

Ask YC: Do you love or hate software piracy? - ideas101

There are 2 sides:<p>Side-1 says that piracy can have its benefits over the long run. Because people will get used to using the pirated s/w and over time those using pirated software will eventually convert to licensed software. Pirated s/w also creates brand awareness and popularity of the s/w. Microsoft would not have become popular giant if there was no piracy as their s/w  are expensive to begin with (especially in 3rd world countries). BRIC countries has the biggest pirated s/w users, but at the same time today they are the biggest market for legal s/w, if people didn't had an option to use pirated s/w then they wouldn't be knowing about that particular s/w, hence no revenue for that s/w company.<p>Side-2 says that stopping piracy will generate an additional tens of thousands of new jobs, billions in economic growth, and millions in tax revenues for each country. (though no one explains how and from where these numbers came from).<p>What's your take???????
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jobeyonekenobi
I put myself through university and gained extensive skills using pirated
software. At the time I decided I would do what needed to be done and because
I could. I resolved however to get licensed copies once I was working.

7 years later I have an annual budget of £2.3 million and am responsible for
buying decisions relating to the software we use. Autodesk, Macromedia (until
a while ago) and Adobe have all been represented largely.

All I can say is that at the time, I used software piracy to my advantage -
now I am trying to repay my debt.

~~~
hollywoodcole
Amen do that! I would have never learned Photoshop or Dreamweaver without
pirated software. This was me in college. Doing that under your own company
would be a bad thing to do. Don't risk it unless your using the software for
personal education gain.

~~~
silencio
The upside to buying software as a student is that these companies sell them
with a massive discount..or give them away for free. The downside being it's
usually only for noncommercial usage.

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hobbs
Overheard from This Week in Media
(<http://www.pixelcorps.tv/this_week_in_media>):

Post-production houses and graphical design companies often demand that all
job applicants already have Photoshop experience. Yet for someone who doesn't
already have a job, they can't afford Photoshop in order to get experience.
The unspoken industry solution is that everyone has a pirated copy of
Photoshop for personal use.

Also mentioned is that the big 3D modeling/rendering packages that _everyone_
uses for production work (3D Studio, Maya, and LightWave) also happen to be
the most pirated 3D software. Coincidence? Is the dog wagging the tail, or is
the tail wagging the dog?

~~~
jcl
Many jobs also require college degrees, yet it isn't an unspoken industry
solution for first-time job applicants to lie on their resumes because they
couldn't afford to go to college. So this "unspoken industry solution" of
pirating Photoshop strikes me more as a rationalization for why someone wanted
to pirate rather than an explanation of why they needed to pirate.

(Never mind that art schools cost a lot more than Photoshop, teach Photoshop,
sell Photoshop at discounted student rates, etc.)

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edw519
This subject comes up every month or so, and every time I give my opinion
which is always in the minority. Sometimes I think I'm the only one. So once
again, as I prepare to get downmodded into oblivion, here goes...

You forgot Side 3 - I hate software piracy because it's wrong. Period. It's
unethical, immoral, and illegal. And it's that simple. I don't even consider
either of your 2 choices because both sidestep the question of right or wrong
to examine other issues. This is situational ethics.

In all the years I've been in business, my number one concern has been ethical
issues. The partner who disconnected his speedometer to increase his resale
value. The vendor who raised his prices to get a personal "kickback". The
employee who downloaded a customer list and sold it to a competitor. I could
go on and on and on...

I've seen stuff like this so many times, and I ask the same question every
time, "If they will compromise their ethics on something small, where do they
draw the line?" I've seen multi-million dollar deals scuttled because someone
didn't trust someone else because of their personal behavior on a "small"
issue like this. Don't let yourself fall into this trap. It simply isn't worth
it to save a few bucks.

I've heard all the counteraruments. "It's no big deal." "Everyone does it."
"It's not hurting anybody." "I'll never get caught." Or the worst one of all,
"They've already ripped me off, so I'm just getting them back." And you know
and I know and everyone here knows it's all BS. We're just making excuses for
what we all _know_ is wrong.

Almost every proprietary software vendor has a complimentary "developer
version" or a very cheap "student version". There are many other ways to get
access to software or music without breaking the law or compromising your
ethics. But a lot of us are just too lazy to take advantage of these things.

I would expect the Hacker News community, of all places, to be especially
sensitive to this issue. After all, we are smart, hard working people who make
software. But it seems like I'm always in the minority on this one.

So before you click that down arrow on this old prude, can I ask one question?
Does _anyone_ agree with me?

~~~
0x44
> Does anyone agree with me?

The law doesn't even agree with you. Copyright is not a natural right, it's an
exchange of monopoly for the hope that your artistic achievement will advance
the natural arts of our society. If the terms of that grant are onerous and
society derives no benefit from it, then it is not immoral or unethical for
society to revoke your monopoly.

