Piracy

There''s no way to be sure that anyone would not have purchased the product otherwise.

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Original post by glassJaw
There's no way to be sure that anyone would not have purchased the product otherwise.

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True, but do you think that numbers such as these are justified?

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Original post by Anonymous Poster
Why do you think you have the right to steal anyones work because you cant afford it, is it your pathetic upbringing, your moral corruptness, or are you just a natural born petty thief.

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Actually, I'm writing a paper, and looking for insight. I don't know in what portion of that you managed to extract that I, personally, was stealing anyones work - and if i was i certainly wouldnt feel the need to justify it with the likes of you or anyone else.

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[My site|SGI STL|Bjarne FAQ|C++ FAQ Lite|MSDN|Jargon]
Ripped off from various people

[edited by - wild_pointer on November 6, 2002 8:54:26 PM]

He didn''t say that, and it''s a good question (except for the missing question mark). If the company could eliminate piracy, they probably wouldn''t make as much money as they though they were loosing.

Begin_Crazy_ConsPiracy_Theory

Despite the noise they make against software piracy, the major corporations do not want it to stop. In fact they are the ones behind it. With regards to game software, it is the publishers I''m talking about and not the developers

Warez games are often available before the official release. The leaks happen, of course, from the publisher. These leaks are the publishers primary form of attack at both the open source movement and the shareware (affordable) market.

Shareware and open source games''s strength is their affordability. Warez attacks that competitive edge. Why buy a $10 shareware game when a AAA new release is available for free?

The large corporations are far better at surviving the resultant potential loss of income than the smaller sharware companies. By pirating, you are directly supporting big business and you are helping create a monopolistic economy.

Next time you go to pirate something, choose an open source or shareware solution instead...

End_Crazy_ConsPiracy_Theory

If nothing else, an entertaining theory, not without it''s merits.

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[My site|SGI STL|Bjarne FAQ|C++ FAQ Lite|MSDN|Jargon]
Ripped off from various people

IIRC, your previous post was about a hypothetical guy, who used pirated software to boost up his career. The argument was, that he wouldn''t have bought it anyway. But without the software, he wouldn''t be where he was using the software (career, money, etc). So he gained profit from using it. Conclusion: he has to pay for it.

Piracy in general is not only illegal, it''s highly immoral too. Lots of people put great efforts and money into a software product. Other than with ''normal'' work, they don''t directly get rewarded for that work, they have to wait until the product is sold on the market. It''s an investment with delayed returns.

Now, the development of high quality software depends on selling large quantities of it. Otherwise, it would economically be totally unfeasable to develop complex software. The development process is too resource hungry. Consider a program such as 3DSMax. Or even simply a game. If you only produced a single copy of it, then it would be worth millions of dollars. Do you want to pay $20 million for your copy of Doom3 ? You would have to, if it wasn''t for the large quantities sold. Luckily for us all, the duplication of software comes almost for free (compared to the development investment), so that a $50 game is economically possible.

Look at it this way: software is almost always developed for a large number of customers. The software company pays the development in advance, taking sometimes huge fincancial risks, and develops the software. Once done, every customer pays his small share to that investment by buying the software.

Pirating the software is stealing by bypassing your share. It has nothing to do with the fact that software can be duplicated without any costs, but with the fact that the company invested huge amounts of money and took risks FOR YOU, the customer. If you are not willing to pay your share to get them back the money they invested (and some profit, of course), then you have no right to use the software.

The only situation, where piracy used to be more or less tolerable was the "kid without money uses pirated 3DSMax version, gets really good, buys it as soon as he has the money, and engages in a career". It was still illegal, but profitable for both sides (the software company got a new customer). Fortunately, software companies have anticipated that effect by releasing special free training versions of their programs (eg. GMax, Maya Learning edition, etc).

And you also have student versions available for almost any application out there. So there really isn''t any excuse for piracy anymore. If you pirate software, then you are a thief. It''s as easy as that.

/ Yann

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Original post by Yann L If you pirate software, then you are a thief. It''s as easy as that.

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Case closed.

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Case closed.

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No. I'm not interested in the moral or legal implications at this point, im aware of the general consensus. I'm also not looking for some kind of "profound" end-all answer, such as above.

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IIRC, your previous post was about a hypothetical guy, who used pirated software to boost up his career. The argument was, that he wouldn't have bought it anyway. But without the software, he wouldn't be where he was using the software (career, money, etc). So he gained profit from using it. Conclusion: he has to pay for it.

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The (admittedly obscured) point of my previous post was completely missed. It would have been better if i left out the part about possibly getting a job, though I didn't say he made any profit, aside from the money indirectly gained through getting said job.

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The only situation, where piracy used to be more or less tolerable was the "kid without money uses pirated 3DSMax version, gets really good, buys it as soon as he has the money, and engages in a career".

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This is closer to what I was getting at, and I agree with your point about the training/student versions but, still, these products are often crippled and/or still somewhat expensive.

