Quote:
Originally Posted by GlenBarrington
Most urban Americans earn their living from some sort of intellectual property. Few of us actually MAKE anything you can hold in your hand any more.
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Same goes here. Though for other reasons (because the primary sector of economy has it harder then the tertiary and quaternary sectors).
In fact, I'm in the IT bussiness myself, soon to be a software developer (I hope).
Quote:
Originally Posted by GlenBarrington
Paying others for THEIR intellectual property is a form of enlightened self interest. We consider people like you, a common thief. Sorry for being so blunt, but that's true for a significant number of Americans.
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It's OK, I appreciate bluntness, even if it's misguided...
Well I and many other people around the world consider such a position absolutely ridiculous. Because you can't steal anything if anyone hasn't lost that which you have "stolen".
And copying one file from the Internet doesn't lose anything to anyone, except a bit of electricity to you, which you pay for honestly anyway. Potential theoretical earnings to the original creator of the information don't count. Especially if you'd never have payed for it if there was no free means of getting it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GlenBarrington
I suspect that as the economy of your country develops, your peoples attitudes towards intellectual property will change as well.
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LOL, I don't live in Africa. That's certainly an arrogant statement from you. No it won't change, because your position comes from being a liberal-capitalist American, who on average have a specific cowboy-get-rich-quick-liberal-capitalist mentality stemming from the short history of rapid economic expansion in 2-3 centuries after having taken over a large part of a continent from the now (kind of) mostly extinct native Indians (which is obviously a specific situation because most other developed countries developed over a much longer time and resources were not nearly as easily available, for stealing that is). While on the other hand, most people in most developed countries (especially north-European countries) and some people in America too have a different view on the subject and believe in the freedom of information, and so do I, and that doesn't make me a primitive savage or a thief, nor does being a liberal capitalist make you enlightened. No offense, believe what you will.
I believe that only physical goods and patents can be stolen, while things like computer programs, or files containing books, movies, music and such should be financed by voluntary donations, as some are (and all others are in practice even if not in theory, considering the ease of piracy today)... If I ran my own software developing company, I'd make all the software free for download (because it mostly is anyway) with a donate-via-paypal bottun on the main screen (like one of my favorite programs, CryptLoad) for people who really like the program and want to help further development (I plan to send them some as soon as I renew my PayPal account).
P.S.
If we had a piracy party like in Sweden, I'd join immediately ! Arrrghhh !
