Warez crackdown...

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2003-06-30 01:25am

weemadando wrote:OK - how was it offered to you? Was it offered to you as part of your workplace, as a burnt CD set for use on work computers, when the company owned the full registered version? Or something else...

Yes. XP

I know where the issue arises. Fair use says I can keep archival copies of something for my own personal use. Common sense says I can give or sell something to someone else and thats not stealing from the original company (if you buy a car from a friend, youre not stealing from GM, for example). The problem arises when you have an archival copy and THEN give to someone else. I don't think fairuse laws addresses this.

Robert Treder · Post by **Robert Treder** » 2003-06-30 04:20am

HemlockGrey wrote:Get rid of your software. Getting stuff like games and Photoshop for $3 is theft.

However, keep the music. Screw the RIAA.

Why screw the RIAA but not screw Adobe? If it's theft either way, what's the difference? Granted, I admit to having comitted it (and no bogeyman bullshit is going to make me not admit to it), but I don't see why you make the distinction between music and software.

Einhander Sn0m4n · Post by **Einhander Sn0m4n** » 2003-06-30 04:44am

Actually I have an idea: DL the MP3z, and pony up say a dollar a song direct to the artist who made it. No RIA Middleman, No DRM Self-Expiring Crap, No Problem.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2003-06-30 11:08am

Buying pirated software cheaply is worse than simply downloading it from a server. If whoever your father does business with keeps a record of who he's sold software to and gets busted, your dad's in deep shit. The Feds tend to go after pirating rings that unlawfully sell software they don't have the license to, not things like Direct Connect hubs or Hotline servers. You're looking at a $200 000 maximum fine along with up to five years in a federal prison. At least by downloading from a server, you can maintain anonymity. So I'd say that it's a good idea to get rid of your pirated software unless your dad paid cash, upfront to someone he didn't know, who didn't know him.

And don't confuse warez with the open source movement. The two are entirely different things.

EDIT: This should be in the Computing forum.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-06-30 11:21am

Einhander Sn0m4n wrote:Actually I have an idea: DL the MP3z, and pony up say a dollar a song direct to the artist who made it. No RIA Middleman, No DRM Self-Expiring Crap, No Problem.

It still isn't actually legal.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-06-30 11:25am

kojikun wrote:I'm not taking anything, it was offered to me legally by others in accordance with the fair use laws. Spank me.

It was not. The license in which they have purchased that software allows them to make their own archival copy but not to distribute it.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-06-30 11:28am

kojikun wrote:But in that situation you're taking something from someone else. If I download a song, the company isn't loosing anything but an idea, a concept, mere data that can not be rested from their hands. If I steal a car, the owner cant use it, if I steal a song, the owner can still sell it.

That's because musicians and programmers sell data, not physical objects like most others. You aren't buying the CD, per say, but the data contained within - and by not purchasing it you deprive them of income regardless of if you can afford it or not.

Do you consider it acceptable to pirate eBooks but not to steal a hardcopy from B&N?

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2003-06-30 12:19pm

phongn wrote:That's because musicians and programmers sell data, not physical objects like most others. You aren't buying the CD, per say, but the data contained within - and by not purchasing it you deprive them of income regardless of if you can afford it or not.

Actually, most license agreements I've seen explicitly state that you are buying the medium that the software is distributed on and a license to use the software, but not the software itself.

JodoForce · Post by **JodoForce** » 2003-06-30 12:22pm

Durandal wrote:Buying pirated software cheaply is worse than simply downloading it from a server. If whoever your father does business with keeps a record of who he's sold software to and gets busted, your dad's in deep shit. The Feds tend to go after pirating rings that unlawfully sell software they don't have the license to, not things like Direct Connect hubs or Hotline servers. You're looking at a $200 000 maximum fine along with up to five years in a federal prison. At least by downloading from a server, you can maintain anonymity. So I'd say that it's a good idea to get rid of your pirated software unless your dad paid cash, upfront to someone he didn't know, who didn't know him.

And don't confuse warez with the open source movement. The two are entirely different things.

EDIT: This should be in the Computing forum.

