🚀 go-pugleaf

big_bad@mindspring..com (Big Bad Wolf) caused this to appear in our
collective minds on Sat, 14 Jun 1997 20:24:34 GMT:

>On Sat, 14 Jun 1997 03:36:41 GMT, mcc...@erols.com (TenthStone) wrote:
>
>>big_bad@mindspring..com (Big Bad Wolf) caused this to appear in our
>>collective minds on Fri, 13 Jun 1997 00:52:07 GMT:
>>
>>>On Tue, 10 Jun 1997 12:03:29 GMT, jo...@pball.com (John Hamilton)
>>>wrote:
>>>
>>>>Besides, it doesn't matter what the total industry loss rate is. 
>>>interesting view - since the anti piracy fight youre backing  says
>>>this is THE reason piracy is wrong and such a large problem
>>
>>Not really... have YOU ever read their "drivel"?
>>
>thats the way it is presented in the trade magazines i read..........
>do the ones you read prortray the anti piracy fight as a MORAL CRUSADE
>or a financial one?

Sorta both... it doesn't matter to me if someone's a billionaire,
it's still dishonourable to take something from 'em, which
is what I consider piracy to be...

>>Of course that's what they emphasize in documents.
>>If someone gets shot, and someone gets charged with it, the
>>prosecution doesn't charge that person with "Being a
>>dishonorable person with a severe lack of ethics."
>
>thats funny - people on your side of this arguement sure do like to
>use this very portrayal on people on my side.

Well, some ppl shouldn't be lawyers.

>>The reason, of course, is that morality cannot be judged.
>on a different note - i wish our legal system could get this through
>their collective heads ( now back to the arguement currently in
>progress )

Thanks... I needed someone to agree w/ me on that point...

>>The only thing that should stand in court is the law, and the
>>law says that the reason why murder is wrong under normal
>>crcumstances is that it violates the victim's rights.
>>
>no the reason murder is wrong is the fact that a persons life is taken
>away - murder was illegal LONG before people were granted individual
>rights by certain governments and is still considered illegal today in
>countries where individuals do NOT have rights ( but once again i
>digress - back to the topic in hand )

I consider the taking of someone's life the most flagrant possible
violation of that person's rights... a violation of their right to
life.  Murderers forefeit this right.  But you're right, this is
off-topic.

>>>>							      The act of 
>>>>stealing revenue by a single person violating copyright and license 
>>>>provisions in and of itself is criminal and actionable. "Whining about
>>>>piracy" is like "whining about robbery" or "whining" about any other
>>>>crime. The fact there is no way to enforce copyright at this level in no
>>>>way lessens the fact reasonable revenue is being denied the rightful
>>>>owner of the copyright. It demonstrates a complete lack of respects
>>>>for the rights of others. You may think it cool, but it is not.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>nope - its like the grateful dead whining about bootlegs. =]
>>>piracy is a victimless "crime" since corporations cant be victims -
>>>get real!
>>
>>Why can't corps be victims?  If someone killed Bill Gates, he'd
>>be a victim.   If someone torched the MS campus, the corp
>>would be the victim.   If someone steals the big MS sign
>>from the MS campus, the corp would be the victim.  Very simple.
>>
>hogwash -  if the ms sign was stolen the only victims would be
>employees and shareholders/directors if; and only if, the signs cost
>was used to reduce wages, benefits or dividends.

Hmm... I'd say the directors lose somethin'... the money to pay
for that sign, or to pay for the insurance to replace that sign,
comes from the yearly profits -- which means they don't get
the money.  One can steal money that someone else doesn't
yet have:  if you held up a stagecoach on its way to
deliver a million bucks to some bank, that bank just got robbed,
whether or not they ever saw the money.

>if it was covered by
>some sort of loss prevention or insurance - there would be NO victims.
>( and dont tell me the insurance company paying the claim would be a
>victim ).

I don't believe that insurance cos can be victims, 'less someone's
makin' false claims.  They made an agreement to pay for the sign
if it gets stolen;  therefore, if it gets stolen, they must pay for
it.  If they don't wanna pay for it, then they don't hafta make the
agreement in the first place.

>how can a entity that exists only by force of constitutional
>law be a victim? sure it's employees can be victims - but not from
>pirates.

A corporation consists of its leaders and stockholders, and to a
lesser degree its employees.
Your earlier point that the projected income is overstated is
a li'l' off.  Sure, a lotta ppl wouldn't buy the thin' if they
somehow couldn't pirate it (gamin' piracy especially), but
if they needed it, then they would.

