Editorial: "How piracy changed my life"

http://www.neowin.net/news/editorial-how-piracy-changed-my-life

by Breakthrough • 14 years ago

248 229 14 years ago

antidaily• 14 years ago

Nice story, but I was hoping this was about actually becoming a pirate. Arrr.

siliconc0w• 14 years ago

The side effect of privatizing what could be a public good is that is means denying to billions what they could have for free so that a relative handful will have an incentive to pay for it.

yason• 14 years ago

This, exactly this.

Moreover, I think that piracy mostly happens because either it's the only way or because it's way too cheap.

The first case is similar to how I was as a kid: I pirated all my games and software and copied all my music, and then bought the best games and the best albums that I could afford. I owned the games and cds that I considered the best, and worth owning. I paid for them so that I could own them: not because I would've wanted to make sure the authors could make a living. No amount of piracy laws and copyright enforcement would've added anything to the funds I had at my disposal. I already spent whatever I had.

The second case is why some people hoard files. They download full discographies and filmographies of nearly everything there is because copying is so cheap it's practically gratis, copying can be fun, and just to make sure that if the world comes to an end they'll still have years of entertainment in their hands. They probably watch and listen one percent of what they're downloaded, and they probably actually buy one percent of that one percent.

There's a third case of "piracy" which is just casual copying, to sample the products. People first download music and torrent movies and sample what they've got. If they find a good director or a good band, they buy a collection or a set of albums. I don't really consider these people a problem since they're consumers at heart and they use downloading mostly to find stuff to buy. If they couldn't download, they wouldn't find much music or games or movies, and they would subsequently buy less.

gizmo6864• 14 years ago

>There's a third case of "piracy" which is just casual copying, to sample the products. People first download music and torrent movies and sample what they've got. If they find a good director or a good band, they buy a collection or a set of albums. I don't really consider these people a problem since they're consumers at heart and they use downloading mostly to find stuff to buy. If they couldn't download, they wouldn't find much music or games or movies, and they would subsequently buy less.

I think this is (close to) the case of people who are actually a problem. The first two cases don't represent much lost oppurtunity. In this case, the people pirating might go out and buy the stuff. Because of this, the oppurtunity cost of them already having some of the stuff is far more significant than in the first two cases (where there was minimal oppurtunity lost)

imjared• 14 years ago

I'm not really surprised to read this. These cases, I'm sure, are a dime a dozen. I did the same thing in middle school; I pirated Photoshop and started to learn the ins and outs. Led me to getting an internship which led me to getting a job and settling on a decent career path. Now I own most of the thousands of dollars of software I used as a kid.

I can agree and sympathize with this until he said that most people pirate out of need, not greed. Not sure that's really accurate but I'm also not sure it's measurable.

chasing5• 14 years ago

I'm glad things worked out for Vlad -- when I was younger, I pirated a fair amount of software and games, and, like him, I think it enabled me to get inspired to learn more about computers in general and, indeed, now I stare at them all day for work.

But.

I'm not sure what the bigger point is, here. Should we be okay with piracy as long as the pirate is using it for self-betterment? Do games count for that? What about pirating Game of Thrones episodes? (Or, to take a wild leap: Is it cool for a kid to steal a car if he learns how to be a mechanic from it?)

Today, I do feel there are some motions towards providing better access to software and hardware in poorer parts of the world. Which is great. And, to be frank, the quality of both cheap hardware and open source software is insane relative to twenty years ago. So, again, I'm not sure what Vlad's bigger point is.

If the point is to justify piracy, I think he only does it in the very narrowest of ways: Considering the state of technology in the 1990s, piracy enabled people in poorer parts of the world (and kids in wealthier parts of the world) access to the growing information technology industry. I'm not sure that argument exactly holds in the same way today.

Finally, Microsoft can survive a fair amount of piracy. But not every software company can. What happens when this "it's cool because I'm using it to educate myself" stance kills software companies? Or game companies? Or media companies? Is that better for everyone?

---

EDIT: I'm not equating the act of stealing a car with the act of pirating Windows. I am merely wondering about the general nature of morally justifying a crime based on it being done for self-improvement. If we say it's okay in a case of software piracy, are we okay with it in other contexts?

gonehome• 14 years ago

There are much better arguments for justifying piracy, notably the original intent/purpose of copyright.

http://zacharyalberico.com/post/16427595132/no-infringement-...

Devilboy3• 14 years ago

Stealing a car deprives someone of a car. Copying a car does not.

chasing5• 14 years ago

I think you understand my point. In a general sense, is doing something criminal okay if it's for self-betterment? Pirating Windows does rob Microsoft of some small portion of their rights as a creator.

cremnob4• 14 years ago

This trope comes up every time piracy is discussed. The point is no one is talking about the legal meaning of "stealing" versus "copyright infringement". What people are saying is that it's immoral.

The fact that a content company's product is easily stolen simply because the nature of his business means it is effortless to do through the internet doesn't change anything. If you go to a lawyer for legal advice and then refuse to pay him saying "I haven't deprived you of a tangible product so it's not really stealing" you are missing the point, it's still theft. No one would do that, but they do pirate content because it's unbelievably easy and there are no consequences. That's the only reason.

Some people are honest about it and say "I just don't want to pay for it". But most people I hear justifying piracy feel entitled to it and don't think there's anything wrong.

paulhauggis2• 14 years ago

Identity theft is still called "theft", even though nothing is actually stolen.