In this case, if everyone is pirating, then it's absolutely moral for an
individual to do it.

~~~
edw519
"The law doesn't even agree with you."

My lawyer would beg to differ with you.

"Copyright is not a natural right"

Neither is land ownership.

"In this case, if everyone is pirating, then it's absolutely moral for an
individual to do it."

Thanks for the new counterargument. This one is even better than "They've
already ripped me off, so I'm just getting them back." I guess I'll be using
it in next month's post.

~~~
davidw
Land is a rivalrous good, whereas most digital products are not.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rivalry_>(economics)

Some information goods are excludable, but not easily, and less so with fast
internet connections. This pushes them towards the category of 'public goods':

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good>

Copyright is "legislated exclusion":

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good#Possible_solutions>

Anyway, copyright is a compromise, and I agree that people should respect the
law, but the law should also change to fit the facts. The Mickey Mouse
copyright extenions, for example, are what might be described in technical
terms as "a load of horse shit". 100 years is way too long. I think that we
should look at how to rejig the compromise, without eliminating it completely,
for the moment.

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Tichy
"though no one explains how and from where these numbers came from"

I think those are just poor understanding of economics. Hope I don't say
anything incredibly stupid, but the money has to come from somewhere. It seems
more likely that the economy would suffer if more people would pay for
software, because doing business would become more expensive. Or maybe it is
just zero-sum (either the pirates get to spend the money, or the software
vendors, but no additional wealth is being created).

Not saying I would decide for 1 or 2. Morals are a difficult issue. Is
something immoral, just because it is against the law? What if I don't agree
with the law? I am from Germany, so I have been taught that there can be times
when the laws themselves are immoral.

I can't blame some poor 3rd world person to pirate a game or a movie that they
otherwise would never be able to afford - I don't see the loss for the vendor?
The usual counter is "games and movies are not essential for living", but I
don't agree. I think people's lives should be worthwhile, too.

~~~
popat
by the way law is sometimes created by the lobby - in short people who are
going to gain a lot ... they own the politicians and make a law , which
sometime is not acceptable by general public ... if a particular law is going
to impact masses then why not to have referendum before making and passing a
bill to create a law.

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ssharp
I've seen a similar argument when used with music: people download music,
share it, and the pirated band sells more CDs as they gain fans (questionable)
and draw bigger crowds (much more likely and doesn't help the record company
in anyway).

However, unlike that, I think Side-1 has pretty strong merit - especially with
the widespread availability of pirated software and the amount of people in
college who want to use the software but can't afford it. If the software
companies REALLY wanted to buck the trend, they'd license education software A
LOT cheaper than it is right now. When I was in undergrad, I could buy Windows
XP, Office, and Visual Studio anywhere from $10-20. I bought all three and
never had to pirate a single piece of MS software.

~~~
eru
I could download a lot of MS software for free because they have a partnership
with my university.

I even used it to get WinXP to play some games. It's kind of strange to have a
burned CD-R lying around - that is actually a legitimate copy.

~~~
silencio
I don't think it's strange.

The odd thing is I have literally a dozen legitimate serials (at the least) of
Windows XP through MSDNAA and other sources, but I will still install a
pirated copy with an activation crack. It's just waaaaayyyy less hassle in
every way (plus the downloads tend to be slipstreamed with the latest updates,
which is something I'm too lazy to do on a regular basis).

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joao
An example of how piracy helped a company: Macromedia.

Back in the 90s Adobe didn't had trials for their software on their website,
and the software was usually lots of MB. Compare that to the old 30MB download
of a Dreamweaver trial that you could easly find a crack off. If Adobe had
done the same with GoLive (former Cyberstudio) at the beginning they would
probably have owned the WYSIWYG HTML editor market.

Also with some different apps, tough Adobe's Livemotion never was a true
competitor to Flash.

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rmk
regarding side-1: I started out as a windows user using pirated copies in
india... this discouraged me from using linux for quite some time, as we used
to have phone modems and bandwidth was pathetic... one day i got a mandrake
linux cd with a magazine... it was great fun using it, but gnome sucked then,
but now i prefer linux over windows. so for windows at least, side-1 did not
have any benefits. in fact, windows helped me start using computers and i
'converted' to linux!

i had another question: suppose a person cannot check out a book from a
library (copy is out), so he downloads an ebook off the net and reads it, then
deletes the copy as soon as he obtains the copy from the library.... so what
effect did this 'piracy' have on the book producer? the book is _quite_ old
and i doubt whether the author (hint: amoeba) would be getting any big
royalties on the book....

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bigtoga
Why do you want my opinion?

~~~
ideas101
2 sides of the coin, it would be interesting to know which side is shinier for
you :) if you were microsoft or oracle or ...

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giles_bowkett
Love. Read "Pirate's Dilemma." Pirates are good for capitalism, good for
society, good for the world. Anyone who stands in their way must die.

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jpeterson
Ask YC: Which is better, Pepsi or Coke?

~~~
Tichy
I prefer battery acid. (Edit: upvote if you think battery acid is better than
coke and pepsi)

