Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

I'm not fabricating anything. And this is not random picture.

If someone has misjudged the value of this painting and overpaid it, it's whether his choice or his mistake.

As I said, pricing is a complex process, and I was just denying having said that marginal cost is the only factor that intervenes.

But a zero marginal cost does reduce price through time, whatever the initial price was.

Also, a painting is always a unique object, so marginal cost concept doesn't apply there, by definition. If it was possible to exactly and physically reproduce this painting, the price of one copy would eventually fall to zero, even if the first instance initially was worth $1M.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

According to me, copying a design should always be allowed. Only the signature, the branding, shouldn't be copied. Copying is good, unlike counterfeiting. That's the very reason of the existence of branding. It authenticates the original design, but anyone should be allowed to try to imitate it, or even improve it, as long as they use an other branding.

If I want to build a bicycle, do you really think I should pay something to people who invented the wheels and the pedals ? Come on.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

You appear to have assumed that I was referring to yourself, sorry to burst your bubble but you weren't, I thought that we had finally reached a conclusion to the thread.

The thread was about whether Piracy was justified, your response above seems to imply you don't condone it but prefer that software is open and free. Fine, talk about that in a thread about that please not this one. The thread title has potential to be used as citing Maemo is all about pirated software and feed the media trolls thereby hurting the platform image.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

This does make sense, indeed.

Thanks everyone for this debate that I've found thrilling, and helped me to clarify my thoughts on the subject.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

Please stop using words you don't know the meaning of, azorni.

The fundamental issue at hand here is that it may be your opinion that piracy isn't piracy, that commercial software and digital copies are inherently worthless, but it's nothing more than just that: your opinion. Having an opinion doesn't entitle you to anything.

The laws are there, and there's more than one reason to have them. I support copyright, and I support the artists and products I like. However, I also strongly support Free Software; but neither are mutually exclusive.

Our current economical system is based on money. Sad, but true. People need money to survive. Worse yet, people need money to live. It's not a basic requirement, it's not a detail, it's the basis of western civilisation. It may sound materialistic, but guess what, so is 99% of our much beloved western society (... which by the way, is the only one thriving currently).

A bridge is indeed a a construction which "provide a desirable function that reduces time or effort in crossing a natural obstacle", but it can also be seen as a work of art, some bridges are mind boggling, masterpieces. And guess what? You have to pay a toll for a lot of bridges in order to cross them; especially when the convenience factor (also called luxury) is its main advantage.

However, I feel we're drifting very far away from the initial subject (and on a sidenote, man, dude, you have waaaayyy too much time on your hands to be guarding a thread this much). I would have liked to see this thread move in a positive manner, but as usual it's the same story, one guy versus the rest of the world, recycling the same arguments over and over, and bringing really, nothing, utterly nothing new to the table.

The point I wanted to bring across in my first few paragraphs was that people need money to live, but not everyone can be doing the same thing. Some people get next to nothing to be working in a factory day in, day out. Some people get paid massive amounts of money to wiggle their *** and pretend to be singing in front of a massive audience.

And guess what? The latter are there *because* of the former. Not thanks to, because of. This is something that is very, very important to grasp. Celebrities are celebrities because people pay attention to them. If they didn't, they'd just be another person on Earth. Whether you feel uncomfortable about that is not the issue, and you shouldn't deflect on piracy and copyright because you feel there is an issue with society (because that's what this is starting to sound like).

I did quite like the turn when mmurfin87 started to think in terms of functional value rather than exact value. If you look at the exact value of a painting, its pure worth in terms of materials, sure, it's not much. But value is made of so much more than the basic building blocks -- this is the foundation of our whole world; I just can't fathom you don't realise this.

If you buy a brick, it's not worth a whole lot. Hell, if you gather a million bricks, it's still not worth much. You can start stacking them, and maybe throw some mortar, and you'll end up with a basic structure that has a lot more value than the bricks alone, but still not worth that much. Throw in an architect, who will design things in a way that makes efficient use of the space, makes the whole structure appealing to the eye... And the value of the structure just soared compared to anything one could have built on his own (and this is without counting in the added value of the workers who'd actually build the thing).

The same thing applies to code. Instead of using the same old car metaphor that never works, I'll keep going with the house metaphor.

