Since a private discussion wound up on the list anyway, I would repost my private response to mulix to the list below.
----- Cut here ----- On Sunday 24 November 2002 16:46, you wrote: [snip] > > I do not advocate stealing or, for this matter, software piracy, but it > > is absolutely pointless to insist that software piracy is archevil and > > should be fought at all costs. > > That's not the point. This discussion is about ethics, about morals > and rights and wrongs. Is it right or wrong to copy a copyrighted, > proprietary work? I maintain that it's stealing, and therefore wrong. We're actually arguing semantics here. First of all, let's separate wrong from illegal and right from legal. Not everything that is illegal is wrong, and not everything that is right is legal. Ethical evaluation should be based on moral examination, not on a legal one. Hence, just to clarify, the question of right or wrong applies purely to the moral, not legal side of the problem. Stealing, as per definition, is committing an act of theft. Here is what Webster's has to say about theft: "[...] To constitute theft there must be a taking without the owner's consent, and it must be unlawful or felonious; every part of the property stolen must be removed, however slightly, from its former position [...]" When you copy someone's proprietary work, you are NOT stealing. If you took someone's blueprints of invention and applied a 2x4 on their head so that they effectively forget how their invention works, -THAT- is stealing. The treacherous act of stealing per se is considered wrong not because YOU obtain something but because you DEPRIVE someone else of what is rightfully their. You might ask whether it is not their right to have profit (sale) based on their "intellectual property"? This is the subject of our further discussion. Now that we have established that technically copying proprietary "intellectual property" is not a theft, we can surely say that since it's not, one can not say that doing so is wrong because it's stealing. It does not mean that IP piracy is right - it just invalidates one specific argument on why it's wrong. > [snipped a lot of irrelevant stuff] > > > While we're here discussing the software piracy, large software companies > > ride the piracy damn well. Piracy is the free distribution network which > > provides free marketing for the next generation of computer programmers, > > technicians, system administrators, and scientists. Or so it used to be - > > before free software arrived. In 1990 and before, you'd have hard time > > purchasing specialized software, much less games - but a lot, lot of > > people grew up on pirated DOS, Windows, pirated Office, Borland C++ (and > > consequently Visual Studio) and extended Microsoft's market to the degree > > where Microsoft became a monopoly that, to put it simple, doesn't give a > > fuck. > > Again, besides the point. It is very very on the subject, actually. This argument supports the opinion that software piracy is not -the- absolute evil. Microsoft would be nowhere as far as it is today if not the piracy. Much like the marketing genius of IBM was to sell solutions, not computers, Gates' marketing genius was first sew, then be patient, then reap. > > Again, piracy is not bad per se. It is just an outcome of lame marketing > > on the media producers' and software companies' part. > > That was a lovely missive, but you failed to come out and say what I > think you imply: that pirating a copyrighted work, which I maintain is > stealing, is right. Is that really what you think? I don't care about > market conditions and poor customers right now, I only care about a > moral issue. Right or wrong? Let us see. The issue of intellectual property is way more complicated than just right or wrong. Apply the following test: is it right or wrong for a company to sell product A for $700, given that a kid in family X would not be able to afford it and hence successfully apprehend this software in the legal way, and, consequently, get employed? I bet you would argue that the IP/copyright holder has an absolute right to set the price and marketing conditions as per capitalist idea of free market. Like I said before, the delusional idea of absolute and irresponsible freedom ethically can not be allowed here. It worked on retail markets before simply because there was competition that compensated for price inflation perpetually. The reason that we don't see this competition in the media world is quite simple: while in retail markets sale income is proportional to expenses (as in you need to spend X to produce one item), media industry does not actually consume raw materials, thus costs to produce one item are irrelevant because the aggregate expense of the project development and deployment is fixed. Hence, most funds in a media company accumulate inside it and never leave it, circling inside. In conditions like this, the company can grow just because it was first on the market, not because it is efficient and fit. Is it okay? Is it okay that just because you are the first you can be a monopoly and swag everyone else? Is it okay that you still obtain floating income when your development expenses are fixed? If you want to call IP piracy a theft, I want to call this deceipt with malicious intent, and robbery. I maintain that while IP piracy is not right, what IP holders do is equally not right. We are facing the infamous leftwinger 1 + 1 != 0 argument. Two wrongs don't make it right, aye. The only problem is that IP piracy is a direct consequence of IP holders' malicious marketing, there would be no piracy if IP was affordable and accessible. -1 + 1 = 0. Problem solved, point proven. It boils down to a very simple thing. IP is NOT estate. IP market is NOT retail market. You can not apply retail market rules to an IP market because it gives IP holder too much power (and that, BTW, is very well known to both software companies and media conglomerates, and I argue that they KNOWINGLY REFUSE to switch business models simply because the old one encourages abuse and higher profit WHICH THEY ARE NOT MORALLY ENTITLED TO) My answer to your question of whether it is right to commit IP piracy: as long as IP holders abuse their position, IP consumers are not wrong in abusing their ones. Granted that IP holders exist for the sake of IP consumers and not vice versa, point proven. > > Uh, no. One tomato is not a probable sale. A kilogram of tomatos is. When > > you steal a kilogram of tomatos it raises a question - how come you are > > so poor you aren't able to afford it? And what are you supposed to do if > > you are? > > Again, is stealing one tomatoe or 1 kg of tomatos right or wrong? > *regardless of circumstances*. It can not be right or wrong regardless of circumstances. Unless, of course, you interpret capitalist idea of free market as "people who have no money should die from hunger". Absolutism, sir, is the plague of our minds. We need to get rid of it. It is a major barrier in our development. In this interchange I try to argue the point that, while IP piracy is not right, IP owner's abuse is equally as not right. I do not accept a position that IP piracy is wrong, period. -- "I'm not saying there should be a capital punishment for stupidity, but why don't we just take the safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself?" ================================================================To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
