NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #1/NN_1993_1.iso/spool/comp/sys/mac/programm/20740

Text File | 1993-01-06 | 2.8 KB | 54 lines

Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Path: sparky!uunet!wupost!udel!news.udel.edu!chopin.udel.edu!kurisuto
From: [e-mail] (Sean J. Crist)
Subject: Re: Why the Piracy? Here's why...
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Sender: [e-mail]
Nntp-Posting-Host: chopin.udel.edu
Organization: University of Delaware
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 00:20:44 GMT
Lines: 41

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Rich Siegel) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Sean J. Crist) writes:

>>If you don't make this distinction, you would have to claim that making a
>>copy of an application which your friend bought is morally identical to
>>walking into a store and stealing a shrink-wrapped software package off the
>>shelf.  The former act doesn't actually *cost* the developer, distributor,
>>and retailer anything; with the latter, there are all kinds of packaging,
>>printing, and retail costs which the companies actually lose.  (A similar
>>distinction could be made between sneaking into a movie theater vs.
>>stealing popcorn: both are wrong, but they are different kinds of acts.)

>As a matter of fact, piracy is very much like stealing a box. The costs
>amount to almost the same thing, but in different areas - when you steal
>the box, you've denied the retailer the opportunity to recover his
>investment in purchasing the package from the distributor (or direct
>from the company); when you copy the disk, you deny the company the
>opportunity to recover its costs in R&D and production, which it would
>have recovered by selling the finished goods to a distributor or retailer.

Well said.  But there is still a distinction.  With piracy, as well as
with stealing a box, the company has R&D costs.  But it is only with the
box that there is an actual *per unit* cost of production.  Think of it this
way: if you steal ten identical boxes for yourself but only use one, you have
stolen a value of ten times the production cost of a single unit, for the
packaging alone if nothing else.  Copying software also hurts the
developer, but not in the same way: a company's total R&D costs
for a single piece of software are the same, no matter whether you make
yourself one copy or ten.

People who are do piracy are aware of this distinction.  Those of
us who want to discourage piracy would thus be wise not to draw an
erroneous parallel between shoplifting and piracy.  I think it's best to
stay focused on the *real* issue, which is that developers have a right to
be paid when you use the intellectual property which they have created.
Piracy and shoplifting are both wrong, but for different reasons.
Claiming that the two are the same fools nobody and merely gives pirates
an excuse by which to justify themselves.

--Kurisuto