I'm a pirate, but I don't want to be

Well, I can give a personal example. For some years I have done the layout of my faculty journal (for free btw). We had Macs at the faculty and I had an iBook. I copied / pirated several applications (Quark, photoshop, etc.) to my iBook to be able to do the layout at home. I had no intention and also in effect didn't have either the cash ready or the time to save up enough to buy them. During the years that I did the layout I employed them also for various other purposes (making posters for my students association for example).
Since I stopped doing the layout I haven't used them anymore. I copied / pirated them and used them for some years. Should I have bought them? I don't think so. I should have used the licensed copies available at my faculty, but then I would not have been able to work in weekends, I would have had to go there everytime I needed to get work done and it's noisy and distarcting, etc. So for my own convenience I copied / pirated them.
However, what damage did I do? I did the job for free and I had zero income. I had a students grant which was barely enough for my rent. I enjoyed every darn minute of it and learned a whole lot. I still stan by what I said in my previous post. I agree with you that what I have done is technically illegal, but not that it caused any damage.
 
Originally posted by Cat
I agree with you that what I have done is technically illegal, but not that it caused any damage.
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Cat, I sympathize with what your financial situation was at that time. I've been there, too. Several times. :(

When people start saying things like "is technically illegal," (emphasis mine) that's a dead giveaway for rationalization.

If it were me (and I have been in similar circumstances), I would have put up with the limitations of doing the job on "legal" installations, and used that as a motivator to save up for my own packages one by one. To me, there is no justification for stealing intellectual property.

You can state that your actions did no harm, but if -- as you claim -- you used these pirated copies for years, I think you could have rearranged your priorities so that you could have purchased the software over those years.

It is possible that your attitude -- that your piracy caused no "damage" -- contributed to your not purchasing the software. It is this attitude which cost the software company a sale, which is most assuredly "damaging" to the company's bottom-line.

The attitude that piracy 'does no harm' is what keeps many people from ever buying a given piece of software. Ironically, this attitude is what truly does the harm. Once you have rationalized piracy when you're broke, it becomes easy to, say, rationalize on the basis of convenience.

Originally posted by Cat
So for my own convenience I copied / pirated them.
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I think I'll let that one stand on its own. :p
 
When people start saying things like "is technically illegal," (emphasis mine) that's a dead giveaway for rationalization.
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:D True!

I think you are very right in your assessment that the attitude is probably the prime problem. When you can simply copy an app or a song with virtually no effort and very little risk of being caught, well ... we have a saying in Italy: "L'occasione fa l'uomo ladro." It's the opportunity that makes thieves out of men.
 
I just will not believe the statement made over and over here that "some sort of person" will never have "some amount of money" and that it's impossible to buy the software under any means.

That's total BS.

Not only are a few of the views presented here in favor of "piracy for the poor," those same statements as well as other statements also try to make it seem as though some unknown barrier is mysteriously trying to prevent them from making any money... as if the basic ability and right to make money has been taken away by somebody.

That's also a crock of BS.

For the younger crowd of piraters: ever heard of mowing lawns? Doing chores? Allowance? Working odd jobs? GETTING a job?

For the more "money-mature" crowd of piraters: Money-management? GETTING a job? A loan? Credit?

The piraters and those trying to justify it (and yes, you ARE justifying it for offering your "thoughts" and "alternative views" to paying for the software -- why else would you post something like that? To stir things up?) still have the ability to make and save money, they just have miserable money-management skills. Last I checked, 10 years ago, in the last years of my lawn-mowing years, I could get $20 for mowing someone's lawn and that's CHEAP. Mow 4 lawns a month, at about an hour or two a piece, for a year, and that's $960. Go buy PhotoShop and then some candy at the corner store.

There are plenty of ways to make and save money. These piraters have absolutely no excuse outside of laziness and motivational problems.

