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Editorial: "How piracy changed my life"

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Re: Editorial: "How piracy changed my life"

#31

Post by shocks »

fox91 wrote: post #10
chasing wrote: post #5

I'm glad things worked out for Vlad -- when I was younger, I pirated a fair amount of software and games, and, like him, I think it enabled me to get inspired to learn more about computers in general and, indeed, now I stare at them all day for work. But. I'm not sure what the bigger point is, here. Should we be okay with piracy as long as the pirate is using it for self-betterment? Do games count for that? What abou…

I think that the answer is open source, now there are a lot of alternatives and you don't need piracy for learning stuff, now probably piracy makes you dumber

Open source is not an option in this instance.

The point Vlad is trying to make is that when he was 15 he pirated Photoshop, learnt to use it, and got a job using it. He might have learnt some ideas and methods had he downloaded GIMP and used that instead, but ultimately he would have nothing on someone with years of Photoshop experience. The UI and many ideas are completely different.

Re: Editorial: "How piracy changed my life"

#32

Post by TheAmazingIdiot »

eli wrote: post #21
meritt wrote: post #9

It's always been rumored that Adobe software, especially Photoshop, has been easy to pirate to encourage adoption with a user base that might otherwise seek alternatives. As those people hone their skills and eventually find jobs, Photoshop is the norm and what their employers purchase licensing for.

I've heard that too, but I have no idea if it's true. (Surely, Photoshop would be pirated regardless of how much DRM is added). But it's definitely not only the goodness of their heart that leads many companies to offer free or cheap software to students. Microsoft BizSpark is all about giving startups free Microsoft software in the hope that they'll build on the MS stack.

For the longest time, cracking Photoshop was a 1 byte change. In effect, there was a conditional JMP. You patch the address of the good JMP to the bad conditional side.

Voila: enter a good or bad serial, and it works. A bunch of us under +Fravia came to an agreement that this simplicity was intentional. I think we all can come to the conclusion to why that is...

As to your supposition that no amount of 'junk' would stop pirates, I do beg to differ. Back around '98-2000, there was a CD burning program that was notorious to crack. I don't remember the name offhand. There were over a thousand verify checks built into the program at crazy locations. Many would also attempt to write corrupt CDs and ISOs. And the "best part": if you were using a 'naughty' code, it would silently take it and slowly corrupt everything that program touches.

Most pirates ignored it and went with NERO to crack/distribute. A few of the hardcore crackers took on that program. I knew of 2 successes.

Re: Editorial: "How piracy changed my life"

#33

Post by samuellevy »

It's not just developing markets like Romania. I grew up in poverty in Australia, and pirating software was simply the only way to access it.

Without access to the software, I would never have been able to learn the skills required to earn the money to pay for the software now.

I'm not saying that piracy should be accepted for that reason; I'm saying (and I believe the OP was saying) that piracy is simply the only way to access the tools required to get out of poverty for many, many people.

This shouldn't be how it is, but some serious thought has to go into how to make things available fairly to those people who would otherwise just pirate it. Some money is better than no money, and software that is frequently pirated is obviously in demand with people who can't afford it.

Re: Editorial: "How piracy changed my life"

#34

Post by rhizome »

chasing wrote: post #16
Devilboy wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Piracy for personal use is a 'victimless' (don't bite my head off please) crime, that's why it's OK here. Stealing is not.

Piracy is different from stealing, yeah. But I find it kind of short-sighted this notion that it's "victimless." Not intending to bite your head off. :-)

Regardless of you thinking the view is short-sighted, without a counterargument it will remain victimless.

Re: Editorial: "How piracy changed my life"

#35

Post by rhizome »

cremnob wrote: post #27
Devilboy wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stealing a car deprives someone of a car. Copying a car does not.

This trope comes up every time piracy is discussed. The point is no one is talking about the legal meaning of "stealing" versus "copyright infringement". What people are saying is that it's immoral. The fact that a content company's product is easily stolen simply because the nature of his business means it is effortless to do through the internet doesn't change anything. If you go to a lawyer for legal advice and th…

What do you mean, "entitled" to it? Are you saying that people who engage in this behavior argue for it to continue indefinitely? I've always known copying to be a reaction to a market failure, not a proposed permanent state of affairs. Where does "entitlement" come into it?

