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From: bwb@sei.cmu.edu (Bruce Benson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Subject: Re: Why do people pirate software?
Message-ID: <8370@fy.sei.cmu.edu>
Date: 27 Aug 90 21:33:07 GMT
References: <19089016:24:58KRW1@lehigh.bitnet> <2643@anomaly.sbs.com> <10271.26d52a29@vax1.cc.lehigh.edu> <90239.093316F0O@psuvm.psu.edu>
Reply-To: bwb@sei.cmu.edu (Bruce Benson)
Organization: Software Engineering Institute, Pittsburgh, PA
Lines: 62

In article <90239.093316F0O@psuvm.psu.edu> F0O@psuvm.psu.edu writes:
>
>     I know one person who will take anything someone gives him, whether
>he needs it or not.  I remember one time he took a version of autocad, and
>couldn't get it running(he didn't have the instructions of course), and
>wanted me to get it running for him.  I didn't.

I've know "collectors" like this.  I actually stopped being too concerned about
these folks as they have "lots" of software but rarely use any of it. Their
thing seems to be collecting (and redistributing), rather than use. They
don't get any benefit out of the software.  

I use to freely volunteer to set up anyones system.  I gave up this altruistic
activity since those people who took me up on my offer never seemed
to want to buy the software they needed.  Too often they had stacks of disks
they got from a "collector" and thought I was going to install them and show
them how it works (and be on call for questions).

>     A couple of times, he brought in stolen copies of compilers, and thought
>he was doing me a big favor.  When I ask him if he has the documentation,
>and he says no, I promptly give the disks back to him.  I can see he doesn't
>like that, but oh well.

Ditto.  My mistake was to every once in awhile ask him if he had software
"X" because I was thinking about buying it and wanted to look at it.  In 
turn he expected me to give him copies of the software I bought. (You 
should have seen his eyes bug out the day he dropped by my home and saw
a bookshelf of software manuals - I've seen third world country street 
kids look at a wallet that same way.) I realized what I was doing was
equally wrong and stopped asking.

>      When I tell this person that he is in effect, stealing software, he
>totally denies that.  I always like to give this example:
>
>      "If you are in a computer store, and no one was around, and you took
>said product out of the store without paying for it, is that stealing?"
>      "Yes."
>      "Then what is the difference between you taking the product out of the
>store, or getting it from a friend.  The software developer is still out
>money.  Either way its stealing."
>      "..."

Ditto.  I had almost the exact same conversation.  The individual had an
IQ twice that of mine (was a rated chess player) and was a good programmer
but was not convinced that there was any parallel in the above examples.
His response to the stealing software was that it was a "victimless crime".
He didn't have a quick answer to stealing from a store. 

The person I refer to above is actually a composite of four people I have
worked with.  They were all hard working, very capable, fairly well paid, 
all professional software people.  They were all considered a lot more
normal than I was!  I wonder if they don't all have some
form of mild addiction (kinda like buying only on sale - even if it isn't
a better buy) that drives them to "collect" but never really to use.

Is there a comp.pychology.pirate news group somewhere?


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