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From: oconnor@sunray.steinmetz (Dennis M. O'Connor)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga,comp.sys.misc,comp.sys.ibm.pc,comp.sys.mac,comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Software (and other kinds of) copying
Message-ID: <9371@steinmetz.steinmetz.UUCP>
Date: 29 Jan 88 19:02:12 GMT
References: <229@wright.EDU>
Sender: news@steinmetz.steinmetz.UUCP
Reply-To: sunray!oconnor@steinmetz.UUCP
Organization: GE Corporate R&D Center
Lines: 62

An article by olsen@ll-xn.UUCP (Jim Olsen) says:
<In article <229@wright.EDU< jholbach@wright.EDU (Jim Holbach) writes:
<<	I am amazed at how much discussion the topic of copying
<<still generates though... It still comes down to theft...
<
<Unauthorized copying is not theft: it is infringement of a statutory
<monopoly.  You may think that unauthorized copying is a bad as theft,
<but you confuse yourself when you say it _is_ theft.  The two crimes
<are quite distinct; this is why people treat them differently.

Sorry, it is a form of theft. As shall be demonstrated.

<If I copy a program which I would never pay for, the copyright holder
<loses nothing, since he wouldn't get any money from me anyway.

"If I illegally tap into the cable TV lines but would never subscribe
 to cable TV, the cable company loses nothing, since they wouldn't
 get any mony from me anyway." Let's say you use this logic.

What you have committed is called "theft of services". You will
be fined and/or jailed when you are caught. Software provides
its user with a service, just like cable TV or a time-share
system. The fact that you only pay once for the service ( as
opposed to monthly as with Cable, or as-used with time-share )
does not change that basic fact. 

> In such a situation, the copying is illegal, but I would not
> consider it immoral.

"Immoral" is a value judgement. It is certainly unethical.
And it SHOULD ( and is ) illegal for very good reasons.

Although their is dissent about whether some things should
be written into law or not, there are other things about
which their is no doubt about whether they should be illegal.
The criteria by which these must-be-illegal things may be
recognized is simple : Would the society ( as the members of
the society perceive it ) become untenable if they were not ?

By this reasoning murder must certainly be illegal : few
of us would be willing or able to live in a society where
indiscriminate manslaughter was legal. Theft, extortion,
kidnapping, enslavement, torture, rape, assault : try
to imagine a society where any of these is legal. Would
you try to raise a family in such a society ? Or even live ?

To modern Americans, theft-of-services meets this fundamental
criteria. Without theft-of-services being illegal, there
would be no cable or network TV, no time-share systems,
no telephone network, no Consumer Reports, no garbage collection,
no mail office, no public transportation. 

In a purely socialist society, perhaps theft-of-services
need not be a crime. But in a capatilist one, it has to be.
Even the process of invention is only a service : infringing
on a patent is really the theft of the inventor's services.
Read some of Ben Franklin's writings on the need for a
Patent Office if you need further enlightening.
--
	Dennis O'Connor 	oconnor@sungoddess.steinmetz.UUCP ??
				ARPA: OCONNORDM@ge-crd.arpa
        "If I have an "s" in my name, am I a PHIL-OSS-IF-FER?"