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Piracy in general is not only illegal, it's highly immoral too.

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A appreciate the though you put into your response, though as I said I decided to take a more economical approach this time through, and expand the question to include the music industry as well.

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software is almost always developed for a large number of customers. The software company pays the development in advance, taking sometimes huge fincancial risks, and develops the software. Once done, every customer pays his small share to that investment by buying the software.

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An interesting take on the issue.

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[My site|SGI STL|Bjarne FAQ|C++ FAQ Lite|MSDN|Jargon]
Ripped off from various people

[edited by - wild_pointer on November 7, 2002 11:42:02 AM]

Companies alwayss inflate their loss projections to make it look like it''s not their fault that sales are down.

For example, where I work, we sell expensve sneakers, sometimes up to $140 a pair (The Air Jordans, specifically). Every three months, the sneaker companies create new styles, and stop production of the new styles. In our store, we clearance the old styles at around 70%, then 60%, then 50%, etc, and keep going down until the stock is gone. When we reach about 20% of the original price (~$30), we put them out on the floor on a table, where anyone is free to try them on.

Every day, we find at leasst 10 boxes of sneakers on this table that are empty; the sneakers were stolen. How much does my company say we lost? Do we say $30, because that was all we could expect to sell them for? No. We say "Hey, thieves stole $140 of our hard earned money!".


Likewise, look at the figures for music sales for the past 20 years; you''ll see that the sales jump whenever the economy is up; sales slump whenever the economy slumps.

For the past year, we''ve been in the biggest slump in over 10 years, and music sales are down. What does the music industry blame it on? Piracy of course.


And finally, do you know how microsoft calculates its Windows piracy numbers? They use a surprisingly simple formula:

Amount Lost = Price Of Windows * (Number of PC''s made - Copies of windows sold)

One year, microsoft announced that the amount of money they lost per year on piracy in assia was more than the entire income of the lowest 90% of the population of China...
Piracy is a convienient excuse for companies who aren''t making as much money as they thought they would.

While I agree that some companies try to use imaginary piracy losses to distract from the real issues (most of the time bad management, miscalculated business plans, overdrawn budgets, etc), this is not the general case. At least not in the software industry (not yet). It's an entirely different case in the music and motion picture industry (guess why we don't have DVD-Rs at the price of a CDR for our harddisk backups. Because technically, they don't cost a cent more to manufacture than CDRs).

And it is true that most piracy losses occur in the far eastern regions. Asia in general, specifically China, Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, etc. Criminal organizations have specialized in manufacturing pirated duplicates of high profile software at very large quantities. Those institutions can be a serious threat for a software company, esp. for a smaller one. Considering that Asia is a large market for software products, 'commercial piracy' takes a large percentage of the software used in those regions, even corporate software.

Now some people don't agree with the business practices of some software companies. Does it give them the right to pirate their software ? No. I don't agree with Microsoft's monopoly tactics. Does it mean I can pirate Windows ? Definitely not. I wouldn't want Microsoft pirating my software either. If I don't like a specific manufacturer or his products, then I don't use them. Period.

/ Yann

[edited by - Yann L on November 7, 2002 12:25:47 PM]

At the risk of being flamed, I will admit to downloading MP3s of songs that I am not entitled to from the internet. Some people won''t accept this, but I generally do it to sample them. Someone recommends a band, I download some MP3s and, if I like them, I buy an album. Of course, there are some songs that I download as oneoffs, but I wouldn''t buy albums with them on anyway.

I download mp3s from the internet. In my case there is nothing wrong about this. I use it to find new bands so I can see if it''s worth buying their cds. Mp3s have allowed me to find many new bands that I would not have heard otherwise. In fact about 90% of the cds I''ve bought recently are of bands I found on the internet, and would not otherwise have heard.

I have fairly obscure music tastes, and mp3 is one of the few ways I can hear new bands, other than a music festival that I go to once every year. (which makes up the other 10% of cds I''ve bought)

However I would agree that most people that download mp3s are probably not like me and use it to get music for free. Then again, most people have pretty standard music tastes, the kind of stuff that would be played on the radio.

A lot of people would probably condemn me, cause they can only see in black and white. Their problem.

Piracy may be wrong but what about this?

I'd like to write some plug-ins for 3DSMax/Maya, for the experience and it would look good on my CV/Portfolio. I'm not particularly artistically talented, and wouldn't really use them other than for that purpose. You think I can afford to buy these programs just for that? You think I can afford these programs at all?

GMax and the learning edition of Maya do not allow me to write plug ins, and do not provide me with an SDK. I would gladly buy cut down versions of MAX/Maya if they would release something at around the £100-200 range for non profit use. Anything else is way out of my means.

I'm no longer a student, so can't get student editions of software. I did have access to 3DSMax 3 at university, but now that I'm no longer a student, I can't get access to their specialist labs. No I didn't really think to buy any programs like these when I was at uni. I was a computing student, and programs like MSVC++ were more useful to me.