Piracy is more like counterfeiting. It's much worse than stealing. Stealing a TV only deprives someone of that physical value. Pirating software has the ability to destroy the value of the entire product line (why would someone pay $99 when they can just get it for free).

The same concept also applies to things like the app store. Now that games are 99 cents, it's not easy to create a game and charge $30 anymore (because the value is what people are willing to pay. If everyone were giving these games away for free or they were pirated and everyone knew these games could be downloaded for free, that value would be $0).

jasonlotito• 14 years ago

Bear with me, I'm trying to play devil's advocate here.

While you might not be depriving someone of a car, you are devaluing the product. Consider in the OP's case, he learned how to do certain things with this stolen software, and now he can sell his services for what is most likely less than what those who paid for their software and training charge. This, in some way, steals work from them. His knowledge is "illegally gained." Even if they don't charge less for their work, maybe they come here on a visa. Once again, taking jobs from those that earned it through legal channels.

So simply suggest that the only ramifications are from the software company missing out on a sale ignores the entire ecosystem.

fox91• 14 years ago

I think that the answer is open source, now there are a lot of alternatives and you don't need piracy for learning stuff, now probably piracy makes you dumber

shocks2• 14 years ago

Open source is not an option in this instance.

The point Vlad is trying to make is that when he was 15 he pirated Photoshop, learnt to use it, and got a job using it. He might have learnt some ideas and methods had he downloaded GIMP and used that instead, but ultimately he would have nothing on someone with years of Photoshop experience. The UI and many ideas are completely different.

lucian1900• 14 years ago

The point is that taking strong measures against copyright infringement is stupid. Many (if not most) of the people that do it would pay a reasonable price if it was possible for them to do so.

Also, stealing a car is nothing like copyright infringement. There is absolutely no parallel you can draw there.

k-mcgrady• 14 years ago

> "Many (if not most) of the people that do it would pay a reasonable price if it was possible for them to do so."

And the fact that they can't afford it gives them justification for stealing it? Would it not make more sense, that if you can't afford something you aren't entitled to it? If a poor or homeless person were to steal food from a shop they wouldn't be allowed to do it because, although they would like to pay, it isn't possible for them to do so.

chasing5• 14 years ago

I shouldn't have made the comment about the car. Too many people are misinterpreting what I meant... I'm not equating the crime of pirating Windows and stealing a car. Very different things.

But, are crimes in general justifiable if the person committing them does it for self-betterment?

Yeah, probably in many cases. Possibly in this case. But I also worry that it becomes a rallying point for piracy in general. That's what concerns me. I don't think most people pirate media for self-betterment. They do so because they don't want to pay.

eshvk• 14 years ago

Since the car analogy isn't working: Let me try another one, equally with flaws no doubts. :-) Piracy as we known it is rampant of the coasts of Somalia (Yes, I am talking about real world pirates). One of the reasons why that is happening is the systematic breakdown of the livelihoods of fisherman in the region due to dumping of toxic wastes of those coasts and the free flow of arms. Now, it is arguable that those fisherman are using the monetary flow from piracy to lift themselves from poverty which is a good thing. However, I do wish to point out that that analogy is based on my philosophy that e-piracy is not a victimless crime, as long as you have at least one data point of a person who would have paid for the game/movie/software but didn't do so because he/she had easy access to a torrent.

To be honest, I don't care about people pirating stuff. It is the moral justifications that seem rather specious at best. What is wrong with accepting that you are doing something wrong and... keep doing it if you wish?

westicle• 14 years ago

If people weren't eating up your "stealing a car" example, I doubt the "violently kidnapping and holding for ransom" example will fare any better.

How about this: a young woman has a sick child in a jurisdiction without universal health care. Her income is insufficient to pay for his treatment, so she has sex with some rich men in exchange for money. Sadly, prostitution is illegal.

Is it ever right to break the law in order to improve your prospects (or those of your family)? Some would say it is a moral imperative.

kybernetikos5• 14 years ago

> e-piracy is not a victimless crime, as long as you have at least one data point of a person who would have paid for the game/movie/software but didn't do so because he/she had easy access to a torrent.

Well.... If the easy availability of the torrent led to more sales than it diminished, then the crime is still victimless regardless of your datapoint, since the supposed victim actually received a benefit.

This may seem far fetched, but I understand that for all but the largest block busters, there is some evidence that this is true for films: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2176246

If you're a film maker, making non-blockbuster films, you should probably be supporting piracy from a purely financial point of view. I fully expect that the same is true in music as well. http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/48001/pirates-more-music-onl...

demetrius4• 14 years ago

>> What is wrong with accepting that

>> you are doing something wrong and...

>> keep doing it if you wish?

Because we believe there’s honestly nothing wrong with it.

Paraphrasing you: I don’t understand what is wrong with accepting that pirates are doing something right and... abstain from doing it if you wish?

learc835• 14 years ago

>e-piracy is not a victimless crime, as long as you have at least one data point of a person who would have paid for the game/movie/software but didn't do so because he/she had easy access to a torrent.

By that definition a criminal who steals a a physical product from a store is guilty of both stealing the product and depriving the store of his hypothetical future patronage.

What about producing better substitute product. Am I guilty because I create a product that stops people from buying your product?