This is HK, and we always pay cash upfront

And no, I don't seriously think this has anything to do with open source

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2003-06-30 01:42pm

Why screw the RIAA but not screw Adobe? If it's theft either way, what's the difference? Granted, I admit to having comitted it (and no bogeyman bullshit is going to make me not admit to it), but I don't see why you make the distinction between music and software.

Because Adobe is not a facist monopoly that is trying to screw over the very Constitution of the United States in order to maintain it's price-fixing death-grip on the industry while using lawsuits of questionable legality and flat-out Mafia techniques like intimidation in order to crush all competing technologies. At least, not to my knowledge.

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2003-06-30 01:43pm

phongq wrote:It still isn't actually legal.

Bullshit. It's entirely legal for an artist to charge you on a one-to-one basis for downloading a song. The RIAA is not the only group that can distribute music.

phongq wrote:It was not. The license in which they have purchased that software allows them to make their own archival copy but not to distribute it.

True. But it is legal for the person to take the copy they bought and sell it and the license to someone (this is, afterall, exactly what companies like BestBuy do when they sell you a CD or Windows). The question is, does an archival copy have to be given along with the original when it is sold?

and by not purchasing it you deprive them of income regardless of if you can afford it or not.

Thats bullshit. How am I depriving an artist of income they won't be getting? Thats ridiculous. No money equals no money, the only difference is that on my end its song or no song. The deprivation there is on my end, not the artists. However, when I actually do get the money, I might just say "Oh yeah, I really liked that song, let me go buy the CD.", which I just happen to do.

Do you consider it acceptable to pirate eBooks but not to steal a hardcopy from B&N?

If I don't have the money to buy either of them, yes. Noones loosing money because I can't buy it anyway. However if I walk INTO B&N and take a book thats one less actual book they can sell to someone. If I copy an e-book thats one less CUSTOMER they can sell to. Then again, the person with the illegal ebook copy can still buy a real book, and statistics show that they do. So you'd be hard pressed to show that downloading music is harming anyone.

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2003-06-30 01:48pm

HemlockGrey wrote:Because Adobe is not a facist monopoly that is trying to screw over the very Constitution of the United States in order to maintain it's price-fixing death-grip on the industry while using lawsuits of questionable legality and flat-out Mafia techniques like intimidation in order to crush all competing technologies. At least, not to my knowledge.

True.

I'm going to get myself into a bind here, but I should say this. If Adobe puts out a program that costs $500, and the free software community puts out an equally good program for free, it is Adobe who is ripping people off, not the downloaders. Ignore the possibility of downloading the free program and explain why two equally good programs have such radically different costs, and the justify adobe charging what they do? It clearly cannot be time and effort, because then how do the OSDN people have enough time to make the GIMP? It can't be employee pay, because the OSDN people are fewer in number and aren't getting payed.

Now, I'm not saying if you have $500 to waste and you want photoshop that you should PIRATE it instead. Quite the contrary, you should go buy it you cheap bastard. But to say its wrong for a school kid with no job to download a copy of Adobe Photoshop 7 is stupid and has no logical foundations other then "Well they demanded money and you didnt give it to them so youre ripping them off!!". That doesn't work. They won't ever get the money from someone who doesn't have it.

Vertigo1 · Post by **Vertigo1** » 2003-06-30 02:56pm

kojikun wrote:I'm not taking anything, it was offered to me legally by others in accordance with the fair use laws. Spank me.

Not true. Unless it was mentioned in the EULA, burning a copy of it and giving it to a friend is illegal. Now burning yourself an archive for safe keeping is a completely different matter. THATS where the fair use clause in copyright law comes into play. You can make a copy of software you have purchased for archival purposes only.

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2003-06-30 03:02pm

Vertigo1 wrote:Not true. Unless it was mentioned in the EULA, burning a copy of it and giving it to a friend is illegal. Now burning yourself an archive for safe keeping is a completely different matter. THATS where the fair use clause in copyright law comes into play. You can make a copy of software you have purchased for archival purposes only.

Noone gave me a burned copy of anything. Lets just call downloading part of the End Retailer Lisencing Agreement. ;p

The question, Vertigo, is whether the archival copy must be transferred along with the original.

