286 replies to this topic

[jgrimes80]

jgrimes80, on Sep 4 2006, 09:21 AM, said:

Here's how I put it...

1. Music- Don't care

I use iTunes though... I guess that makes me a hypocrite.

2. Games- Don't care

I do hope people realize the potential consequences of massive piracy which include no updates, no incentive to make another...

3. As a businessman, I will never support the piracy of industrial software for profit.  However, I think it's perfectly acceptable to acquire these softwares (be it, Adobe, UGS, Logic Pro) with strict intentions to learn. In these fields, I think it's VERY safe to say that consumer-end market is minimal to begin with.

I think anyone in a computer based industry is familiar with the demands that candidates be familiar with software being used.  Unfortunately, in here we use VERY little software worth acquiring a license for personal use.  

Just to give an idea:
My marketer(s) use the entire Adobe suite, plus Final Cut/Keynote.
My engineer(s) use Pro/E Wildfire 3.0 or UGS NX4
My PCB designer(s) use Cadence plus some others...

Not exactly things you can go to the store and get......

I was going to make a point. Then realized, I made my point 2 years ago...  so... yea  

[Danprezco]

I do not think that "Piracy" is a fair name, because I never heard of a pirate taking gold they already have, copying it, then distributing the copy.

I am very, very, very, very, very, guilty of piracy, but I feel no shame because I am not stealing anything from anyone, I'm just taking a copy of something someone else paid for.

[Chris Mills]

OblivionMon, on Sep 5 2008, 03:24 AM, said:

Aye me boy some of us wee pirate lads be not stealers but simply that the software ye be talkin' of is sold by people who be makin' tons of money on the first place boyo-- ye need to understand that we pirates are not thiefs but intelligent shoppers.

Complete bollocks.  doesn't matter whether the software vendor is making serious money or not, theft is theft.

[Ongeloof]

Its Thefft.

But, Is it not better to steal a loaf of bread to feed a staving family, than let them starve?

In our terms, if my iMac gets a bit peckish for some Logic 8 or Adobe Lightroom then i wil have to feed it.


Mark

[m16]

Its not theft. A store isn't losing money. We would never have bought OSX anyway.

[Boot Camp]

It is not theft as theft is stealing a physical object.  And no piracy is nothing like theft, if I were to make an exact copy of your car and drive away in it, would you call that theft?  It is a much smaller crime.

[John the Geek]

Boot Camp, on Oct 19 2008, 08:02 PM, said:

It is not theft as theft is stealing a physical object.  And no piracy is nothing like theft, if I were to make an exact copy of your car and drive away in it, would you call that theft?  It is a much smaller crime.

No, it's not.   It's just harder to catch.

If you were building cars, and a rogue dealer was buying one car and magically cloning it and giving it away for free you'd sell drastically less cars and it would hurt your business.    Software isn't expensive when you nonchalantly compare it to a new car, but if you could not copy software you can bet people would get used to paying for it.   And if they sold more it might be cheaper.

That also doesn't stop people from making free or cheap alternatives, but as the Gimp and PaintShop Pro have proven, free often sucks noodles - and spending business time improving your product raises it's cost.   Piracy steals away sales, even unlikely ones, and hurts software companies.

Not everyone is Adobe.   Some companies live or die by how much work they put in preventing piracy.   Consumers who actually buy the software hate it, and people like you are the cause.

So there's your moment in the sun.

[Boot Camp]

John the Geek, on Oct 19 2008, 07:16 PM, said:

No, it's not.   It's just harder to catch.

If you were building cars, and a rogue dealer was buying one car and magically cloning it and giving it away for free you'd sell drastically less cars and it would hurt your business.    Software isn't expensive when you nonchalantly compare it to a new car, but if you could not copy software you can bet people would get used to paying for it.   And if they sold more it might be cheaper.