If it's not the act of piracy that makes it immoral, but the result, then anything else that has the same result should be equally immoral.

autarch• 14 years ago

You seem to be assuming that simply because something is a crime it is therefore morally wrong. I don't think piracy needs justification because copying something is not morally wrong. OTOH, stealing a car (without justificaiton) is morally wrong.

cabalamat• 14 years ago

> What about pirating Game of Thrones episodes?

If piracy caused future GoT episodes to not be made, that would be a bad outcome. But it won't happen. A series of GoT costs $50 million to make and they could probably fairly easily crowdfund it, (e.g. $10 * 5 million or some other multiple). I'm sure lots of people would be prepared to pay that amount (or a lot more) to ensure they could watch the next series -- I know I would.

gwern• 14 years ago

He is illustrating the deadweight loss of a successful copyright system.

majorlazer2• 14 years ago

If a kid goes through the trouble of learning how to download, crack, and install software, I see that as a good barrier of entry for someone to start learning a piece of software. If you are going through all that trouble, chances are you are really interested in what you are pursuing and there is a bigger chance you may pursue a career in design/dev. And when you do enter the field, your employer will purchase licenses for you. I know that if I didn't pirate software as a kid, there is no way in hell I would be working in the web now. Also, when I was learning, I pirated all of my software. Now I don't have a single pirated program on my PC. And I gladly pay $50/month for the Creative Suite.

Or the software companies can release 'lite' versions of their software intended only for personal use and then rely on employers/schools and people purchasing the full versions to make most of their money.

mgkimsal2• 14 years ago

" I know that if I didn't pirate software as a kid, there is no way in hell I would be working in the web now"

There's a whole mess of us "working in the web" who never pirated software for web development.

This may be more a 'kid/adult' thing - I went through about 3 years of pirating games for my C128 back in the 80s, then pretty much just stopped pirating. So, I can't say I've never pirated. I did. I bought many games too, but copied/traded with friends at school. There was an element of social currency when trading (who had skyfox? who had bard's tale? etc). But by 12th grade, there was no attraction for me anymore.

As an adult, I've paid for almost all my software, but have primarily used open source software (desktop linux for years), learning the LAMP stack from the ground up - absolutely 0 need for piracy of any sort, and it's provided a great foundation for working in the web field.

Perhaps with fewer people justifying the means with the ends, we'd have more users/contributors on open source projects and tools, continuing to make that ecosystem even better, vs propping up the dominance of some established commercial vendors with legions of essentially free training and advertising by continued acceptance of pirated software use.

winfred• 14 years ago

You are overly western-centric, if you honestly think that the world in the 1990's is any different than it is today.

The only difference is that the there has been a shift of development, where some Eastern European and South American countries can now afford software licensing, but at the same time massive numbers of people in Africa and Asia have reached wealth levels that are sufficient for buying computers yet too low to afford the software.

meritt2• 14 years ago

It's always been rumored that Adobe software, especially Photoshop, has been easy to pirate to encourage adoption with a user base that might otherwise seek alternatives. As those people hone their skills and eventually find jobs, Photoshop is the norm and what their employers purchase licensing for.

lumberjack• 14 years ago

Same with Windows and Office. It's better to have them pirate your program than run somebody's else.

wting• 14 years ago

"Although about 3 million computers get sold every year in China, people don't pay for the software. Someday they will, though. And as long as they're going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade."

-- Bill Gates during speech at University of Washington

http://articles.latimes.com/2006/apr/09/business/fi-micropir...

eli2• 14 years ago

Though it'd be better still if they paid something. Microsoft offers special low-cost editions of their products for developing nations, don't they?

kmfrk• 14 years ago

I'm not sure about this with Windows, frankly. "Something else" is not as obvious and accessible the same way one movie or videogame is over the other.

I remember getting burnt badly trying to install ... Mandrake was it ... back in the days.

shocks2• 14 years ago

iirc, Microsoft originally uploaded Office to places it could be easily pirated to help it spread and take over the market.

It worked.

reidrac3• 14 years ago

Definitely, but I think is just Microsoft investing in their ecosystem.

In schools students learn "Word" and not "a word processor". I've seen high schools getting software licences with special deals (way cheaper), and thanks to that other solutions are discouraged (ie. "Word" is the standard and it will be required by any future job offer)

Can all students afford a Word licence? (ie. practice at home) It really doesn't matter, piracy it's OK because it is an investment. Companies are the final target (won't run pirated software and all candidates are trained to use that software).

You can find that kind of strategy also in open source (ie. Red Hat benefits from CentOS).

eli2• 14 years ago

I've heard that too, but I have no idea if it's true. (Surely, Photoshop would be pirated regardless of how much DRM is added).

But it's definitely not only the goodness of their heart that leads many companies to offer free or cheap software to students. Microsoft BizSpark is all about giving startups free Microsoft software in the hope that they'll build on the MS stack.

TheAmazingIdiot5• 14 years ago

For the longest time, cracking Photoshop was a 1 byte change. In effect, there was a conditional JMP. You patch the address of the good JMP to the bad conditional side.

Voila: enter a good or bad serial, and it works. A bunch of us under +Fravia came to an agreement that this simplicity was intentional. I think we all can come to the conclusion to why that is...

