6 ms·

It's amazing, and frankly stupid, how many people try to justify theft. Sorry guys, regardless of what utopian ideals of OSS you have, and I have them too, you

by jscheel 14y ago

It's amazing, and frankly stupid, how many people try to justify theft. Sorry guys, regardless of what utopian ideals of OSS you have, and I have them too, you must respect the creator's wishes. If they ask you to pay for the software, then you MUST pay for the software. Anything else is theft. Let's say you are a freelance developer. Do you think for one second that it would be ok for your clients to let you do all the work, then take your code and not pay you? I mean, knowledge should be free, right? Screw the fact that you built the software with the expectation of getting paid for your hard work. It's one thing to create something with the intention of sharing it with the world. It's an entirely different thing for anybody to justify stealing what you have done.

monochromatic 14y ago
I agree with your sentiment, but it's not actually "theft." More like "copyright infringement."
- TheCapn 14y ago
  We all understand what is being discussed here. We don't need to argue semantics over what it means to obtain something you didn't pay for (but should have). It seems that the tech community stands adamantly behind the "copyright infringement isn't theft" mantra but in reality the moral crime is taking something you weren't entitled to. Our actions don't really seem to consider the state of the original product making the difference between "theft" and "copyright infringement" because it is not concerning to us. For the developer/distributor/publisher/artist or whomever is expecting a cut from sales the result is the same: they lost a part of their wage. Admittedly I've done my share of piracy but now that I spend a good chunk of my free time releasing software or writing code I have stopped; it feels kind of shitty to see something taken without any regard for your hardships. Hell, as a result I even go out of my way to make sure developers are paid their dues by purchasing almost any app I use. If I come to expect others to pay/donate for my effort it is quite hypocritical to not do the same as a consumer.
  - IgorPartola 14y ago
    I do not advocate piracy, and do believe that people should be paid for their work. However, you are wrong. Theft means that the original owner no longer has the item stolen from them. Copying something from them most definitely leaves them with the original. That is one way in which piracy is not like theft. I would much rather someone download a copy of my code, than grab all my drives, make a copy, erase them, then return the drives. What you said is "theft is wrong" && "piracy is wrong" => "Piracy must be theft". The trouble is, you cannot apply the same concepts to physical and digital world. Once again, not arguing that pirating software or other content is good, just that it is not theft. Secondly, and this is a point that I don't think is discussed much, piracy to me is an effect of market value. For example big music labels will argue that if I distribute a Britney Spears MP3 on a file sharing network, that they lose $0.99 * # of potential buyers. This is false. The market value of this piece of content is much lower. People would not pay for it if the only way to get it was through, say, iTunes. Basically, someone might want it for free, might consider if for cheap ($0.10/song), but not want it for the price set by the market.
    - cavilling_elite 14y ago
      The problem is the price is not set by the market, it is set by the record label and significant arm twisting. Support your favorite bands by sending them cheques if you obtain their album. The RIAA is the problem. Also check out Band Camp for new unsigned artists. Great service and IMHO the future of the "record" industry.
      - mpyne 14y ago
        Band Camp is great! I don't care enough about music per se to use it for its intended purpose, but I do get pointed from time to time to some groups who remix video game music. There's some pretty talented musicians on there even in esoteric genres.
      - IgorPartola 14y ago
        Honest question: how would you set the market value of a digital good? I have a very limited understanding of economics, but it seems to be that balancing the supply/demand equations when supply is infinite (for, say, a song, movie, music video, etc.) becomes rather difficult.
slurgfest 14y ago
It's amazing, and frankly stupid, how quickly you slid from piracy to OSS. OSS has nothing to do with piracy. If I licensed my project MIT, sharing it is not piracy. OSS platforms do not have thriving piracy ecosystems because there is plenty of OSS software for them. In my experience, people who believe in OSS are the most likely to champion using a legal OSS alternative to pirating some widely-used proprietary software.
- jscheel 14y ago
  I've released plenty of OSS myself, and I agree with what you are saying. Unfortunately, the OSS movement is also co-opted by people who are willing to steal to get what they want, and use ideological mantras of the OSS movement to justify their actions.
decode 14y ago
> Sorry guys, regardless of what utopian ideals of OSS you have, and I have them too, you must respect the creator's wishes. If they ask you to pay for the software, then you MUST pay for the software. Anything else is theft. In a legal sense, this is patently false in every country I know of. Even ignoring the point others have made that theft is not copyright infringement under the law, the assertion is false. Every country I know of has exceptions to copyright law. In the US it's called Fair Use, in many Commonwealth nations it's called Fair Dealing, in Germany it's just called "Limitations on Copyright" (Schranken des Urheberrechts). In every case, the creator's wishes are not absolute. But more interesting to me is that we have taken a purely legal concept that was completely new just 303 years ago and turned it into a broadly accepted moral imperative. Those with a vested interest have succeeded in tying this new legal concept to an ancient moral wrong, that of theft. And they have been so successful at this, that many people would dismiss the distinction as semantic quibbling. To me, this is a fascinating sociological and philosophical phenomenon. For anyone else who is interested in this cultural history, I highly recommend "Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars" by William Patry.
- jscheel 14y ago
  Good thing I'm not a complete idiot, or I wouldn't know or understand fair use. People tend to forget that fair use is limited in its scope. Unfortunately, a lot of people's idea of fair use is, "I want it, so I'm gonna take it." It IS a moral imperative. It IS stealing. I don't care how you sugarcoat it. In high-school and the first part of my college life, I pirated music and applications with impunity. I justified it every way I could, but at the end of the day, I realized I was stealing -- regardless of what nuanced legal argument I could come up with. It drives me crazy when people say "it's not stealing, it's just copyright infringement," like that magically makes what they are doing better.
  - ynniv 14y ago
    To steal is to deprive, to copy is to disappoint.
  - summerdown2 14y ago
    > It IS stealing. I don't care how you sugarcoat it. Surely you understand that it’s possible for people who aren’t you to look at the same facts, and come to a different conclusion? Not because they’re fooling themselves, but simply because people of good heart are allowed to have differences of opinion. Try this video, particularly the bit that starts at 10:00 http://www.ted.com/talks/kathryn_schulz_on_being_wrong.html http://www.ted.com/talks/kathryn_schulz_on_being_wrong.html
sp332 14y ago
They can't force you to pay for the software after they have already decided to release the code under an open license. As a high-profile example, Red Hat sells Red Hat Enterprise Linux (with various support options). But they release release (most of) their code under various open-source licenses, and the Centos project builds a binary-compatible OS with only the trademarked Red Hat stuff changed.
ericbb 14y ago
The utopian ideal that is relevant here is the ideal that information should never be considered property. So you can't properly claim to be one of the utopian idealists while using the words "theft" and "stealing" here.
- jscheel 14y ago
  I don't buy into the utopian ideals. I offer plenty of work up as OSS, but when someone chooses not to, I respect that as well.
jdechko 14y ago
Theft vs Copyright infringement is all semantics anyway. Like you said, if the software is for sale and you take it and use it without paying, it's wrong, regardless of what you call it. I don't think anyone would flatly come out and say that a developer doesn't deserve to be paid for his/her work. Yet when you use software without paying for it, you are depriving the developer of his income.

