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"Most of you steal your software"

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Re: "Most of you steal your software"

#91

Post by jscheel »

ericbb wrote: post #84
jscheel wrote: post #58

It's amazing, and frankly stupid, how many people try to justify theft. Sorry guys, regardless of what utopian ideals of OSS you have, and I have them too, you must respect the creator's wishes. If they ask you to pay for the software, then you MUST pay for the software. Anything else is theft. Let's say you are a freelance developer. Do you think for one second that it would be ok for your clients to let you do all…

The utopian ideal that is relevant here is the ideal that information should never be considered property. So you can't properly claim to be one of the utopian idealists while using the words "theft" and "stealing" here.

I don't buy into the utopian ideals. I offer plenty of work up as OSS, but when someone chooses not to, I respect that as well.

Re: "Most of you steal your software"

#92

Post by tjr »

IgorPartola wrote: post #77
cavilling_elite wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is the price is not set by the market, it is set by the record label and significant arm twisting. Support your favorite bands by sending them cheques if you obtain their album. The RIAA is the problem. Also check out Band Camp for new unsigned artists. Great service and IMHO the future of the "record" industry.

Honest question: how would you set the market value of a digital good? I have a very limited understanding of economics, but it seems to be that balancing the supply/demand equations when supply is infinite (for, say, a song, movie, music video, etc.) becomes rather difficult.

How would you set the market value of a physical copy of a digital good?

Music CDs are sold for roughly $10-$20 USD. The actual cost of making the physical CD is around $1. People seem much more agreeable to accept a $9-$19 markup on a physical CD than on a digital album, which costs $0 to copy but ostensibly has the same cost to produce otherwise.

Re: "Most of you steal your software"

#93

Post by jacoblyles »

carlob wrote: post #51
zero_intp wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The great philanthropic era was a result of the robber barons. The idea that we might enter a new era of such figures is only a sign of the grossly disproportionate wealth scales that damage our societies. It is a despotic idea that society must endure the deprivations of these individuals or corporation only to be rewarded with narrow visions of a better future world through the myopic eyes of the DuPont's, Gates',…

Yes! Next time you visit the Frick collection in New York City (you really should) think about the bloody repression of the Homestead strike [0]. I really think that the likes of Gates, Frick, Carnegie, Rockefeller or the more recent Jim Simons. Should have been taxed at a much much steeper rate, just like Buffett proposed [1], instead of waiting for their kindness of heart. By replacing philanthropy with taxation we…

So we should tax away Thiel's money so instead of Space X we get... more ethanol subsidies? Or we should tax away Cameron's money so instead of asteroid mining we get higher pensions for government union workers?

What kind of world do you live in that allows you this kind of democratic idealism?

As our population gets older, the priorities of our democracies will reflect that. More and more government spending will go towards risk-averse projects - mostly medical subsidy. The only truly radical innovation will come from eccentric billionaires.

Re: "Most of you steal your software"

#94

Post by ynniv »

jscheel wrote: post #87
decode wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sorry guys, regardless of what utopian ideals of OSS you have, and I have them too, you must respect the creator's wishes. If they ask you to pay for the software, then you MUST pay for the software. Anything else is theft. In a legal sense, this is patently false in every country I know of. Even ignoring the point others have made that theft is not copyright infringement under the law, the assertion is false. Ever…

Good thing I'm not a complete idiot, or I wouldn't know or understand fair use. People tend to forget that fair use is limited in its scope. Unfortunately, a lot of people's idea of fair use is, "I want it, so I'm gonna take it." It IS a moral imperative. It IS stealing. I don't care how you sugarcoat it. In high-school and the first part of my college life, I pirated music and applications with impunity. I justified…

To steal is to deprive, to copy is to disappoint.

Re: "Most of you steal your software"

#95

Post by rayiner »

decode wrote: post #75
jscheel wrote: post #58

It's amazing, and frankly stupid, how many people try to justify theft. Sorry guys, regardless of what utopian ideals of OSS you have, and I have them too, you must respect the creator's wishes. If they ask you to pay for the software, then you MUST pay for the software. Anything else is theft. Let's say you are a freelance developer. Do you think for one second that it would be ok for your clients to let you do all…

> Sorry guys, regardless of what utopian ideals of OSS you have, and I have them too, you must respect the creator's wishes. If they ask you to pay for the software, then you MUST pay for the software. Anything else is theft. In a legal sense, this is patently false in every country I know of. Even ignoring the point others have made that theft is not copyright infringement under the law, the assertion is false. Ever…

The moral underpinnings of copyright are quite a bit older than that: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_copyright_law#Early_....

Re: copyright being 303 years old. First, there were developments in copyright prior to the English copyright act. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_copyright_law#Early_.... Printing in England was done by a royally chartered monopoly from 1557. Printing was regulated by an order of the Star Chamber in 1637 and the Licensing Press Act of 1679 before the Statute of Anne introduced copyrights in 1710. So basically contemporaneously with the widespread adoption of technology in England that enabled copies of written works to be quickly made, regulation has existed to protect works from copying. Copyright itself has existed for 300 of the 500 or so years since printed books became common in England.