Vertigo1 · Post by **Vertigo1** » 2003-06-30 03:08pm

kojikun wrote:
phongq wrote:It was not. The license in which they have purchased that software allows them to make their own archival copy but not to distribute it.
True. But it is legal for the person to take the copy they bought and sell it and the license to someone (this is, afterall, exactly what companies like BestBuy do when they sell you a CD or Windows). The question is, does an archival copy have to be given along with the original when it is sold?

Nitpick: Its legal for someone to sell the ORIGINAL CD along with the license to someone else with no questions asked. However, you can't sell an archived copy alone. If you were to sell it with a license.....I honestly don't know if that would be considered legal or not. Better dial up a lawyer and ask.

and by not purchasing it you deprive them of income regardless of if you can afford it or not.
Thats bullshit. How am I depriving an artist of income they won't be getting? Thats ridiculous. No money equals no money, the only difference is that on my end its song or no song. The deprivation there is on my end, not the artists. However, when I actually do get the money, I might just say "Oh yeah, I really liked that song, let me go buy the CD.", which I just happen to do.

No its not bullshit. You took something you didn't pay for, and the software company doesn't see a dime from the copy you got illegally. It doesn't matter if you had sufficient funding or not. You didn't PAY for it, and the company didn't get payment for their work. Thats like me walking into Barnes & Noble, grabbing a dozen books and walking out the door without paying for them. Just because I didn't have enough money for them doesn't excuse the fact that they are STOLEN and neither the publishing company, nor the author gets a dime out of this.

Vertigo1 · Post by **Vertigo1** » 2003-06-30 03:12pm

kojikun wrote:Noone gave me a burned copy of anything. Lets just call downloading part of the End Retailer Lisencing Agreement. ;p

The question, Vertigo, is whether the archival copy must be transferred along with the original.

From what I understand, if you sell an original copy with a license, then you're required to destroy your archived copy.

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2003-06-30 03:13pm

Vertigo1 wrote:Nitpick: Its legal for someone to sell the ORIGINAL CD along with the license to someone else with no questions asked. However, you can't sell an archived copy alone. If you were to sell it with a license.....I honestly don't know if that would be considered legal or not. Better dial up a lawyer and ask.

But does the archival copy get transferred? Answer.

No its not bullshit. You took something you didn't pay for, and the software company doesn't see a dime from the copy you got illegally. It doesn't matter if you had sufficient funding or not. You didn't PAY for it, and the company didn't get payment for their work. Thats like me walking into Barnes & Noble, grabbing a dozen books and walking out the door without paying for them. Just because I didn't have enough money for them doesn't excuse the fact that they are STOLEN and neither the publishing company, nor the author gets a dime out of this.

If I steal BOOKS OF A SHELF, Barnes and Nobel cant SELL THOSE BOOKS. If I download an EBOOK, im not REMOVING SOMETHING, just making a COPY. They can still SELL THE ORIGINAL. What don't you get? You cannot use the theft of PHYSICAL PROPERTY as a comparison to the copying of INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY.

THAT is the issue, not the physical medium which COSTS money, but the intellectual property which costs NOTHING. Disemination of ideas and words to those who cannot afford to buy the hardcopy version is not ripping off the producers, what don't you get? WHERES THE MONEY THEYRE LOOSING? WHERE? I didn't have it, SO HOW ARE THEY LOOSING IT?

Answer these questions. Everyone else seems to dodge them.

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2003-06-30 03:14pm

Vertigo1 wrote:From what I understand, if you sell an original copy with a license, then you're required to destroy your archived copy.

Ahh okay. Ignore my request for an answer in my previous post. Thank you.

Vertigo1 · Post by **Vertigo1** » 2003-06-30 03:25pm

kojikun wrote:If I steal BOOKS OF A SHELF, Barnes and Nobel cant SELL THOSE BOOKS. If I download an EBOOK, im not REMOVING SOMETHING, just making a COPY. They can still SELL THE ORIGINAL. What don't you get? You cannot use the theft of PHYSICAL PROPERTY as a comparison to the copying of INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY.

Actually, I can since the electronic copy you aquired had to come from somewhere. The copy you aquired isn't a legit copy, and is money that the company wouldn't see if you purchased a legit copy.

THAT is the issue, not the physical medium which COSTS money, but the intellectual property which costs NOTHING. Disemination of ideas and words to those who cannot afford to buy the hardcopy version is not ripping off the producers, what don't you get? WHERES THE MONEY THEYRE LOOSING? WHERE? I didn't have it, SO HOW ARE THEY LOOSING IT?