You may bring up programs like blender and milkshape, but frankly I find them hard to use, and being as they're not used much in the industry it's not really what I'm looking for.

The only way for me to get access to this software, is to get a dodgy copy. To be honest, I don't particularly care what anyone thinks of me for this. If it comes down to a choice of doing something that gives me a better chance of getting a good job, and being called a thief by someone on the internet that I'll never meet, you can guess which I'll choose. I feel quite happy looking myself in the mirror every day thanks :D

I'll be quite happy to place my order for cut down versions of these applications when they appear... but let's face it, that's never going to happen is it?

[edited by - Oxyacetylene on November 7, 2002 5:01:39 PM]

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I'd like to write some plug-ins for 3DSMax/Maya, for the experience and it would look good on my CV/Portfolio. I'm not particularly artistically talented, and wouldn't really use them other than for that purpose. You think I can afford to buy these programs just for that? You think I can afford these programs at all?

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Irrelevant. If you can't, put something else on your CV. You want to take advantage from the software, you want to make profit with it (and 'profit' does not always directly relate to money in this context). YOu get a nice bonus on your CV because of the software . Then please have the integrity of giving the people that brought you this software what they deserve.

And BTW, you do know that it is extremely easy for your future employer to check if you used a legal copy of 3DSMax to write your plugins (a simple fax to Discreet, with your name and the approx. date of when you were using it) ? Even the slightest doubt, that you might have used pirated software to boost your CV, and it'll land in the trashcan. Software companies tend not to employ pirates, as they cannot be trusted, ie. they would be first to leak confidential inhouse software, etc.

Oh and BTW 2: if the above scenario happens, then you might very soon get a phonecall. Not from your potential employer, but from a Discreet representative, nicely asking you to please state your 3DSMax registration number...


[edited by - Yann L on November 7, 2002 5:14:29 PM]

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Original post by Anonymous Poster
"I download mp3s from the internet. In my case there is nothing wrong about this. I use it to
find new bands so I can see if it''s worth buying their cds."

Gee, I was thinking about buying a Ferrari, so it''s ok to steal one to see if it''s worth buying ...

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Piracy is wrong, but it''s not stealing. Your argument is flawed.

Really, your post should read:
Gee, I was thinking about buying a Ferrari, so it''s ok to create an exact copy of one to see if it''s worth buying ...


____________________________________________________________
www.elf-stone.com

please, for the love of god, there is a FUNDAMENTAL difference between COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT (pirating music/games), and THEFT (stealing a physical item thus depriving the owner of that item).

Read some law for once; digital/physical analogies don''t work.

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Original post by Yann L
Irrelevant. If you can''t, put something else on your CV. You want to take advantage from the software, you want to make profit with it (and ''profit'' does not always directly relate to money in this context). YOu get a nice bonus on your CV because of the software . Then please have the integrity of giving the people that brought you this software what they deserve.

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Excellent point. People fail to correlate profit with more things than money. Getting a better job because of the software is making a profit from the software.



The Tyr project is here.

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Original post by Yann L
Irrelevant. If you can''t, put something else on your CV. You want to take advantage from the software, you want to make profit with it (and ''profit'' does not always directly relate to money in this context). YOu get a nice bonus on your CV because of the software . Then please have the integrity of giving the people that brought you this software what they deserve.

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Y''see I''d LOVE to give the people that gave me the software what they deserve. They make a quality product and I''d love to pay for it. I''d love to have a legal copy of Max, with a manual, and an EXE that doesn''t need a crack. The fact is that I simply can''t afford it. It''s far too expensive. As I said I''d happily buy a cut down version, that was basically GMax with and SDK, but they don''t provide that option.

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And BTW, you do know that it is extremely easy for your future employer to check if you used a legal copy of 3DSMax to write your plugins (a simple fax to Discreet, with your name and the approx. date of when you were using it) ? Even the slightest doubt, that you might have used pirated software to boost your CV, and it''ll land in the trashcan. Software companies tend not to employ pirates, as they cannot be trusted, ie. they would be first to leak confidential inhouse software, etc.

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Not really. I had access to 3DSMax and the SDK at university. There''s no way to prove I didn''t write it at uni.

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Oh and BTW 2: if the above scenario happens, then you might very soon get a phonecall. Not from your potential employer, but from a Discreet representative, nicely asking you to please state your 3DSMax registration number...

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I don''t actually have an illegal copy of Max. I only have a 56K connection, and to be honest I''d rather not risk getting a virus from dodgy software. I''m just making the point that a lot of people do think this way, and these things are not just a matter of black and white.

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Original post by Oxyacetylene
As I said I''d happily buy a cut down version, that was basically GMax with and SDK, but they don''t provide that option.

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I''d love to become a rally-driver, but I could never afford that kind of car, so I''ll just "borrow" one for a while without asking to learn. That''ll look good on my CV. I''ll give it back afterwards!