A program is exactly like a building. Some have the ability to house your family (software you use to make a living), others can be no more impressive than your shed (catorise would be a very good example of a "shed"-like application).

The building blocks that compose an application is code, or lines of code to be precise. A line of code, on its own, is usually quite useless, however if you have a few hundred thousands lines of code, and have a few architects that make it efficient, and designers who make it appealing to the eye, you suddenly obtain something which has a huge amount of value. How it is stored doesn't matter. How much the developers get paid doesn't really matter either. It's the whole package which holds the value, and it is only that package you pay for.

I'd also like to point out that you are oversimplifying things, and not setting up a disclaimer for it. Some applications cost $1, others cost a few thousand. I am a consultant for an application for which the contracts rarely have less than a million written on them. Is each developer entitled to a straight cut of that? Of course not. Because developers are far from the only ones that help build an application.

In the same way that a house requires people doing very different things in order to get a house stamped out of the ground, building an application requires people with very different skills. You need a finance division, who will run the numbers of the company, and make sure that we don't spend too much compared to what we sell. We need sales, because the product isn't going to fly off the shelves on its own. We need marketing, so that the packaging looks appealing. We need IT to make sure everyone has a system that allows them to work efficiently. We have assistants, who help very busy people not forget their heads. If your product is in a specific segment, you also need pre-sales, because well, you need to be able to show proofs-of-concept to your customers, you need to demonstrate that what you're promising is possible. You need a technical office, who will research what the next technologies could be, what directions the company should aim itself at.

And not a single person in all of those I have listed will ever touch a line of code; but they still need to be paid. For most companies, the Engineering team will represent tops 1/3 of the headcount.

Selling a product over and over keeps a company in business. The price point at which they sell the product is usually way below anything that it has actually cost to produce. A product like Photoshop or Lightroom requires investments in the order of millions. Yet you can buy it for a fraction of that. How come? Because they sell it multiple times.

Well, obviously, at some point they make a profit, and in some cases they even make a massive profit, but so what? Where's the problem with that? What alternatives would we have?

Everyone paying a fair share of what the product actually cost to produce, plus a little rounding up so everyone feels ok? Yeah, why not. But the product would never sell.

If you told people: "If everyone buys this product, right now, at this very instant, it will cost you $1. If you don't, this company and the 300 workers are without a job.". Nobody would buy.

Edit: Damn that was long just for a "quick reply".

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

I would have hoped that a coherent arguement such as this would have had some effect but apparently not - seems ignorance knows no bound on this and thanks for contributing the albums! :)

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

End price is not really the same argument. If something is too expense then simple don't have it. By your noted arguements already regarding supply and worth it would fail and the concept would disappear.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

But surely the copyists were producing something physical and you are arguing about an intellectual product.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

So you are paying for something - how is this relevant to piracy? The arguement about platform portability is relate but not the same arguement. Again, if you don't like the terms of the contract don't engage and don't buy the product. The supplier will allow economics to remove unpopular practices.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

As many developers and artists will tell you that your opinion is not born out by basic facts. People generally will grab anything they can for nothing and think nothing of it.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

For me "piracy" means try before buy. IF the code / media / whatnot is in my eyes worthy, I will gladly dip in. If not, I most likely stop using the product and as such have no point in spending money in it. I am fine with this being done to me as an artist (yes, I'm a composer), and it's a good motivator to make a quality track (or a product). :)

And yes, I reckon it's a form of theft, even thought you do not physicallly take anything, you are still, in a way, taking money out of someones wallet.

/this comment supplied by a member of Pirate Party of Finland.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

The difference between theft and copyright violation is that in the first case you're removing something of value, and in the second you're removing something of potential value. How much of that potential would be be realised is very much unknown (there's been numerous studies on this, with widely varying results). What's also unknown is how much this unwanted "advertising" drives eventual sales (again, results of studies vary).

This shouldn't be used as justification for copyright violation though - whether or not to use this model should be up to the copyright owner (some do - see Baen books for example - you can freely download a good number of eBooks, which they're hoping will drive sales of their others).

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

So if it isn't worth paying for do without!

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

Long but well put!

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

If you want a trial version then ask. This is not justification for the action. How many car thieves would then have the option of saying that they were trying before offering to buy? It's the same concept!