As to your supposition that no amount of 'junk' would stop pirates, I do beg to differ. Back around '98-2000, there was a CD burning program that was notorious to crack. I don't remember the name offhand. There were over a thousand verify checks built into the program at crazy locations. Many would also attempt to write corrupt CDs and ISOs. And the "best part": if you were using a 'naughty' code, it would silently take it and slowly corrupt everything that program touches.

Most pirates ignored it and went with NERO to crack/distribute. A few of the hardcore crackers took on that program. I knew of 2 successes.

Tyrant5052• 14 years ago

What exactly is HARD to pirate? edit: More specifically, Crack. I remember x-force having sources in all the major places ready to dump it to their cracker division.

angersock6• 14 years ago

Skype for a very long time had some absurd protection against things like attaching debuggers, adding code, and whatnot (as I recall). There was a great presentation about it, but I cannot for the life of me find it.

ladzoppelin• 14 years ago

Things that use codemeter are impossible (At least right now).

JagMicker• 14 years ago

Many DAW's (Digital Audio Workstation) such as Cubase, and DSP "plug-ins" have special software protection schemes. Cubase uses something called eLicenser[1].

Another popular, niche product that has proven difficult to fully crack is a program called Pro Tools, created by DigiDesign, now owned by Avid. It uses a protection called PACE Anti-Piracy[2]. Many expensive pieces of software require unique hardware, either a security dongle or some other external device.

[1] eLicenser.net

[2] paceap.com

ender7• 14 years ago

Well, I must admit that when I was a kid I taught myself how to use most of the Creative Suite via pirated copies (back then it was the Macromedia Suite plus whatever Adobe was calling its software at the time). I'm now employed because of those skills, and my employer has to purchase annual copies of said software for me to use.

ddorian43• 14 years ago

Why annual? Do you really need the latest CS(n)? Or do you buy by subscription?

yozmsn3• 14 years ago

Adobe Software in no longer easy to pirate. From what I understand people have to go to great lengths to pirate CS6, same goes for Office 2010, a friend told me that to pirate it he had to call Microsoft and mess around with files, it's not just a keygen anymore.

learc835• 14 years ago

For Adobe Software it's easier than it has been in years. No need to install a patch. You just have to edit your host file to block all the domains CS uses to phone home.

johnpowell• 14 years ago

It was that way for me. Back in 2001 I got a iMac G3 500 while I was in collage. I used a p2p program called http://www.carracho.com/ to get Photoshop and Dreamweaver. The next summer I got a job at the university doing web design. The university bought me legit copies of the software since I preferred to work on My iBook and not the POS they had on my desk.

rcush• 14 years ago

On the one hand this chap, "[downloaded] an infinite number of games and software - all illegally," while also refers to people who pirate out of greed as - and this is verbatim - "bumholes". Despite the obvious hyperbole, it seems very likely that this man himself was once a bumhole.

The story presented by the writer is one that is largely inapplicable today. Developers and other content creators have got a better grip on regional pricing, most markets see software being released particularly since online distribution, and the software market has seen more budget alternatives to big name brands become available.

This response may appear rather dishevelled, but that is because I'm not sure what the point is that the article is attempting to touch on. The quasi-Marxist monologue is tired when the quality of free, or cheap software today is very high and so some wishy-washy argument about self-betterment through piracy is left looking rather weak.

There are some fairly strong arguments in favour of piracy, some even quite convincing. This is not one of them.

TheAmazingIdiot5• 14 years ago

And with this regional pricing crap, the same companies are petitioning Congress and SCOTUS to ban first-sale doctrine on "stuff" coming in from abroad.

"Sorry bub, you bought that X from the company who makes them, in another country. And because they sell stuff cheaper in THAT country, you have no rights to what you buy past yourself. Even if I did sell to you."

Regardless that companies use price arbitrage on everything under the sun, including the workers and the WHOLE company (to get away from higher tax regimes). We peons aren't allowed to use the same tools the big guys use.

TheAmazingIdiot5• 14 years ago

How intelligent is it for companies to go after people who trade and know your program, that are not paying _now_? Seems a waste of resources attacking who might be your customer, in both money and good-will.

Example: I'm in school for drafting/design tech. Due to the school which I am taking classes, we learn Autocad and Solidworks. Both have student versions available, and both are with nasty "We'll send you the serials sometime next week".

So I went onto the local pirate archive and grabbed a copy of both programs. Half an hour later, they're installed and they work flawlessly. Fellow students are still waiting for the serials through email sometime next week.

I do think its different for a for-profit enterprise to go out and pirate everything under the sun. If you make money, you should pass the buck, so to speak.

Read my history to rehash the 1 day old long drawn out argument about DRM. No sense in repeating all of that.

sergiotapia2• 14 years ago

Point in case, I've been trying to buy Windows 8 in Bolivia for the past three weeks and STILL can't buy it legally anywhere.

Every option has been exhausted and I'm kind of annoyed. I wanted to ditch my pirated version of Windows 7 and finally go legit now that I can afford it, but Microsoft just won't take my money.

A torrent just works.

keithpeter4• 14 years ago

I'm calling this 'the oatmeal argument' and it has considerable force.

