Author: Bruce Moreland
Date: 20:33:16 07/18/98
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On July 18, 1998 at 20:01:36, Fernando Villegas wrote: >No, I don't believe they are asking us if we steal or not; they asked how much >stolen programs are, independently of our behaviour. Besides, this is a far more >complex issue than hust to be an honest guy or to be a thief. It is not the case >you purchase it or you get it wit a gun. There is a middle, intermediate area >where you are not a thief neither a customer. Many times happens that you get a >pirated progrtam that was copied by the first time a lot time ago and it is not >even a competitor in the market and I think in that case to qualify as a thief >the guy that accept it would too much. If somebody send me a pirated copy of, >let us say, sargon V, I will take it gladly I and will not feel I am a thief. >And then there is the case of a friend that purchase a current program and then >decides to give you one copy of it. Are you a thief if you accept the gift? This is a slippery slope. Software piracy is different from normal theft for several reasons. A few big ones are that there is almost no chance of getting caught, and you don't have to take a real object away from someone. You can take a full disk that is yours and a blank disk that is yours, and from this create something that is not legally yours, and then you distribute it. There are also lots of convenient ways of rationalizing this kind of thing. But it is theft, of course. Someone out there has specified terms by which you can use their property, and you circumvented these terms and did something that is prohibited by the license and by law, as well as by any conventional code of ethics. I am not a lawyer, but I expect that out of print software is also protected by copyright, and I expect that you've it is also against the law in most places to receive stolen software. The argument, "I didn't actually do the copying, so I'm not liable", is an argument that can only be made by someone who doesn't expect to get caught, and therefore needs only to convince themselves. You know very well that this would not fly if you were actually busted for having this stuff. Don't expect everyone to reinforce your fallacies if you post them publicly. bruce
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