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

Potential or material, they are still of value and it's being diminished. Noone can ever calculate the exact potential amount as it depends on the person copying, the value of the product and the advertizing it gains via piracy among few variables. Just because it cannot be calculated precisely, doesn't mean it's not wrong. :) Baen books is a good example yes, they have realized the "carrot" approach which imho is the best one there is in terms of not spending your money accidentally on cr*p.

Fargus: Trial versions are usually a nuisance, with restricted access and usually just driving the users insane before actually getting a good picture of the software in question. Emphasizis on the word usually. Testing with a trial version or a pirated full version brings exactly as much money to a company, so I do not really see a big difference.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

The simple answer to this is that when it comes to the work and design of an individual.

Your opinion only has any value if it is your work.

If you feel your work should be free. Good for you, everyone here will support and help you achiver your goals.

If you feel people should pay for the right to use your work then also good for you. If I agree Ill give you money when I find your software of value. If not I will not use your software.

Same goes for music films etc.

If you have sold the rights to your work in exchange for a salary. That is also your choice and good on you.

If you feel you have the right to force your opinion on anyone else by using their work against their will.

You are forcing your religion upon someone else against their will.

What you believe never gives you the right to enforce it on others. So just **** of and leave them alone.

If their business model is invalid they will go bankrupt. If not you will just keep whining. At no point is using their software against their will some fight for good over evil.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

The problem is that not everyone that continues to use theproduct pays for it if they have a pirated copy - Windows and Photoshop being prime examples. If you find the trial version doesn't give you the ability to evaluate the product tell the producer or find someone that has a legit copy and try it out. Piracy is never an acceptable option, this is just an excuse.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

Mr Tux himself puts the arguement in an elegant, if forceful manner (Last line says it all). Wish there was a thanks button for this post! :)

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

I'm a few pages late.. but azorni tried using street lamps as an example of something you don't pay for...

That's incorrect. That's what Taxes are for. (at least here in the US)

A very, very, very, limited number of things are maintained and ran "free" of charge. Homeless shelters and the "soup kitchens" etc are provided at no cost to the homeless people.. but they still take money (usually our money) to run.

Even "Non-profit" organizations actually make a profit most of the time. Money has to come from *somewhere*.

So yes.. you are paying for the street lamp... and the street.. and the sidewalk.. and you're also paying for the cop. Unless it's a private road... in which case it's usually got a Toll Booth on it...

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

I think bridge example is rather good, except that you should note that bridge itself is physical and technically everyone can build one, therefore if bridge owner wants too much money for going over it you can build your owns.

Bad things happen when building a "bridge" becomes really easy and cheap then he realizes that everyone can build their own bridge, so he gets a patent for "bridge", so no one can build one and he can keep his profit. There is cases where such bridge was in fact something really smart and worth to be protected, then such patent does in fact protects his time and effort he put into inventing it.
However imagine a case that nobody ever before saw a river and needed a bridge, he was the first to come to a river and crossed it buy just dropping a tree over it - then he comes home and gets a patent for a "bridge" = everything put over a river to cross it. Invention is trivial, every thinking man would come up with this, but sine he now owns a patent for it noone else besides him can now build bridges EVER without buying his rights for over 9000.

Same happens in software market and it does slow down or even make impossible many things that might have come to this world without all this patent crap.

IP laws should be changed, but the reality is noone knows how to do this in a fair way, therefore we are stuck with this crap. Logic tells you every man shall be rewarded proportionally to the efforts they've put into creation, but while it is relatively easy to do calculate values of physical goods it is close to impossible to achieve the same with intellectual property, even worse when they come combined in one physical product.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

Hardly, I'm simply not stating "they'd all go out of business and need to be quickly granted the right to copyright their recipes and sue the living daylights out of anyone who reproduces them."

People will still be creative, and those at the top of their game will still receive recognition. Significantly fewer would do so, but it would still be done.

I have stated elsewhere that I'd rather have copyrights and a deluge of crap than no copyrights and a trickle of crap. At least with the deluge the raw number of -good- works is higher. But obscenely strong and virtually perpetual copyright is ridiculous.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

God damned it I just can't help responding at least to this one. Note that the long answer from someone else previously was quite good too and would deserve some answer as well. But it was also quite emotional, probably since this person is involved in software industry. So I prefer wait a bit, let some water flow under the bridge, in order not to get him even more angry. And this long post deserves a long answer.