That also doesn't stop people from making free or cheap alternatives, but as the Gimp and PaintShop Pro have proven, free often sucks noodles - and spending business time improving your product raises it's cost.   Piracy steals away sales, even unlikely ones, and hurts software companies.

Not everyone is Adobe.   Some companies live or die by how much work they put in preventing piracy.   Consumers who actually buy the software hate it, and people like you are the cause.

So there's your moment in the sun.

I do not disagree with what you are saying, piracy hurts everyone (http://www.adobe.com...iracy/hurt.html).  But I believe theft and piracy are not the same thing.

[JustInSane]

Get your terminology straight folks.  "Piracy" is term invented by zealots with a conservative extremist ideology - designed to demonize their opposition by presenting community sharing as being on par with those who would rape, pillage, lute, kidnap, and demand randsom.  If you're aligned with neocons on this issue, sure, call it piracy to serve your agenda.  But the rest of you should be rejecting such perversions of your position by not using the term.

Copyright has been grossly distorted to the point of countering its original purpose, and it's been going on so long that laypeople have lost touch with its goal.  Contrary to popular belief (and contrary to what Bill Gates would tell you), copyright was *not* introduced for the purpose of rewarding creators.  The real purpose of copyright was to establish a vehicle to saturate society with more creative works.  "Society" was the true intended beneficiary of copyright, not the copyright holders.  Sure, the creators were rewarded with a temporary monopoly as a means to achieve an end result.  It has since been distorted.  The "means" has become the end result, and without sight of the original purpose, copyright is now used to actually prevent the spread of creative works, thus countering its original purpose.  It's no longer a short-term temporary monopoly, but something that can be renewed for over 75 years - even well beyond the death of the creator (eg. Mickey Mouse).  It's being abused by big business to exploit profits -- not promote the spread of culture.  And the situation is exploited to the point where the original creators are poorly rewarded (ref Don Henley - who told his fans once: go ahead and copy my album, I would rather be ripped off by my fans than the record label).

[Chris Mills]

m16, on Oct 19 2008, 06:34 PM, said:

Its not theft. A store isn't losing money. We would never have bought OSX anyway.

It is theft.  You have taken Apple's Intellectual Property and used it without paying for a license.  That is denying Apple their rightful fee.

And FYI copyright laws were ALWAYS about the IP owners.  Unfortunately for most musicians, that is the record label.

[JustInSane]

Chris Mills, on Oct 21 2008, 12:13 PM, said:

It is theft.  You have taken Apple's Intellectual Property

Use of the term "intellectual property" is yet another right wing perversion of the issue, invented well after copyright, precisely to further distort the original purpose of copyright -- by way of claiming ideas as "property".  This term did not exist 200 years ago.

Chris Mills, on Oct 21 2008, 12:13 PM, said:

And FYI copyright laws were ALWAYS about the IP owners.

Bullshit.  Time for a history lesson.  Your use of the term "IP owners" in this context is the first indicator that your claim is false.  Moreover, the original purpose of copyright was "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts".  The intent 200 years ago was clearly to wholly benefit society, not just a select few "IP owners".

You're ultimately confusing the means with the ends -- and we see here that unchallenged acceptance of the term "intellectual property" is what mislead you.  

Once corporate pressure groups get you to accept the term intellectual property, it's easy for them to redefine the purpose of copyright.

[Chris Mills]

JustInSane, on Oct 21 2008, 06:43 PM, said:

Use of the term "intellectual property" is yet another right wing perversion of the issue, invented well after copyright, precisely to further distort the original purpose of copyright -- by way of claiming ideas as "property".  This term did not exist 200 years ago.

Bullshit.  Time for a history lesson.  Your use of the term "IP owners" in this context is the first indicator that your claim is false.  Moreover, the original purpose of copyright was "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts".  The intent 200 years ago was clearly to wholly benefit society, not just a select few "IP owners".

You're ultimately confusing the means with the ends -- and we see here that unchallenged acceptance of the term "intellectual property" is what mislead you.  

