lauren@Rand-Unix.ARPA (04/16/84)
Several points:
1) If you're going to break the law (rape, murder, violate copyright
laws, etc.) at least ADMIT that you are a crook! People who sit
around trying to rationalize how their "higher moralities" make
it necessary for them NOT to pay for something are really amusing.
Let's face it, what they want to do is get something without
paying for it. Past that it's all rationalization. I hardly
think that copying software can be equated to the same moral
plain as refusing induction into the armed forces on genuine
religious grounds. Of course, when people refused such induction,
they had to be prepared to accept the legal consequences. Most
of them were.
2) There is little evidence that the people who rip-off software
now will not rip it off even if it was priced quite low. While
there are indeed some individuals who apparently will buy cheap
software and steal expensive software (or even steal the expensive
sort of software first and then pay for it later if they like it)
by and large this doesn't seem to be the case. People trade and
copy all sorts of software without regard to price -- I've come across
people with disks full of "minor" utilities and such that they
didn't pay for and that they've distributed freely through BBS's
and computer networks. When questioned, they usually say that
it's so cheap that the author of the software couldn't possibly miss
the money! Great -- if it's cheap the author won't miss it, and if
it's expensive the author is trying to cheat you. There doesn't seem
to be any middleground with most of these people. Some say that they
didn't buy the software because they only needed it "occasionally."
Somehow this is supposed to make everything OK and legit.
3) The people who promote the "information should be free" concept
often seem to be people who have never tried to distribute
or maintain software on a large scale -- even for free. Of course,
it's a lot easier to do such things for free if you're only "playing"
with your software distribution on the side -- which assumes that you
are either working for someone else, are independently wealthy, or that
you live on such a simple level (no family to support, we can be sure)
that you just don't need money. It's a lot easier to say that information
should be free when you derive your income directly from a government
or corporate-based salary. Somehow people who try to make a living
from designing, selling, and distributing software are evil, according
to these people. This is a view that seems particulary prevalent
among people who derive their income from educational institutions
(e.g. University computer science departments, etc.) Of course, those
departments and related projects are usually funded from direct tax
revenues, government grants (taxes, again), and other public sources.
Apparently getting your money THAT way is OK with these people, but
to SELL something? Oh, horrors!
4) There was a time when I put most of my software into the public
domain -- usually with sources included. I stopped doing so.
I stopped not because of financial considerations, but because:
a) I found people selling my software under other names
or as part of other packages with absolutely no credit
being given to the origin, even though the software explictly
required such notification. What was I going to do, sue
them? You know how much that COSTS?
b) This relates to (a) as well. I started to find zillions of
different versions of my code floating around. Most of these
didn't work properly anymore thanks to modifications
by well meaning people who didn't know what they were doing,
or who added so many useless new features that most people
didn't even have room to run it anymore. I started getting
phone calls from people at all hours complaining about my
"rotten software" -- but when I questioned them, I discovered
that usually about the only thing unchanged in my code was my
name at the top. In most cases, there was no additional change
history -- though I had specifically asked that it be
included in all copies, of course. Maybe a history had been
in there at some point, but it was long gone by the time my
callers got copies from various BBS's.
My original code worked. The modified versions (I later tracked
down over 80 different versions, most of which were essentially
useless due to bad code changes) were by and large hopeless.
Of course, it turned out that some of the versions that people
were selling (see (a) above) were the broken versions. Usually
these were the cases where the sellers HAD left my name on
there. What a treat.
One of the things you pay for when you buy software is the support of
the organization selling it. If the organization isn't supporting it
properly, then you shouldn't have to pay a lot for it. If it is being
well supported, it is generally worth more. When software becomes
widely pirated, modified, and (in many cases) corrupted, the task
of software support becomes difficult, or often impossible. Long before
that point is reached, there isn't any economical way to support the
people writing and maintaining the software -- so you're out of luck
unless you're working for someone else and/or are somehow taxpayer supported.
However, if an organization is charging too much for software, that doesn't
give you the moral right (or obligation!) to simply start using it without
paying for it. You certainly have the right NOT to pay for the software
and not to use it.
Is it any wonder that copy protection systems (none of which are perfect,
and all of which represent a hassle in terms of backups and ease of use)
are becoming so widely used? Is it any surprise that the copyright laws
and other laws relating to software are being strengthened? Of course,
when you pay good money for software, you should expect it to work and
be well supported. If it's not, you should scream bloody murder to the
distributer, the Better Business Bureau, Byte, and Ann Landers. Don't
let people rip you off. But on the other hand, please don't
rip them off either.
--Lauren--ron@Brl-Tgr.ARPA (04/16/84)
From: Ron Natalie <ron@Brl-Tgr.ARPA> Gee...RMS has been noticeably silent during this whole discussion. Interesting for someone who's remarks section of INQUIR says ... "That someone else wrote a program does not give you the right to refuse to share it." -Ron Maybe he's too busy with GNU.
