How to stop Piracy?

Ehhhh? ANYTHING can be copyrighted, but common usage words have been adjudicated out (for the most part).

...Jim Thompson

--
|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
|  Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
|  Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
|  Phoenix, Arizona            Voice:(480)460-2350  |             |
|  E-mail Address at Website     Fax:(480)460-2142  |  Brass Rat  |
|       http://www.analog-innovations.com           |    1962     |
             
         Old Latin teachers never die...they just decline

As far as software, there isn't anything anybody can do about it, other than rely on the integrity of your customers. The fallacy about "piracy" is to believe that if you can prevent someone from stealing your software, that they'll buy a copy. That's not true. The only people who steal software are the ones who wouldn't have bought it anyway.

If you're talking hardware, just order enough units of your product so that you can make your millions in the first week or so before the knockoffs start showing up. Then your selling point becomes your name and reputation for quality and reliability.

In Other Words, it's not worth getting hysterical about.

Good Luck! Rich

This is provably false by the number of companies who have been "turned in" and made to pay a "fine" equal to the cost of the software they were pirating.

It's impossible to know how many pirates would have otherwise bought the software. I'd accept that it might be as low as the single digits (percentage), but I don't accept it's 0.

^^^^^^

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Key, can I have some of whatever it is you're smoking?

Thanks! Rich

--
Elect Me President in 2008! I will:
A. Fire the IRS, and abolish the income tax
B. Legalize drugs
C. Stand down all military actions by the US that don\'t involve actual
   military aggression against US territory
D. Declare World Peace I.

--
That\'s ridiculous.  It _is_ theft, and that\'s why the laws are in
place; to deal with the crime when it\'s committed.

Seems like you've got your own stash: ------ / / /

-- / Elect Me President in 2008! I will: A. Fire the IRS, and abolish the income tax B. Legalize drugs C. Stand down all military actions by the US that don't involve actual military aggression against US territory D. Declare World Peace I.

--
John Fields
Professional Circuit Designer

[snip]

Are there really all that many _companies_ that pirate software? It seems foolish to me to risk the prosecution.

...Jim Thompson

--
|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
|  Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
|  Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
|  Phoenix, Arizona            Voice:(480)460-2350  |             |
|  E-mail Address at Website     Fax:(480)460-2142  |  Brass Rat  |
|       http://www.analog-innovations.com           |    1962     |
             
         Old Latin teachers never die...they just decline

While this is completely true, I think the software industry's estimated losses due to piracy are greatly inflated by one thing. I believe that only a small amount of pirated software would have actually been bought had the pirate not been able to steal it. There is no loss if income if the pirate would never have bought it anyway.

I also think that some piracy actually results in increased sales. In particular with things like PCB layout software. Most legitimate businesses buy the EDA tools they need. But home hobby guy is never going to shell out $5000 for a PCB layout program like Protel (I bring this one up because there used to be cracks for it all over the net). But when that home hobby guy gets a real job and the pointy haired boss asks what PCB software they need, he will immediately suggest Protel because that's what he knows how to use now.

Now, I don't mean to imply that this makes piracy right. But it isn't all as bad as some people would have you believe.

"Jim Thompson" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

[Cough] I certainly know of some! ...but they're small companies, or divisions of small companies (a couple dozen employees or less), and the software in question is generally various office productivity titles or small utilities -- not, e.g., 5 or 6 digit EDA tools. (I.e., potential damages aren't that large, so they're less likely to be hauled into court, and even if they are, the damges aren't going to be bankrupting.)

Clearly someone must be buying the software these guys were selling:

I have a friend who attempted to purchase a legal copy of Microsoft Visual Studio 6 on eBay and was sent a clearly counterfeit version instead. He ended up having to eat the two-hundred-some-odd dollars he spent for it, as the seller was long gone.

---Joel

That's pretty much my position - it becomes a "Bad" thing when companies think they can use pirated software though, even on an 'unofficial trial' basis.

I'd add that there's no indication that innovation or profits have suffered due to piracy. Piracy has been going on since the industry started - I seem to recall some people have written some new software, done some new things, made a bit of money......

Cheers.

Ken

You'd also have to change the attitude of 1.3 bn people. Might be easier to change the attitudes of the few hundred millions who are whining about it. Just one mobile phone company (China Mobile) has

governments in countries such as China is actually more answerable for

*results* than those in democracies. In free-market democracies, you supposedly get what you vote for (though you'll probably not be asked questions that could yield answers that threaten powerful interests unless there's an even more powerful domestic interest that is fighting it in public). If things go wrong, it's the market, it's what you voted for, it's always someone else (or no one at all) that's to blame. Historically, monarchies and other totalitarian governments have had lower steady-state total tax loads than democracies-- part of the reason a capitalist economic system can do well in conjuction with such systems.