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/game_of_thrones

Is Windows 8 not available for download in Bolivia? If so is that some silly regional trade reason? Or are network speeds too low?

sergiotapia2• 14 years ago

Windows 8 isn't available for sale, for some reason. I don't know why. I can download a Windows 7 pirated version easily in 7 hours, I doubt network speeds are the culprit here.

natural219• 14 years ago

I say the same thing about audiobooks / lectures. In high school, I spent most of my part-time job listening to lectures about economics, game theory, linguistics, all sorts of topics. This was enabled 100% by piracy. Some of these lectures are worth hundreds or even thousands of dollars, which I obviously could not have afforded as a high schooler. Still, the fact that I got all of that content and learning for basically free is in some sense, in my mind, a good outcome of piracy, even though I don't advocate for piracy (in fact, I think it's a large problem).

For the record, now that I have money, I purchase the lectures that I listen to. Maybe if I become wealthy, I will go back and buy the ones I listened to.

samuellevy• 14 years ago

It's not just developing markets like Romania. I grew up in poverty in Australia, and pirating software was simply the only way to access it.

Without access to the software, I would never have been able to learn the skills required to earn the money to pay for the software now.

I'm not saying that piracy should be accepted for that reason; I'm saying (and I believe the OP was saying) that piracy is simply the only way to access the tools required to get out of poverty for many, many people.

This shouldn't be how it is, but some serious thought has to go into how to make things available fairly to those people who would otherwise just pirate it. Some money is better than no money, and software that is frequently pirated is obviously in demand with people who can't afford it.

CoryG89• 14 years ago

Until Microsoft Dreamspark, this is how I was able to teach myself to program. This really happens. However, I think programs like Dreamspark are the answer to this. Microsoft will let you download Visual Studio if you go to school. Not word (but it's only $99 for a student, affordable). Article is a little misleading when it comes to paying for Adobe CS in general. If you are a student you can usually pick it up for $199. Still a little much for Adobe to be selling it to students in my opinion though.

gfodor2• 14 years ago

Not certain but Dreamspark requires some type of "student verification" process, which may be prohibitive to many young people who could stand the most to gain from access to these products.

I certainly can't imagine my 13-year-old self, who was a big enough geek to be giddy warezing Turbo C++, getting access to Dreamspark.

yozmsn3• 14 years ago

Yeah, you need to have a .edu email address, which if I understand correctly is not something high schools or middle schools give out anymore, as the .edu domain has become exclusively for higher education (Universities, etc), still most of the tools you get from Dreamspark aren't all that important and the open sources alternatives are often better.

hdra• 14 years ago

In case of learning to program though, I think the express edition is more than enough. Hell, I even know some company who are using the express edition for their main production tool.

polskibus• 14 years ago

Information wants to be free. Nothing will stop it. Humanity has been copying "proprietary" information forever. People gossip about work and other secrets, copy other people's notes, etc. Computer software is just yet another example of it, the scenery of old Soviet block just puts a bit more contrast to it in comparison to Western experiences. Now, generating a trend, by for example making your information the dominant one (ie. Microsoft and MS Office) is a great tactic, that bears long-lasting fruits.

Domenic_S3• 14 years ago

> Information wants to be free

You might be too young to have read this in Phrack, but I feel it's apt:

Let me tell you something. Information does not want to be free, my friends. Free neither from its restraints nor in terms of dollar value. Information is a commodity like anything else. More valuable than the rarest element, it BEGS to be hoarded and priced. Anyone who gives something away for nothing is a moron. (I am indeed stupid.) I can't fault anyone for charging as long as they don't try to rationalize their reasoning behind a facade of excuses, all the while shouting "Information Wants to be Free!"

Trade secrets don't want to be free, marketing projections don't want to be free, formulas don't want to be free, troop placements don't want to be free, CAD designs do not want to be free, corporate financial information doesn't want to be free, my credit report sure as hell doesn't want to be free!

http://servv89pn0aj.sn.sourcedns.com/~gbpprorg/2600/infofree...

qu4z-26• 14 years ago

I feel like you and your source misunderstand the phrase. It is worded confusingly, so it's not all that surprising.

Perhaps a better wording would be "Information tends to spread". It's really about the arrow of time. It's much easier to give someone information than to take information away from them. Taking public knowledge and making it secret is a lot harder than taking secret knowledge and making it public.

> Trade secrets don't want to be free, marketing projections don't want to be free, formulas don't want to be free, troop placements don't want to be free, CAD designs do not want to be free, corporate financial information doesn't want to be free, my credit report sure as hell doesn't want to be free!

Personification confuses the issue here, but assuming those examples were meant as "want to be secret" rather than the much weaker "don't want to be free ('cause they're information, and have no will of their own)" then I should point out that it's actually YOU that wants your credit report to stay secret, and the army that wants troop placements to remain secret. The information wants nothing, but will tend to spread.

There's nothing to stop you working against this natural tendency, but it requires you to put in a certain amount of effort and maintenance. Water tends to flow downhill, but we can make hollows and dams and the like to keep it in, and that's a very useful thing to do. But in a sense water could be said to "want to flow downhill".

Of course, if someone argued against dams because "water wants to flow downhill", that would be ridiculous. I'm sure that a lot of (most?) people who use that phrase mean it in exactly the way that you interpret it, which is unfortunate as it is then reduced to something more like "I feel we have a moral imperative to share information". And surely there's a better way of phrasing that.

So maybe I'm the one misunderstanding. But I like my interpretation better.

BadDesign• 14 years ago

I think he's completely unaware of the GNU/Linux distributions and the gratis software that comes along with them and the freedoms that that software offers to the user.

