Software Piracy is wrong! Please quit stealing from me.

[lsiberian]

I receive a PM from a member informing me of a place that has certain software for free to download. I understand many people are ignorant as to how difficult it is to make good software and how many hours we spend making it. My life depends on people buying the products my company sells. If people start stealing those products they are taking away from my survival.

I beg you if you own pirated software destroy it, delete it toss it. I don't care what it is. It's never right to steal something. There are often free alternatives that are good enough if you can't afford the software.

I could forward such contacts to the FBI as it is highly illegal to steal software, but I always believe in giving people a chance to do the right thing. Just because something is easy to steal doesn't make it right.

 

[Djizasse]

I'm a software developer. People have no idea what's involved in a software application and all the work that was put into it. It's so easy to get any piece of software, people take it for granted.

 

[WmAx]

For the sake of accuracy, the proper term is copyright infringement.

-Chris

 

[jamie2112]

For the sake of accuracy, the proper term is copyright infringement.

-Chris

Yeah what Chris said....... I only copy non infringment stuff.....

 

[Shock]

I prefer ninja software to pirate software.

 

[sonicman]

Agree, and taking the concept a step further, this applies to all copyrighted 'intellectural material', including music, films, etc.

 

[MatthewB.]

Only thing I have stolen is your womens heart.

I kid, I kid.

 

[lsiberian]

Only thing I have stolen is your womens heart.

I kid, I kid.

Too late for that I popped the question in June.

 

[Adam]

Too late for that I popped the question in June.

Congratulations!

[I'm assuming that she said, "yes." ]

 

[lsiberian]

Congratulations!

[I'm assuming that she said, "yes." ]

Well I did take her to a fancy resturaunt and a musical so i had the momentum going with me. In August I will be married. It's crazy. I can hardly believe it.

Thanks.

This summer I got her season tickets. Should be fun.

 

[jinjuku]

I also own a software development firm. We currently use a wrapper to protect our software and expire keys every 6 months. The customer is able to auto renew their key. If we find a key out in the wild, we find out what account it is and turn it off therefore invalidating the key.

After a fiasco in Alaska and another few in Mexico we had to get extreme.

To anyone that says that it is not theft, but copyright infringement: You obviously haven't had the pants sued off you for 'Theft by conversion'. One unlucky soul thought the same thing. I am willing to bet they would have rather just crawled under a rock and died after we were done with them in court. They weren't even smart enough to settle.

People think because software is not a tangible item that it is somehow 'OK'.

 

[lsiberian]

I also own a software development firm. We currently use a wrapper to protect our software and expire keys every 6 months. The customer is able to auto renew their key. If we find a key out in the wild, we find out what account it is and turn it off therefore invalidating the key.

After a fiasco in Alaska and another few in Mexico we had to get extreme.

To anyone that says that it is not theft, but copyright infringement: You obviously haven't had the pants sued off you for 'Theft by conversion'. One unlucky soul thought the same thing. I am willing to bet they would have rather just crawled under a rock and died after we were done with them in court. They weren't even smart enough to settle.

People think because software is not a tangible item that it is somehow 'OK'.

Chris wasn't saying it's not wrong he was helping to broaden what is wrong. Copyright infringement is the proper term for it. And its wrong no matter what you are infringing on. People actually do things to make a living and provide for their families. Just because gates is rich doesn't mean it's ok to illegally copy windows. We all know who gets laid off because of those losses and it isn't the rich guys.

 

[j_garcia]

I work at a reseller and I really don't like it when we run into people who abuse the system. One guy wanted an upgrade to his $70 copy of a $4000 program he illegally purchased off Craigslist I told him not only would we not upgrade him, he could be forced to pay the full price to bring it current or face stiff fines. It is not entirely his fault, it is really the guy who sold it to him who they should be going after, because this guy sort of knew what he was buying but wasn't sure the legality of what he was doing, though ultimately he is the one who would get in trouble.

 

[Tarub]

Stealing from a black hole?

 

[lsiberian]

Stealing from a black hole?