Anyway, the very fact that street lamps are financed by taxes, and not by private sector and market forces, does prove my point. There must be a reason for this, and this is precisely because very early, society understood the very particular aspect of this object. Individuals realized that it is very difficult to monopolize the use of such tools, or to charge for their use. Same for roads or bridges, as already discussed. Therefore people decided that these kind of stuffs should be public property, and that everyone should put some money to finance it, without any consideration about who does actually use it.

In case of street lamps, it is not a matter of marginal cost, but rather of question of factorization of service. Factorization is to services what marginal costs is to goods. There is some kind of duality between both concepts, and both have pretty much the same applications regarding determination of price.

This is quite interesting considerations, as far as theoretical economics is concerned. But I confess this is a bit far away from software industry.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

I'm already on the same page as you, Crash. The difference between your examples is, if say the "house" in question was a mobile home, and I took it, I've deprived the user of its use, and harm is done.

If I copy a program, and only do that. I just copy it. Is any harm done?

Let me rephrase that into a scenario.

Say I'm on an Apple computer and I download the latest Age of Empires video game (or any other windows-only program). Assume I'm running OSX, I don't have Boot Camp, so all I have is a useless copy of this program on my computer.

At this point though, what I've downloaded isn't really even a program. It doesn't run or do ANYTHING on my OSX computer. Its just a really long number. So have I done any harm or theft in this scenario? Ignore for the moment what my intent might be.

Now, say I was on a PC and I downloaded that program and then ran it and install it. All of you (and me included) would say you have committed piracy.

I'm just trying to separate the concept of copying a long number, and using functionality without paying.

In the case of a house, I cannot take the house from you without also depriving you of its functionality. In the case of code, I could "take" from you (copy) the program a billion times and not deprive you of your profits until the first time I ran your program and used it without paying.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

What about Coca Cola and other soda companies? They're right out of business.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

You bought up the topic - you KEEP bringing up topics which are as unrelated to the issue at hand as a frog is to a bicycle, when one is refuted you simply move on to the next piece of unrelated gibberish.

Crapping on about things and using words you obviously do not understand the meaning of doesn't make you look eloquent, it makes you look like an idiot.

Keep that in mind when compiling the next "But lets take a tree - what if someone patented trees" or whatever other insane leap of logic argument you put forward next.

PS: By azorni's logic the design for the above mentioned house could be copied for any other building. Since once it is drawn it no longer has any intrinsic value apparently.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

mmurfin87 - Interesting idea but this is not how the law works. The 'long number' is what's copyrighted, so just by copying it without permission you've offended. I do agree with what you're saying though.

And to think we've now got 31 pages of generally high quality discussion all from someone's flippant comment about warez-ing the angry birds level pack!

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

Precisely.. the logic here actually has nothing at all to do with the Software industry.. or at least: the vast majority of it.

For example: You *could* use this type of logic to say that Bill Gates should be federally funded and that the US taxes are increased to pay for Microsoft.. since nearly everyone uses Microsoft Windows - it's become a critical piece of most businesses, it is therefore just as much a "widely" used and therefore should be "public property" and funded via public funds, not individuals. In fact.. I'll bet more people in the US use Microsoft more than any given road in the US. Even landmarks or tourist attractions.

Then Microsoft Windows would be legitimately "free" to the public ;).

However.. this logic does *not* apply to about 99% of the rest of the software industry, where the software itself is actually used in very specific, and by significantly less people.. meaning that they could not say that they need public funding because most people have never even heard of them - so how would they get money and/or funding to continue creating their software if they were required to give it free?

By pirating it... giving it away for free without royalty to the owners.. takes away their only source of income and the software will cease to be maintained or updated because the programmers were fired since the company couldn't afford to keep them.

People can say and claim Programs are simply 1's and 0's all day long, and say that because it's all broken down into 1 long number anyway then it's value is useless... this is completely irrelevant. How many people can or could have built that same big long number? How many did? If the answer is many.. why are you pirating his software? Find a free one. If the answer is one - then big long number or not, what that programmer has is something akin to Brain Surgery. You wouldn't demand that the best specialist in Brain surgery be forced to work on you for free would you? Same for the programmer. They've built something that is obviously popular enough to be pirated, useful enough for you to want, and is the only person(/people) to have done it.