" “Free software” means software that respects users' freedom and community. Roughly, the users have the freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. With these freedoms, the users (both individually and collectively) control the program and what it does for them.

A program is free software if the program's users have the four essential freedoms:

- The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).

- The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

- The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).

- The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

A program is free software if users have all of these freedoms. Thus, you should be free to redistribute copies, either with or without modifications, either gratis or charging a fee for distribution, to anyone anywhere. Being free to do these things means (among other things) that you do not have to ask or pay for permission to do so. "

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

gfodor2• 14 years ago

I don't see how Free software has anything to do with his post. First, there is only good Free software for certain things. Especially when the author was younger, there were no good Free software alternatives for many popular commercial products.

Even today, GIMP is no Photoshop, Blender is no Maya, Openoffice is no Office, and the list goes on, and this has been after decades of trying to catch up. The truth is that for many domains, commercial software is the standard and has been shown to be adept at outpacing Free competitors. (This is not true in many domains as well.)

And besides this, a teenager who is a sponge for learning the coolest and most popular software could not care less about the tired philosophical debate about free vs Free, they just want to be able to play with Photoshop because that's The Thing.

reidrac3• 14 years ago

You're right, there was not other option back in the early 90s: piracy or nothing (specially in countries where it was impossible to acquire some specific software legally). I remember going to a computer shop when I was 13 trying to buy a C compiler, and they gave me a floppy with Turbo C (IIRC) and "copy it and keep it secret".

Things have changed though. It's not a free vs Free philosophical debate, it is about doing something illegal when you have a choice.

This is not just about teenagers. I can tell you that a legal copy of Microsoft Office for home use in Spain is really rare. Same for Photoshop, and other "essential" software that every home computer has installed, but nobody paid for it. It is, in practice, free.

I believe piracy is one of the reasons free software is not more popular, but well... I may be wrong.

keithpeter4• 14 years ago

"...they just want to be able to play with Photoshop because that's The Thing."

This is the problem. Marketing is really effective to teenagers as they have not worked out the reality behind the branding yet. So free software gets less feedback and a smaller user base and so it goes...

"commercial software is the standard"

I'm just hoping that using 'the standard' gets a bit old and being different becomes a bit more popular.

amy_seqmedia• 14 years ago

I grew up in Silicon Valley in the 80s and I was not one of the fortunate---anything more than $5 was crazy expensive. But having a way to access the technology definitely changed my life trajectory. I don't condone piracy but I understand it. And yes, now I work in high tech and I pay for everything---even donate and occasionally volunteer because of all of this.

I think the article wasn't so much about the glory of piracy and how you can make a profit out of it. Rather, it is a perspective on desire and finding a way to feed it. I think that this is the one of the best things about living in our current state of the internet: if you can get the initial tool (the computer or the smartphone) you open up access to so much opportunity.

kstenerud3• 14 years ago

I'm one of those people who would pirate just because I could. It was almost a game, trying to amass as much warez as I could, to the point that 90% of the stuff I got I either never used, or used only once.

That changed over time. As my time became more valuable, I couldn't spend all day fiddling with software anymore. I became more focused, downloading only stuff I used a lot. And then it hit me: It would be far easier to just buy the damn thing for $10, $20, $50, whatever and not have to hunt shit down, find a keygen, or in the worst case crack it myself.

So now I don't pirate anymore. It's not out of a feeling of moral obligation, but rather because I appreciate the convenience. And, realizing that pirates are people at various points on the price/effort spectrum, I don't even worry about my own software being pirated. Why should I, when I get income aplenty from it even with pirates in the equation?

glomph3• 14 years ago

Private torrent trackers are also fuelled by this drive. The 'game' abstraction has been made so real with ranks, stats, leaderboards and so on. It really is quite amazing how willing people are to sink time into providing a service, moderating, sourcing, encoding (people sink LOADS of time into learning the finest details of x264), cracking, uploading and distributing all for for no material gain outside 'the game'.

kruk• 14 years ago

I don't think it's just about the game. I believe many people involved in distribution of illegal content do it out of a genuine desire to share. For every released movie, every song, a book or a piece of software there exists a group of people with no means of accessing it in a legal way (and probably another, much larger, of people who can't afford it).

rdl2• 14 years ago

All that stuff existed with TOPSITES, ftp, etc. before the torrent sites. The torrent sites are just the "retail" level of the game; the real players are getting prereleases, ripping, potentially cracking, and doing stuff on topsites.

jrockway2• 14 years ago

Interesting reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warez_scene

ixacto• 14 years ago

It is easier to pirate, and pirated versions of software generally restrict calling home so IMO some pirated software is better than the non-pirated version.

jiggy20114• 14 years ago

Only if whoever cracked it remembered to rip that part of the code out. I'm sure there's a few companies out there compiling lists of IP addresses.

If you are worried about your software doing shit you don't want, open source or bust.

cageface• 14 years ago

It probably depends on the business, but I know several developers of music production software that can correlate huge drops in sales with the release of new cracks of their software to the exact day.

I think we are a little too quick to assume that a pirated copy is not a lost sale.

kstenerud3• 14 years ago

That would make sense, considering that music production software tends to be viciously expensive, and music producers tend to not have much money.

jawngee• 14 years ago

I suppose times have changed, but back in the 90's music software companies used to leak their software to groups to get cracked (this was back when Radium was the defacto group). In fact, #audiowarez used to be a 50/50 split between devs and users iirc. Memory is a little dusty.