Act'ly, there's an incredible amt of piracy that happens w/o its
perpatrators knowing:  "trades" and such.  Act'ly, my parents once
traded:  they probably wouldn't have done it if they known it was
illegal (my parents were, and still are, extremely straight edge), but
they simply traded WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS 5.  They had DOS 3.3
before; we had WordPerfect 5.0.

>i'll admit that in corporate crime not only employees but
>board members and investors could be victims - but the corporation
>cannot be. calling a non-human legal entity a victim is no more
>logically valid than saying a stone has emotions. heck most corporate
>employees ARE victims - not of pirates but of their employing
>corporations

True.  Ok, so the "corp" can't be a victim, in your way of puttin' it.
So?  The owners are the victims, then, 'n' they're the ones you're
hurtin'.

>>>"robbery" heh  - only in a scumbag lawyer-type's eye.  this type of
>>>willful misrepresentation of our language for big businesses' benefit
>>>is so freakin Orwellian it makes me scream. if i "steal"
>>>a program i never would have bought NO INCOME WAS LOST!  only
>>>PROJECTED income was lost ( due to BAD PROJECTIONS ). your flawed
>>>arguments are the same crap i get from my boss when he says i am
>>>"stealing" from him in reference to the lost production caused by me
>>>being sick and not making it in to work for a day or two.  pure crap!
>>>he merely failed to project the shortcomings of using humans in his
>>>labor force - i didnt "steal" a thing
>>
>>No... you're comparin' two diff things.
>
>no..   im using my employers ranting in an analogous comparison to the
>SPA's ranting - both are equally obscene in their twisting of word
>definitions ( and, geee.... both are used to give corporations the
>upper hand over people - what a coincidence.     NOT ).  in the SPA
>reports i read - the fact is that every pirated useage is represented
>as a loss.  but all that is lost was income that was inaccurately
>projected in the first place. if you can use murder as an analogy why
>cant i compare my bosses rantings with the SPA's?

Fine.  Let's both sit here 'n' say, once 'n' for all, that our
analogies are not perfect.  I admit it.  Hell, I can do nothin' else;
if two thin's were exactly alike, then they'd be the came type of
thing, and it wouldn't be an anology.

>>Let's say you write somethin', or make somethin', or do whatever you
>>do.  Suddenly, someone comes along 'n' copies, exactly, what you
>>just did (if your product was somethin' intellectual;  otherwise they
>>just took whatever you made).  They don't give you anything, 'n' they
>>hand that somethin' to your boss 'n' get credit for it.  You've been
>>robbed:  your work went into somethin', 'n' somebody else stole
>>your effort.
>
> (we'll skip the fact that many peoples supervisors do just this
>everyday and jump straght to.......)

<naivete>Not in MY almighty software industry</naivete>
Act'ly, employees get a lot of credit in the software industry...
Just click on "credits" in most games, and you'll see a list
of every person involved in the creation of the game...
Larger projects can't do this, 'cause there are far too many
people who worked on the job, but sometimes I doubt the real
usefulness of "designers" to the projects anyway.

>this happens LEGALLY everyday. millions and millions of employees
>work at flat - predetermined wage rates and concieve enormous amounts
>of intellectual property that said corporations claim as theirs. yet
>for some reason you get very uptight when i or some other individual
>steals an overpriced copy of say office 95 and plays around with it
>getting to see and use a piece of software he/she would never shell
>out the money for otherwise. sure its stealing - so what? i believe
>history has shown time and time again that not everything that is
>illegal is wrong

Those many millions do not have to give their ideas to their
supervisors... they can always make a startup, or try to
find a corporation that gives them more credit, where
they ain't simply a statistic...

BTW, stealin' is one of those things that is at once illegal AND
wrong... if I somehow managed to cut off your internet connection,
then I'd be stealin' from you, and that would be both a crime and
unfair...

>>                     Your problem is that of many pirates:  you fail to see
>>the corporation as people.  It's not just a corporation, it's
>>a bunch of people who put a lot of work into somethin'.  Pirates
>>are more than stealing some abstract string of data... they're
>>stealin' thought.
>
>so are the corporations. i see corporations as legally created
>entities created to allow certain people to bypass restrictions placed
>on people by legalities; and i see their employees as people
>*separate* from the corporate heads and logo's they are employed by; 
>dont you? tell me - exactly how many microsoft employees were hurt
>by my trying out a copy of  windows 97 beta without registering with
>microsofts beta program? how many adobe programmers were laid off
>cause i tried photoshop without shelling out $1000.00? BTW i
>determined i didnt need to use it for what i was trying to do and got
>rid of it - its no longer on my system. if i HAD shelled out the $$$$
>for it would they have given me a refund?...........
>i didnt think so.

