Comments on: Random thoughts on software piracy and open source business models

By: Sebastian

Sebastian — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 21:09:37 +0000

My sugession for running a business:
As open as possible – as closed as necessary to make money.

By: batasrki

batasrki — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 04:59:21 +0000

@Harry:

First of all, who are these cohorts of mine you’re describing? I didn’t know that you knew me and my “associates”. I would have been much more pleasing and conciliatory to your inflammatory rhetoric.

Now, to slowly piece your flawed post together.

“As for whining about the treatment of bands… didn’t the bands know the game before they agreed to play (pun intended)?”

It seems you’re not all that familiar with the music industry, are ya, buddy? So, to answer your question, no most bands don’t know the game before they agree to play. Most bands have been struggling for years and will take the first perceived big break they get. Secondly, those that DO know the game still have to play it. There have been a few notable exceptions: Radiohead, NiN and a few others. But they all still get raped by the studios and they don’t like it. How would you like if your employer told you that he/she will take 90% of your paycheck and you need to use the rest to feed, clothe and live, as well as buy the tools you need to do your work? Is that ethical in your eyes? Is that something you’d be happy about? If you are, you need to find something better, my friend.

“It’s beyond absurd to suggest that someone who has the ability to find and download something from the internet is too stupid to make their voice known in some other way.”

Again, what exactly are you thinking here? Are you suggesting that anyone who’s able to download a file through a browser is internet-savvy? Technically oriented? Seriously? Once more, you’re just assuming things, bro. Stop assuming.

As for your last paragraph, as someone who has denounced my first answer as “engaging in a cheap personal attack”, boy, you really showed there that you’re the more grown-up one. I have nothing more to say about that, other than stop assuming that I pirate just because I’m challenging your views on piracy. If you don’t like what I have to say, so be it. If you’re against pirating content, so be it as well. But at least inform yourself before spouting misinformation.

Peace and happy New Year

By: John

John — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 01:26:01 +0000

What you don’t get is that piracy often isn’t “either or”. What if you bought a CD, then lost it. Is it okay to copy the music? What if you would watch a movie with a friend, that the friend owns, but ended up watching it on your own instead. What if the software you paid for works better in the pirated version? What if you actually care about privacy? It’s not as obvious as you portray it; that piracy is always a crime.

By: harry

harry — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 21:44:40 +0000

batasrki:

Your position reminds me of the Red Queen from Alice in Wonderland. How else to make sense of your position that stealing from artists helps those artists? Maybe by taking illicit drugs?

You say: “This may be technically true, but RIAA’s customers, such as music studios, have historically abused their position with regards to pricing of music, as well as their treatment of bands. So, while there’s nothing in the law books saying they shouldn’t be doing that, they’re violating ethical laws.”

Show me the proof and don’t hide behind some canard of like ‘technically true’. When and where and by whom, besides you and your ilk, in your imaginations, have they been found guilty of abusive pricing? As for whining about the treatment of bands… didn’t the bands know the game before they agreed to play (pun intended)? Whose ethical laws besides yours are they violating, and what gives your ethical views more value than those of people who disagree with you? Before preaching to me about ethical laws, I suggest you look up the one about not stealing.

Your comment that “People who pirate content, pirate it for a reason. Maybe they can’t afford it, maybe they want to make their voices heard and this is the only way they know how” only proves my point that people will use any pathetic excuse to justify bad behavior. You conveniently left out a big reason: they have no respect for the law and the property rights of others, although I have no doubt that you and your cohorts think yours are inviolate.

It’s beyond absurd to suggest that someone who has the ability to find and download something from the internet is too stupid to make their voice known in some other way. Similarly, change two variables in your premise: ‘illegal downloading’ to ‘vandalizing’ and ‘music company’ to ‘you’ (batasrki). Do you really take people to be so stupid as to have us think that if one of your neighbors vandalized your property, you would have no hard feelings towards them?

I have as much right to read this blog and post as you do. I would be disappointed if Antonio denied me the right to post, but it is his blog and therefore his right, although I know you would disagree with that because you obviously don’t believe in property rights. Nor was it my intent to shill, although I will concede one thing to you: you might consider running for ‘anarchists unlimited.’

Finally, in the same spirit as you telling me to take my judgment elsewhere, let me offer you this advice:

I am sorry if you got a red bicycle on your seventh birthday when you had your heart set on a blue one, and that it has had a negative effect on you ever since. Grow up. Get over it. Life is unfair. Take some responsibility for yourself. If you think the laws are wrong, work to change them. Even if you fail, at least you will have tried. Breaking the law because you disagree with it is for losers, except in exceptional cases of civil disobedience. And I’m sorry to rain on your parade, but you and the hordes who download and copy illegally are not exactly in the same league as Rosa Parks. Instead of wasting your time with a reply, do your self a favor: indulge in some continuing education and take two introductory classes — ethics and logic.

By: batasrki

batasrki — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 16:45:43 +0000

@Harry:

“The critical and not so subtle difference, which seems to have escaped you, is that the RIAA’s customers aren’t engaged in illegal activity.”

This may be technically true, but RIAA’s customers, such as music studios, have historically abused their position with regards to pricing of music, as well as their treatment of bands. So, while there’s nothing in the law books saying they shouldn’t be doing that, they’re violating ethical laws.

