Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!ogicse!milton!ashing
From: ashing@milton.u.washington.edu (Al Shing)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Subject: Re: Why do people pirate software?
Message-ID: <6207@milton.u.washington.edu>
Date: 12 Aug 90 09:03:25 GMT
References: <2847@bruce.cs.monash.OZ.AU> <6092@milton.u.washington.edu> <19504@well.sf.ca.us>
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Lines: 44

In article <19504@well.sf.ca.us> jpgordon@well.sf.ca.us (Joshua Gordon) writes:
>
>No. When you loan out a book, only the borrower can use it; hence, there
>is still only one copy around. However, if you were to make a copy of the
>book and then give your copy away, you'd indeed be in violation. You'd
>also be pretty dumb, because copying costs more than buying the original,
>in general. Copying software is free 'cept for the disk space. The analogy
>only holds if you loan out the software without keeping a copy yourself.
>
The value of a book is the contents of the book, not the book itself. 
If a book is loaned to someone, and that person reads the book without 
buying it, then he has received the full use of the book.  In this case, 
two people have had the full usage of the book - the original purchaser, and 
the person to whom the book was loaned.  The copyright holder only received 
money for only one usage.  

If the software policy were to be applied to books, then nobody should be 
allowed to read a book without purchasing his own copy.  This obviously is
not the case.  Suppose every book came with a seal, and a page that said 
that breaking the seal implied an agreement that the purchaser would not loan
the book to anyone else, unless he forgot everything he read in the book.  Then
we would be analogous to the situation everyone is describing.

In loaning out a book, one still retains the plot or knowledge of what was in
the book.  Whether or not the original copy is retained does not change this.

Another bone of contention is the one copy per CPU policy, which is analogous
to saying that if you buy a video tape, you can only watch it on one VCR, or
if you read a book at home, or on a bus, or at work, you need a separate copy
for each place.  The latter is not the case, so why is the former the case?

>When you tape stuff from radio or TV, you really should send in money
>to the owner; and if you sell taped copies, you better believe you are
>in violation of copyright!

The Supreme Court has stated that taping of music and TV programs for one's 
own usage is legal.  No royalties are due to anybody, if you are a private
citizen, and not gaining a profit on the taped material.

Nobody is talking about selling taped copies of broadcast music or TV 
programming here, nor are we talking about selling copies of computer programs.

-- 
    Al Shing (ashing@cac.washington.edu)