I 'ways liked the concept of shareware... the problem is, how
does one make a shareware ver of a mjr app?  A ver of MS Word
that can't print docs, but still lets you look at all the funcs?
Great.
And I'll admit that the beta system is abused by the corps...
Why should I pay money to help a corp do somethin' that
THEY would be payin' someone to do otherwise?

>>Ever read Ayn Rand?  If so, ya ain't gettin' the point much.
>>
>cant say as i have - care to clue me in as why i should?

Hmm.... now why did I put THAT in?  Oh yes.
"Atlas Shrugged":  a group of corporate executives
quit, because they are being looted by the government,
which has passed laws helping weaker, less capable,
corporations survive, just because they are lead by
people who agree with the government.  Case in point:
Rearden Steel.  Hand Rearden creates a wonderful
new alloy that's lighter, stronger, and cheaper than
steel;   the government tries to ban this "Rearden Metal"
as being unsafe.  When it succeeds, it tries to
nationalize the metal, and force Rearden to give up the
copyrights.  I still ain't sure why I mentioned Rand here.

>>>not only that - your use of the phrase "reasonable revenue" is a joke.
>>>what is freakin reasonable about software prives being driven by what
>>>large corporations are willing to shell out for software. they get
>>>every dollar back on tax breaks. yet these pricing levels are set and
>>>we ALL have to abide by em - even though the little guys get screwed
>>>by it. there's nothing "reasonable" about software prices at all.
>>>especially for the bug-filled bloatware that seems to be the standard
>>>today.
>>
>>Oh, so all pirates are doin' is protestin' high prices?
>>THEN DON'T USE THE SOFTWARE.  
>hmmmmm  why is it ok for legions of people to protest in their way 
>but i am forced to "just say no"?  one could have just as easily said
>to rose parks ( did i get the name right ? ) to just DONT RIDE THE BUS
>down in selma, ala back in the 60's

Uh... 'm'mber the bus protests?  A lot of ppl decided the bus system
wasn't fair, so they refused to ride anymore.  The bus system
eventually desegregated their buses.  Rosa Parks merely
protested in a different way, which cannot be appropriately
brought to the piracy situation.

>>                                                                 It's up to you whether or not
>>you use something;  however, if you use somethin', ya should pay
>>for it somehow.  Money made things so complicated...
>>You don't like the quality of the software?  Fine:  boycott and write
>>your own, or use something old that's proven to work.  Like
>>WordPerfect 5.1, or somethin' like that.
>
>look - i am not supporting companies pressing "warez" cd's and selling
>them. i am not supporting businesses using pirated software in place
>of legal copies. but you have yet to explain to me why my previewing
>or using in a private personal sense a certain piece of software is so

Why can't businesses rob businesses, when people can rob businesses?

>wrong. yes i admit its illegal but that doesnt make it WRONG.  heck
>for years and years it was illegal to shop in a store on sunday; due
>to the so-called "blue laws" but it obviously wasnt WRONG, was it?

Hmm... What piracy does is to give the pirate a free copy of a piece
of software... It's a violation of the copyright laws;  copyrights are
an attempt at preventing the stealing of ideas.  Don't give me the
line that "corporations steal from their employees" -- it's the same
thing as the insurance companies.  If a corporations can commit
a crime, why can't they be the victims?  Hmm?  And what about
"two wrongs don't make a right?"

>>I agree with you on one point... the U.S. tax system ain't workin'.
>>This is partially 'cause of the fact that large corps are the ones
>>with the lobbies.  Anyway, that's beside the point.
>
>actually it is very relevant because it defines what corporations will
>pay for software and that in turn defines the selling price of much of
>th software currently available today

Please elaborate.

>>But the pricing levels are not set.  C'mon, there's an infinite price
>>diff 'tween IE 'n' Navigator (no, that's not an exaggeration)
>>There's software out there for 20-25 bucks;  there's
>>software out there for 70-75, 'n' that's just the price
>>range for newer games.
>>
>>Let's take the pretty-standard (but not fixed) price
>>of $50.00 (actually $49.95 or some shit like that)
>>Modern games... Figure 20-person team, averaging
>>$20K a year and a half-year project. (pretty low salaries,
>>pretty short time)
>>Price $50
>>- Packaging/Manufacture = about $10 each
>>- ($200K for personnel / total number of sales)
>>- profit for seller = about 5$ each
>>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>= amt corp receives.
>>
>>I look and I see that the entire line of King's Quests
>>(up to 6) has sold 1.5 million copies... I'd say
>>a pretty successful piece of software would sell
>>about 15K copies.  That means the corporation
>>receives about $20 per copy, or $300K for this
>>cheap-to-make, fairly successful piece of work.
>>That ain't much, when you figure in advertising
>>and taxes (which corps must pay on ALL
>>the money they receive, not just the $300K)
>>
>yet its ovboiusly a lucrative enouh business that despite all the
>"theft" and the ( as you protray it rediculousy low income ) people
>are going into the business of programming left right and center
>and making a fortune.
>
>instead of trying so hard to get me to stop pirating an app or two why
>dont you direct your efforts in reducing isurance costs, litigation in
>our legal climate that drives up the price of EVERYTHING and other
>market driven reasons why the employees dont get more of the profits
>( such as exorberant executive compensation packages )?

