Re: Is it okay for a student with limited financial resources to pirate software?
 

funny when companies are in doodo they get bailed out yet when some poor kid needs a computer to compete with the other kids, the morality police show up swinging their batons. as to the poster who asked which of these are flexible? all of the above. if my experience has taught me anything it is that the politician moralizing about family values is most likely having an affair or two. likewise its the guy preaching how unmoral it is for a kid to get a pirated software so they can compete in school, who probably has a stack of illegal mp3's from here to the mars on his hard drive.

Re: Is it okay for a student with limited financial resources to pirate software?
 

This may be offensive to some:

I'd reckon the two biggest variable that affects piracy is age and wealth.

The less money you have, the more excuses you'll scrounge to justify the offenses.

The younger you are, the less respect you have of other people's work and property.

Re: Is it okay for a student with limited financial resources to pirate software?
 

It's not the preaching that makes is right or wrong. The bottom line is the question was 'is it okay'. No, it's not okay, because someone asked you not to do it (how big the baton enforcing it is a different question) and you said 'fsck it, I'm doing it anyway because [insert reason]'. If you asked 'is it evil' or 'danger for mankind', 'undermining our way of life', I would also say no. But you asked if it's ok - no, it's not.

I had a commercial software or two I wanted really bad, but had no means of buying, even if I had the money. I sat down and wrote them a letter - hey - I do Open Source stuff (list of references), I'm a student and live in a god forsaken country, I really like the stuff you made, can you help. Some of them did not even respond. I don't use their software (I hold no grudge though - it's their software, their call, if I still needed it I'd buy it). Some of them were, however, more than happy to send me a license. In a weird way, one of those cases is the indirect reason for the existance/possibility of a few dozen packages in Extras - so if you use PyQt or an app that uses it, these guys made that possible. So there, do whatever you have to do, but I have to vote a 'no' on the question above.

Re: Is it okay for a student with limited financial resources to pirate software?
 

So the honest people pay and the dishonest benefit? Seems like an odd system.

You have a trial period and Google to learn all you need to. 30 days is plenty.

That's good.

You mean buyer's remorse? Yeah, software companies are reponsible for that. People don't buy cars / houses / tv / phones / clothes / toys and later have buyer's remorse. If you derive no value from it maybe you should have done more research. Yeah, I mean Google (its really useful in case you haven't tried it). If you didn't do the research before you spend your cash, who's fault is it really?

Try again.

Hoodwinking. Hmm... In the year 2010, there's this think called marketing and sometimes companies use to get us to buy their stuff. We as consumers kinda need to wise up and look beyond the flashy signs and messages and see if what they're really selling is what we want or need. I'll give you a secret. Sssshhhhh there's this secret tool and starts with a "G" and can pretty much tell you all you need to know about a product before you buy it.

Yeah, all those software developers sitting in the company cubes are all just money bags. They surf the internet all day long, play stupid office cubicle games and then go home and cash in the big BUCKS. Man, where do I sign up???!!!! HOOK ME UP, BABY... HOOK ME UP!!!!!

You're right thought, customers want the software for free and if they have to they'll steal and they do.

Re: Is it okay for a student with limited financial resources to pirate software?
 

So Intel has billions of dollars more than AMD. It's only moral that AMD hires Intels engineers and steals Intels plans so that they can compete on an even ground.

So the US has billions of more dollars than <pick your emerging market of choice>. It's their moral obligation to steal from the US everything their technology so that they can compete on a global level with the US.

In the US there is a disparity between the races and communities so it is only right and fair and true that the poor should steal from the rich so that they can compete at the same level.

I hate to be the one to break it to you, but life's a little unfair. Just because someone got the short end of the stick doesn't mean they're entitled to steal.

I'm not saying they don't need help, they do but stealing isn't the answer.

Re: Is it okay for a student with limited financial resources to pirate software?
 

Define "okay"...

Re: Is it okay for a student with limited financial resources to pirate software?
 

Okay is when you don't get caught ;)

Re: Is it okay for a student with limited financial resources to pirate software?
 

I voted no.

Either it's immoral and you don't do it, or you don't care and you do it. I don't think morality should be tied to a bank account balance.

Re: Is it okay for a student with limited financial resources to pirate software?
 

Taken out of the context, this seems like how the real world works to me.

I don't think it gets any better in context though.

You are making an assumption that you have some kind of trial period. And Google can be surprisingly bad when you get specific enough.

And there is no such thing as advertisement that promises too much.

Try again.

So you think it's ok to lie to your customers? Because they'll be smart enough to be able to figure out the facts themselves anyway?

I'll give you a secret. More we accept their s***, more they make us eat it.

One of the very basic things of capitalism is, that market decides the appropriate price for items.


I shouldn't be doing this. But the arguments above felt too wrong, so I had to counter.

Re: Is it okay for a student with limited financial resources to pirate software?
 

So its cool that life is inherently unfair...that people get the short end of the stick. Well as long as a corporation doesn't get screwed. That would be wrong.