Re: Editorial: "How piracy changed my life"

#36

Post by reidrac »

lumberjack wrote: post #18
meritt wrote: post #9

It's always been rumored that Adobe software, especially Photoshop, has been easy to pirate to encourage adoption with a user base that might otherwise seek alternatives. As those people hone their skills and eventually find jobs, Photoshop is the norm and what their employers purchase licensing for.

Same with Windows and Office. It's better to have them pirate your program than run somebody's else.

Definitely, but I think is just Microsoft investing in their ecosystem.

In schools students learn "Word" and not "a word processor". I've seen high schools getting software licences with special deals (way cheaper), and thanks to that other solutions are discouraged (ie. "Word" is the standard and it will be required by any future job offer)

Can all students afford a Word licence? (ie. practice at home) It really doesn't matter, piracy it's OK because it is an investment. Companies are the final target (won't run pirated software and all candidates are trained to use that software).

You can find that kind of strategy also in open source (ie. Red Hat benefits from CentOS).

Re: Editorial: "How piracy changed my life"

#37

Post by millstone »

chasing wrote: post #20
lucian1900 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that taking strong measures against copyright infringement is stupid. Many (if not most) of the people that do it would pay a reasonable price if it was possible for them to do so. Also, stealing a car is nothing like copyright infringement. There is absolutely no parallel you can draw there.

I shouldn't have made the comment about the car. Too many people are misinterpreting what I meant... I'm not equating the crime of pirating Windows and stealing a car. Very different things. But, are crimes in general justifiable if the person committing them does it for self-betterment? Yeah, probably in many cases. Possibly in this case. But I also worry that it becomes a rallying point for piracy in general. That'…

The risk of piracy is that, if enough people pirate instead of purchase, it becomes more difficult for inventors and creators to make a living, and so we all may lose access to their potential future inventions and creations.

To beat on your poor car analogy some more: if copying cars was free and easy, then we would indeed have a lot more cars, but they'd all be 1930s VW Bugs. Competition drives innovation, but there has to be something to compete for, like our dollars.

To your last point: the top torrents at TPB are all video games, TV shows, and movies. Seems more like self-worserment, yuk yuk.

Re: Editorial: "How piracy changed my life"

#38

Post by Devilboy »

cremnob wrote: post #27
Devilboy wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stealing a car deprives someone of a car. Copying a car does not.

This trope comes up every time piracy is discussed. The point is no one is talking about the legal meaning of "stealing" versus "copyright infringement". What people are saying is that it's immoral. The fact that a content company's product is easily stolen simply because the nature of his business means it is effortless to do through the internet doesn't change anything. If you go to a lawyer for legal advice and th…

I'll stop bringing it up when people stop saying that piracy is the same as car theft. Otherwise why not go all the way and say piracy is genocide.

Re: Editorial: "How piracy changed my life"

#39

Post by eshvk »

chasing wrote: post #5

I'm glad things worked out for Vlad -- when I was younger, I pirated a fair amount of software and games, and, like him, I think it enabled me to get inspired to learn more about computers in general and, indeed, now I stare at them all day for work. But. I'm not sure what the bigger point is, here. Should we be okay with piracy as long as the pirate is using it for self-betterment? Do games count for that? What abou…

Since the car analogy isn't working: Let me try another one, equally with flaws no doubts. :-) Piracy as we known it is rampant of the coasts of Somalia (Yes, I am talking about real world pirates). One of the reasons why that is happening is the systematic breakdown of the livelihoods of fisherman in the region due to dumping of toxic wastes of those coasts and the free flow of arms. Now, it is arguable that those fisherman are using the monetary flow from piracy to lift themselves from poverty which is a good thing. However, I do wish to point out that that analogy is based on my philosophy that e-piracy is not a victimless crime, as long as you have at least one data point of a person who would have paid for the game/movie/software but didn't do so because he/she had easy access to a torrent.

To be honest, I don't care about people pirating stuff. It is the moral justifications that seem rather specious at best. What is wrong with accepting that you are doing something wrong and... keep doing it if you wish?

Re: Editorial: "How piracy changed my life"

#40

Post by Tyrant505 »

meritt wrote: post #9

It's always been rumored that Adobe software, especially Photoshop, has been easy to pirate to encourage adoption with a user base that might otherwise seek alternatives. As those people hone their skills and eventually find jobs, Photoshop is the norm and what their employers purchase licensing for.

What exactly is HARD to pirate? edit: More specifically, Crack. I remember x-force having sources in all the major places ready to dump it to their cracker division.
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