I am annoyed and frustrated by so,e software therefor it's okay for me to not pay for it? Give me a break. This is such a lame justification for piracy. If the author truly wants to pay for it then he will. Saying you want to pay for it in an attempt to seem on the up and up and really wanting to pay for something are different. I can understand the frustration and I can empathize and I can get on board with the idea that the process they put you through to buy Office is ridiculous but I can't buy the justification for piracy. Just because you sell software yourself for a living doesmt put you in a position to decide when it's okay to pirate software. The author may consider the way in which he sells his software to be superior and therefore it's not okay to pirate what he sells but when it comes to someone else's well that's a different story. But its a slippery slope. Microsoft's process certainly is ludicrous but it's not long before people start saying "you want me to enter an email address to buy software? Oh, that's too much, I think I'll just pirate it, thanks".
Calling it one's and zeros doesn't justify it either. I hate the ones and zeros argument. You're not paying for one's and zeros. You're paying for the value the software creates for you. It may only need to be coded and compiled once but does that mean that after the first person gets value from it that the software has been paid for? Of course not.
If someone creates software and you value what it can do then you are obligated to pay for it if that's what the creator asks. Argue about the definition of stealing till your blue in the face but it doesn't change the fact that you are depriving the author of revenue they would otherwise have gotten. It is stealing and to say otherwise is to do some impressive mental gymnastics.
The system may suck but piracy isn't going to solve the problem. It's just going to create more problems. Using Office without a license doesn't hurt Microsoft. What hurts them is a more popular alternative. The only thing that will change what the author complains about is someone else creating some half decent office replacement in a way that shows Microsoft how to do it right. If such a program existed and were widely adopted you'd better believe they'd take notice and shape up. Piracy hurts people. It doesn't hurt the big guys though and we know it so we all tend to justify it. But that same attitude that gets people thinking its okay to pirate Office allows people to justify pirating software from smaller companies and that's who it hurts.
How about when you pay USD$10,000 for a niche software package with a crappy USB hardware dongle with drivers that only work on Windows XP, despite the application itself working just fine under Windows 7 64-bit?
When I asked the vendor, I was told I could pay another $10,000 so I could buy a new version of the software that just so happened to have a newer DRM dongle.
At that point you really have four options:
1.) Hope someone else pirated it.
2.) Kill a few evenings cracking the application with IDA Pro.
3.) Forever remain on Windows XP on a graphics workstation, unable to use the entirety of RAM installed, or some horrible dual-boot situation isolating you from the rest of your tools.
4.) Pay ANOTHER $10,000.
Seriously, you have no position to tell anyone that there's 'no justification'. It's obvious you're missing real world experience here. I picked #2, myself, but I'd have rather saved time and picked #1 if it had already been done.
I have the real world experience and I stand by my position. It does suck and I can empathize and of course I can understand why you'd pirate the software but are you really going to try to tell me that it's not wrong? Can you honestly say that not paying is okay because the price is too high and you don't agree with the reasons why you can't run your dongle on a new OS? That's what it comes down to in the end. It's about not wanting to pay and disagreeing with the price. The fact that you know the dongle should work on your machine doesn't put you in a position to know why they want you to upgrade. Anyone in that situation would have a knee-jerk reaction and jump to thinking its a corporate conspiracy and they're just gouging people. That's plausible. Or maybe there's a legit reason that you don't know. But in either case, no matter how ridiculous the experience is (and I grant you that the example you provide is very unreasonable) it still doesn't change the fact that someone created something of value to you, you want to use it above all alternatives, and you choose to pirate it which is wrong.
Suppose I go to the Apple store and I want a new MacBook Air. I have to wait in line for an hour. Then when I get into the store they've upped the price by $10k. Then, even after swallowing my frustration, I look to pay but all the checkout guys are busy. So I decide this is fucked up and just walk out with it. You'd agree that was a messed up situation but it's not okay for me to walk out of a store without paying.
The point is something I can't fathom anyone disagreeing with. There's a product. It has a price. If you want it you have to buy it. If you take it without paying that is wrong. How can you disagree with that?
Yes, I can clearly and with good conscious say that it is 100% a-ok to break the lock or take a cracked copy of software you already paid $10,000 for to operate with a $180,000 system if the vendor is going to gouge you over a trivial issue.
I'm really sorry that you live in a fantasy world sponsored by the MPAA and RIAA. I've already paid my pound of flesh to get my work done, intentionally not backporting a dongle driver to force upgrades at $10k a whack is the stuff slime is made of. They do this because they know very well there are not many/any alternative vendors for this equipment, which happens to be an exotic motion capture rig absolutely critical to my work. Fuck that and fuck anyone who tells me I have to grin and bear it or otherwise just wave my hands and go without all because otherwise I might offend their sensibilities over how I might see their software. Personally, I don't care about your software. It hasn't done anything slimy to me yet. You're safe.
