APratt.osbunorth@XEROX.ARPA (07/30/85)
>A car >without tires as about as useless as a computer without software. If >someone buys tires for their car, there is no law stopping them from >selling them to a friend, or putting them on another car. This is not >considered theft. The difference between software and tires is that when you sell tires, you no longer have the use of them, while in selling software, you do. Computer software, cassette tapes, and video tapes are a class of product which our nation's laws do not cover very well. The characteristics of that class are that the medium costs little, and an original item is easily duplicated with little or no (in the case of computer disks) degredation. The difference between software and tires, then, is that when you sell tires, you no longer have the use of them, while in selling software, you do. If you want to go on using your tires, and your friend also wants to have tires to use, he will have to buy another set from the manufacturer. When that sale takes place, the manufacturer will be partially reimbursed for his actual expenditures in research, design, production, and, in general, for providing that item to the buyer. He also hopes to make a profit, because he wants to have bread on his table, as do his employees. If you have two cars, you are free to buy just one set of tires, and put the tires on one car or the other as the Spirit moves you. As you point out, you are also free to do this with software (except in the case of CPU-keyed dangles). The key to the copy-protection issue is that you can copy the item AND GIVE IT AWAY TO SOMEBODY WHO WOULD OTHERWISE HAVE TO BUY IT. The argument that he would not, in fact, pay the price to buy it, and the manufacturer is therefore not losing a sale, doesn't hold water. If you want to live in a capitalistic society, you have to play by certain rules. When the price of something is too high, people don't buy it, and the manufacturer has to lower his price, or make the item more valuable at the same price, or go out of business. Piracy is not a valid (moral, ethical) alternative. To say that it is not illegal is to pick nits with lawyers. Regardless of how the legislature in your State or in Washington happens to define it, the Capitalist judgement of Right and Wrong must judge that practice Wrong, because you are denying the purveyor his due. -- Allan Pratt
BRAIL@SEISMO.CSS.GOV (08/01/85)
I posted: >>A car >>without tires as about as useless as a computer without software. If >>someone buys tires for their car, there is no law stopping them from >>selling them to a friend, or putting them on another car. This is not >>considered theft. Then read: >Computer software, cassette tapes, and video tapes are a class of >product which our nation's laws do not cover very well. The >characteristics of that class are that the medium costs little, and an >original item is easily duplicated with little or no (in the case of >computer disks) degredation. The difference between software and >tires, then, is that when you sell tires, you no longer have the use >of them, while in selling software, you do. >If you have two cars, you are free to buy just one set of tires, and >put the tires on one car or the other as the Spirit moves you. As you >point out, you are also free to do this with software (except in the >case of CPU-keyed dangles). The key to the copy-protection issue is >that you can copy the item AND GIVE IT AWAY TO SOMEBODY WHO WOULD >OTHERWISE HAVE TO BUY IT. This is all true, and I fully understand (understood) and agree with it. >The argument that he would not, in fact, pay the price to buy it, and >the manufacturer is therefore not losing a sale, doesn't hold water. >If you want to live in a capitalistic society, you have to play by >certain rules. When the price of something is too high, people don't >buy it, and the manufacturer has to lower his price, or make the item >more valuable at the same price, or go out of business. Piracy is not >a valid (moral, ethical) alternative. To say that it is not illegal is >to pick nits with lawyers. Regardless of how the legislature in your >State or in Washington happens to define it, the Capitalist judgement >of Right and Wrong must judge that practice Wrong, because you are >denying the purveyor his due. > > > -- Allan Pratt I feel as if I have just been flamed for advocating piracy. Unfortunately, I never advocated piracy in the first place. I did point out that the manufacturer of software has a responsibility to provide consumers with a reasonably defect-free, useable product, and to fix any defects which may later appear. This responsibility exists in any market in a capitalistic society. I did point out that software is different from tires, eggs or whatever, and agree completely that software licensing is not yet covered adequately by law. (Computer bulletin boards aren't either, but that's another matter, and another possible set of flames.) However, I did *not* advocate piracy at any point in my original article. I did mention that shrink-wrap licences are (to my limited legal knowledge) of questionable validity. I believe that there must be a better way to licence software. Perhaps site-licensing will solve some problems. Perhaps dongles (but not ones that are keyed to an individual CPU) will solve others. Actually, I think Allan Pratt has posted a good explanation of piracy, capitalism, right, and wrong. However, I would appreciate if I were not the one insinuated as the pirate. -------
APratt.osbunorth@XEROX.ARPA (08/03/85)
In spite of the messy To: field, I hope this makes it through... I apologize for appearing to point the finger at (Mr.?) Brail as advocating piracy. I am afraid I got caught up in my little tirade, and failed to shift gears properly. The offending paragraph was a general discussion of why piracy is (capitalistically speaking) Wrong, and was not intended to be an attack on Mr. Brail's position. I am sorry my transition from responding to Mr. Brail and writing on the issue in general was not more clear. I thank Mr. Brail for his kind comment on my writing, and hope this clears up any dark cloud between us. -- Allan Pratt APratt.PA@Xerox.ARPA