Once corporate pressure groups get you to accept the term intellectual property, it's easy for them to redefine the purpose of copyright.

Please get your facts right.  The US did NOT invent copyright (in fact the Ancient Greeks and Romans were also interested in protecting the rights of authors in a non economic way) and modern style copyright was in fact first introduced in the UK in 1709 with the Statute of Anne. NB The act came into effect the following year (as is normally the case with British Law.)

This Act brought in the following

An author being the owner of copyright (intellectual property)

The principle of a fixed term of protection for published works. (Long term ownership.)

So in fact 300 years ago, intellectual property DID exist!  

Here ends YOUR history lesson!

So please don't say bullshit and refer to an act that happened AFTER some modern copyright laws were introduced in western society.

Remember the US is not the whole world.

I therefore maintain that Piracy is theft.

[JustInSane]

Chris Mills, on Oct 23 2008, 06:38 PM, said:

Please get your facts right.  The US did NOT invent copyright (in fact the Ancient Greeks and Romans were also interested in protecting the rights of authors in a non economic way)

This is a red herring.  I did not have to mention the earlier period of time where kings would grant authors a copyright as an act of favoratism with an end goal of rewarding the creator of a work that the king personally enjoys -- because it's not relevant here.  Your original claim remains false.  Copyright laws were NOT always "about the IP owners" - and my link proves there was a higher purpose at one point in time, with rewards to creators being simply a means to achieve that purpose.  You've confused the means with the ends, and deliberately or not, you have lost sight of that higher purpose.  I only needed to show where your claim doesn't apply in one point in time in order for it to fall apart.

Chris Mills, on Oct 23 2008, 06:38 PM, said:

and modern style copyright was in fact first introduced in the UK in 1709 with the Statute of Anne. NB The act came into effect the following year (as is normally the case with British Law.)


This Act brought in the following

An author being the owner of copyright (intellectual property)
So in fact 300 years ago, intellectual property DID exist!

You're confusing the difference between ownership of an idea as property, and freedom to excercise a right.  Again, you're taking modern terminology and superimposing it on a time period where it did not exist -- and where its use as a manipulation tool was not yet devised.

Chris Mills, on Oct 23 2008, 06:38 PM, said:

The principle of a fixed term of protection for published works. (Long term ownership.)

This is a contradiction.  Short-term ownership is indeed fixed.  Long-term ownership is dynamic, with repeated renewals and extensions.

Chris Mills, on Oct 23 2008, 06:38 PM, said:

So please don't say bullshit and refer to an act that happened AFTER some modern copyright laws were introduced in western society.

The legislation doesn't have to be on one particular side of your arbitrary point in time you're calling "modern" -- my case is made by the mere fact that society was the intended beneficiary at one point in time, as opposed to creators.  

Moreover, it wouldn't matter if (for the sake of argument) we decided to deem your statement correct and ignore the past 200 years of copyright, because your whole thesis hinges on a conventional wisdom fallacy anyway.  The past purposes and implementations are not necessarily appropriate today.  Prior to the modern computer and xerox machines, it was perfectly reasonable for consumers to sacrifice their right to copy a work because they didn't have a practical means to exercise that right anyway.  Trading a right that consumers did not intend to exercise in return for more creative works was a good trade for consumers at a time when there were only 4 printing presses worldwide.  The law was not intended to be used as a weapon against the consumers themselves, but rather the few owners of printing presses.  Now that a very high number of consumers have a means to duplicate works, the loss of consumer rights is now significant, undermining the liberties of the majority as opposed to limiting a few.  At a minimum, that deal needs to be renegotiated with clear knowledge of what all parties are giving up if it is to be appropriately effective for the times.  

Chris Mills, on Oct 23 2008, 06:38 PM, said:

Remember the US is not the whole world.

And?  This is a red herring.

Chris Mills, on Oct 23 2008, 06:38 PM, said:

I therefore maintain that Piracy is theft.

