Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!gatech!mcnc!uvaarpa!virginia!toylnd!dca
From: dca@toylnd.UUCP (David C. Albrecht)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Software thieves (was Re: Software theives)
Message-ID: <289@toylnd.UUCP>
Date: 23 Aug 89 07:54:23 GMT
References: <30706@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <6846@rpi.edu> <10043@bsu-cs.bsu.edu>
Distribution: usa
Organization: Dave & Anne, Charlottesville VA.
Lines: 58

> > >I don't care who copies what; as far as I'm concerned, unless
> > >something physical is stolen there is no problem- no one loses
> > >anything except the publisher, and that only theoretically. 
> > 
> > So I guess you'd say that if I were to photocopy a copyrighted book
> > and sell photocopies for less than the publishers price, I haven't
> > committed a crime.  
> 
> If you had the resources to do this, and put out a readable (e.g. legible)
> copy of whatever-it-was, I personally would buy from YOU rather than 
> the PUBLISHER, because your price was better for an essentially equivalent
> product!  I don't need to pay through the nose for fancy binding, cover art,
> etc. etc. etc. as long as the INFORMATION contained is complete.  Now if you
> started taking liberties and editing stuff out, I'd get angry...
> 
> To me, anyway, this sounds like Free Enterprise.  If the laws against this
> sort of thing didn't exist, competition in the marketplace would lead to 
> QUALITY products at LOW prices, since those that couldn't compete would just
> go out of business, period.  That's the way basic economics were originally
> said to work... Supply and Demand, Survival of the Fittest, etc.  
>  
To those who feel tempted to engage in this argument I would say, don't bother.
You can correct misconceptions, you can't change basic personality flaws.
These people are obviously perfectly comfortable being thieves and any attempt
to chastise them will simply hit a wall of rationalization.  Only getting the
short end of the stick from people with the same attitudes that they purport
or the onset of wisdom with experience can correct these kinds of attitudes.
-----------
Having said that :-) I'm still going to give my reasoning why I feel pirating
is wrong.  I don't bother with arguments based on tangible vs. intangible
losses, whether theives would buy if they didn't steal, comparison to other
marketplaces, etc..  It just opens the door on the rationalization factory.

My philosophy is simple.  Take a whole world with attitudes equivalent to my
own (whatever they may be).  Vary the underlying beliefs but not the fundamental
ethics responsibility, right to privacy, etc..  What kind of world would you
imagine it to be?

I don't throw trash out the window of my car because a world full of those
types would render the planet one big garbage dump.  I'm tolerant about religious
beliefs because I want the same freedom of belief (or lack thereof) for myself.
I don't steal software because a world of those types would result in no
software and no new computers (new incompatible computers need new software).
Most people have to eat.

The fact is that software thieves, like people who steal items from their
hotel rooms are riding on the back of productive and honest members of society.
A society which was composed of nothing but riders would be pretty unpleasant.
Myself, I want to be on the positive side of the societal equation rather than
the negative side.  Maybe it is unfashionable, but I'd still rather be on the
contributory side than riding with the (you fill in the blank) who think they
are cool because they are abusing the productive masses and getting away with
it.

I'm no saint and have my ethical lapses too.  That doesn't mean I'm
proud of them and try to preach them as right and proper.

David Albrecht