What's your opinion on piracy?

General Forums Off-topic Chat
41

I never visit this subforum, but I saw this thread title on the main page. Interesting thread. I appreciate the OP’s perspective.

It’s always fascinating to watch people attempt to rationalize theft. EULAs exist to define the legal terms under which a person can use a software. Clicking through that EULA in a pirated application is generally tantamount (not all EULAs are created equal, of course) to agreeing to and instantly breaking a legal agreement. Effectively, you’ve stolen a license.

May I summarize the points that have been made in favor of theft in this thread?

-“It’s unacceptable for the rich to steal from the poor. So the poor should steal from the rich.”

-“It’s not stealing if you’re stealing something that’s not a physical commodity.”

-“I don’t mind if people choose to steal. S’alllllll good.”

-“Software should be free anyway. But not other things. Other things, no; no, people worked hard on those things.”

-“Stealing expensive licenses doesn’t affect the amount of money that company makes.”

-“It’s immoral to prevent someone from making ends meet… in a career they chose, because they had sufficient opportunity, and because they have the means and resources to choose that career, and because they stole things to enable their entrance into that career.”

-“You don’t own software. You just use it. You shouldn’t have to pay for renting stuff.”

-“Lots of people steal. So it’s pro’lly fine.”

-“No one’s gonna stop people from stealing these things and making them free to other people. So just adapt.”

-“It’s okay to steal stuff you don’t need.”

-“It’s okay to steal something if you weren’t going to buy it anyway.”

-“It’s okay to steal something if you’re just using it for fun.”

-“People making money selling stuff is capitalism. Capitalism bad. Communism good. It just works.”

-“They’re just trying to make money by selling it. So you should steal it.”

My apologies if it seems a tad glib…

42

Funny how you put quotes around all that stuff even though non of it was actually said.

43

That is the funny thing about making observations on uncomfortable truths. You ether sound like a comedian or an asshole. Personally I find the justifications people use to be more of a concern then the theft itself. I also find people who can find no fault in their own actions to be something of concern. Add to that someone who feels they have been wronged and you have the beginning of some popcorn worthy drama and maybe even a headline.

And just because I’m the old fuck, I’m gonna tell a story about justifications. Its a true one too. Well trueish I’m sure there is some distortion due to the couple decades it took and PoV. Its been on my mind the past few weeks due to a phone call from an old friend.

About 20 years ago I had an associate, A friend if you will. And one Friday night he called me up and asked for a ride home from the bar. So sure no prob It did not matter that it was 3 AM and I had report for duty in a couple hours. I made the ride happen. Well over the course of about a year this went from a once in a while thing to a several times a week thing. And I helped as best I could for a while and When I started to gripe about it, Him and surprisingly quite a few other people felt I should be more responsible and go to sleep earlier, So giving him a ride home would not affect my ability to do my duties.

Well One day after a counseling session. I decided I needed to take care of my own shit. So I told him there would be no more rides. He told me that if I did not pick him up he would drive home himself and if he killed anyone it would be my fault.
The judge liked that line of his so much after his auto accident that he gave him 20 years for the two people he killed. (( BTW kiddies never tell the judge that you intended to put someone in harms way when there is an accident, It seems judges get a little heated at that))Some tourists from somewhere or another. He plowed over them with his high lift pickup.
Some of my friends and a few in my chain of command felt I was out of line but nothing was said about it. But my chain of command at that point was telling me to shape up or ship out. So fook it, I choose me.

He called me up recently letting me know he just got out of jail. He feels that his time in jail and those people he killed while he was drinking vodka was my fault.
Now just imagine if he would of had the self accountability to maybe get some help, or fuck call a cab or some other friend ((Although I suspect most of them had distanced themselves by that point)). But he had excuses, He felt that he was wronged and he was so good at justifying stuff to himself that he forgot to do reality checks when he put his plans to action.

Now I’m not going to tell anyone here to or not to pirate shit, But don’t delude yourselves into thinking that you are justified in doing it. All the worst fuckups you will ever meet do the same thing. Justifications and excuses and reasons is what drug addicts use, Its what the person sitting on their ass who binge watches series every week does, You know the guy who wants to be an artist when he grows up. Hell watch some documentaries on prison its what the inmates do there.

But you know who don’t do that shit, People who get shit done.

44

One thing that really concerns me is with the crime and punishment related arguments that often take precedence in these types of discussions. To justify piracy as a victimless crime doesn’t address the slactivism associated with piracy. Let’s face it, piracy is easy and social reform isn’t. Pirating software and entertainment content doesn’t seem to be making any positive change what so ever. To the contrary, it punishes the innocent with DRM and invasive security measures. This is one way that breaking the agreement breaks the system.

Objectively, piracy makes things worse. There is no way that I can condone it.

45

You´re actually comparing piracy to vehicular manslaughter? Ok then… Blonder´s argument made more sense to me.

46

I pirate stuff and encourage others to damage the reputation of these big companies. I know it won’t have a big effect but who knows if I encourage enough people to pirate their software, they might be bankrupted and that’s where I come in, offering open-source software as good as those I pirated.

47

No, I am pointing out that both the people who engage in IP theft and drug addicts and alcoholics have one trait in common, They always have an excuse and a justification, And the first thing they will say when you try to help them is they don’t have a problem. And they will make excuses.
They are also prone to not understand simple things like drinking impaires your driving or that IP theft is still theft…And considering the nature of this forum I have to ask, Who the fuck here honestly feels they need to steal maya? And then someone will cherp in something from the above list. Excuses…the pirates don’t have a problem here. Its the system thats messed up. Just like druggies don’t have a problem. They would not be in drugs if it was legal.

