Author: Moritz Berger
Date: 09:33:50 07/22/98
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On July 22, 1998 at 12:14:21, Fernando Villegas wrote: >I said i was not going to write about this anymore, but temptation to get an >understanding in trhis issue is too high. So let me say that the core of Hyatt >and Moreland -an other people- is a fallacy called petitio principi. They insist >once and again with the example of stealing 1 dollar against stealing 1000 and >they say it is the same thing. Of course it is so because from the beginning >they are defined both acts as stealing and they are, of course. No reasonning is >neccesary to recognize that. What they does not understand is that what I am >saying is that we cannot so simply qualify as steal a simple copy for a friend, >to put it...simple. At least this is something that must be discussed BEFORE >saying it is stealing. You say it is because "the box says you cannot". Yes, but >I am not so readily prepared to recognize as fair, just and moral anything >putted in a box, even if behind it there is a corpus of law to support it. There are several reasons why the "innocent" act of passing *one* copy to a friend is indeed highly damaging to the creators of that piece of software: 1. Your "friend" doesn't buy that software - ok, maybe he wouldn't have bought it anyway and so this is not a very strong argument. 2. Snowball effect: Your friend also has friends. They also get copies. 3. Internet snowball effect^2: Friend #57 puts the "innocent" copy on a warez FTP site Result: Even people who could well afford it and would have bought the product otherwise "end up" using a pirated copy. Your argument that e.g. Sargon V is an outdated product that cannot be bought doesn't hold either, for other reasons: 1. Maybe it could be bought (now or in the future) as part of a "classic" compilation on CD. Not a strong argument, but there it is. 2. People don't buy e.g. M-Chess or Rebel because they use the pirated Sargon V instead. And that's a real problem. Rebel costs money, Sargon-Long-John-Silver-edition is "for free" if you take a "warez" copy. So Rebel (the legitimate, original version) has to compete with something you can obtain seemingly "for free". Now, Sargon won't beat Anand but I hope you see my point. And your illegal copy damages not only one software company (Activision in the case of Sargon) but the industry as a whole. That's just several concrete reasons beyond moral concerns to illustrate the real damage of ignoring copyright. Moritz P.S.: The original version of Sargon V uses a codeword copy protection which has the user look up random words from the manual every time the program starts. This prevented me some time ago from using the program more often. It didn't prevent the pirates to remove the copy protection and spread the program. It would even be interesting for me (a legitimate user) to obtain an illegal copy to get rid of that annoying protection. Lesson to be learned: Copy protection schemes don't work against real pirates, they just annoy people who faithfully buy the programs. >Obviously every people in this world look for protect his interest in the >strongest way they can, using law if possible, but that does not means is moral. >I have live many years in a country where a dictatorship imposed many laws and I >can ensure you they were not very moral. All the history of economy in every >country is full of examples of monopolies that has got a law to support his >claims to exclusive trade of a comodity. Were fair claims? If I don't remember >wrongly, part of the history of US independence grew from the resistence to a >commercial monopoly fully supported by law. So, the pretension of a software >producer not to allow even a copy of his product, not even for your second >computer or so, is just a pretension than can have the support of law, but not >neccesarily of moral. Maybe to give a program or receive one is not a moral >action in itself, something to sheer, but neither is neccesary the contrary. >Finally, I don't remember I had said I am beginning a campaing to support >stealing or so, as Bruce and Bob insist to say. They are stuck with the conect >and word stealing and they just refuses to see beyond the cardboard bo >Fernando.
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