by jscheel 14y ago

monochromatic 14y ago

I agree with your sentiment, but it's not actually "theft." More like "copyright infringement."

TheCapn 14y ago
We all understand what is being discussed here. We don't need to argue semantics over what it means to obtain something you didn't pay for (but should have). It seems that the tech community stands adamantly behind the "copyright infringement isn't theft" mantra but in reality the moral crime is taking something you weren't entitled to. Our actions don't really seem to consider the state of the original product making the difference between "theft" and "copyright infringement" because it is not concerning to us. For the developer/distributor/publisher/artist or whomever is expecting a cut from sales the result is the same: they lost a part of their wage. Admittedly I've done my share of piracy but now that I spend a good chunk of my free time releasing software or writing code I have stopped; it feels kind of shitty to see something taken without any regard for your hardships. Hell, as a result I even go out of my way to make sure developers are paid their dues by purchasing almost any app I use. If I come to expect others to pay/donate for my effort it is quite hypocritical to not do the same as a consumer.
- IgorPartola 14y ago
  I do not advocate piracy, and do believe that people should be paid for their work. However, you are wrong. Theft means that the original owner no longer has the item stolen from them. Copying something from them most definitely leaves them with the original. That is one way in which piracy is not like theft. I would much rather someone download a copy of my code, than grab all my drives, make a copy, erase them, then return the drives. What you said is "theft is wrong" && "piracy is wrong" => "Piracy must be theft". The trouble is, you cannot apply the same concepts to physical and digital world. Once again, not arguing that pirating software or other content is good, just that it is not theft. Secondly, and this is a point that I don't think is discussed much, piracy to me is an effect of market value. For example big music labels will argue that if I distribute a Britney Spears MP3 on a file sharing network, that they lose $0.99 * # of potential buyers. This is false. The market value of this piece of content is much lower. People would not pay for it if the only way to get it was through, say, iTunes. Basically, someone might want it for free, might consider if for cheap ($0.10/song), but not want it for the price set by the market.
  - cavilling_elite 14y ago
    The problem is the price is not set by the market, it is set by the record label and significant arm twisting. Support your favorite bands by sending them cheques if you obtain their album. The RIAA is the problem. Also check out Band Camp for new unsigned artists. Great service and IMHO the future of the "record" industry.
    - mpyne 14y ago
      Band Camp is great! I don't care enough about music per se to use it for its intended purpose, but I do get pointed from time to time to some groups who remix video game music. There's some pretty talented musicians on there even in esoteric genres.
    - IgorPartola 14y ago
      Honest question: how would you set the market value of a digital good? I have a very limited understanding of economics, but it seems to be that balancing the supply/demand equations when supply is infinite (for, say, a song, movie, music video, etc.) becomes rather difficult.

