Originally posted by CrowleyThis may be a bit extreme. You wouldn't even go to jail if you were caught shoplifting the software, but I agree that you should buy software. As for music I feel the same about copywrited music, however, live music and music that you can't find in the store should be available for trading.
What's there to discuss?
If you want software - buy it.
If you download pirated software you should go to jail.
Enforcing the copyright laws as they presently exist is so problematic that a re-examination of our notions of intellectual property is called for. Breaking these laws is so easy to do, so widespread with such a miniscule chance of any legal consequences that it has created a general disrespect for these laws. Judges are reluctant to prosecute violators, copyright holders are losing ground in court case after court case and they have attained the status quasi laws. We will be fortunate if this disrespect for the law does not spread to other areas.
There are two ways I can think of to make these laws into an effective deterrant. One is to make an example of those who are caught by punishing them out of all proportion with the severity of their crimes. Persecuting citizens like this would create more than just disrespect for the law, it creates outright hostility and fear; the perception that the law is a bigger threat to us than criminals are. The other is to scap the privacy rights we now enjoy in order to ensure a signficant proportion of violators are caught. Either of these alternatives are too high a price to pay in order to retain our present notion of intellectual property.
Of course it's too easy to dismiss the other side of the equasion as a bunch of greedy billionaires trying to squeeze every last buck out of us they can. Lots of software producers as well as filmmakers and musicians are just ordinary folks trying to make a go of it. I don't know what the answer is, just that there are no good answers to be found in things as they are.
Originally posted by ToeI assumet this is directed at me since I was the last poster. I think the entire discussion so far has only touched on copyrighting which, as is also the case with patenting, has been created to recognise intellectual property. A re-thinking of our ideas about intellectual property as they relate to the unauthorised duplicating of easily copied material, might or might not impact patenting as well.
Do you mean copyrighting or patenting?
Originally posted by CrowleySounds fair enough to me. You know the rules - each machine must have its very own copy of Microsoft's fine products. None of this installing to a laptop, an old machine, or a child's computer as well, or borrowing disks from work or a friend.
What's there to discuss?
If you want software - buy it.
If you download pirated software you should go to jail.
Register all that shareware for each machine while you are it - not to do so is theft as well.
Where are the advocates of Windows as the best operating system now - or is it only best if it is pirated Windows?
Originally posted by steerpikeSome people install a pirated version of Windows and convince themselve they are "sticking it to the man". Holy sheet metal, Batman.
Sounds fair enough to me. You know the rules - each machine must have its very own copy of Microsoft's fine products. None of this installing to a laptop, an old machine, or a child's computer as well, or borrowing disks from work or a friend.
Register all that shareware for each machine while you are it - not to do so is theft as well.
Where ar ...[text shortened]... ates of Windows as the best operating system now - or is it only best if it is pirated Windows?
Copyright in coputer software is a very touchy situation for many companies...if you have played Half Life 2, you will know what I'm talking about.
If you don't, here is the lowdown...Valve (the developer/distributor) has a small (huge downloadable) product called Steam (www.steampowered.com). Half Life 2 requires Steam to be installed to play it. Steam, in turn, requires an internet account (a quite hefty one, too). So, in order to play a SINGLEPLAYER game, you have to have a half-decent broadband connection. Don't have that? Factor in an extra 500 dollars for one year or so. On top of a hundred dollars.
Then, you have the CD-Key. Now, some |33t ha><0r probably generated your CD Key about 5 weeks ago, to play the game. So, what you have to do then, is take a photo, send it to Sierra (not Valve, the company that made it, but Sierra, who distributes the instore displays and boxes) a photo of your box, cd, and proof of purchase. Via email. Don't have a digital camera? Add in another 150 dollars.
So, you can be paying upwards of half a grand, to play a game. Now, are people going to go to all of that trouble to play that game? Or, are they going to find a friend who has is, burnt it, and removed the Steam component?
Originally posted by D43M0NMain push is coming from the United States government. The recent 'free trade agreement ' in Australia 'harmonises our intellectual property laws more closely with the largest intellectual property market in the world'. Translated out of PR speak, the Aussies caved in completely, even extending the copyright term by twenty years.
Since some people feel very vocal about this, I would like to hear some opinions.
Truly a Mickey Mouse deal.
Originally posted by CliffLandinYeah OK, maybe that's extreme, but the point is there should be punishment.
This may be a bit extreme. You wouldn't even go to jail if you were caught shoplifting the software, but I agree that you should buy software. As for music I feel the same about copywrited music, however, live music and music that you can't find in the store should be available for trading.
If we could find a way to stop this 'theft' of digital products and more people actually paid for the software, games and music they 'consume', the prices of said products would go down.
Simple economics.
Instead we have global communities of hackers/crackers etc. making pirating so easy any kid with a PC and an internet connection can download the newest Britney Spears *spit* album in MP3 format while playing his pirate copy of Unreal Tournament running on a pirate copy of Windows.
Hell, maybe this intellectual property theft will never stop, but widespread Linux use and the open source communinty will help bring prices down...
Then these geeks can stop whining about soaring prices and rather spend their time building new technology instead of cracking copy protection etc.
I don't think too many people are complaining about the copyright of computer software. It makes sense really. Why should someone invest a lot of time and energy into something so you can just rip yourself a copy. This is the fundamental principle behind the GPL. It works only because of copyright law. In effect, it says do what we say or you can't use the software because copyright law forbids it.
The real problem that is arising, as mentioned above, is patenting of concepts in computer software. These are very dangerous because simple things, that are obvious to any programer are now being patented. This means if I want to write a funky new bit of software, I need to fumble through thousands of patents of obvious algorithms in order to ensure I'm not going to be sued by some large corporation. If software patents were awarded for sensible things it wouldn't matter so much but the patent offices are being inundated with nonsense because the large software corporations are afraid of being sued and also find that attacking someone else can be quite profitable.
There is no point copyrighting or patenting software nowadays. People will always reverse engineer it, or anonymously re-write it and post it on Freshmeat. Or, if they can't be bothered, they'll just disassemble it and place a few NOPs and change JNE to JE, release a patch and WOOHOO! No more copyright protection.
"Yes, I'd like to copyright my software"
"It's just a bunch of zeroes and ones..."
"Yep."
"OK, would you like to copyright the word "the" for half price?"