If these same people are in NEED of PhotoShop, I'd like to know exactly what that need is. PhotoShop is a serious image powerhouse. Yes, if you're fortunate enough to have a copy, you can play with it too... make funny faces... change your girlfriend's eye and hair color... retouch your family's Christmas photos... make cool stuff for the internet... but I seriously doubt that these home-users in apparent NEED of PhotoShop would go very far beyond that. That's the TIP of the PhotoShop iceberg. No wonder it costs so much -- it's worth every penny if you know what it's for and acquire the know-how to use it near to its potential. There are plenty of programs out there that wil accomplish the same basic tasks of PhotoShop -- you might need to use 2 or 3 of those programs, but that's another point in favor of PhotoShop's price (the fact that it can do so much).

And what's this about financial situations? If you have so little funds that you consider yourself "financially challenged," why the hell do you need to be buying expensive computer programs? Are you in need of food? Clothing? Shelter? What is the definition of being in a tight financial situation?

Anyways, that's it for now. Tune in next time for a discussion about how illegal music swapping can cure hemorrhoids!
 
Originally posted by Cat
I should have used the licensed copies available at my faculty, but then I would not have been able to work in weekends, I would have had to go there everytime I needed to get work done and it's noisy and distarcting, etc. So for my own convenience I copied / pirated them.
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Did you really pirate them? I think not. You would have had access to the programs within the terms of the license at work, i.e. someone else would not have been using them. Most licenses allow the program to be put on as many computers as you like, as long as no two computers are running the same serial at the same time. Since you were doing work as part of a job description of the license holder, even though uncompensated, you were granted the license to run on your computer. In this case, the definition of "site" becomes somewhat stretched.
 
Originally posted by pds
Most licenses allow the program to be put on as many computers as you like, as long as no two computers are running the same serial at the same time.
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Bzzzzzzzt! Please try again. :)

Most single-user license agreements stipulate a single computer and backup copies. Some companies extend this to include a single portable, as well, as long as both are not concurrently in use.

Adobe, for example, has their license agreements available for download, if you want to check them out.
 
Rumor on the street is that Text Edit will support the reading of .doc files in Panther. So be patient and buy yourself a copy of Panther and solve one of your woes.
I also would recommend Open Office.
 
With good luck, Panther will follow all Macs in September and I won't have to buy it...but natively reading .doc files would be great...
 
Yeah.. especially in Apple's own TextEdit.. It's true by the way, it can read .doc files. Anyway, after this heated discussion, are you still pirating, voice? Have opinions here changed your habits?
 
My 0,02$:

1. Office is way overpriced (but I got an educational discount so it wasn't so bad);

2. Photoshop Elements is a slick alternative to Photoshop, also educationally priced;

3. Pirating software is bad (just like pirating music), congrats on turing over a new leaf ;)

OpenOffice.org is what I use on my RedHat 8 machine, and it does the job. Too bad they don't have an Aqua-native port yet...
 
Okay, pds, go find an installer disc for one of the programs you own, like Photoshop if you legally own it, and fire up the installer. After the readme, what appears? (Hint: it should contain the words "license" and "agreement.") What does the L&A say about installing and using that piece of software?
 
I don't have a legal copy of photoshop, that's why it's not on my computer. :)

The point I was making was that the school has (I would imagine) a site license that allows the the program to be run concurrently up to the number of computers allowed by the license.

If the program is used by an employee and the total number of concurrent users is under the limit, does it matter that he is not physically present in a particular building?

Or do I err in thinking Adobe grants site licenses?
 
Originally posted by pds
The point I was making was that the school has (I would imagine) a site license that allows the the program to be run concurrently up to the number of computers allowed by the license.
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The "site" in "site license" customarily indicates that a certain number of computers on the same premises (site) can run the software concurrently.

They usually disallow software used off-site, and invariably disallow software being used on a computer that is not even owned by the licensee!

There's a lot of wishful thinking and rationalization afoot. If people think like this, no wonder there is so much piracy. :(
 
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