I'm sorry, I misunderstood part of what you said. I'm actually cool with people cracking software they've already paid for. That's fine. To me that's like modifying your car in ways that stop it from being street legal. You should be free to do so but at the same time I won't feel bad for you if you were ever stopped for speeding. Now that I understand your example better I don't think you're comparing equivalent things. It's one thing to just take something because you don't like the price and it's another thing to break contract and modify something you've already paid for. Both are still wrong but I can see the justification for the latter.
you think cracking his own copy of the software, which he purchased, so that it will run on windows 7, is somehow less ethical than paying the publisher another $10k for the same software that they have unlocked for window 7?
edit: here's a thought experiment. supposing he managed to build some sort of passthrough sandbox that simply intercepted one or two system calls and made the application think it was running under window xp when it was actually running under windows 7. would you find that unethical too?
Your analogy is incorrect. Making a copy/breaking DRM is not the same as stealing. Stealing deprives the original owner of a physical good, making a copy does not. That's why I wouldn't agree with you walking out of a store with a physical product.
No. The copy argument is bunk. It's not about depriving someone of product, it's about depriving someone payment. In the case of software there is unlimited supply but there isn't an unlimited amount of consumers. Each consumer who circumvents the payment process deprives the creator of the payment they ask of their work. So now you'll argue that they wouldn't have paid anyway but that's also a terrible argument. The original post shows that some people would pay but won't because it's too "inconvenient" to. Furthermore, even if they wouldn't have paid anyway they should have, it's still wrong that they have and use the software and they still deprived the creator of payment. You wouldn't say a shoplifter isn't hurting anyone because they wouldn't have paid anyway, would you? To all these argument I would say they're just clever mental gymnastics made up by people who want to justify piracy.
You are the one doing mental gymnastics. I never said it was right to make a copy, I said it was not stealing. I am sorry that you want so badly for them to be the same, but they are in fact legally different for very good reason.
I would not say the shoplifter is hurting anyone since shoplifting is distinctly different from copyright infringement. He would be depriving someone of their property. Copying something does not deprive the IP owner of their copy.
I'm not trying to justify any immoral act, I trying to prevent justification of absurd laws that infringe on people's basic freedoms (SOPA et al) by stopping people from using hyperbolic statements.
There is no justification short of "needed to save someone's life" for stealing. Your piracy hurts the "good" vendors in the same vertical because they aren't getting funded.
If you paid for it, defeating the dongle isn't something I think of as stealing. If you pay, go for it. I read it as getting the new version for free, that is a different kettle of fish.
Nice rant, but I think you missed his point. He wanted to buy the software, tried to buy the software, but ended up getting this: "We’re sorry. The site you are attempting to access is restricted in your region."
No, I got that. But I just take offense that this is an excuse to pirate something. They do sell copies in stores still and, especially for someone so technically inclined, it'd be pretty trivial to get to the right site. That said, it's still super messed up that they're preventing a guy who wants to buy something from actually buying it but the whole thing came off to me as "edge cases like this is why piracy is okay".
In fairness to the author, I don't think he was seriously advocating piracy, but was more just trying to use it to demonstrate his frustration at trying to pay for a product and not being able to.
I disagree. I think the blog post perfectly shows one of the common rationalizations when pirating software.
I'd even say more -- regardless of the intention of the post, it actually pictures how people act when they are angry / frustrate. We, humans, need to tell ourselves something nice when we do bad things. In this case, it's something like "they were bad to me, so it's OK if I'm bad to them".
I can imagine more sinister reasons for piracy or misconduct of any other kind. This one feels so natural.
I don't think I justified it. I just pointed out that I can see why it happens. Overwhelmingly the post was about wanting to pay for it but being totally frustrated at not being able to, and I was also quite clear that I wouldn't pirate it because of what I believe in.
You live in America don't you? Outside of it things are not all that rosy, as author points out. Sometimes it's plain impossible to buy something, so the options are either not use it (or not listen to it or not watch it) or pirate it. I would pirate it.
Another option that I found is that software is somehow worse in the place where I live. A good example is games with awful polish dubbing or an invasive DRM. I actually ended up few times buying a game, just not to use it and download a pirated version anyway.
Calling it one's and zeros doesn't justify it either. I hate the ones and zeros argument. You're not paying for one's and zeros. You're paying for the value the software creates for you. It may only need to be coded and compiled once but does that mean that after the first person gets value from it that the software has been paid for? Of course not.
If someone creates software and you value what it can do then you are obligated to pay for it if that's what the creator asks. Argue about the definition of stealing till your blue in the face but it doesn't change the fact that you are depriving the author of revenue they would otherwise have gotten. It is stealing and to say otherwise is to do some impressive mental gymnastics.
The system may suck but piracy isn't going to solve the problem. It's just going to create more problems. Using Office without a license doesn't hurt Microsoft. What hurts them is a more popular alternative. The only thing that will change what the author complains about is someone else creating some half decent office replacement in a way that shows Microsoft how to do it right. If such a program existed and were widely adopted you'd better believe they'd take notice and shape up. Piracy hurts people. It doesn't hurt the big guys though and we know it so we all tend to justify it. But that same attitude that gets people thinking its okay to pirate Office allows people to justify pirating software from smaller companies and that's who it hurts.
I see no justification for piracy.