ZeroGravitas• 14 years ago

Even if that was a real effect I'd imagine it would be hard to spot. The alternative, that they're seeing what they expect to see seems just as likely, if not more.

jdietrich2• 14 years ago

I'd be curious to know who they are and what they're selling.

Audio software is a quite unusual field for all sorts of reasons, largely related to the huge divide between professional users and amateurs. The old school of pro-audio people can remember when a studio cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to equip and will pay pretty much any price you ask, even for quite trivial software. Your typical teenage dance-music producer is buying many of the same applications and will usually baulk at paying $99 for a cut-down version, let alone several hundred dollars for a full license.

It's interesting that really intrusive DRM techniques are broadly accepted - iLok is probably the most popular system, which requires you to buy a $50 USB dongle in addition to a very expensive piece of software. Again, experienced professionals who can remember tape see an iLok as a trivial inconvenience, but to a lot of younger people it's a total deal-breaker.

The music technology industry is part way through a weird economic transition. The traditional high-value professional market is dwindling away to nothing, but business has never been better because of the boom in amateur production. Firms like Native Instruments who have figured out how to sell to wannabe DJs and bedroom producers are shaking the money tree; A lot of very old and established names are struggling to keep the doors open.

jiggy20114• 14 years ago

I remember the proud moment I first accumulated 10 gigs of porn (mostly 5 minute clips at about 320x240).

I think the problem is that now it's just so easy it's not fun anymore.

I also eventually realised that I had only a finate amount of time on this planet and I don't need every discography in the world.

ihaveajob2• 14 years ago

That's exactly why I subscribe to Netflix. Sure, I could spend time looking for the latest movies, especially the latest ones that are hard to come by in more legit forms. But it's just not worth it, and if the fun of mischief is not there anymore, I'd rather just wait 3 months till Netflix carries it.

aes256• 14 years ago

In addition to gaining experience through the use of pirated software, I think there is also a lot to be said for knowledge and experience gained through the process of committing piracy and attempting to do so undetected.

As a matter of course, pirates often find themselves becoming quite knowledgeable about topics (audio and video encoding, protocols (FTP, NNTP, BitTorrent, etc.), tools such as BNCs and VPNs, encryption, storage methods, etc.), all of which have valid uses aside from committing piracy, that they would otherwise have little motivation to explore.

The desire to commit piracy undetected acts as a motivation for people to gain a deeper understanding of the systems they are interfacing with, and this is often a good thing.

mappu2• 14 years ago

Even now that i can afford it, i'd still choose pirated software over DRM and phone-home license checks.

Pirates always get the better product (with the possible exception of AAA online multiplayer games).

robryan3• 14 years ago

You could always buy a copy and then use a pirated one.

slavak3• 14 years ago

I've actually ended up doing this in some cases. But I have to say: If the guy illegally copying your software and working on it via debugging and disassembly can give me a better user experience than you can, then you are doing something very, very wrong.

mtgx• 14 years ago

I remember when Bill Gates came to Romania to launch their Microsoft branch here, and in front of the public the country's president himself told him how helpful the pirated version of his Windows has been for Romania. It was quite hilarious and a ballsy thing to say to Bill Gates.

But I think Microsoft and Bill Gates have learned to accept that, because imagine if China, India, and all the other poor countries out there were forced to use the free Linux instead of the pirated version of Windows. Then Windows would've had 50% or less market share in PC's, and that would've meant they wouldn't have had a monopoly in browsers, nor in Office anymore. So having Windows everywhere, even pirated, has helped Microsoft a lot to get its monopoly position.

I think in the next decade, it will be Android which will be what Windows was for all these kids in poor countries. It will be much cheaper to even get the hardware for it than it was to get a PC 10 years ago, and this time the software will actually be free and open source. I truly believe Android will revolutionize the world in this sense.

It's unfortunate that Microsoft and Apple are trying to slow it down right now, and make the devices more expensive than they should be through bogus licenses and lawsuits, but they won't stop it.

javert3• 14 years ago

I’m just saying that it’s not all black and white.

It is black and white. It's theft.

The issue of whether you shold steal in certain conditions is a separate issue, as discussed some in the article.

But it is black and white, it's theft.

alecst• 14 years ago

He's not arguing that you should steal. And anyway, I think what you're saying is baloney. Theft is not always bad. Do I really have to give examples to illustrate the shades of gray?

vacri• 14 years ago

It's only black and white if you narrow the question down to "is it theft or not?". The author was talking about piracy as an overall issue, not the strict definition.

barrkel• 14 years ago

Are you using black and white to mean a clear distinction, or to mean moral good and bad? It's not black and white to me.

It's obvious that copyright violation is not directly equivalent to theft on a black and white basis; there are clear differences, such as theft depriving someone else of a physical good, so under the "clear distinction" interpretation of your statement, it is plainly wrong.

And as to moral interpretation, it's not obvious that theft is always wrong either.

javert3• 14 years ago

I use it to mean a clear distinction.

guard-of-terra5• 14 years ago

There is a lot of accepted theft in our society. For example, American settlers stole all the land from Native Americans. Might as well direct your anger at that.

javert3• 14 years ago

You're using "stole" here as, ironically, a "stolen concept." Look it up in an epistemology book.

tatsuke95• 14 years ago

>"It is black and white. It's theft."

