Author: Robert Hyatt
Date: 10:38:04 07/22/98
Go up one level in this thread
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. Fernando, the above line is wrong. *WRONG*. Again, pick any commercial piece of software you want and look at the license agreement, which you *must agree to* before using the product. Now if you can produce one piece of software that says "you may make copies for your friends at no cost" then I'll apologize. If you can't, then you should simply say "I am a software pirate" and be done with the discussion. There is *no* middle ground here. If the license says you are buying *one* right-to-use of this software, then you can't make copies. If you do, as I do in our lab here, buy a single package but with say 10 right-to-use licenses in it, I can give 10 copies to any 10 people I choose (9 if I keep a copy for myself.) But *note* that I *paid* for those 10 licenses, which cost me more than if I had bought a single license. your argument is flawed, your position is attrocious, and your actions are illegal. > 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. >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. If you believe that, don't buy the product in the first place. Because when you do, you enter into a contractural agreement with the supplier (see the license agreement for an example) where you agree to the agreement, or else are instructed to return it still sealed for a full refund. Breaking the seal is the same as signing your name on a contract, in that you accept the terms of the agreement in doing so. And the terms are quite specific about not making copies for others, friends or not... >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. I don't care if you lived through the Holocaust, thru Hitler, through Stalin, or whatever. Those have *nothing* to do with stealing from someone that is selling computer software. Do you go to the grocery market and walk around eating this and that, then leave without paying? Do you go to a restaurant, order a meal, eat, and slip out when no one is looking? Do you go to a bookstore, find something you like, xerox the whole thing and then leave without paying? Do you copy software that you didn't pay for? Do you buy software products and then make copies for your friends? If the answer to any of the above is "yes" then you are a thief, plain and simple. Stealing is stealing. you need to raise some children. The ones that steal a dime today, steal a dollar tomorrow, and a hundred dollars next year, and a thousand after that. And they end up in jail where they belong. There is no "grey area" here. If you take something that doesn't belong to you, it is wrong and illegal, regardless of (a) how valueable the item was and (b) how wealthy/big the entity you stole it from is. Pop out your dictionary and look up "steal". That will illuminate things quite clearly. verb, "to take something that belongs to someone else, without paying for it."
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