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1994-06-02
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The Ethics of Software Piracy
by Barry Krusch
Software "piracy". Sounds like a pretty sinister term, but many of
us indulge in it. When our friend gives us a copy of Pagemaker, we
accept not only with no remorse whatsoever, but with a great deal
of gratitude. We don't perceive ourselves as "ripping off" the
software manufacturer, and many of us not only have a slew of
reasons to support our position, but good reasons as well.
Meanwhile, the developer who invested thousands of man-hours in
writing the software sits on the sidelines and watches the
Macintosh community using the software without compensation. After
a while, a thought begins to form in his/her mind; why am I in
this business?
In this article, I want to lay out a set of guidelines for when
and when not to both distribute pirated software. This set of
guidelines was formulated with reference to two equally important
purposes; one, making sure that the software developer is fairly
compensated for his labor, and two, making sure that the market
for Macintosh equipment and software continues to grow. The
primary goal for this set of guidelines is to insure that more
software will be written for the Macintosh, so that all can
benefit.
It's Sometimes OK to be a Software Pirate
The first point necessary for understanding the guidelines is to
understand that not every act of software piracy is unethical.
Illegal, perhaps, but not unethical. Why not? For three primary
reasons:
1)Not every person can afford every piece of software;
2)Not every person is interested in owning every piece
of software;
3)The presence of free software means that more people
will buy Macs; the more people that buy Macs, the
larger the market for Apple, and, concomitantly, the
larger the market for the software developer.
Are you unethical when you take a copy of Pagemaker from a friend?
It depends on your answers to the following questions:
1)Could you afford the software?
2)Did you need the software?
3)Were you going to buy the software?
4)Are you going to give your copy to someone who was
going to otherwise buy the program?
If your answer to all four questions is "yes," then you are an
UNETHICAL software pirate. Give back the copy to your friend, and
go out and buy the program for heavens sake! If, on the other
hand, the answer to all four questions is "no," then you are an
ETHICAL software pirate. You couldn't afford the software, didn't
need it, weren't going to buy it, and have no intention of
distributing the software to a possible future purchaser.
Consequently, there is no financial harm done to the developer; on
the other hand, however, the Macintosh community benefits because
it gains a more knowledgeable user--someone who can help future
entrants to that community. This act of software "piracy" may more
properly termed software "exploration," and there is a very
critical line that divides the two.
If your answer to the above four questions was mixed, you may or
may not be an unethical software pirate. There are two other
questions that can be asked:
1)Is your purpose in copying the software purely for
evaluation purposes?
2)Are you evaluating the software because you intend
to recommend it to a friend/company on a consulting
basis?
If the answer to these questions is "yes," and three of the former
four questions "no," then you are on very solid ground indeed.
Software Piracy and Social Thinking
There a really important kind of thinking we all should have been
schooled in from a very early age: social thinking. What is the
difference between individual thinking, which we all practice, and
social thinking? Social thinking may be seen as the
internalization of one or two historical precepts, depending on
whether your predominant mental framework is secular or religious.
If secular, the first precept is the "Categorical Imperative." If
religious, the second precept is the "Golden Rule". Both concepts
are functionally identical. The general guideline is to ACT AS YOU
WISH ALL OTHERS TO ACT. When you think about it, a society which
schools its members in this mode of thinking is one which is going
to be around for the long term; and a society which schools its
members in exclusively individual thinking ("Only look out for
number one") cannot possibly last. The individual's heaven widely
adopted is frequently a communal hell; imagine how the world would
be if each person did exactly what they wanted to on a
"satisfaction of id" basis, without reference to normative
considerations like "Am I doing the right thing?", "Is this
fair?", etc. Our ability to restrict our basic impulses is one of
the things which separates us from the animals, and which gives
our society the ability to implement some really sophisticated and
powerful features. We enact laws to muzzle those among us who
refuse to think on a social basis, but this can only work when the
laws can be enforced. Where the laws are unenforceable, we are on
our own. The state of anarchy needs to be replaced by a communal
conscience.
How does this relate to software piracy? Because if everyone
pirates software they could have easily purchased, it will be
immediately apparent that such a thing as a software "market" will
cease to exist. And that means that without a group of people
willing to exchange their labor (in the form of reified mediums of
exchange like dollar bills, checks, etc.) for the software-
developing labor of others, the otherwise-software-developers will
go out and find themselves jobs which pay for a living. That means
no software, and that means that our ability to perform meaningful
work with the computer will immediately cease. Our paradise of
cooperation will be replaced by the desert of unenlightened self-
interest.
Everyone intuitively understands this, of course, yet many will
still pirate software they were intending to purchase. They have a
host of reasons, one of which is that "enough people are buying
software to keep the market alive. "Since there are powerful
financial incentives to rationalize along these lines, it's easy
to see the end results of this kind of thinking: the market for
software shrinks by inches, and the software we would have
otherwise seen stays trapped in the World of Ideas.
The Importance of a System of Ethics
Since we act socially, we need to think socially. We need to
develop a set of criteria to guide our actions, recognizing that
what may "hurt" us in the short-run actually helps us in the long-
run, and that what "helps" us in the long run may hurt us in the
short-run. So here is the suggested set of guidelines: if you like
them, adopt them, and encourage others to adopt them.
1)Spend between 1-3% of your take-home salary on
software a year;higher if you use software for a small
business.
2)Never pirate software you could afford to buy,
unless strictly for evaluation purposes.
3)Never give software to a person who could otherwise
afford to buy, unless strictly for evaluation
purposes, if no demo is otherwise available, or if
the person is a DOS-user and would not have
otherwise purchased the Macintosh.
4)If you plan to give or get pirated software, ask
yourself, "Will my actions taken in total, considering
all foreseeable effects, increase or diminish the
total market for the software developer?" If the
answer is "diminish", do not pirate the software.
5)Always purchase inexpensive software(less than $60),
even though you have access to it, to encourage
software developers to price their packages at a level
the average user can afford to pay.
6)Think very, very hard about pirating software
written by small developers. They need help the most,
and when they go out of business, the lack of
competition means higher prices for everyone.
7)If you use shareware, and it works well, pay for it!
8)Do not hesitate to pirate software strictly for
purposes of evaluation, unless you believe that the
software will get into the hands of people who could
have otherwise afforded it.
9)Do not hesitate to use software acquired from the
workplace for work at home.
10)Follow the above guidelines 95% of the time,
recognizing that occasionally circumstances will occur
that will mandate going off the strictly ethical
course.
If everyone can adhere to the above self-imposed restrictions,
especially the suggestion regarding expenditure of personal funds
for software purchases, the market for Macintosh software will
grow, and we can all expect to see a lot of new software in the
future—and, as a not insubstantial bonus, a lot of new Mac users.