Author: Bruce Moreland
Date: 12:13:59 07/21/98
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On July 21, 1998 at 14:08:48, Robert Hyatt wrote: >(2) copying software is stealing. A company pays people to write the code. >When you *steal* a copy, the company is deprived of that revenue, yet they >certainly paid out the labor costs to develop the software. So they lose money >just as if you walked into their office, opened a drawer, and took a wad of >money out and left with it. There is *no* difference at all. The next argument is going to be that since they wouldn't buy it anyway, they are free to steal it, since because they don't actually have to steal a physical object from the company, there is no direct loss to the company. If the pirate is not completely amoral, he doesn't feel great about this, but he can solve this problem by turning the act into a political statement. A few reasons for not pirating are: lack of interest in the product (piracy as an effort to get companies to make better products), the poor financial condition of the pirate (piracy as a form of income levelling), the high price of the product (piracy as a just punishment for corporate greed), the behavior of the company in general (software piracy as a form of social protest), or a belief that the profit motive should not exist in the software industry (piracy as a utopian movement). A related issue involves cases where the pirate goes to the trouble of paying for a piece of software. The pirate can feel especially good about himself when he does this, since in addition to feeling generous because he paid so much more than usual this time, he can view his other acts of piracy as part of a complete policy of incentives and disincentives. bruce
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