Very clever

 

[Nemo128]

I wish software piracy was more preventable. More users would run Linux. =)

But seriously, as a software dev, one thing I can tell you is the majority of piracy is not attributable to lost market share. Typically the people who would pirate the software are not the ones that would actually pay for it in the first place. It's increasing the public exposure of your software though. I'm not saying it's right, far from it.

Fact is, big devs don't lose nearly as much money as some people would think, since the majority of illegal users wouldn't have spent the money in the first place. Small devs are the ones that really get screwed by the "Why pay for it" mentality, since they don't have a large loyal market share in industry/academia/government.

There was a major crackdown by Autodesk some years ago in architecture firms for using false licences of AutoCAD. Small firms with 5-10 employees. However, the wide use of AutoCAD in the architecture world by major firms with hundreds and thousands of employees, along with colleges that maintain thousands of license servers, are Autodesk's bread and butter. They slapped those small firms with required retroactive license purchases and called it a day.

Again, I'm only saying that pirated software (not including video games, the one exception to the rule) is typically not a loss, since those users statistically were unlikely to buy the software to begin with. I'm NOT saying it's right or justified, put down the torches and napalm... or at least use them on someone else. =)

 

[lsiberian]

I wish software piracy was more preventable. More users would run Linux. =)

But seriously, as a software dev, one thing I can tell you is the majority of piracy is not attributable to lost market share. Typically the people who would pirate the software are not the ones that would actually pay for it in the first place. It's increasing the public exposure of your software though. I'm not saying it's right, far from it.

Fact is, big devs don't lose nearly as much money as some people would think, since the majority of illegal users wouldn't have spent the money in the first place. Small devs are the ones that really get screwed by the "Why pay for it" mentality, since they don't have a large loyal market share in industry/academia/government.

There was a major crackdown by Autodesk some years ago in architecture firms for using false licences of AutoCAD. Small firms with 5-10 employees. However, the wide use of AutoCAD in the architecture world by major firms with hundreds and thousands of employees, along with colleges that maintain thousands of license servers, are Autodesk's bread and butter. They slapped those small firms with required retroactive license purchases and called it a day.

Again, I'm only saying that pirated software (not including video games, the one exception to the rule) is typically not a loss, since those users statistically were unlikely to buy the software to begin with. I'm NOT saying it's right or justified, put down the torches and napalm... or at least use them on someone else. =)

While true to a point. It's still an unacceptable justification. There are plenty of freeware alternatives out there. Linux isn't all it's cracked up to be, but is a good alternative to windows. I remember I used to run Suse9.1 pro on all my machines. Then I went to a college with deep MS discounts all of course to snare us into developing for their platform.

 

[Djizasse]

If I had 50$ to spend in a video game and could not pirate anything, that would be 50$ that would go into one publisher. But if I can have a pirated copy I'll not spend any money, I'll just keep downloading what I want.
Same with movies, instead of going once or twice to the theaters, I'll just download the movies and save the money.

This is the problem, normally people have a small part of their money reserved to leisure items (CDs, DVDs, movie tickets, games, etc.) and they found a way to keep that money.
It's true that if they didn't engage in this illegal activity they would not buy every single thing they want, but at least they would buy one.

 

[jinjuku]

I wish software piracy was more preventable. More users would run Linux. =)

But seriously, as a software dev, one thing I can tell you is the majority of piracy is not attributable to lost market share. Typically the people who would pirate the software are not the ones that would actually pay for it in the first place. It's increasing the public exposure of your software though. I'm not saying it's right, far from it.

I actually have a different take: People will not pay for what they can have for free that is reasonably clear of any legal action being taken against them.

The only thing that stops me from ripping all the DVD's at the library is a sense of "I don't own it, I will basically agree to the social contract that is the spirit of getting it from a library or renting it".

Any thing else is just an excuse to do what you know is already wrong.

 

[Nemo128]

While true to a point. It's still an unacceptable justification.

I knew, no matter how many times I said it's not right and not justified, that someone would still say it was a justification.