Misleading Metaphors That Drive The War On Online Sharing

[RichL]

Originally Posted by Quexos

Maybe it's just the dreamer in me that's talking.

It probably is and despite what it may sound like it is my dream as well. I'm fairly well known for saying I want a world without borders but sure as hell don't want to live through the disruption while it is happening. :-)

[ScalyFreak]

Originally Posted by RichL

You're saying there's a difference between stealing with intend to defraud and stealing just for the hell of it?

No, that's not what I said at all, and if you think I did, then you didn't understand anything I said. Go back and re-read it.

Originally Posted by RichL

Just out of curiosity how would you refer to a person that downloads and uses a product without paying for it. Say for instance a copy of TurboCAD Pro Platinum 18 which sells for about $1400?

The term you're looking for is "software pirate". It's only theft if the person they take if from is deprived of their copy of the software, and that's not the case. When you steal from someone, they actually lose the object you're stealing. With illegal downloads that is not the case, and since one download =|= one lost sale, continuing to call it theft is hyperbole at best, propaganda at worst.

If I hack into your computer and copy the installer file to a program you've paid for, you haven't lost a thing, because you still have the program there. The same goes for your music, ebooks, or movies. If you still have them, they weren't stolen.

[teh603]

Originally Posted by RichL

Just out of curiosity how would you refer to a person that downloads and uses a product without paying for it. Say for instance a copy of TurboCAD Pro Platinum 18 which sells for about $1400?

Well, to ask the question nobody wants asked, is that the real value of the software, or is the price being set artificially high by executives who feel they can squeeze that much more profit out of the customer?

Funny how people complain about governments charging exorbitant taxes, but when a company does it, its considered acceptable and proper.

[RichL]

Originally Posted by ScalyFreak

No, that's not what I said at all, and if you think I did, then you didn't understand anything I said. Go back and re-read it.

That was tongue in cheek. Sorry, figured you'd pick up on that from what followed it.

So a pirate downloaded some software that was supposed to be purchased for for $1400 dollars. Do you, or do you not, see a problem with that? If not then in what way is turbo supposed to pay development costs, rent, payroll and the rest of the expenses?

FYI It wasn't Turbo but that scenario did happen a couple of years ago. The software was pirated by a medium sized (about 20 people) architectural firm.

[RichL]

Originally Posted by teh603

Well, to ask the question nobody wants asked, is that the real value of the software, or is the price being set artificially high by executives who feel they can squeeze that much more profit out of the customer?

Funny how people complain about governments charging exorbitant taxes, but when a company does it, its considered acceptable and proper.

I am guessing at it but I would figure that is a relatively reasonable price. From what I understand CAD programs are not the easiest things in the world to develop and the market is not going to be tremendously large.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by Hellmark

Hell, theft is "the act of stealing; specifically : the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it". If I download a ebook from someone, I've not deprived anyone of that book. The person I got it from still has their copy, and what ever rights they have to that copy (which could be none, full ownership, or in between like a license to be able to use it with limitations). The only thing that can be argued is that the content owner may not get money from me now if I got it through nonlegit means. But that argument would have to depend on the idea that I wouldn't pay for the item after downloading it, and that I would have paid for it in the first place, which those two completely nullifies the deprivation argument.

So, please, in the future, include a bit more thought into your argument.

That's *a* definition of theft, but it's not the only one. Theft in California requires proof that you " feloniously steal, take, carry, lead, or drive away the personal property of another" - with no "deprivation" requirement at all. Many states also use the model penal code's "exerting unauthorized control" language with "the intent to deprive the owner of any part of the property's value or use."

And a few states still use the "with intent to permanently deprive the owner of any part of the property's value or use."

So you can't assume that there's no theft because the owner still has a copy.

(See also theft of cable services statutes).

[ScalyFreak]

Originally Posted by RichL

So a pirate downloaded some software that was supposed to be purchased for for $1400 dollars. Do you, or do you not, see a problem with that?

That depends on which side I'm on, now doesn't it?

What I do see is that the pirate would never have paid $1400 for the software. If it was not available to download free, he'd have gone without, which makes any outcry about a lost sale null and void. And that was pretty much my only point.

[MovieBird]

Originally Posted by RichL

Did I imply that theft was either right or wrong? Or did I simply imply that theft is theft and should be acknowledged as such?

Why yes, you did imply it is wrong. Only a couple of posts above your question, even.

Originally Posted by RichL

The way I see it, theft is taking what doesn't belong to you without paying for it. Any other definition is just a thief's self-justification or a legal squabble to earn a buck.

Originally Posted by RichL

Just out of curiosity how would you refer to a person that downloads and uses a product without paying for it. Say for instance a copy of TurboCAD Pro Platinum 18 which sells for about $1400?

It depends. Is the person a student that is attempting to do homework at home; instead of in the overcrowded lab on campus? Are they a student/poor person attempting to learn a skill (software package) for the purpose of landing a job?

Or are they a company that simply doesn't want to pay the licensing fees?

The first, I have zero issues with. It's only when it's used for monetary gain that I balk.