Lear@RU-BLUE.ARPA (eliot lear) (08/05/85)
Allen Pratt Writes: > Piracy is not >a valid (moral, ethical) alternative. To say that it is not illegal is >to pick nits with lawyers. Regardless of how the legislature in your >State or in Washington happens to define it, the Capitalist judgment >of Right and Wrong must judge that practice Wrong, because you are >denying the purveyor his due. > > > -- Allan Pratt Sir, While I am not a pirate, it would seem to me that you missed a point when you said that pirating is NOT practical. The fact that it is indeed a problem shows that it is a practical alternative for MANY people. Furthermore, our capitalistic society promotes pirating due to the prices of most software. Now I realize that this is a vicious cycle (People pirate, software houses raise prices to cover their losses due to pirating..) but the true Capitalist will always take the best deal he can get - even if it means pirating as long as he can get away with it. In order to prevent pirating one would have to take drastic actions at present because there simply aren't good enough copy protection schemes around. I would like to mention that I do agree with you concerning tires and Software. The problem is indeed incurred by the low cost of medium and the ability to reproduce software on said medium. eliot lear [Lear@RU-BLUE] [{inhp4,seismo,allegra}!topaz!lear}] -------
APratt.osbunorth@XEROX.ARPA (08/06/85)
I must object! Mr. Lear says, "you missed a point when you said that pirating is NOT practical." I DID NOT SAY THAT. I said it was not a MORALLY or ETHICALLY valid alternative. Until the penalties are stiffer and the enforcement is better, piracy will be an ECONOMICALLY valid alternative. Piracy is VERY practical. That's the problem. -- Allan
qv@mot.UUCP (Brad Castalia) (08/28/85)
Allan Pratt (APratt.osbunorth@XEROX.ARPA) comments: > out of business. Piracy is not a valid (moral, ethical) alternative. To say > that it is not illegal is to pick nits with lawyers. Regardless of how the > legislature in your State or in Washington happens to define it, the > Capitalist judgement of Right and Wrong must judge that practice Wrong, > because you are denying the purveyor his due. Not being familiar with the church of the Capitalist Judgement I am probably not qualified to comment on this moral or ethical notion of Right and Wrong. I do seem to recall that the economic system of capitalism is, regardless of the good or bad effects, firmly based on the philosphy implicit in the notion of laissez faire (French: "allow to do") which means non-interference of one individual with the activities of another. The difficult problem of copyrights in general, and even more so as concerns software, are created by the capitalist system that insists that everything must have its price. This runs headlong into the more fundamental principle that ideas are free, and the crucial social importance of information flowing without hindrance amongst the members of society so that it will get into the hands of people who are able and willing to make productive use of it to the benefit of the society. It is very unfortunate that a capitalist economy creates this bind in a democratic society. But the problem is with the system that creates this difficulty, not the individuals who (justly or not) are trying (and succeeding) to get around it. For those who consider capitalism holy, seeking a system solution may be consdered heresy (do these people castigate users for kluging around problems with their programs?). Brad Castalia
oyster@uwmacc.UUCP (Vicious Oyster) (08/28/85)
In article <210@mot.UUCP> qv@mot.UUCP (Brad Castalia) writes, in reply to Allan Pratt (APratt.osbunorth@XEROX.ARPA): >The difficult problem of copyrights in general, and even >more so as concerns software, are created by the capitalist system that >insists that everything must have its price. This runs headlong into >the more fundamental principle that ideas are free, and the crucial >social importance of information flowing without hindrance amongst the >members of society so that it will get into the hands of people who are >able and willing to make productive use of it to the benefit of the society. >It is very unfortunate that a capitalist economy creates this bind in a >democratic society. But the problem is with the system that creates this >difficulty, not the individuals who (justly or not) are trying (and >succeeding) to get around it. I would submit that there is a distinct difference between ideas and the realization of those ideas in software. The former can be conveyed as freely as the society in which you live allows; the latter takes the consumption of real resources (man-hours, computer time, coffee and donuts, etc.) to be generated usefully. If you see a nifty spread-sheet or game, you can go right home and write a similar piece of software for your own use if you so desire. That's using your "free" ideas. But if you see that same piece of software and copy it gratis, that's using the fruit of somebody elses' labor. That should be no more palatable than if you toiled for a whole semester producing a full virtual operating system for your university OS class, only to have some mindless hack who's been sleeping through the class copy it and hand it in as his/her own work. In both cases somebody benefits by another's labor without the knowledge of the laborer. The same problem has been a thorn in the side of the recording industry for years, and they seem no closer to solving the problem than they ever were (can you imagine trying to prohibit the sale of blank floppies?). - joel "vo" plutchak {allegra,ihnp4,seismo}!uwvax!uwmacc!oyster