🚀 go-pugleaf

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:
>
>>Actually, considering the actual data which SPA and others have compiled,
>>the losses are greatly UNDERSTATED industry-wide. 
>
>WRONG!  the actual data you speak of is what is fictionalized
>its obvious that we are getting fictionalized data from the spa's
>method - one cannot logically conclude that because someone pirated a
>copy of autocad (example) that if the piracy was prevented
>said individual would have coughed up $3000.00 and bought it. thats a
>ludicris notion; but its the way these figures are derived.
>have you even READ their drivel?

I bet you think that there was a Kennedy conspiracy, too.  Anyway...
There is reason to this... it is true that most pirates won't buy
the shit they steal (that IS an appropriate word;  I'll get to that
later).  

>>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"?

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."
The reason, of course, is that morality cannot be judged.
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.

>>							      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.

>"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.
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.  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.
Ever read Ayn Rand?  If so, ya ain't gettin' the point much.

>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.  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.
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.
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)

>lets face it - microsoft allows that piracy is why windows got so
>huge.  it got them where they are today.  besides why the ^$^&%$&^%#'
>should i pay $XXXXX.YY  in a store for an app which gets bundled in
>preloaded software for a small percentage of that cost? because
>i dont need new hardware????? if i need new hardware microsoft works
>or windows 95 is valued at maybe 10.00  dollars as a preload but if i
>only want microsoft works or windows 95 but not a new system its value
>is 80.00????? - bullshit!

Ah, you must speak German... an 11char curse...
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.
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)

>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?
My moral platitudes say one thing simply:  you may remember it
as the preamble to our wonderful Constitution (of America).