Know your audience.  This weasel wording resembles the same propaganda in statements like 'abortion is murder'.  Your audience here is more sophisticated than a 4th grader.  If you were speaking of piracy in the sense of stealing ships, then sure, piracy is theft.  But by using the term 'piracy' to characterize the exchange of ideas, your premise is so flawed you might as well forget about the conclusion.

[madhias]

In my opinion most of the big Software Companies like Microsoft, Apple and Adobe make the big money with Companies.

Private use isn`t the real deal, because the most licences are sold with computers. They can`t calculate how many people would go in the shop and buy MacOSX or Vista or XP or whatelse, but they can calculate how many computers DELL or Apple will sell in a month, or how many Computers Coca Cola Company or Bertelsmann Verlag will need.

So i think almost every woman or man in the world has at least 1 license of Windows 3.11, 95, 98, NT, ... or MacOS 9, MacOSX or whatever at home (I have OS/2 here, Windows 3.11, Windows 95, Windows XP and a §$%&§ repair DVD of Vista).

But i would never buy for private fun use (not making money or business) Fotoshöp, Zinema 5D, Illostratur, Darkroom or Cubeise. I can learn these programs at home for fun, and tell the chief in my work that Photoshop is the best program for imagemanipulation for example, and i can handle it!

Thats my opinion with Software piracy - Software piracy is when you steal a program, print it on an original lookalike CD or DVD in a good looking like the original Cover and sell it over Ebay or on the street! Thats piracy!

[LogicalUser]

anti-piracy organizations would be far better off Somali pirates than after people installing multiple copies of software they purchased.
i mean,  cmon, surely people stealing 35 battle tanks & ammo from a ship on the high seas should be more of a priority!

[applehacker]

the day piracy ends is the day we buy adobe CS4 for a penny.

[Wman]

Personally, I'm poor and just can't afford to spend thousands of millions of dollars on software, but I always pay for software thats either made by a company I love (i.e. Apple) or that's indie (little games I like made by small developpers who actually need my money. No giving money to M$ for me, and, no, no one can afford Photoshop.

[MacMeGosh]

I can't see paying a huge amount for some software to sit around and never get used, or get used just a couple of times. If it's something I plan to use commercially or on a real serious basis and it's actually capable of doing all I need it to do, then I have no problem paying for it.

[ Mysticus C*]

not a direct comparison and right way to put it.. but here goes my weird comment:

Think of current situation in US Economy that is causing global crisis!

US companies developed tech at home, and produced at home... Allowed the company hence the country got bigger in Economic scale...

What came later is the disturbing one (which everyone can have different opinion, due to global market situation and competition)... Companies got bigger, and greedy, now forgot about all those people who helped them grow up, skip everything, and go to Asia...

You may say this is not piracy... Right they pay for everyhing...

Produce everything for the friction of a cost in Asia than at home... It was just hardware, and now software too... what else left?

US companies well aware of all the thing behind the curtain of low-cost production... How is it really different than buying a 300$ copy of your windows, and 150 copy of your MAC OS ABC... and send it to Asia for cheaper copies?

You would argue that well those are legit, how about the people who helped developed all those legit things that are being kicked off from the company at home for cheaper production in Asia...

Now look at the results in US now...

Productions = Zero to non by humans (automation at home or production in Asia)
Middle class who helped developed all those stuff = Unemployed
Bills = Unpaid
Companies = Go bust (I still find it funny, everything done outside the country, and u have the maximum level of profitability, and yet still going bust, where is the money gone? ABC island middle of nowhere... oh forgot also who is gonna buy all those things if they dont have any job to earn money?)
==============================


Those companies, that you say you should not pirate their softs/hards, are the ones who are pirating labor, human rights, and all sort of other unfair practises...

Now I call this, what goes around, comes around...

Weird... I know... But my 2cents...