Ok fine. Lets say you wrote your own piece of software to record audio using an audio codec you wrote from scratch. You spent hundreds of hours trying to get it just right and sell the software for $30 a pop. Now all of a sudden, it appears all over kazaa and people are downloading it like mad. Even though they're stealing your intellectual property, according to you its not theft therefore its ok. Tell me how that is NOT theft.

Vertigo1 · Post by **Vertigo1** » 2003-06-30 03:33pm

And before you say anything else, there is a clear difference here than with the open source movement. With open source programs, the authors CHOOSE to give their intellectual property away under the idea that their stuff can be used for free as long as you don't try to charge something for it (ie: anything more than shipping costs) without their explicit permission.

With the case of warez'd software, the intellectual property, something the author (say....Adobe) hasn't given permission to be given away for free, is being distributed without their permission. Therefore, its theft.

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2003-06-30 03:47pm

Vertigo1 wrote:Ok fine. Lets say you wrote your own piece of software to record audio using an audio codec you wrote from scratch. You spent hundreds of hours trying to get it just right and sell the software for $30 a pop. Now all of a sudden, it appears all over kazaa and people are downloading it like mad. Even though they're stealing your intellectual property, according to you its not theft therefore its ok. Tell me how that is NOT theft.

If the people can't pay for it to begin with then its not theft.

And before you say anything else, there is a clear difference here than with the open source movement. With open source programs, the authors CHOOSE to give their intellectual property away under the idea that their stuff can be used for free as long as you don't try to charge something for it (ie: anything more than shipping costs) without their explicit permission.

With the case of warez'd software, the intellectual property, something the author (say....Adobe) hasn't given permission to be given away for free, is being distributed without their permission. Therefore, its theft.

I know. The example of PS7 vs GIMP was just to make a comparison.

Vertigo1 · Post by **Vertigo1** » 2003-06-30 04:15pm

kojikun wrote:If the people can't pay for it to begin with then its not theft.

*crackle* Ground control to Major Tom?!

If I can't pay for photoshop, so I download it off of kazaa....HOW IS THAT NOT THEFT?! ADOBE IS NOT GETTING MONEY OFF OF A PRODUCT YOU WOULD'VE PURCHASED.

If this is such a hard concept for you, go look up theft in your dictionary.

Soulman · Post by **Soulman** » 2003-06-30 04:44pm

If you can't afford it (or just don't think it's worth the price) do without. Simple.

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2003-06-30 05:46pm

Vertigo1 wrote:If I can't pay for photoshop, so I download it off of kazaa....HOW IS THAT NOT THEFT?! ADOBE IS NOT GETTING MONEY OFF OF A PRODUCT YOU WOULD'VE PURCHASED.

If this is such a hard concept for you, go look up theft in your dictionary.

Would have purchased? HOW? You just said you CANT purchase it, so how could you have been able to purchase?!

*edit* let me clarify for those incapable of rational thought:

If I can't pay for photoshop...

That means you have no money.

YOU WOULD'VE PURCHASED.

That means you DO have money.

These two are contradictory and render your arguement null. Try again.

Mad · Post by **Mad** » 2003-06-30 06:36pm

kojikun, you're trying to justify stealing software, intellectual property, by saying the company wouldn't make any money anyway, as you wouldn't pay for it. Frankly, that's narrow-minded, for two reasons (that I can think of right now, at least).

First, that same logic can be applied to plagiarism. Do you consider it wrong to steal somebody's essay and pass it off as your own? The other person isn't getting hurt, it's just that you didn't have time to write your own essay. If you don't write the essay, nobody gets hurt except yourself. If you grab an essay someone else already got a passing grade off of, and don't get caught (and they don't know about it, anyway), then nobody gets hurt. Therefore, regardless of what you do, the original author isn't hurt, so it must be okay. Right? (Problem is... I'm afraid you might actually agree that plagiarism is okay...)

Second, there are other ways for you to obtain the software legally. Asking the right people at the right time or getting a part-time job doing something mundane can help land you a legit copy. Obtaining an illegal copy isn't the only way to aquire something you desire.