Theft vs. Piracy

T

theed

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Preface: I got tired of the ranting that was going on in another thread, and wanted to continue the talks with a more refined and enlightened focus, as it's one of the best discussions I've ever had in person, and now it's been the best discussion I've seen in this forum.

Regulations: But you can't get preachy and try to convert people to your side. It's actually a very complex issue based on paradigm shifts, and the fundamentals of society. Open your ears (eyes) and your mind, think before you speak (type), and if something has been said, don't repeat it if you can help it. If this thread goes beyond 12 pages, someone should fork off a new thread like I did. (pun intended)

Background: Piracy is not theft in the traditional sense of the word. To say it is, is failing to see the depth and pervasiveness of this topic. Theft is originally placed in a society with needs, and to steal something is to keep someone else who needs it from having it. Theft was not originally about compensation for the maker. This is a capitalist construct. Theft is about a society trying to accomplish what it needs to survive, and making sure those goods get to where they're most needed. Software Piracy(tm) has no cost in that it does not affect availability of the product. By making a copy you are not removing the original. It's this quality of software that threatens to obsolete much of our capitalist construct. (patents and copyright being parts)

Lofty Goals: This is not all about things that already exist. There are variants of distribution models that do exist that may be great, and simply need to be promoted. So this thread might let those of us in decision making positions find out what the needs are. The best solution almost certainly does not yet exist, so think about all of the benefits and limitations of what one's views on piracy could mean to a society.
- Arguing is about winning. Debating is about learning other points of view. Let this be a debate.

First Post: I hope someone responds to this. I know I'm asking a lot. But here goes.

We all know what the law thinks about piracy. On the other hand, RMS believes that since there's no distribution cost in software, that it should be free. It's just thoughts. Thinking is free. To make someone pay for your thoughts when you can give them away for free is criminal. It's an artificial scarcity. It makes people pay money, that could have gone toward better food, instead go to you for giving only them your thoughts. If everyone had this information, the world would be a better place. So making people pay for free thoughts by artificially withholding them from people who don't sacrifice something to you (pay you money) is detrimental to the world at large. It's the same argument as the anti AIDS drugs for poverty stricken Africa argument, except that production costs are even less (negligible) for software.

What frickin' right do we have to ask for money for our thoughts when people are out there literally dying because we are artifically withholding information so that we can make more money and be more important? The Africa point is a little more severe than the software point. But it's the same thought. Capitalism in its old sense is potentially harming the world by applying scarcity rules to infinitely available items. This is not just a question of what's legal, but where should capitalism, economy, and international law be going to make things better for the future?

Someone in the other thread asked to see an example of someone saying they wanted you to pirate their software. My answer, BSD. Even more so than Linux, and GNU, the BSD license doesn't even ask that you buy into their ideas, the thoughts have been had, and now everyone should benefit. But still, anything GPL'd is a good example too. (linux, apache, GiMP etc.) Use for free, but you have to allow others to use it too. You can't start privatizing what has been established free-to-all.

Now I ask again.
Is pirating software wrong? - and if so, under what circumstances?
Is selling software wrong? - and if so, under what circumstances?
 
you really do need a job theed;)

ok, i'm with you on several levels. first, i have grown tired of the absolutism and war mentality of the other thread as well. I agree that the best solutions have not been realized yet. I think that some of the current laws around this are as absurd as drug laws - they make criminals out of otherwise productive members of society. I am more of a socialist than a capitolist though i wouldn't consider myself purely one or the other. I think it was established elsewhere that i am a GNU kind of person.

I was intrigued by your claim that you have informed m$ that you pirate their software and they don't care. not that their not caring is an admission that they don't mind you pirating from them. It may be more a symptom of their own criminal tendencies. And why should they spend more money to develop something to give away, when they can spend more money to give less away?

i think one problem that you address to some degree here is the whole semantics of the issue. Pirates and piracy are very romantic sounding terms. Theiving is a bit less, but also glorified thru characters in RPG games like D&D and the lot. Criminals and the word 'stealing' are not particularly appealing to most people. So first the need to understand whether we are talking about piracy, theivery or criminal activity is important. And to identify who is benefitting from this activity. Is it the people who steal, those who are stolen from, or as you say - society at large?

the decision to charge for one's thoughts is a personal one. To some degree it reflects a persons's esteem for their thoughts. To another it is a con job. some of the great thughts of all time have been shared for free. some of the worst crap ever presented has been sold. same with software.

