4 ms·

Somewhat related, when I was younger I had no money and didn't have much of a problem pirating software (times have changed and I realize how stupid that is). I

by cheeze 14y ago

Somewhat related, when I was younger I had no money and didn't have much of a problem pirating software (times have changed and I realize how stupid that is). I tried to pirate a piece of software and upon entering a fake key got a popup similar to yours. Basically, it said "I'm not able to stop you from pirating this software, I'm not even going to disable activation for your clearly invalid key. Just remember that I'm not some huge corporation, I'm a family man trying to support my wife and kids (with a link to picture of his beautiful children). Consider buying this to help keep me afloat and to ensure continued development." It hit me hard, made me realize that it isn't a victimless crime and that I was literally depriving this guy of what he deserves, payment for his hard work. Definitely one of the leading factors that caused me to stop piracy altogether. Even pirates have a heart, and by humanizing the product, it is way harder to steal it and feel okay about it.

laberge 14y ago
Honestly, I can remember something EXTREMELY similar to this. I now buy all the software I can afford.
belorn 14y ago
While sounding fine, its a form of error in reasoning - A fallacy of a kind. The logic does not scale. If I go to the supermarket and buy cheap imported goods, I deprive the local market of the possible purchase of their goods. It is very easy, almost impossible, not to deprive someone of payment if payment is based on who has worked hard and what could have happened. The logic also demand that there is a zero sum game going where every copy equals a lost sale. Copying is as about as simple as needing. If needing results in lost sales, then each time I am hungry, I create lost sales for restaurants if I dont buy something immediately. That might also sound fine logically, as if I am hungry I will buy food, and if I didnt need to buy said food, I am depriving someone of payments for their hard work to create food I could have eaten. It is also crazy! the world is not a zero sum world. It is way more complicated and social economics (how should creative people get payed for their work) should be decided by economics and politics, not law.
- quesera 14y ago
  Just because something doesn't scale into the macro doesn't mean it can't be true and relevant in the micro. Also, you've extrapolated from "non-zero sum, not all equations balance" into "there is no math", which makes your argument more fallacious than that to which you were responding.
  - Karunamon 14y ago
    >Just because something doesn't scale into the macro doesn't mean it can't be true and relevant in the micro. Call me extremist but, I don't agree with this. There's no deprivation happening. It's a crappy thing to do, no doubt, but I can't see any analogy to the 'lost sale' meme tossed around by the various *AA groups that doesn't break down immediately upon any kind of scrutiny. On another note, I pretty much winced every time the author said "steal". Can we all agree to stop doing this? It's wrong, we know it's wrong, we chide the AA's for this every time they do it, and it's just the same when anyone else does either, going back to one simple fact: nothing has been stolen.
    - mattgreenrocks 14y ago
      The hand-wringing over 'steal' that crops up in these threads is hilarious. If the whole piracy thing was as logically tight as the armchair economists would like you to believe, then the misappropriation of terms would not be so offensive. It'd be merely annoying. Instead, we often find vast treatises on semantics. I'm not saying you pirate (that's your business), more observing the disconnect between the argument ("it doesn't hurt anyone") and the tone ("but DON'T call it stealing!!")
      - tikhonj 14y ago
        People may find arguments about semantics silly, but they are important. Just take a look at the whole brouhaha about evolution just being a theory: a large part of that whole disconnect stems from two meanings of the word "theory" that are not synonyms but are still very close. This is exactly the problem we want to avoid with "theft"--calling copying theft says as little about it as calling evolution a theory. That is, there is either the proper meaning in context (e.g. infringing copyright) which does not mesh with the common definition or there is the common definition (depriving somebody of property) which does not mesh with the context. People framing copyright infringement as "theft" want to take advantage of emotional connotations of the word in much the same way as people capitalizing on the fact that evolution is "just a theory".

by cheeze 14y ago

laberge 14y ago

Honestly, I can remember something EXTREMELY similar to this. I now buy all the software I can afford.

belorn 14y ago

While sounding fine, its a form of error in reasoning - A fallacy of a kind. The logic does not scale. If I go to the supermarket and buy cheap imported goods, I deprive the local market of the possible purchase of their goods. It is very easy, almost impossible, not to deprive someone of payment if payment is based on who has worked hard and what could have happened. The logic also demand that there is a zero sum game going where every copy equals a lost sale. Copying is as about as simple as needing. If needing results in lost sales, then each time I am hungry, I create lost sales for restaurants if I dont buy something immediately. That might also sound fine logically, as if I am hungry I will buy food, and if I didnt need to buy said food, I am depriving someone of payments for their hard work to create food I could have eaten. It is also crazy! the world is not a zero sum world. It is way more complicated and social economics (how should creative people get payed for their work) should be decided by economics and politics, not law.

quesera 14y ago
Just because something doesn't scale into the macro doesn't mean it can't be true and relevant in the micro. Also, you've extrapolated from "non-zero sum, not all equations balance" into "there is no math", which makes your argument more fallacious than that to which you were responding.
- Karunamon 14y ago
  >Just because something doesn't scale into the macro doesn't mean it can't be true and relevant in the micro. Call me extremist but, I don't agree with this. There's no deprivation happening. It's a crappy thing to do, no doubt, but I can't see any analogy to the 'lost sale' meme tossed around by the various *AA groups that doesn't break down immediately upon any kind of scrutiny. On another note, I pretty much winced every time the author said "steal". Can we all agree to stop doing this? It's wrong, we know it's wrong, we chide the AA's for this every time they do it, and it's just the same when anyone else does either, going back to one simple fact: nothing has been stolen.
  - mattgreenrocks 14y ago
    The hand-wringing over 'steal' that crops up in these threads is hilarious. If the whole piracy thing was as logically tight as the armchair economists would like you to believe, then the misappropriation of terms would not be so offensive. It'd be merely annoying. Instead, we often find vast treatises on semantics. I'm not saying you pirate (that's your business), more observing the disconnect between the argument ("it doesn't hurt anyone") and the tone ("but DON'T call it stealing!!")
    - tikhonj 14y ago
      People may find arguments about semantics silly, but they are important. Just take a look at the whole brouhaha about evolution just being a theory: a large part of that whole disconnect stems from two meanings of the word "theory" that are not synonyms but are still very close. This is exactly the problem we want to avoid with "theft"--calling copying theft says as little about it as calling evolution a theory. That is, there is either the proper meaning in context (e.g. infringing copyright) which does not mesh with the common definition or there is the common definition (depriving somebody of property) which does not mesh with the context. People framing copyright infringement as "theft" want to take advantage of emotional connotations of the word in much the same way as people capitalizing on the fact that evolution is "just a theory".