Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!harpo!seismo!hao!hplabs!sri-unix!THOMPSON@USC-ECLC.ARPA From: THOMPSON@USC-ECLC.ARPA Newsgroups: net.micro Subject: info-piracy mailing list Message-ID: <12116@sri-arpa.UUCP> Date: Mon, 9-Apr-84 13:56:04 EST Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.12116 Posted: Mon Apr 9 13:56:04 1984 Date-Received: Sun, 15-Apr-84 00:54:22 EST Lines: 24 From: mark thompson Well, i was going to skip tonight's bonfire, but what the hey...you can only get burned. For the sake of argument, lets say that a morality is 'workable' if you could successfully operate a society where everyone followed that morality. Clearly, if your actions fail this test, you have a double- standard somewhere. Now what happens where you have a user community that cheerfully steals any software they happen to need? Well, the producers try to copy-protect it (i bet the record industry would love to copy-protect records!), which makes it harder to use; then they either raise the price (to recover their expenses over fewer copies) or make the stuff cheaper to produce (and usually worse to use); finally, a lot of them give up. Conclusion: you can steal the stuff, and they cant stop you. However, any moral justifications you have come up with are horse manure, so stop kidding yourself. -mark -------