[MithrilFox]

People often confuse any breach of a SLA as "piracy." That's not true.

Piracy is, at its foundation, the act of illegally copying software. However, in modern usage, it carries the connotation of distributing that copy in some manner. Most people who merely make two copies for storage at home would never be called a pirate by anyone, though technically he copied one more time than is legal.

Additionally, it's important to remember that SLAs are not gods. A contract of any kind, including an SLA, is only as legal as the courts uphold it to be. I once breached a tenant contract by failing to turn in a 30-day notice of leave, and they tried to bill me for another month. Needless to say, we took it to the lawyers and I won. Lawyer stated that in my home state in the US, it's illegal to have that kind of clause in a tenant contract. WIN .

As for an SLA, they are rarely ever challenged in courts because most people chicken out of whatever they are doing as soon as they get a letter to quit, and most offenses are never prosecuted. However, it'd be nice to see more cases pop up and see how the SLA holds up in a court of law, especially in light of international laws that can complicate matters.

One fact is clear I believe:  illegally copying licensed software and then selling it against the terms of the license is DEFINITELY both illegal and just plain wrong. You are actually earning a profit by robbing a company of its own product's sales. No way not to see that as criminal behavior, IMO.

As for the "I wouldn't buy it anyway so I just downloaded it for myself" argument, that's hard to evaluate. I think most everyone we know has used it, and most of the time it's probably true, since most "pirates" download software, try it out, don't like and/or need it and that's that. However, downloading Photoshop and using it day after day as your hobby or for your job definitely doesn't qualify as "wouldn't have bought it anyway." Yes, you would have. You are robbing the company of a genuine sale.

Let's note, however, that pirating software is not "stealing as if you're taking a DVD from the store." Why? Because you're not taking any DVD from a store. You're not taking any physical property, you're not removing a genuine item that could be sold from someone else's reach. By downloading, you create a new copy, and therefore have not "taken" anything in the traditional sense. Let's not use terms inappropriately just because we think it strengthens one argument.

However, no matter how we dock it up, it's still theft. If you obtain and make use of software without paying for it, it's theft by modern law according to pretty much all countries that recognize intellectual property law. In fact, there are even some international laws concerning that kind of theft.

Now granted, it's a bit hypocritical for us to breathe down someone's neck about it when we're installing OS X (any copy, legal or not) on non-Apple hardware, technically against the license agreement. But then again, that really couldn't be called theft.. could it? Has ANYONE ever been prosecuted for a breach of the SLA such as that? I'm using a legally purchased retail Leopard DVD, but apparently breaking the SLA by installing it on non-Apple hardware... what kind of crime does that constitute? If not a crime, is it merely a breach of contract? What is the listed penalty for this breach? If there is no penalty listed, which I couldn't find in the SLA, then how would any charges of any kind be levied?

Oh, and BTW, for those who are curious, the SLA says that it cannot be installed unless on "Apple-labeled" hardware. Well, here's my "Apple-labeled" hardware below:

 apple_labeled.JPG   31.19K   16 downloads


BTW, here's a very interesting and short read PROVING that when SLA meets the courts, sometimes the SLA loses. Companies tried to screw customers over by using language like "you don't buy the software, you buy a license to use it." By wording it in such manners, it prevents you from being able to "sell" your copy because you don't own a copy, just a valid use-license which cannot be sold. This was deemed a violation of consumer rights and struck down, despite being part of numerous SLAs. Sticking it to the man in a good way!

From Wikipedia:

Buying the original software. Licenses say that the buyer does not buy the software but instead pays for the right to use the software. In the US, the first-sale doctrine, Softman v. Adobe [3] and Novell, Inc. v. CPU Distrib., Inc. ruled that software sales are purchases, not licenses, and resale, including unbundling, is lawful regardless of a contractual prohibition. The reasoning in Softman v. Adobe suggests that resale of student licensed versions, provided they are accurately described as such, is also not infringing.