slurgfest 14y ago

It's amazing, and frankly stupid, how quickly you slid from piracy to OSS. OSS has nothing to do with piracy. If I licensed my project MIT, sharing it is not piracy. OSS platforms do not have thriving piracy ecosystems because there is plenty of OSS software for them. In my experience, people who believe in OSS are the most likely to champion using a legal OSS alternative to pirating some widely-used proprietary software.

jscheel 14y ago
I've released plenty of OSS myself, and I agree with what you are saying. Unfortunately, the OSS movement is also co-opted by people who are willing to steal to get what they want, and use ideological mantras of the OSS movement to justify their actions.

decode 14y ago

> Sorry guys, regardless of what utopian ideals of OSS you have, and I have them too, you must respect the creator's wishes. If they ask you to pay for the software, then you MUST pay for the software. Anything else is theft. In a legal sense, this is patently false in every country I know of. Even ignoring the point others have made that theft is not copyright infringement under the law, the assertion is false. Every country I know of has exceptions to copyright law. In the US it's called Fair Use, in many Commonwealth nations it's called Fair Dealing, in Germany it's just called "Limitations on Copyright" (Schranken des Urheberrechts). In every case, the creator's wishes are not absolute. But more interesting to me is that we have taken a purely legal concept that was completely new just 303 years ago and turned it into a broadly accepted moral imperative. Those with a vested interest have succeeded in tying this new legal concept to an ancient moral wrong, that of theft. And they have been so successful at this, that many people would dismiss the distinction as semantic quibbling. To me, this is a fascinating sociological and philosophical phenomenon. For anyone else who is interested in this cultural history, I highly recommend "Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars" by William Patry.

jscheel 14y ago
Good thing I'm not a complete idiot, or I wouldn't know or understand fair use. People tend to forget that fair use is limited in its scope. Unfortunately, a lot of people's idea of fair use is, "I want it, so I'm gonna take it." It IS a moral imperative. It IS stealing. I don't care how you sugarcoat it. In high-school and the first part of my college life, I pirated music and applications with impunity. I justified it every way I could, but at the end of the day, I realized I was stealing -- regardless of what nuanced legal argument I could come up with. It drives me crazy when people say "it's not stealing, it's just copyright infringement," like that magically makes what they are doing better.
- ynniv 14y ago
  To steal is to deprive, to copy is to disappoint.
- summerdown2 14y ago
  > It IS stealing. I don't care how you sugarcoat it. Surely you understand that it’s possible for people who aren’t you to look at the same facts, and come to a different conclusion? Not because they’re fooling themselves, but simply because people of good heart are allowed to have differences of opinion. Try this video, particularly the bit that starts at 10:00 http://www.ted.com/talks/kathryn_schulz_on_being_wrong.html http://www.ted.com/talks/kathryn_schulz_on_being_wrong.html

sp332 14y ago

They can't force you to pay for the software after they have already decided to release the code under an open license. As a high-profile example, Red Hat sells Red Hat Enterprise Linux (with various support options). But they release release (most of) their code under various open-source licenses, and the Centos project builds a binary-compatible OS with only the trademarked Red Hat stuff changed.

ericbb 14y ago

The utopian ideal that is relevant here is the ideal that information should never be considered property. So you can't properly claim to be one of the utopian idealists while using the words "theft" and "stealing" here.

jscheel 14y ago
I don't buy into the utopian ideals. I offer plenty of work up as OSS, but when someone chooses not to, I respect that as well.

jdechko 14y ago

Theft vs Copyright infringement is all semantics anyway. Like you said, if the software is for sale and you take it and use it without paying, it's wrong, regardless of what you call it. I don't think anyone would flatly come out and say that a developer doesn't deserve to be paid for his/her work. Yet when you use software without paying for it, you are depriving the developer of his income.