Software patents yes, copyrights no. I know this is an open source community but you can't seriously believe that you should ban closed source software development.
Open source is great, forcing open source on companies isn't. If someone should decide not to disclose source for his program, that should be up to him, it shouldn't be up to the warez kids to scoop it up and claim "oh, but I am entitled to violate the contract because of my interpretation of the historical meaning of copyright."
All software isn't fun to develop, and even if it is, you can't waste time trying to assemble a team of dedicated and qualified volunteers to work on your huge project. That's why finanical incentives sometimes are necessary. And don't forget that developers are being paid as we speak to develop open source software.
As is often repeated, most software development is done in-house. If a company develops a tool for itself, do you really believe a competing company should be allowed to use that tool without the creator's permission just because it is in binary form? Even the GPL enforces terms on binaries.
Finally, don't forget that the distinction between binary and source is only in your head. Assembly language may very well be the only source for some programs.
No way. (Score:4, Insightful)
Progressing art & science in a market system usually implies innovation, and innovation usually implies profit. Profit isn't necessarily a reward, though it could be used as such. Profit's function in an economic system is covering the costs & risks of future development.
Limit all copyright times to the minimum required to pay back for creation costs (along the lines of 5 years).
Limiting terms is fine, and the current trend for unlimited extensions is dangerous, but I disagree that it's about covering creation costs. It's about creating a market for content, thus ensuring revenue flow for the creation of future works.
Cancel copyright on functional information (such as software). The power it grants the copyright holder over its user, even in a limited time, is too great.
I'm curious why you would think this. Copyright is what allows things like the GPL to exist. Without it, you don't have a community of open source with forced contributions, you have public domain artifacts.
Software creation, in most cases, requires little to no financial incentive
In most cases? In general, this could be applicable to any profession in which one gains pride and/or fellowship from their work -- Habitat for Humanity building houses, or Amish barn raisings at one end of the spectrum, pro-bono legal work as another example.
Just because financial needs aren't the ONLY incentive, this does not eliminate the fact that people need money.
and in niche cases where it does, payment to programmers is still possible.
Niche cases? Those niche cases would be where someone spends 8 hours a day developing software, and thus don't have time to make money in exchange for another form of labour? That's a strange definition of niche.
Let's break out this scenario....
Software creation, as with all forms of human activity, requires incentives. Financial incentives certainly aren't the only incentive. However, if one is to spend the majority of their time creating software, they require financial incentive. That means a wage, or a salary.
Wages and salaries must be paid by people or groups of people that undertake some kind of activity that provides economic value. Thus, they too must have incentive.
In a world where software licenses are no longer valued (i.e. public domain artifiacts), then the value is in:
a) the time you spend (e.g. customization or support time); or
b) the complementary products you associate with the software (e.g. retail websites, advertisments on the web, or selling hardware or business consulting)
c) the usage of the software (e.g. software-as-a-service, metered usage, etc.)
So software-for-hire is developed by a consortium of volunteers in their spare time for certain classes of software plus full-time developers that are remunerated by manufacturers or software-service firms, or consulting / support firms.
Is this the model you seek? Is that really superior to today's model? I wonder.
Most popular open source software today is subsidised by hardware sales, business consulting, support contracts, and advertising (IBM, HP, RedHat, OSDN, Google, etc.).... Is this sustainable if the hardware business starts to falter, or if the business consultants lose large deals?
I do agree something needs to be done about the perpetual tax placed on desktop software upgrades, but I think that's slowly fixing itself -- people are upgrading less as the software becomes more commoditized and clones/alternatives appear. It's a long process, but probably in the next 10 years, Office won't be the cash cow it is today for Microsoft.
Allow copyright, but only apply it to inter-legal-entities copying. This would mean that EULA's have no effect (You really shouldn't need extra permission from the copyright owner to run the copy you bought!).
Hm
Re:No way. (Score:3, Interesting)
Innovation does not usually imply profit. It may require incentive for profit, and that incentive may or may not require copyright. That is why it is so important to remember that the purpose of copyright is to promote Science an
Broken Promises (Score:3, Funny)
It's revenge for not having flying cars and a 3 day work week by now.
It is sharing, not piracy. People like to share. (Score:3, Insightful)
Before the net we used to make mixed tapes for our friends. Loan them books or VHS tapes etc... Now I share TV episodes often sharing the Download effort to get multiple episodes.
I am old enough that I had pretty much bought all the CD's that I was going to own when Napster Hit the scene. I might have bought 1CD in the previous 2 years. Napster rekindled my interest in music. I bought 10 new CD's in my first year of Napstering. But after the lawsuits and my growing awareness of the way the industry operated, I have sworn to never by another RIAA supported CD.
Bad analogies (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, I'm sure this shrill overreaction will work in changing people's minds... 'cause getting that copy of Batman Begins is definitely the same as driving a car while drunk, endangering and possibly killing innocent bystanders.
The problem faced by the Content Cartel and their lackeys is this: Copyright infringement is in fact not as serious as these "sexier" crimes. People won't take it seriously because the harm is of an entirely different type.
My Mars Bar Analogy (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's say a teenager goes into a supermarket and steals a Mars Bar. After the teenager took it, that then meant that there was one less Mars Bar *physically on the shelf.* The Mars Bar is a physical object. So the supermarket has to suffer a loss on the money they were expecting to make from that physical object.
