eggplant@walt.cc.utexas.edu (johan van Zanten) (06/14/90)
There's been alot of insightful discussion about piracy, but the simple
reason that it exists is because copying a program is
physically completely different than stealing
car radios. (Aside: Most people who steal car stereos sell them for money.
This is not the case with software; there are different motives at work.)
I think the average person realizes that:
a) They probably won't get caught for copying a copyrighted piece
of software.
b) "Everybody" (meaning a whole lot of people) does it.
and most important, although people can touch, see, feel and even smell a disk
, they cannot touch see and smell software. Software is lots of little bits
aligned in a certain way, and even though people realize that someone or
someones have worked very hard at aligning and organizing those little bits
in a particular way, it still seems different. People, because they evovled
for millions of year by manipulating objects perceive what they can sense.
And even though they can use the software, they view it as something very
abstract.
In a way, it's like our attitudes toward our environement. Until we see
grossly polluted lakes, rivers and streams, we really won't be heavily motivated
to recycle and drive less. I think attitudes are changing; people are learning
that "simple" actions have effects upon people and things we cannot see.
Perhaps the best solution for most software developers is to include digitized
images of them, their staffs, and their dependents with their programs,
"guilting" people into doing what they think is right.
Johan van Zanten "Don't you threaten me with a dead fish."
(eggplant@walt.cc.utexas.edu) (from the movie "Withnail and I")siegel@endor.harvard.edu (Rich Siegel) (06/14/90)
In article <31594@ut-emx.UUCP> eggplant@walt.cc.utexas.edu (johan van Zanten) writes: > > There's been alot of insightful discussion about piracy, but the simple >reason that it exists is because copying a program is >physically completely different than stealing >car radios. (Aside: Most people who steal car stereos sell them for money. >This is not the case with software; there are different motives at work.) Why are the motives any different? The car stereo theif makes money by selling stolen property, by the software pirate (a) saves money by not spending it on the package, and (b) makes money by being productive with the software he's stolen. Depending on the type of software stolen, the translation from stolen software to income may be more or less direct. An extreme case might be some person stealing a compiler and writing a best-selling piece of software with it, or using a stolen PageMaker and stolen fonts to start a service bureau operating out of his house. R. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Rich Siegel Staff Software Developer Symantec Corporation, Language Products Group Internet: siegel@endor.harvard.edu UUCP: ..harvard!endor!siegel "It's not the years, honey, it's the mileage." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
foy@aerospace.aero.org (Richard Foy) (06/15/90)
In article <31594@ut-emx.UUCP| eggplant@walt.cc.utexas.edu (johan van Zanten) writes: | | There's been alot of insightful discussion about piracy, but the simple |reason that it exists is because copying a program is |physically completely different than stealing |car radios. (Aside: Most people who steal car stereos sell them for money. .... |Perhaps the best solution for most software developers is to include digi tized |images of them, their staffs, and their dependents with their programs, |"guilting" people into doing what they think is right. | | Johan van Zanten "Don't you threaten me with a dead fish." |(eggplant@walt.cc.utexas.edu) (from the movie "Withnail and I") I agree that the motivation, and the attitude about copying software are different from stealing a piece of hardware. I suspect the attitudes are mor more like peoples attitude about violating traffic. People it is morally OK because "I haven't really taken anything from anyone." The apprehension rate for most crimes is too low for the fear of being ca caught to be a big deterrent. I think that peoples internal moral values more often prevents them from stealing things. Thus if I ever get around to writing a saleable program I will incorporate your idea of working on their morals being including a digitixed image. /|\ | The above opinions are all my own but they are freely distributable. foy@aerospace.aero.org (Richard Foy)
mxmora@unix.SRI.COM (Matt Mora) (06/15/90)
In article <3205@husc6.harvard.edu> siegel@endor.UUCP (Rich Siegel) writes: >In article <31594@ut-emx.UUCP> eggplant@walt.cc.utexas.edu (johan van Zanten) writes: >> >> There's been alot of insightful discussion about piracy, but the simple >>reason that it exists is because copying a program is >>physically completely different than stealing >>car radios. (Aside: Most people who steal car stereos sell them for money. >>This is not the case with software; there are different motives at work.) > > Why are the motives any different? The car stereo theif makes money >by selling stolen property, by the software pirate (a) saves money by not >spending it on the package, and (b) makes money by being productive with the >software he's stolen. > Rich Siegel Look at it this way; If you borrow your friends brand new car stereo, insert it in to a duplicating machine, and out popped a perfect copy, I think there would be a lot more car stereo pirates. who does it hurt? Not your friend because you didn't steal it from him, you gave back the car stereo. It hurts the dealers and the manufacturer. In an early post you used a car as an example. I forget the car you mentioned but you said that you couldn't afford it so you would do without. You would not go steal the Car. Now what if you could borrow the car,drive it through a duplicating machine and out came a perfect copy. At no cost to you. Would you do that? [Rich I'm not accusing or trying to imply that you could be a crook. I ment you in the above example as a general you, not you personnally Rich.] Just some random blabbing... -- ___________________________________________________________ Matthew Mora | my Mac Matt_Mora@sri.com SRI International | my unix mxmora@unix.sri.com ___________________________________________________________
roy@phri.nyu.edu (Roy Smith) (06/18/90)
In <31594@ut-emx.UUCP> eggplant@walt.cc.utexas.edu (johan van Zanten) writes: > People, because they evovled for millions of year by manipulating objects > perceive what they can sense. And even though they can use the software, > they view it as something very abstract. Perhaps this is taking the argument to such an extreme as to become absurd, but in a very real sense, the most important thing that people do (and the thing over which they invest the most effort, desire, pain, joy, anguish, and emotional expense) is manipulation of abstract information that they cannot physically sense. I'm talking about the information contained in your DNA, and passing that information on to copies of yourself in the form of children. Recently, there was a major ho-ha when a sperm bank was suspected of mixing up some semen samples and impregnating some women with sperm from men other than their husbands. The women who had children by "the wrong men" were pretty darn upset. Why? They got what the wanted, in the physical sense, but what was wrong was the information which they couldn't see, touch, or smell. Why can people so readily grasp the idea that DNA is simply bits aligned in certain patterns and that it is the pattern of alignment itself that has value, not the actual physical molecule, but have so much trouble with the parallel concept when applied to software? -- Roy Smith, Public Health Research Institute 455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016 roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu -OR- {att,cmcl2,rutgers,hombre}!phri!roy "Arcane? Did you say arcane? It wouldn't be Unix if it wasn't arcane!"