How to stop Piracy?

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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.

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John Fields
Professional Circuit Designer

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.

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

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

Autodesk probably likes you to use this at home for free. The more people can use the software the more they can sell. And really no-one would buy this privately at full price, so there is no money lost to them (though they could sell training).

Which makes your explanation likely. Of course they could produce a (limited) student edition...

Thomas

if it were the police would be going after copyright infringers.

no it's not.

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Bye.
   Jasen

not by any legal definition ("dishonest apropriation of another's property with the intent to deprive him of it permanently"), and it's not a crime in the free world.

It's a civil matter between the holder and the infringer

Bye. Jasen

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Don't hand me that "legal definition" crap, Jasen, you're not even
remotely close to being a lawyer.

1. Since, by the act of ifringement, any income which the owner of
the copyrighted work would have enjoyed had the work not been
infringed, will not be forthcoming, the effect is the same as if the
infringer stole that income from the author.

2. I think theft is looked upon as a crime universally.

It's not crap. it came out of a dictionary verbatim. if you think I'm wrong correct me. Insults are a sign that you fear that you are losing the argument.

that's not neccesarily true, there are two ways to not infringe copyright one is to purchase the licence the other is to not use the work. most people choose the latter.

definately...

[copyright infringement]

ok, yeah, there are exceptions, like when it's being done for commercial gain.

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Bye.
   Jasen

I don't think it's as much a question of determining where they're from as it is determining where they're coming from.

If, indeed, he's an academic, then we have among us one who rails against private ownership of intellectual property and feels that fertilization of the egg should be agreed upon by committee.

--
John Fields
Professional Circuit Designer

Now I'm curious.. are you talking about reproduction a la "Brave New World"?

And where is the connection? Are Intellectual property laws are a step in that direction?