Piracy

[psyjax]

http://forum.fuckmicrosoft.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=3&t=000114

Flap and I exchanged some interesting thought's on this. I thought it would be loungeworthy to get everone's views.

What's your take on the issue?

[lazygamer]

My take? PIRACY FUCKING ROCKS!  

[voidmain]

Ahhh, the sound of falling ratings....

[Calum]

piracy is bad... if it harms the person who is being pirated.

example, the last pumpkins lp (Machina 2, the friends and enemies of modern music) would not get released by their record company because the record company thought it could get better sales if it waited another 6 months. well the band was splitting up and wanted to release a final lp, the record label said no.

In the end the pumpkins pressed 25 copies on vinyl (which is legal apparently, since the record label had originally said no CDs) and then sent the copies to some prominent DJs and so on. Three of them had broadband internet, one of them had his record player hooked up to his computer. Within days there were tons of sites with mp3s of this album (which is a double lp with three 10" eps as well) free to download, EMI were pissed off to fuck but the smashing pumpkins have been very vocally in favour of this. They put the mp3s on their own site!

Now there are a lot of bands that said you could bootleg their stuff (green day, radiohead & grateful dead spring to mind) and basically what i am saying is that live music being circulated does not harm sales of studio lps.

Each case should be taken on its own merits but really, at the end of the day if there's a good reason not to pirate, then it's wrong, if not, then it isn't.

windows for example, the reason not to pirate windows CDs is that it is shit software and pirating it enables it to saturate the minds of more and more hapless computer novices round the world. If M$ enforced their copyright thoroughly, there would be tons of countries in the world who would be using EXCLUSIVELY free systems and software. M$ know this and this is why they allow their stuff to be pirated hugely in Thailand, et c.

There's good reasons for and against in all cases.

I have pirated more music in my time than i will likely ever listen to, but i have spent thousands on records of bands i would never have heard of if not for home taping et c.

[lazygamer]

Im just a low down dirty freeloader who likes a free lunch(But look at how much those non-free lunches cost!). I also try to pass off my actions as being an anti-corporate freedom fighter who fights teh system by stealing indirectly.  
(so I never steal physical objects from stores)

/watches rating fall(took long enough to get 3 stars)

[Calum]

pirating is not helping anybody.

sorry but stealing software is no way to get your warm fuzzies. Go and do something useful like stopping those bastards who kill whales or log equatorial forests in brazil depriving the natives of their habitat, their country of many of its native species'and us of future oxygen to breathe.

I reckon it is a lot worse to do something and tell yourself it is okay, than to just be honest about doing something that, lets face it, does not do anybody any good.

[flap]

Of course it's doing someone some good. Him. And the people for whom he in turn copies the software.

[voidmain]

Not really, it makes them more dependent on the software they are copying and they aren't learning anything else. Should they get a job where they need to use software legally which do you think they would choose.  Likely it would be that which they are used to, the stuff they pirated previously.

[shuiend]

i personally think that pirating is bad but i do it anyways. i used to download all sorts of windows programs that i did not have the cash to buy. no since i switched to linux i do it less often but i still do it everyonce and a while. my friend in skool is starting to use autocad 2000 whcich is a very expensive program. i donwloaded that for him only b/c he dosent have broadband to get it. I dont sell what i download either. but for music i have found my loophple but it only works for singles. i now download music videos which artise do not make money off and convert them to mp3. and burn them. i think for software piracy though that as long as there is windows it will be around. Linux if something costs money you can most likely get something that does the same thing but free

[lazygamer]

Well I'll admit

1)That anti-corp stuff is true, but it's still a shallow excuse. I admit wholeheartedly im a freeloader. Will you ever see me at an anti-globlization rally? Nooooo....(Although they are likely in the right)

2)I try to be "enlightened", but either I don't take it to the level I should, or I recgonize where to draw the line. So I coulden't give a shit about the whales as long as their population stays stable, and while the rainforest is a good cause, that issue needs to be approached from a different perspective. Crying about it and tying yourself to trees won't help. I respect scientist enviromentalists like David Suzuki for example, but I despise the standard "I know it all" enviromental protester. Ironically, I come from a place where forestry r0x0rs, and enviromentalists are crucified. Although in southern BC some out of work forest industry workers(and their foremen) beat the shit out of enviromentalists at a camp well over a year ago.  

[flap]

quote:Originally posted by void main:
Not really, it makes them more dependent on the software they are copying and they aren't learning anything else. Should they get a job where they need to use software legally which do you think they would choose.  Likely it would be that which they are used to, the stuff they pirated previously.

I completely agree; if illegally copying software was somehow made impossible MS wouldn't have anywhere near the stranglehold they have. However, Calum's use of the word "stealing" suggests that the issue people are having here is with the moral implications of what they see as the "theft" of data, and not the problem you outlined.

[KernelPanic]

Linux is Free.

<End of fucking story>

[xyle_one]

i use pirated software. i would like to buy the software though. but i need the software to make the money. kind if a shitty situation. is it okay to use warez until i can save the money to buy it legit? probably not. i cant exactly bill the client for $10,000 in software. i dont think that it is causing too much harm to the companies though. because if all i could get was so-and-so's graphic package, master it, that is what i will buy when i can. they have a new customer. i really have no excuse though, if i really wanted to get the software, i would, piece by piece. eventually, it would pay itself off.
piracy is wrong, im a criminal, its just too easy.
on another note, using warez is probably the singlemost reason i stuck with windows for so long.
ecsyle_one*

[voidmain]

quote:Originally posted by flap:
I completely agree; if illegally copying software was somehow made impossible MS wouldn't have anywhere near the stranglehold they have. However, Calum's use of the word "stealing" suggests that the issue people are having here is with the moral implications of what they see as the "theft" of data, and not the problem you outlined.

Well I doubt you've ever heard that argument out of me. If I really thought that pirating M$ software hurt them in any way I would say copy away.  But I have always maintained from the beginning that it in fact helps M$ to have their software pirated.  In fact I believe they secretely *wanted* that to happen.

Now that the market is pretty much saturated they bring out the big BSA to stop the pirating and to collect from those who have been pirating for so long. Kinda like crack dealers. Once they get you hooked they suck you dry.

[Calum]

as i said before, if Microsoft had enforced their copyrights, half the windows using world would be using free software right now. they know how to get people under the thumb and you piraters are helping them along. even if you don't copy any Microsoft software, how many of you copy windows-only binaries?

I said stealing to imply that it is theft if the person who holds the copyright does not want you copying it. you missed my point completely about people who don't mind their work being made freely available, fair's fair. That's what the whole free software movement (such as it is) is all about.

As everything else, stealing is subject to personal opinion. However. I think stealing is wrong because you infringe another person's right not to have their stuff stolen. Radiohead don't mind me owning illegal copies of their concerts, neither do green day, the pumpkins or the grateful dead, but theoretically i am the enemy of Pacific records, EMI records, and so on, just for owning bootleg concerts copied off the radio.

The reality and the morality are open to interpretation, all i'm saying is look at the knock on effects of pirating and see what's really going on.