I'm going to stop here. Too much at once has started to wear me out on this subject.;)
 
THREAD POLICE!

This is too serious of a thread to be in the "all thoughts non-technical"

BTW... you guys should feel very smart. You know so much about so little that it bores me to read all of that.

To add my comments about piracy... I pirate a lot of software so my opinions are one sided.:)

Have a nice day!:D
 
I can't deny feeling a bit radical on this issue. I also think that 80%+ of the world's lawyers being native to the US an oddity almost as bizarre as free software. And the word plunder is nice, it seems to fit, and doesn't have a modern definition, so it could be well applied to the scenario of taking things that are easily of infinite distribution.

However, I merely wanted to open up the discussion. I quickly tire of the "it's wrong because it's illegal" argument. We make the laws, they are human constructs. They can be (and often have been) our own undoing. I'd like to keep that from happening again. :)

Right now I have some shareware that I haven't paid for, and I very much consider every piece of software Shareware. I consider it consumer protection against the laws and accepted practices that are industry friendly and user hostile. That being said, I'll pay for lots of stuff when I'm something other than broke. I have before, I will again.

I find it curious that a discussion on this topic is so difficult that we have trouble even defining the terms with which to debate it.

To answer my own question, I feel it is wrong to sell software that hasn't been maintained in over 5 years. (DOS) It should be public domain if not open sourced.

to LTM: Your opinion is valid, it's part of why I made this thread to begin with. Your inability to express your opinion well makes me cringe every time you open your mouth. I hope you follow along and actually enlighten yourself along with the rest of us in this thread.
 
sorry, plundering still sounds too romantic. like people who do it are conquering heroes or something. but to leave semantics alone for now, let us look at the implications of taking something that doesn't belong to you. and let's go back for a second to the idea that the majority of people who get hold of illegal software are teens.
the biggest confusion in this area, as i have seen it so blatantly put in the other thread, is that the perception is strong that no one loses anything when software is shared. Everybody has a copy, rather than one person gaining at another's expense. now couple that with the absurd prices and restrictions that developers place on their software. they only get away with it when they have a product that everybody wants. so all this sounds really good from an economic activist point of view. steal from the rich and share the wealth.
but are we setting a precedent among those young people that will not stop at software? are our young pirates of today, the hacker theives of tomorrow? and at what point will they not know who the rich and who the poor are? I know i haven't always gotten that one right.
and if we switch back to the developers and their situation, how much money do they really expect to be making off 17 yo's and younger? I think only the gaming industry would be effected strongly by any sales to this age group.
so what is to keep the software developers from offering free software to people under a certain age? on a download basis or even at the small cost of shipping and handling and materials? why not remove the criminal conotations from this activity for a certain underfinanced section of society. Certainly more educated kids from each coming generation would prove to be more profitable in the long run.

I also agree with theed that any abandoned software should be free to all. there has yet to be a perfect piece of software or a flawless operating system. if you won't support something because you don't care anymore or because you want more money for the 'better' version, then give the old stuff away. not neccesarily open source, but free for use.

my next anticipated thoughts on this subject - reasons i don't use illegal software that have nothing to do with the laws.
 
but first let me quickly address something testuser said -

"In this world other people are not freely entitled to the products of my effort and labor, physical or mental."

only when you so choose it to be that way. you are freely giving away your mental products as you participate in this thread. you have done it many times when helping people out troubleshooting.

my point - that you choose what "products' you want to sell, and which are free. We all do this. and people will always be asking for our products for free. it is always up to us to decide if we are willing to do that. In my profession, i will be limited by law as to the extents that i may do so.

but when someone sells their personal "products" to an employer, doesn't the employer then own them, to sell or give away as they please? and once having been paid for said products, what does the employee lose if the employer is stolen from?
 