I don't have a problem with copyright laws one way or the other.. I could imagine there being very strong or very weak laws. It's not a moral issue, IMO, just a contract that uses public funds to enable a passive royalty collection scheme for companies who develop IP. There are ways to survive and prosper whatever the rules are.

IIRC, the US conveniently ignored the IP owned by England for a couple of generations until had some of its own to protect internationally for its own companies. Similarly, when money can start flowing in both directions you can be pretty sure they'll be more interested in buying in (or not). Same goes for India and Russia where piracy is everywhere, and for the ME, where piracy is the highest in the world, IIRC. You don't hear much about the latter places because the US is fixated on a 'containment' policy, and China-bashing is 'in' once again, including the currency valuation red herring.

BTW, there's a very popular love song* in China that's been performed by a bunch of different artists. One such artist was a 21-year old girl named Xiang1-Xiang1. She did it with a PC and a microphone, no studio, and gave away the music on the internet. She's made a small fortune from it, and has been signed by the UK music company EMI and has released at least one CD. In a different world she would have made a big fortune (or, more likely, nothing at all).

• Lao3 Shu3 Ai4 da4 Mi3 (Mouse loves rice). The metaphor loses something in the translation.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

--
"it\'s the network..."                          "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com             Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog  Info for designers:  http://www.speff.com

I don't think so, though it might be more common in very small companies. When they prosecute a few and advertise the (large) penalties it puts the fear of dog in many managers.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

--
"it\'s the network..."                          "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com             Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog  Info for designers:  http://www.speff.com

Supposedly Autodesk has greatly profited from this "free trial" distribution. As long as most companies of any size pay, they are rolling in the money. Thus, they aggressively go after corporations they think might not have a (or enough) license(s).

One of the problems is that when I get a dude in Russia or India to draw up some parts for me, I can be fairly sure that they are using cracked copies. The guy down the street with the full license and maintenance contract is finding it doubly hard to compete since the wages are much higher and so is the overhead. It's a pittance on a small job, but the pittances add up..

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

--
"it\'s the network..."                          "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com             Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog  Info for designers:  http://www.speff.com

Bill Gate's original plea to stop piracy 30 years ago:

Microsoft's take on it these days:

Hearing any bleats by Gates about piracy makes me want to dredge up reports of old law-suits, but what the heck, it's lunch-time.....

Ken

Repost:

"[...] a thread was started about Bill Gates' famous "open letter" calling all hobbyists "thieves" because we were all stealing "his" software.

This led into a discussion of why Mr. Gates was "asked to resign" from Harvard. Someone pointed out the whole story was located on the "Boston Globe's" website. [ To those outside of the U.S., the Globe is to Boston what the Times is to London...not prone to hyperbole. ]

So I checked out the website & found that Mr Gates & Mr. Allen had used Mr. Gates' account on Harvard's DEC-10 to write M.I.T.S. 8080 & 6800 BASICs [Microsoft's _only_ software products at that time.][Bill Gates & Paul Allen were Microsoft's only employees at the time also.]

The "powers that be" at Harvard learned of this & were ready to expell Mr. Gates because "all students at Harvard sign a form making all software developed on the University's computers public domain." In order to keep from being expelled from Harvard and to be allowed to resign, Mr. Gates signed over all rights to Microsoft's products to the public domain.

After leaving Harvard, Mr. Gates seemed to forget this & continued to market both the 6800 & 8080 BASICs. Unfortunately [for him] it is all a matter of public record.[...]"

--
http://www.flexusergroup.com/

I didn't even know that one, but now can add it to the list of things I forget about him. :-)

MS has been involved in all manner of 'acquisition' of interesting add-ons for their crappy software suite.

Cheers.

Ken

Well, you can probably copyright anything, but that does not mean that the copyright is valid.

I remember a business delivering a text to someone who converted tags into html by using a script.

Later, the business went elsewhere with their site and took the generated html with them. The original converter claimed copyright, but this was ruled against for lack of creative content.

Another limitation is independent creation. If I would write the text "best quality in town - come today for best offer" that could be construed as creative. However, if someone else wrote the same text it could likely be an independent creation and him using that text would not be a copyright violation.

Which doesn't mean you can't sue, but that's another thing.

Thomas

The 'trial' thing is not that bad. One of the reasons open source is doing well is that there is no need to go through purchasing and lawyers to try it.

Software vendors have traditionally been ignoring unauthorized copying whenever they felt it was best for their business - for example student or private use.

It seems clothing designs only have very limited protection in Europe - changing a number of details (5 or 8?) is enough to have a new creation. This doesn't seem to harm industry creativity at all...

The same would apply to look-and-feel copyrights on software. What happened to those? Those were a license to print money, not a stimulus for creativity...

Thomas