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From: nelson_p@apollo.HP.COM (Peter Nelson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Subject: Re: Why do people pirate software?
Message-ID: <4c4742f6.20b6d@apollo.HP.COM>
Date: 18 Aug 90 19:44:00 GMT
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Organization: Hewlett-Packard Apollo Division - Chelmsford, MA
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From: ashing@milton.u.washington.edu (Al Shing)
:
:In the case of a book, one can loan the book to a friend who can read it 
:without buying it.  We can also loan CD's and tapes to friends, or even tape
:music and TV shows off the air for free.  
: 

  When you lend a book or CD to a friend you no longer have
  the book or CD; he does.   The only way this would be analogous
  to software would be if you deleted the software from your hard
  disk and then gave him the floppies to install on his machine.
  And under the terms of most software license agreements this
  is perfectly legal, since the ones I've seen license the
  software for use on one machine or sometimes one user.

  Another difference betweeen books and software is that your 
  friend presumably reads the book and gives it back to you.
  Software is typically used many times.  The only kinds of
  books which are used many times are reference or technical 
  volumes, and if you make a copy of, say, a dictionary for your
  friend (say you had a high-speed, low-cost copy machine)
  you would, indeed be violating the law.

  The problem with software is that it is possible for two
  or more people to have identical copies at the same time.
  This is not the case with books or CD's.  You can tape music
  off the air but this is for your own use.  If you start distributing
  copies to your friends you probably are violating the law.  
  And besides, taping off the air doesn't give you nearly the
  quality of the original, whereas a copy of a piece of software
  is a PERFECT copy, it's as good as the original.   Also, the
  music business works differently: record companies SEEK to
  have their music broadcast; that's how they promote their
  products; that people may tape them off the air is the price
  they pay for that and they grudgingly accepted the Supreme
  Court's decision on that.  There is no analogy with software.
  The software industry does not broadcast copies of our products
  to the public, say via a public access dial-up.  Each copy is
  issued individually to parties who are fully informed before-
  hand what the terms of the license agreement are.  

  As someone who writes software for a living I may be prejudiced, 
  but I claim I or my comapny have a right to be compensated
  for my work.   Using a piece of software which I wrote, without
  compensating me or my company is stealing, plain and simple.
  
                                                ---Peter