Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!vx2!spector From: spector@vx2.GBA.NYU.EDU (David HM Spector) Newsgroups: comp.misc Subject: Re: Morality of copying software? (wasn't: Re: Back to Intellectual...) Message-ID: <7650004@vx2.GBA.NYU.EDU> Date: 23 Jul 88 14:44:00 GMT References: Organization: New York University Lines: 40 I agree with Bob. Morality should not be the driving force behind copyright laws. Sure, "it's immoral" to steal someone elses work, just like its immoral to rob little old folks of their life savings. (no, I am not equating the two acts...) They are both "wrong" from an "ethical" point of view, and wrong from a LEGAL point of view. "Ethical" depends very much upon your point of view, "legal" is absolute. There are many people who think nothing of stealing office supplies from their workplace, to them its not "unethical", they can rationalise the act... but that doesn't mean its not illegal. I know many people who can rationalise software theft. I even met a couple of kids in a computer store a few years ago who were pirating *MY* software. When I asked them if they though stealing someone elses work was "wrong" they replied "no..", but when I imformed them that it was also a federal crime, and that they might have to "pay" for it... their tune changed. They hadn't thought that they were breaking the law. Other people, including my office-mate insist that its the high price of software that makes people rationalise that they can steal things. (B.S. in my opinion..) I think that itself is a rationalisation. People don't go out and steal cars from dealer showrooms (well most people don't) just becuase cars are expensive. We need really stiff penalties for software theft, and an education program the really stresses that software is a tangeable assest that took someome time and sweat to create. Primarily the problem is that most end-users of software think that it either writes-itself or automagically pops into existance. (hmm... I am starting to ramble... time to get out :-) _DHMS ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- David HM Spector New York University Senior Systems Programmer Graduate School of Business Arpa: SPECTOR@GBA.NYU.EDU Academic Computing Center UUCP:...!{allegra,rocky,harvard}!cmcl2!spector 90 Trinity Place, Rm C-4 HamRadio: N2BCA MCIMail: DSpector New York, New York 10006 AppleLink: D1161 CompuServe: 71260,1410 (212) 285-6080 "What computer puts out work like this?" "Hire us and we'll tell you." XYZZYGLORP