Have you even seen the student versions of CAD programs? Back when I was trying to learn this stuff, SolidWorks sold a Student Version for $150. A princely sum to a educational pauper. What did this $150 get you? A piece of software that was one year behind the stated release. So Student 2011, is just repackaged 2010. It was locked to two installs. If your hard drive borks itself like mine did, you're screwed.

If you create a project in Student, and then open it in Educational or Professional, or any other version, it updates the file and refuses to let it open in Student anymore. I learned that the hard way from the computer lab. Nor would it let you actually learn the interesting stuff like the Thermal/Stress Analysis modules.

MATLAB similarly charged north of $100 and restricted the number of matrices you could calculate in a script/program. Essentially making it useless for Finite Element Analysis. You also missed a ton of essential modules for higher level modeling.

Oh, and EAGLE CAD restricts you to two signal layers and a board area of 100x80 mm. Great if all you're doing is making a blinky LED. Or if you can hand solder SMTs. But if you want anything more advanced, like a simple DAC with through hole components, you're gonna need more.

So screw CAD software companies and their draconian limitations.

Originally Posted by Temple of the Dog

I don't mind stealing bread
From the mouths of decadence
But I can't feed on the powerless
When my cup's already overfilled

[sabredog]

Originally Posted by MovieBird

So screw CAD software companies and their draconian limitations.

Sheesh. I remember in the very late 80's, early 90's almost every engineering company I knew of used "under the shelf" versions of AutoCAD.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by Quexos

Perhaps we are witnessing a major paradigm shift, the beginning of a transition from a money-driven society with all its inherent inequities towards something else. A new world of social justice, a world driven and motivated by the actual well-being of all its citizens and not just an elite minority. Perhaps there is already something of this new world, with us now. Perhaps the internet is it, the first tool implementing these profound changes. I must wonder whether the very nature of the internet is not the sharing of information on a global scale, not just as such but as a beacon showing us how things should be: free and accessible to all, everywhere and at all times.
Is it just a coincidence that such large free-sharing communities of millions and millions of people spawned from the net so soon after it became this tool of the masses ? Could it be that attempting to make the internet a place of business for money profit is against its nature just as it is against its nature to have it controlled by corporations, governments or any other type of elite minority ?

Maybe it's just the dreamer in me that's talking.

Lol, I don't see how the fact that you can legally avoid paying a few bucks to reward people for their work makes the world a more just place? And, of course, you expect to be paid for your work?

And I have good news for you, the internet is not controlled by corporations. You are free to download any out-of-copyright book, there are millions of bloggers and people like us voicing their opinions without restrictions. A small part of the internet being a marketplace where people earn their livelihoods benefits us all. Unlike you, some of us have to earn their living.

[RichL]

Originally Posted by MovieBird

Why yes, you did imply it is wrong. Only a couple of posts above your question, even.

Well that was my bad wording then because I don't consider theft being right or wrong as cast in bronze, it is totally depends on the reason for the theft. Either way though it is theft.

[DJHARKAVY]

Originally Posted by sabredog

I see no reason apart from extreme shortsightedness and stupidity why WotC stopped selling PDF copies of the rulebooks for D&D

Switch to Pathfinder. They based 4.0 on it anyway, and you can buy the pdfs.

[Hellmark]

Originally Posted by RichL

I understand the point exactly, you cannot, so to speak, steal what's not in a persons pocket.

The way I see it is that that argument is simply a justification for stealing. The exact (I believe) equivalent in the physical world would be if I were some sort of a weird multi-millionaire and printed up thousands of books of a just released best seller then stood outside all the bookshops and gave them away to anyone that would accept one. Would that meet the legal definition of physical theft by those that accepted the book when they knew it wasn't one published by the author? Probably not (But who knows for sure. :-)) but the fact is, by willfully preventing the author from making as large a profit as would have been made without my giveaway they would be stealing those profits just as surely as if they had taken that money out of his wallet.

That would be copyright infringement as you would be reproducing and distributing it without permission. Still not theft, even with the argument that the author and publisher are not going to have as many sales.

You just have to realize that despite the similarities, they're still different things. They're bad, no one is saying otherwise. Personally I feel that there should be a better term than copyright infringement, because that covers a lot more than just downloading a copy of something you shouldn't have. "File sharing" while has a narrower scope, it gives a non nefarious connotation, and lumps legit in with the nonlegit. Swindicate, for swindle and duplicate? If you go with an existing term, I'd say bootlegging is a more appropriate term than theft.

[sabredog]

Originally Posted by DJHARKAVY

Switch to Pathfinder. They based 4.0 on it anyway, and you can buy the pdfs.

Why?

Our referee prefers 3.5e. Apparently most D&D gamers do.

There should be no reason why older rules versions could not be sold as PDF's. They take up bugger all space on a modern server hard drive.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by RichL

Words on a screen (derived from 1's and 0's) are as real as words on paper derived from splashes of ink. You don't pay for a book on the internet you prevent the author from getting them ones and zero interpreted into money (a very physical thing eh?) that could have bought the authors food just as surely as if you had stolen an ink splashed paper book.

That would only be the case if it was an independent self published writer, or a vanity published writer who was lucky enough to earn out their advance.