Piracy

This article is not intended to tell you how to live your life. You are capable of making your own decisions and I am in no position to judge your choices anyway. What I will do here is give you my own reasons for not pirating and address some of the common reasons I have heard in support of illegally procuring digital media. I hope that my reasoning will make sense to most of you reading this.

To me the issue is simple. Piracy is theft. You're taking something that doesn't belong to you and you have no permission to use. Yes it's easy to do, yes it's difficult to get caught and yes, many people do it, but it doesn't change the morality of the issue. It's analogous to reason people who are incredibly kind in real life are anything but on the internet - you're anonymous and the chances of being held accountable for your actions are negligible. I don't like being treated poorly online or otherwise and I don't inflict it on others simply because it's easy. I follow the same logic with piracy.

I have engaged in many discussions on this issue before and I have heard many justifications for piracy. I'll illustrate a few with my responses below:

1. Company xxxx charges too much for their products and I pirate out of protest.

Piracy is probably one of the least effective ways to protest a company's prices. It is true that you're not putting money into their pockets, but you are increasing their user base. This helps to weaken their competitors. Also because you wouldn't pay for their software even if you couldn't pirate it, economically speaking, you're not hurting the company at all. A much better way to protest is to simply not use the offending company's products. The software industry is ripe with high-quality alternatives for practically every genre of software. If you want to let a company know you're disgusted with them, support one of their competitors or the very substantial free software movement. THEN you'll be legally (and morally, In my opinion) hurting companies where it counts the most - The pocketbook!

Finally before you decide that a company charges too much for their software understand that you're not only paying for a five cent CD and a twenty cent manual. You're paying for the code on that CD which costs a lot to produce in the form of business overhead, development time, staff salaries, equipment, etc...

2. Big software companies make billions of dollars each year. My piracy won't hurt them.

I'm not aiming to paint corporations as helpless, innocent entities mortally wounded by masses of anonymous pirates. The figures that companies put out regarding the losses they suffer due to piracy are exaggerated. They also are not above using piracy as a weapon to gain competitive advantage over one another. This, however, does not mean that your piracy doesn't hurt them. No, Microsoft will not go out of business, and Bill Gates isn't going to starve because you pirated MS-Office. Consider though that Microsoft, like any other company, consists of people. The money they make from their products is used for everything from buying supplies, to funding research and development, to employing all sorts of people that range on the pay scale from upper level management, to mid-level programmers, to janitors and mail room workers. When they lose money due to theft, they'll need to cut back their spending perhaps forcing them to layoff many people who need jobs to support their families. Also, it creates a domino effect with third parties that Microsoft buys materials from as they lose customers. You should now see how the hundreds of thousands of people thinking that their piracy "doesn't hurt" does indeed harm the companies they victimize and the economy in general.

3. I'm a poor student, I need the software for my schoolwork and I can't afford it.

I don't want to come across as self-righteous here. I am currently out of school, with no kids, and I work a full-time job. I can afford the software that I want right now, so it's hard for me to tell you not to copy the software you need for your education. I will, however, say that if you simply need a word processor to type reports, or a complier to complete the programs assigned to demonstrate the concepts of computer science then there are many high quality free alternatives to Microsoft Office (like Open Office) and Visual C++ (such as Bloodshed Dev C++). I will also say, that if you do NEED a specific product for your course work, many companies offer full-versions of their software at VERY low prices to students. In the event that the price is STILL too steep for you it is very likely that your school provides computing facilities for you to get your work done. I would say in 99+% of cases it is not necessary to pirate software for your education. If your situation is particularly dire, it may be slightly inconvenient, but resorting to theft for convenience seems extreme to me.

4. I like to try before I buy

Many companies have already realized that a "try before you buy" policy is sometimes the best way to sell a product and already offer demos or a less feature rich version of their product for you to download. I can respect you for this choice if you truly try something out, make a quick decision, and either purchase or delete based on your choice. In fact, the entire shareware community thrives on this logic and you should check out the incredible variety of excellent software from that market. More often than not however, it's not "Try and buy" it's more of a "try it and if I really like it I'll consider buying the next version that comes out, and if not, I'll keep it around anyway". In this case people are using a perfectly reasonable position and distorting it into a justification for pirating software. Try not to delude yourself. For me, downloading a company provided demo, or asking for a hands-on trial in a store is sufficient. There is no need to resort to getting iso's at a warez site.

5. I believe that all software should be free, and I have a right to use anything I want.

Good for you. The entire open-source community is based on this principle. What they've produced in the last ten years out of nothing more than a love of software (and a tremendous ego boost) is nothing short of incredible. I encourage everyone reading this article to check out the thousands of applications published under the GNU Public license, not to mention other free offerings not affiliated with the GNU movement. I do understand the mentality of the "software should be free" concept. However, your beliefs don't give you cause to infringe the rights of others. You have ownership of the work you create and it is perfectly reasonable to sell it, keep it to yourself or give it away. Don't harm others because they don't agree with you.

The reality is that creating and distributing software takes time and money. Even the free software movement, with an abundance of highly intelligent people who are unusually generous with their time and expertise, fervently asks for donations to fund development and distribution. Bandwidth for distribution costs money, and the software development process takes a tremendous amount of time to organize, produce and maintain - time its participants need to make money to meet their survival needs and, yes, even make some profit in order to provide better for themselves and their families.

6. I wasn't going to buy the software anyway, and therefore I'm not hurting anyone.

I'm not going to argue the economics of this. If you weren't going to buy the product, then your copy costs the company making it nothing, I agree. I still feel that you're taking something without permission and thereby disrespecting the property of another. Also there is a HUGE difference between "I would never have bought this" and "I'm convincing myself that I would not have bought this because I just want it for free". Many if not most times, this justification is given simply as an excuse for piracy.

7. I just don't care, it's easy to get away with and I'm going to do it.

Ok, if you're comfortable with the idea of stealing there's really nothing I can say to you. Please just don't try to convince yourself that you're not stealing.

I hope I've made some sense to most of you. If you have any other issues with this or would like to discuss this more, please let me know by private message.

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Written by Linternet on September 01st, 2006