Secondly, IP infringement is a very murky area. The studios themselves have not created the content they’re selling, the artists have. Has anyone asked those artists how they feel about it (save for Metallica, of course)? Again, we can have a nice, long debate about it, but it wouldn’t do any good.

My “personal attack” against you came, because you so strongly suggested that universities, to use your example, need to give up the IP addresses on their network, therefore violating privacy laws, all because there might be a suspicion of piracy somewhere on campus. And don’t try to say it’s been proven, because then you’d be discounting the armies of bots that might be nested there.

My point is, don’t say something inflammatory and then act surprised when you get slapped. I didn’t prove your point one way or the other. People who pirate content, pirate it for a reason. Maybe they can’t afford it, maybe they want to make their voices heard and this is the only way they know how. Maybe this is a cultural thing. You don’t know and persecuting someone for it will only encourage them and those around them to do more of it. Why do you think speakeasys flourished during Prohibition and before nor after it?

So, please, again, take your judgment elsewhere. We can talk about technical stuff.

By: Harry

Harry — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 15:47:07 +0000

batasrki:

Thank you for helping me make my point, and not only by engaging in a cheap personal attack. For what its worth, I have never had any connection with the music industry in any way, shape, or form. I used universities as an example to demonstrate why piracy seems to be a losing battle.

As for the RIAA, some of whose tactics I find repugnant at best, I will quote you verbatim: “They’re protecting their customers, just like any good business will do.” The critical and not so subtle difference, which seems to have escaped you, is that the RIAA’s customers aren’t engaged in illegal activity.

It is ironic that universities provide an education for careers in computer science, journalism, and music, three professions that are arguably hurt the most by piracy. They should be doing whatever is necessary to prevent their facilities from being used for piracy, which hurts their own graduates, among others.

Presumably you are reading Antonio’s blog because you find some value in it. If he stopped writing it because people were plagiarizing it without attribution, both he and and his readers, including you, would be damaged because of that theft. If you had a program or some other product that you wanted to commercialize, you would not take kindly to people stealing it, nor to those people who didn’t steal it but excused those who did.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but you seem to have thrown logic out the window. I hold you up as exhibit “A” of my point that large parts of society seem to think that personal property rights take a back seat for any and all reasons: while you yourself may not be a music pirate, you seem to think it is acceptable because of your apparent hatred of the RIAA.

Finally, can we stop calling it piracy? However despicable pirates may be, at least they do their thing in the open at some considerable risk to themselves. People who steal software, music, etc. are completely different animals — they are cowards who do it in the anonymously in the dead of night.

By: batasrki

batasrki — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 06:07:31 +0000

@Harry Woods:

You started out well, but your last paragraph exposes you as the RIAA shill. I don’t know how you found this blog, but that doesn’t matter.

Universities do not encourage piracy by refusing to shell out IPs to whomever will ask. That is straight out of the RIAA marketing flyer. They’re protecting their customers, just like any good business will do.

Now, please go away and ply your shilling trade elsewhere.

By: Harry Weeds

Harry Weeds — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 19:01:35 +0000

Antonio,

Good for you for not indulging in moral relativism and political correctness like so many others do. A big problem is that even people who don’t actually do it themselves excuse piracy for any number of reasons.

Substitute music for software. Piracy is justified because people dislike the way the music industry operates, i.e. the cost of music and how the talent are treated. Never mind that the industry operates legally, and that there are few industries outside of music, publishing and software where the barriers to entry are so low. The cost to create, distribute and market any of these products is incredibly low thanks to free software and the internet. All that is missing for anyone who truly thinks that there is a problem, and therefore, by definition, an opportunity, with one of these industries is for them to get off their butts, do a little hard work, and test their ideas in the marketplace.

Let’s be completely honest and describe piracy for what it is and those who do it for what they are, however politically incorrect that may be in today’s world: It is theft, and they are criminals, pure and simple. Except in the scale of their crimes, they are no different than Jeff Skilling of Enron or Bernie Madoff. The people who engage in piracy may not like the face that stares back at them from the mirror, but when you shuck it down to the cob, that’s what you are left with. And people who excuse piracy even it they don’t do it themselves are not much better.

Unfortunately, it seems like a lost battle. Colleges and universities actually encourage student piracy using school property by refusing to make I.P. addresses available for prosecution. It all begs a hugh question: The majority of higher education students are of legal age… if they adults and yet are too dumb to grasp the simple concept of right and wrong, why are we wasting precious taxpayer resources to subsidize their “education” when there are so many other pressing and deserving social uses for it?

By: Alex

Alex — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 18:24:44 +0000

You left out one very viable way of selling open-source software: charge for the binaries, but provide the source for free. Transgaming has been doing this for years with Cedega, and Boxee is adopting a similar approach (though they’re not currently charging for Boxee either).

I really think that this provides the best of both worlds. Other programmers can learn from your code and provide patches, and ordinary users will gladly pay a reasonable fee to get a pre-built copy that can easily be installed and used.

With this kind of setup you are charging customers for support and the convenience of just downloading a file and running it, while keeping the software “free” (as in speech).

By: Carlo Pecchia

Carlo Pecchia — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 08:46:24 +0000

Interesting post Antonio…
and more interesting is the fact that most companies behind OS products can’t spend effort on good documentation, offering customisation/teaching on them… 😉