No, it isn't.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/29/opinion/theft-law-in-the-2...

Xcelerate6• 14 years ago

I realize mine is a pretty unpopular opinion on Hacker News, but I probably would not hire anyone who thinks pirating software is morally acceptable. The way I see it, any argument for piracy is simply rationalization.

The point is that someone has invested a lot of time and money into creating something and they are offering the usage of that software for a price. If you use it without paying that price, then you are disrespecting the person that created it because you are ignoring their wishes for the thing that they have invested a lot of time into. It just feels very wrong to me.

marcamillion5• 14 years ago

With all due respect this is pretty ignorant.

If someone goes to the lengths required to pirate & use your creation you should be flattered.

The very nature of the action of them trying to get your creation - even though they don't have money - is testament to the value they think you have created.

If they keep pirating your stuff every time you release a new version - you really should re-consider your pricing options or your distribution strategy. It means you are likely leaving money on the table.

mgkimsal2• 14 years ago

"It means you are likely leaving money on the table."

Wow, and for the past X (10? 20?) years, we've all been told "pirates wouldn't have bought anyway, so the 'lost revenue' is only $0'.

Xcelerate6• 14 years ago

> With all due respect this is pretty ignorant.

Ignorant? Do you know what that word means? Let me quote dictionary.com for you: "Lacking in knowledge or training; unlearned". I don't appreciate you calling me ignorant, seeing as how I do not meet the definition in any way.

> If someone goes to the lengths required to pirate & use your creation you should be flattered.

If someone goes to the lengths/peril required to rob your bank, you should be flattered. Sorry, this argument holds no water with me. How I "should" feel about something is not up to anyone else.

If they don't have the money to afford my creation, they should talk to me about it. If I think they have a good reason for needing it, I'll give it to them for free. If I don't think they do, then it really should not be their decision to just take it anyway.

guard-of-terra5• 14 years ago

It's your right to not hire anyone you don't like, but then it's our right to thing you're stupid. You are. And then you are spoiled. And invested too much into the whole "I'm creating something so great that I'm entitled" school of thought.

Xcelerate6• 14 years ago

> it's our right to thing you're stupid

Likewise.

Instead of ad hominem attacks, explain to me why exactly you think I am spoiled. I expect better replies from Hacker News than something like Reddit, and yours fails to meet such a standard. I appreciate constructive, well thought-out criticism to my arguments, but your post demonstrates nothing of the sort.

username3• 14 years ago

Copying for educational purposes is fair use. Are educational versions sold to make us think we cannot use software for free under fair use?

skwosh• 14 years ago

I would be interested to hear how piracy can justified, not for multi-million dollar corporations and defunct organisations, but for small businesses and individuals.

Adobe and Microsoft can sustain their products being pirated wholesale partly because it undermines their smaller competitors.

It's easy to justify downloading episodes of syndicated television shows, platinum albums, or computer games from 1992, but as a startup-centric site, it seems more relevant to question the impact of piracy on small independent businesses/artists/producers.

Maybe they should be "grateful for the publicity", or "flattered" that their product has been downloaded thousands of times on thepiratebay.org. Maybe the losses incurred are made up for by a wider audience and more sales once the user has reached maturity...

louischatriot• 14 years ago

Pirating is part of how I learned to make software. To me it was a game at the time but disambling programs/debugging them while they run was a great way to understand how they work.

cotsuka• 14 years ago

I responded to the people justifying piracy using this article here: http://nightra.in/random/ethics-of-piracy/

In short, I think Vlad is trying to explain that piracy was only a last resort for him. And it should only be a last resort.

qu4z-26• 14 years ago

> There are many commentators online trying to split hairs and say that pirating is not the same as stealing. As such, it isn’t a crime.

Just to nitpick a little here (and I apologise if I misunderstood your post) but I don't think I've EVER heard anyone argue that piracy is not a crime just because it's not stealing. Copyright infringement ("piracy") is definitely a crime, and it's definitely not stealing. Whether it's morally defensible is a whole different debate and one I don't want to enter into right now.

julienmarie• 14 years ago

Interesting point here. But it forgets that it is a well known reality from software vendors, who basically choose how well protected their software can be. As an example, an interesting move was Apple's one with Logic Pro. I remember previous versions being uncrackable, needing a USB dongle. And then, as a move to conquer market share, the only protection is now just a serial number (I'm not even sure if Logic calls home to check it... ). The more people can use your technology for free in a training / learning / amateur way, the more you will become a standard, the more you will sell licenses to your customer base : the professionals.

ktf• 14 years ago

Downloading a pirated version of Visual Studio 6 over a 56k modem definitely changed my life in high school, and allowed me to write code I wouldn't have otherwise been able to. (I still have those discs, mostly for nostalgia's sake.)

Of course what changed my life even more was subsequently downloading Slackware Linux (on that same 56k connection!) and realizing that I didn't need to pirate an expensive IDE to write code...

drcube• 14 years ago

"Of course cheap and accessible software would be a lot better, but there’s so little of that going around."

GNU.

I have no problem with pirating (except for the word). But why illegally download an expensive OS when better, free versions abound on the net? Stay legal, and have a more powerful, hackable OS to go with your clean conscience.

Editorial: "How piracy changed my life"

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