48

How about I just use your open source now, Show me your links please.

49

Notions of piracy should be very close to this community, which is in (or, which wishes to enter) a business of creating and selling intellectual properties.

And, even though we use an amazing software product that is absolutely free, we should be very mindful of how much money the effort that continually goes into it, is worth. I’d say it’s “several million US dollars” by now. It is the work-product of serious human effort which, even though the people making that effort (mostly) do not demand compensation, is nevertheless “worth (a lot of) money.”

It’s unconscionable to steal something, period. Especially for an artist to steal something. The product being stolen is not simply a collection of faceless digital files. It is the product of specialized human effort. (Some software products have “screen credits” which go on for miles.) Yes, there are real people here.

50

Have you ever downloaded an illegal movie or song? Maybe not.

Have you ever listened to a song on youtube on a channel that didn’t have permission to upload the song or watched a clip from your favorite tv-series. Have you watched a gif taken from a tv-series without permission? If you have, how did you justify it?

51

I might note that in my posts on this thread I never once said that I felt piracy was right or wrong. For instance I said that the belief that it is steeling is a capitalist belief while the belief that it should be freely available is communist, but never argued the merits of one system over the other. I never said capitalism was evil, neither did I say that communism was evil only that some feel one way and others feel the opposite.

The US military somewhat recently settled a suit for, if memory serves, $50 million because they were caught using pirated logistics software.

One could argue that by pirating that software the US military was taking bread off the plates of the developers.

One could also argue that by making the military pay for it they are making the military $50 million less able to defend that bread from outside forces.

52

Like that is going to happen, creating software on the caliber of Photoshop, Nuke, ect… is anything but easy and is something that’s probably not going to happen without a sizable team in place (and especially if the project leader doesn’t know much about software design once it starts).

That is if you haven’t wound up in jail once the FBI finds that you were the ringleader behind the attempts to destroy commercialism in digital goods.

53

Damn Ace is not industrial hacking a crime. And, do not some countries excel in stealing technology.

But, less take another view. Suppose you brought up a site selling wall paper. Which you spent months in Blender creating. And, suddenly on the net there was your work at half the price. By the way this same scenario has happened to fine artist albeit by a scam game.

Musicians have been all through this. And, by the way artistic endeavors have been viewed as not really a created product for many years. I should have said not viewed by many.

I’m sure many talented individuals on this forum have discovered when dealing with business types to be very careful.

Another example. You do animated cards for sale. And, have over the years hired a staff of say twelve. So we now have thirteen people dependent on their talent and work ethnic. Yes, it’s stealing. How else could you craft it. Or, smooth it over in todays vernacular.

54

Have you stolen your DNA from the producers?
Soon.

55

Last I checked, Velopress doesn’t publish books under CC, and ECM doesn’t publish music under CC either. Oh, the proprietary world of unhealthy jazz music and unhealthy endurance sports! How you tricked me into depending on you! :slight_smile:

56

I’m sure most of those who defend here piracy have money to buy those “few things” you really need or want. In my country a music CD or a book does not cost much more than a dinner at a restaurant or a couple of 2L cola drink.
Related software, it is true that there are companies like Adobe with monopolistic practices to dominate the market. But pirating Adobe products is not a solution to combat this. Buy cheaper alternatives or use OpenSource is a better solution. So, you do not allow companies like Adobe will call you a “pirate”.

57

As a long-time contributor to free/libre software I find the idea of using it to “combat monopolistic practices of companies like Adobe” simply appalling. I didn’t join teams to fight against anyone, I joined them to help making something interesting and useful.

58

I know who you are and is fine if you disagree with what I said. But one can not generalize the goal GIMP (as example) with its developers have, with the goal other OpenSource projects have:
“Krita: free paint app - let’s make it faster than Photoshop!”

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/krita/krita-free-paint-app-lets-make-it-faster-than-phot

If they mention Photoshop to promote themselves, I guess they have other different intentions to yours when making OpenSource.

59

Anyway, what I said was for those who argue that it is right to pirate Adobe for the kind of company it is. If they criticize the kind of company that Adobe is, is not helping to combat what they criticize by pirating Adobe products. Instead, they help to deepen the monopoly and make it bigger. For example, they surely give free support for Adobe in forums and even make some tutorials. And they do not allow to grow other projects/companies that offer cheaper products.

In short, for me all these moralists and ethical excuses people say when defending piracy, most of the time are just that, excuses. No one is really interested in fighting for those things for which they claim to be fighting.

60

After seeing that thread title, it should have been clear to not read the thread :confused:

Just to make it clear from the beginning: I do not support software piracy in any way, all the software on my PC is either open-source, free or running with valid university licenses.
However, software piracy is not theft or stealing. Seriously, this is not an opinion or matter of debate - these are clearly defined legal terms, and at least in Germany, where I know the legislation, they are defined as unlawfully taking physical property away (note: this is probably not how a lawyer would phrase it). Software piracy is copyright infringement. In the USA the situation seems different (see http://www.theguardian.com/business/2003/feb/09/theobserver.observerbusiness17), but the fact that “Intellectual property” contains the word “property” doesn’t automatically make the two equivalent.
Whether you find it morally acceptable is another matter, but just invoking negative terms to make it sound worse is ridiculous - I could also go and say “for me, software piracy also counts as assaulting the developers - what, you don’t think so? Yeah, of course, now you say that assaulting needs a direct attack - stop justifying yourself, pirate!”, but in that case it’d more obvious that I’m wrong.