I agree that it's not sensible to link copyright to the ancient moral crime of theft. It's more sensible to link it to the very old if not ancient moral crime of trespass: http://www.slesher.com/trespass.html.

A copyright owner's moral right is basically the right to exclude--the right to control with whom one shares his original work.

Re: "Most of you steal your software"

#96

Post by STRML »

cafard wrote: post #65

"The value of the computer time we have used exceeds $40,000." Pardon me, but wasn't a fair bit of that Harvard's computing power, ergo not directly paid for by Gates et al.?

I would assume that's why it was worded the way it was, instead of "We have spent in excess of $40,000 on computer time."

Re: "Most of you steal your software"

#97

Post by icambron »

slurgfest wrote: post #71
icambron wrote: post #25

I readily grant that there's a huge amount of selection bias to this, but from this remove, it's difficult not to read this as, "pirate all the software you please, we'll still end up as billionaires."

Right, if a failed company (even one which failed because of piracy) had a letter like this, you wouldn't be reading it.

My only reservation on that line of argument is that, apparently, it "caused quite a stir at the time". But yes, the selection bias here is real enough.

Re: "Most of you steal your software"

#98

Post by jdechko »

jscheel wrote: post #58

It's amazing, and frankly stupid, how many people try to justify theft. Sorry guys, regardless of what utopian ideals of OSS you have, and I have them too, you must respect the creator's wishes. If they ask you to pay for the software, then you MUST pay for the software. Anything else is theft. Let's say you are a freelance developer. Do you think for one second that it would be ok for your clients to let you do all…

Theft vs Copyright infringement is all semantics anyway. Like you said, if the software is for sale and you take it and use it without paying, it's wrong, regardless of what you call it.

I don't think anyone would flatly come out and say that a developer doesn't deserve to be paid for his/her work. Yet when you use software without paying for it, you are depriving the developer of his income.

Re: "Most of you steal your software"

#99

Post by IgorPartola »

tjr wrote: post #92
IgorPartola wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question: how would you set the market value of a digital good? I have a very limited understanding of economics, but it seems to be that balancing the supply/demand equations when supply is infinite (for, say, a song, movie, music video, etc.) becomes rather difficult.

How would you set the market value of a physical copy of a digital good? Music CDs are sold for roughly $10-$20 USD. The actual cost of making the physical CD is around $1. People seem much more agreeable to accept a $9-$19 markup on a physical CD than on a digital album, which costs $0 to copy but ostensibly has the same cost to produce otherwise.

Well, if there is scarcity (i.e.: supply is somehow limited), then the market value is where supply and demand curves cross. In other words, I'd throw a bunch of CD's into the market and let the price stabilize. That has nothing to do with how much it cost me to make it (the same way that the salary a doctor makes has nothing to do with how expensive the education was), but everything to do with opportunity cost: would I rather buy this CD or another. At least for spherical songs in vacuum.

I cannot do the same thing with digital goods since the supply is unlimited. I don't see how the market can settle using the old supply/demand paradigm. I can try to get a stable price by offering a "pay what you think it's worth" model, but that' no fun either.

Re: "Most of you steal your software"

#100

Post by gfodor »

IgorPartola wrote: post #67
TheCapn wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We all understand what is being discussed here. We don't need to argue semantics over what it means to obtain something you didn't pay for (but should have). It seems that the tech community stands adamantly behind the "copyright infringement isn't theft" mantra but in reality the moral crime is taking something you weren't entitled to. Our actions don't really seem to consider the state of the original product makin…

I do not advocate piracy, and do believe that people should be paid for their work. However, you are wrong. Theft means that the original owner no longer has the item stolen from them. Copying something from them most definitely leaves them with the original. That is one way in which piracy is not like theft. I would much rather someone download a copy of my code, than grab all my drives, make a copy, erase them, the…

Having read threads on this subject for 20 years, the same old tired points get brought up as if they matter whatsoever. Nobody cares about the semantic arguments. People are arguing that you should not pirate software and that if you do you should be viewed by your peers as someone on par with a thief since you have the same moral code as a thief does, you just choose to perform immoral acts in a medium that is most beneficial for you (and in many ways, less risky.) Nobody is arguing about the economic harm or the philosophical difference between theft and copyright infringement with regards to their effect on scarcity of goods.

The point is if you pirate software you are committing a moral act that, while economically may not be comparable to theft, reveals the same integrity and character as that of a common thief. Just like you can not "copyright infringe" a widget from to someone who built it, you cannot "steal" software, by definition. The only reason software pirates do not "steal" software is not because they are good-hearted citizens who simply draw the line between theft and copyright infringement in terms of immoral things they permit themselves to do. The reason software pirates do not "steal" software is because it is impossible to do so. I think if there were a way to copy software that deprived others of it, yet still had the same likelihood of getting caught as piracy does today, piracy would still occur as much as it does now. And the reason software pirates do not steal physical goods on top of software is because the risk/reward equation is completely different, not because they somehow have a deep philosophical aversion to affecting the scarcity of goods. People want shit and they do not want to pay for it. Some people who have this feeling decide they are going to take actions they shouldn't. We should hold opinions of these these people equally (though not necessarily treat them the same under the law.)

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