Ewing@YALE.ARPA (04/22/84)
From: Ricky Ewing <Ewing@YALE.ARPA> Before we start: To Lauren Congratulations on a well thought, planned and written essay about piracy. Now it's my turn. My points: 1) I didn't come here to have my ashes spread all over the United States. The original intent of my letter was to query the bboard audience to their experiences with software piracy and the conditions that they would do this witch-burning illegality, not to have you or anyone else blast at my principles.I was going to maybe save that for later (by my coDo you want me to say it? Do you think I'm afraid? Okay, I admit it. What I have been doing for two-and-a-half years has been probably in some cases, and definitely in other cases been completely illegal by the laws of our fair land. Going by that very definite interpretation, I'm a crook. Satisfied? Good. Now tell me that a good number of our subscribing members here can THAT with a straight face. I'm not trying to rationalize what I do is higher than thou mortals that have to pay attention to such laws. Every one has to abide by the same laws or otherwise Richard Nixon just might be acclaimed today as a great president. 2) >"There is little evidence that the people who rip-off software now will not >rip it off even if it was priced quite low." Maybe you've lived longer than I have and have had more encounters with people'smorality about software, but I've lived long enougmy hometown, people pirate for a variety of reasons. Usually kids never give piracy a second thought as the only thing on their minds is "Where's the next game goming from?" There also are alot of adults that are like this too, but I've generally found that kids usually fall into this catagory. Then there are others who will only buy software worthy of their money and pirate the rest. Usually when asked, these people say that they pirate the not-so-good quality software to try to stimulate these software programmers to get their act together and turn out some better material. Whether or not this reason even seems close to having any beef whatsoever, some people do believe this, although I have stopped. Then there are the people who will only buy non- protected software and in some cases, pirate the rest but not always. If you don't believe me, just read the letter column to Softalk magazine sometime. It's loaded with all sorts of people that gripe about not being able to modify their program for their particular printer or 80-column card just because of the protection. Quite often in a software upgrade, older non-standard or unpopular peripherals may be dropped from support due to that peripheral being discontinued or being unpopular in the marketplace. These owners eagerly send their old original disks back to the company only to find that their peripheral has been dropped from the support list, thus forcing them to either buy a similar piece of software to support their device, or buy a newer, more standard peripheral altogether (either choice means more money leaving your wallet). And usually these people are the first to complain about the inability to make a backup of their precious software. Is this a crime? When a friend of mind purchased "The Home Accountant", I personally made sure that the original disk was only used once and once only as I proceeded to make three backups for him. So far, one of them has failed. I like fast and easy support from the software vendor insuring against such problems, but if you work alot in business, some things just can't wait. Getting back to the original point of this paragraph, I was looking for views about copying and experiences from other people around the country to form a better understanding of the problem. Certainly the public opinion of the Rev. Jesse Jackson is much different as one travels between New Hampshire and Mississippi. So let's here it from the people, okay? All the people which means your opinion gets noted and respected, too. 3) I am not promoting an "Information should be free" doctrine for everyone. My college, Yale University costs $14,000+ dollars a year to attend. If I believed that information was free, then I'd be a stark raving lunatic to go here. Software piracy does not support this said doctrine and neither does tapping into someone else's cable box for television. However, I am known to crack software and give it to other people (*NEVER* charging for anything). Am I a hypocrit for saying that "Information is free" is wrong and then giving away software to my heart's delight? Of course. Will I ever get over this problem with my psyche? Probably, but not for a while to come. Then why do I do it do you say? Well, just like you said earlier, >"somehow people who try to make a living from designing, selling, and >distributing software are evil, according to these people." Me and my friends started cracking and pirating software as a game as us against the software artist and the company purely as a battle of wits. It's still a battle of wits, but soon thereafter, we started to respect the programmers an awful lot. We started to try to imitate their styles in our own programs but never plagerized code. It is very apparent to me that without descent programmers to provide us with software for our little "game", then I wouldn't be sitting in front of this DEC-20 mainframe typing this letter. Why do we still pirate software still then? It's a bad habit, like smoking that sometimes takes weeks, months or years to shake off. And of course some people never stop..... 4) I sympathise with your public domain dilemma, but keep in mind that when you release a program into the public domain, it becomes *PUBLIC*, thus waiving all rights that you have to it or where it ends up. Of course conversely, you also shouldn't be hassled by people wanting to know why said software has bugs in it for problems that someone else created. Whenever a program, public or not circulates around different computers, there are bound to be people that are eager to or out of necessity apply local hacks to the program as necessary. Once this happens, heaven knows what will happen to the original code. Of course it is *VERY* wrong to plagerize by any means as to take your name off of said program or use parts of your program in another program without due credit. But unfortunately, it's bound to happen as to some people with software, nothing is sacred. About six months ago, a man by the name of John Holt distributed his own interpretation of the arcade game, "Defender" for the Apple ][ in the public domain. Along with the game came a three page message on why the game was being given away rather than sold for his own profit. This program quite frankly blows the Atarisoft "Defender" for the Apple ][ right out of the water, and he knew this but still chose to but his work, time and effort into the public domain. Maybe there's still hope for it. 5) I agree that support in the software industry is crucial to keep customer satisfaction for a copyrighted and distributed product. However, as I stated earlier, sometimes one cannot wait 5 days to a month for his diskette to be repaired and sent back to him. Some software companies are nice enough to include backup disks and programs to make semi-backups of the original, but I feel that this is not enough. This is why I support unprotection of software now: Murphy's Unpredictable Law. Me and my friends have had media errors at the worst and the only saving grace is that I make backups of everything I own. I encourage others to do the same for this very reason. Is this a crime? I should hope not. And to those of you who think that the total unprotection of software will mean doom to the business? Look at Bert kersey of Beagle Bros. software. Look at Mark Pelzarski of Penquin software. These guys are having some of their best sales ever WITH unprotected software. Maybe there's still hope for the industry with minds such as these. I've gone on much to long here, but I would just like to close that I still would like to have the others reading this bboard to respond to my original question of why you as a user engage in software piracy. Who knows, we might find reasons in which we never even thought of. I've met some people who didn't even know that what they were doing was illegal. As for me, I probably won't change for a long period of time and I'm sure I still have my share of critics. But maybe with some imput from everyone, we can get to the bottom of this dilemma that continues from the old arguments of photocopying and cassette tape copying. I'll look forward to hearing from you (don't be shy). --Ricky-- EWING@YALE.ARPA -------