Now let's say that same teenager goes home and later that night, uses his T1 cable to download a warez copy of Windows XP. The teenager has downloaded a copy of XP...but in doing so, there has actually been an *additional* copy of XP created...one which didn't exist before...as a result of the downloading process. Nothing is missing from the shelves of any shrink-wrap boxed software shop, either.
So that's the difference. Shoplifting *removes* an item which the store then has to cover the loss of. Piracy on the other hand does not physically remove merchandise...what it really does is to create alternate sources of said merchandise...sources which are not necessarily under the software author's control. The software author might not make the amount of money he/she/they were expecting, but given that software doesn't exist as a physical object, it's a lot harder to quantify with any real accuracy the amount of money you could expect to make from it anyway.
Re:stealing from the rich? (Score:2)
Re:NEWS FLASH! (Score:5, Insightful)
I know I shouldn't feed the trolls, but this is one of those moral/philosophical things that's been pissing me off for some time.
You, AC, a prude. You think the morals and customs by which you live are natural laws, and that there is something defective with anyone who does not follow them. While you and I do agree that certain behaviours are despicable (or, if not despicable -- who are we to judge?), that they are atleast not behaviour we ourselves would engage in, I am willing to accept that fact that what I and the culture I was brought up in consider 'right' are not universals.
For example, I break the law all the time, many times a day. When I'm not breaking the law, it's not because I 'fear the law,' or 'agree with the law.' It's because I wouldn't act in an 'illegal' manner to begin with, because it's against my personal morals.
And similiarly, if I find a law inconvenient or wrong, I have no qualms breaking it.
And anyone who would swear to me, on their own stack of bibles, that something being illegal was the only reason they didn't commit such an act (as opposed to fear of punishment), why, I'm quite positive they're insane, so delusional that they truely believe it.
In closing, you're a prude.
And I have no idea what I originally intended to say.
Oh, wait. Here it is.
Pedophiles may, in fact, be "victims" of Humanity's own preference towards young women. Let's face it: Men who picked Young Women had a better chance of having more offspring, and if that preference for Young Women was genetic, then pretty soon everyone would be a decendant of men who liked young women.
And any woman who could look younger than she was would have a better chance of getting a better mate.
So, in short, you get a runaway Fisher effect -- women keep on retaining their young longer and longer, or stay immature older and older, and men constantly prefer younger and younger women. So it's no wonder there are some males who find children sexually attractive.
Goto any pre-civlization hunter-gatherer group and ask the men there what age they prefer in a mate. They'll say "Between Puberty and First Child." That's rather young, you know.
And considering the fact that those people live pretty much the same way all of humanity did for a damn long time, well. Nevermind.
I should probably point it out, at this point, that I think Pedophilia is a rather disgusting condition.
Also, the only NAMBLA is the National Association of Marlin Brando Look Alikes.
Re:NEWS FLASH! (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, I would make it even more general and say that "of Humanity's sex drive". Its biological purpose is to create reproduction, but it is wildly inaccurate. Just look at the numbers of people attracted to the same sex, or for that matter to a blowjob, which is absurd from a biological point of view. It has been more beneficial to create an extremely strong sex drive which makes "everything" attractive (including stimulating yourself) than it was to evolve a finely refined attraction to male-female intercourse. A shotgun approach, if you will.
Of course, being biologicly advantagous has nothing to do with morality, just numbers. There's been some long and flameful discussions over things such as rape. If mankind was only driven by instincts and emotions, there would be no free will, no morality. Morality is a question of choice, a wolf is neither moral or immoral as we know it when attacking a sheep.
So, to sum it up, despite the attractions a person has, that person also have choices, and those choices have consequences. It may be a reason, but it is not a justification. To take advantage of a very drunk (adult) woman because you are horny is a reason, not a justification. That goes the same for most any human emotion.
The victimization is really a big trend I see everywhere. Victim of his genes. Victim of his childhood. Victim of his education. Victim of his religion. Victim of society. Victim of propaganda. Victim of violent video games. Nothing is your responsibility, nothing is your fault. If we were talking about thought crime, I could see the defense that someone is pedophile by nature. But to commit a crime, he made a choice and must suffer the consequences. Just like the rest of us when we give in to temptation.
Kjella
Re:NEWS FLASH! (Score:3, Insightful)
You are not talking about victimization. You are taking about blame. The lack of distinction is a problem found among people who see everything in moral terms.
Any time harm is done, there is victim. The reason you try to deny their identity as victims is that you want to feel justified in punishing them. Those of us who
Blowjobs are evolutionary (Score:3, Insightful)
Homosexuality is evolutionary, too. In the same way that drone ants or bees who don't themselves breed are evolutionary, homosexuals can help their relatives
Re:BBC = _British_ Broadcasting Corp (Score:3, Informative)
I'm not quite sure where you got this information from, but I don't believe it to be true. Downloading of copyright data without the copyright owner's consent almost certainly is "making an unauthorized copy" under the meaning of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act. It is typically a civil offense, for which you can be sued by the copyright owner. Also, there are many additional circumstances that can turn it into a criminal offence. I recommen