Hey guys, to be honest I did not read all posts, just theeds so I will reply to that for the moment (caffeine still hasnt traversed my system).

First of all, theft would be if I had a prototype idea *already developed* on CD or some medium, someone comes in and actually takes my only copy of that program and sell it for their benefit


Piracy is when there exist multiple copies and I can still sell my work but there is some little b@stard that gives it away for free.


Selling software is not wrong, giving it away for free is not wrong, BUT, if you give it away for free it better be YOUR idea and YOUR software that you are giving out for free.

When you sell software its not just the idea you are selling, its the implementation. If someone else has the same idea like you and IF he has an implementation and he wants to give it away for free thats his/her perogative, but if you want to sell your hard work and make a buck to live then that is your perogative.

There is nothing that busts me up more than these linux freaks that think that everything should be free. If that is the case, why not go to a store and get a free shirt? or go to the gas station and get free gas for my free car ? :p Kinda sounds like communism :p (or star trek)

Admiral
 
If programming is without value why doing it for receiving points to obtain a graduate or something like this. BTW Using a computer is not completely free. There is always someone paying for it.
 
I originally wrote a huge response, but I've erased it in hopes of being far more concise, and nearly as informative.

Right now, the economic model makes it profitable for software developers to stagnate their products while using market nasty tactics to keep proper competition in the marketplace from occurring.

Due to the near 0 cost of distribution, along with the rapid obsolescence of software, I think the patent --> public domain model should apply; but with a compressed time frame. Patents were made with the best interests of the business and consumer in mind. (Yay patents)

Since economies of scale promote monopolies, and monopolies love stagnation, we're left with few options to keep the market moving:
Artificially enhancing competition (government grants)
Artificially weakening the monopoly so that competition resumes. (initially detrimental, and so far ineffective)
Or making a company compete with its former self. (You don't buy a new car if the old one still does everything just fine, do you?)

Distributors know the laws don't work right, so they've been creating their own, kinda. By combining trade secrets (never showing source code) with copyright (which should only apply to human readable stuff anyway) and bastardizing distribution with Point of Sale expectations of consumers (I'll buy this and then I won't have to buy it again) with a licensing model (Oh but you do have to buy it again) we now have a model which protects all the rights of the seller and none of the rights of the consumer. I think this is a large part of why consumers aren't willing to spend. They don't see the value any more. And $50 is too much to spend on something that has a 1 in 10 shot of actually doing what you want. So I think something has to be done that's more consumer oriented.

I think Photoshop_v1 should be free, along with DOS, old Excel, MAME games, old versions of CodeWarrior, etc. I think it should either be a law, or there should be a government incentive for public-domaining previously profitable software. Like 10% of one average year's sales of that product (and version.) I'd like some of my taxes to go toward free Photoshop. Id' still be buying it though, ImageReady integration is critical for me. But to see my father try and edit pictures with the crap software out there is awful. Note I haven't just copied my Photoshop onto his machine, but it's reeeeeeally tempting.

Eventually, bad-for-consumers does mean bad-for-business, which also means bad-for-economy.

Well, this one got long too, but it's better than the original. :)
 
I think Photoshop_v1 should be free, along with DOS, old Excel, MAME games,
old versions of CodeWarrior, etc.
Click to expand...


you know there IS a name for that :)
It's called abandonware and I am quite for it :)
 
Thanks AK.

After some thought, I really like the government incentive for public-domaining abandonware. But it should also be enforceable against the will of the company should the government (loosely defined) deem it beneficial to the public on a case by case basis.

So of course, the problems lie in what defines "the government?" To what body of people is the the program now available? And where do the funds for this incentive come from? Aside from that, I'm ready to write up a bill and send it to ... "the government."

- boy, my spell checker is really angry about the use of public-domain as a verb, and it totally disagrees with the validity of abandonware. ;-)
 
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