They should get compensation for that.

Now.. how they get compensation, and how they *should* release their software, and other ideals like that are for the other thread that doesn't exist that Fargus keeps trying to get people to start. But for this thread: Suffice to say, the programmer was the only that did it - and he chose to require you to pay for it to receive it, and to not do so is going against the wishes of the author.

Whether right, wrong, morale or not the only thing that *really* matters is, In the US (and I believe the UK?) - this is considered illegal. That's really the short and end of it. Philosophical discussions aside..

I personally believe Marijuana should be held to the same standard as alcohol as they are both pretty much equally harmful. So either ban both, or legalize both, but it makes no sense to split them. That doesn't mean I should go out smoking Pot or that I have a leg to stand on in court if I do.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

I never said that piracy isn't piracy. I said, as others did, that piracy is not theft. I said for instance that according to me, piracy is illegal gift. I never said commercial software is inherently worthless. What I said is that its value is difficult to convert into price. Value and price are two very different things. Value is not necessary commercial value. I've given many examples.

I am not convinced by those reasons, that's all. Now, law is law, so I will conform to it. But I have the right to say what I think about it, and to vote against it if I can.

I very much doubt that if software industry was to vanish, all these people will suddenly become jobless and miserable. I believe in Schumpeterian concept of creative destruction, so I don't think it would be a problem for them.

Well, in my all life, I've crossed many bridges, and I have never ever paid.

This seems unfair. Many times I've given other examples, and developed different aspects of the pb. Copy vs counterfeiting, price vs value, intellectual ownership vs intellectual paternity, costs of production vs costs of diffusion, price elaboration mechanisms, and so on...

I don't get your point here.

I did not say that the value of a product was the sum of the value of its component. I don't know where you've read that.

Again, you mix up value and price. A code may have a lot of value, and indeed much more than the sum of its lines. But just as poem is more valuable than its words or a theorem more valuable than the axioms. But when I use Pythagoras theorem, or when I think about "la cigale et la fourmi", I don't have to worry about whom I will have to pay license fees to.

Yeah indeed that's a lot of people. And all of them work in order to fit in the software retail industry paradigm. But once you question the very existence of this paradigm, everything change.

I've already said that making profits is absolutely not the pb. I'm liberal and I have no objections about people making money, as long as they do that with market forces, and not thanks to the intervention of law.

Production costs are not everything. That's the all point of my intervention.


Being without a job doesn't have to be permanent. Those people won't lose their arms or their brain. They still are the same person and can find an other job. This is Schumpeter again.

I'll read these links, this seems interesting. Thanks.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

15 million Americans might disagree with that statement.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

This brings in a whole different debate......

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

I agree - but just wanted to point out that many of azornis arguments are simply opinions.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

Wasn't it you who were saying I kept bringing off-related topics ?

I mean : CrashOrDie started about unemployment considerations. I just gave him my position on the subject.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

There is no actual law considering piracy in my country so... :D
Everything starts and ends with money,depends on the aspect of which you are looking from.Some people can barely afford pc`s therefore piracy is justified to an extent.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

Which country is that ?

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

What about them?

Are you suggesting we change the laws such that technology is held back arbitrarily to protect the revenue stream of companies whose entire value isn't so much the product (the CEO of Coke has said that a leak of their recipe wouldn't hurt them) but the brand?

It's not as if corporations are entitled to exist.

I mean, we're still wandering around in pure hypotheticals, and in the case of a "replicator" then the valuable industries become the design and sale of replicators (since size and energy constraints will limit what they can reproduce) and, more importantly, the exchange of power and raw materials used by the devices.

But let us stop wandering down this unproductive track.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

Macedonia.There is a law...but oh well nobody cares about it and piracy isnt punishable,therefore it exist only on a piece of paper.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

Wow. I wonder how a world without punished piracy looks like.

According to some people here, it must be awful. Hell on Earth, isn'it ?

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

I live in a country like that and most of our artists and software engineers migrate as soon as they can because they can't live of their trade here. Or just produce for foreign markets.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

Considering the average salary here is around 150 euros,and 70-80 of them are used to pay the bills...lets say it`s smells like...more food and immediate basic needs :p.