I don't agree with today's corporations system, 'right?
If I start a company, it pr'bly will be just a way for small-time
programmers to get enough resources to make their
ideas into somethin'.

>>Uh, no.  MS was big long 'fore Win ever came out.  Win
>>became so important only partially because of piracy, anyway.
>>I'll grant it played a role, but not that large of one.
>
>i wasnt writing history - i was quoting bill gates.....

Well, Gates is... a li'l' outta touch, hmm?

>>When you buy Win95, you are buying 1 copy.
>>When Compaq (or whoever) buys Win95, they are buying
>>half a million copies.  (yes, more copies of OSes are sold than of
>>games; however, there were some 100+ ppl on the Win95 team)
>>
>so what your saying is that even though the true market value of said
>os is apparently only a few dollars it is OK to force me to pay one
>corporation ten to thrity times that price because i am not shelling
>out additional $$$$ to a different corporation at the same time?

No, I mean Compaq gets a better price 'cause they buy in bulk.
A lot of vendors try to "pass the savings on to you", but they
tack on so much of an overhead themselves that the price
is really the same...

>>>your moral platitudes are nice and concise and im sure that makes your
>>>life very easy for you to live but do NOT assume they wash on the rest
>>>of us. feel free to keep on being a mindless corporate schill if you
>>>wish - but realize that it doesn't make YOU "cool" either
>>
>>OC... "coolness" is the unattainable goal.  One must be oneself, and
>>only oneself, to be truly at peace... you might not understand
>>that to be "cool", but qualitative things are so hard to define, ain't
>>they?
>
>life's just too damn complicated nowadays - ill agree to that.
>that blurb was only in response to your coolness mention.
>it aint about being "cool" for me - its about the decision i face:
>do i use common sense and a generally good sense of what is truly
>right and wrong to gain the things i desire or do i allow myself to be
>bound by overbearing laws written for big business to keep me down 
>until such time as i can pay what literally amounts to an exorberant
>bribe to gain advancement? contrary to what you ( and the spa ) say;
>my obtaining single copies of overpriced  software for my peronal
>enjoyment and knowledge does NOT hurt individuals in any way - yet i
>benefit.  heck - i quit the piract thing long ago.  why??? the result
>was the same as the result of any big buck software shopping spree:
>meg upon meg of worthless crap that i end up having no use for
>and dont run anyway. if i had shelled out hard earned bucks for it all
>i would be at a major REAL loss;  yet no corporation suffered any
>REAL loss from my actions. if every PERSONAL USE copy of autocad;
>photoshop; office 95, etc was pirated and every CORPORATE USE copy was

But, together w/ the million or so other pirates, you ARE makin' a
loss for individuals... not much, but that's 'cause the losses you're
inflictin' get spread out between a lot of people, and one or two
firings can pretty much make up for that.  I ain't sayin'
downsizin's right, I'm just sayin' it happens.

The econ ain't 'xactly in tha can, either... nevermind...

>purchased adobe, MS, autodesk, etc would still be where they are
>today. ( i admit this statement does NOT apply to windows 95 - but
>dont worry - my copy of windows 95 IS LEGIT )

Good for you.

>>My moral platitudes say one thing simply:  you may remember it
>>as the preamble to our wonderful Constitution (of America).
>
>despite the fact that i no longer engage in piracy ( id rather spend
>my online time playing  my LEGIT copy of quake )  it appears we are
>both firmly entrenched on our respective sides. shall we keep throwing
>words back and forth on a vain attempt to convince the other in the
>error of his way or just stop now and agree to disagree? i mean c'mon
>- this aint religion and we aint fanatical muslims,

The master says that piracy is wrong.
Hehe.
Wait, no, that's Confucius's style.

>right? =] 
>right?  =[ 
>no!!   
> DONT!
> put the gun down!!!!!
> aaaaaaaagggg! 
> gak!
> thud! 

Got 'im.  Now, I hafta find 'nother of those pirates.
AHH! they've surrounded me.  Don't give up the
ship... they're invadin'!  No!!  NOOOO!!! what the...

>=]
 _
:+}
 ^

Don't ask.