Everything is relative and should be judged in a context. Did Harvard not take the Kennedy's money because they knew the family amassed it illegally? If some kid can't afford some software and he is not stealing it off of some other kids table, please don't compare this to the great train robbery.

BTW in the usa we have affirmative action. Different races get tons of breaks on tests, on financial aid, on job placement etc. Now go back to the time of slaves and ask if a slave had the moral right to steal...I'd say hell yes to that. again things are all relative and belong in a context.

Re: Is it okay for a student with limited financial resources to pirate software?
 

Point missed in usual rush to sarcastically reply.

I was referring to your overall premise, not the little details cherry-picked to support it.

Re: Is it okay for a student with limited financial resources to pirate software?
 

Consider the following:

There's a book you want in the book store. Really badly. You're broke.

Is it okay to steal it?

And is size a factor? Are you more likely to steal a tiny book?

Is cost a factor? Will you steal a $200 book? A $50 book? A book on the sidewalk rack on clearance for $2?

When does acquiring an item or service become okay to do so without expected compensation?

Keep in mind that the solid aspects of a book are merely a content conveyance. An electronic book is conveyed by different materials. But the privilege of the content and service behind it are what you are paying for.

Same scenario applies to software. Will you steal a package from Fry's or Best Buy? Or just download the exact same product via torrent?

Re: Is it okay for a student with limited financial resources to pirate software?
 

ok first tell us which book you stole and why you needed it.

Re: Is it okay for a student with limited financial resources to pirate software?
 

It was a Playboy magazine and I think the reason is self-explanatory. :p

Re: Is it okay for a student with limited financial resources to pirate software?
 

Don't turn this thread into a sticky.

Re: Is it okay for a student with limited financial resources to pirate software?
 

Literally none of your answers mean anything until we have a definition for "okay".

On another note, Might makes Right.

Re: Is it okay for a student with limited financial resources to pirate software?
 

I've not seen any serious\compelling reasons to justify the offenses mentioned in this thread yet.

Re: Is it okay for a student with limited financial resources to pirate software?
 

Right, which is where the onus actually lies.

Re: Is it okay for a student with limited financial resources to pirate software?
 

Just because it happens doesn't mean its right or that we have to perpetuate it.

Most software do. Again, this is the year 2010. I think you can find the information you need if you try hard enough. Really. Google isn't always right and users aren't always right, but you know, life is like that. Sometimes we make the best judgement and we go from there.

Deceptive advertising versus marketing are two different things. Be an intelligent consumer, its work but it pays off.

Show me examples. I like your arguments but I would like to see utterly blatant lies. And, no marketing terms like "magical" and what not are not lies. It's marketing, there's a difference. You should be able to figure it out.

Haha. But if its free, you eat all you want? Strange how that works.

Well, that's true. Still doesn't make stealing right.

If all of these software companies just lie, shouldn't you have learned by now not to trust them... Yet you keep stealing their stuff? Odd.

Re: Is it okay for a student with limited financial resources to pirate software?
 

well I am a 17 year old student atm. And to be honest the prices of software can be silly at times. My netbook was bought for £250 and Windows 7 is more or less half of that price at retail stores. As with everything, if I buy software for this price, then after 3 years or so it would be out of date.

I'm not saying that it is right to pirate copies of software, but what do you expect when the prices are so high?

As for me, I can get the Microsoft Ultimate Steal deal, so Office 2010 and Windows 7 come at a reduced price of approx £30-40. :)

Poll results are 50/50 exactly (28 for yes and no) :D

Re: Is it okay for a student with limited financial resources to pirate software?
 

• get creative
• use alternatives
• write your own

Re: Is it okay for a student with limited financial resources to pirate software?
 

Um, no its not cool but that doesn't give you a license to steal. How about this, send us your address and we'll send all of the homeless people in your city and take all the stuff they need. Yeah, what's wrong with that? They're starving and hungry. You'd be glad to right that wrong, right?

The bottom line to your thinking is that its a good thing as long as its someone else's dime. Once it's yours, then wait, hold up. That's not right.

We're talking about right and wrong. Let's talk specifics. What software? Photoshop? you can it for like $199 (someone else said) or maybe it's Office fo rlike $70. Can not this starving child save $70? Unless that child is literally naked and starving I'd say he can probably scrimp and save.

That college boy will spend more on the cool laptop he wants or MCB or iPod. But somehow they find money for that. Let's be real. Kids that need software in college have student labs they can go to to get access to everything they need. Don't pretend that the student will die or all of a sudden lose his brain and fail because he won't. He just has to work a little harder.

Wait, your saying if you're black you can get higher scores on tests because of the color of your skin? Seriously. No.... that's wrong... I know we disagree, but trust me, Affirmative Action doesn't give you different test scores. I'm pretty sure about that.

The fact that you would belittle the plight of blacks from the past by comparing them to students? You have got to be kidding.

Slaves were kidnapped, beaten, sold, raped and forced to work in inhuman conditions against their will and you compare it to students that a) want to go to college b) know that in order to go to college they need school supplies?

So no, they're not the same and you're still wrong. I mean if you follow your thinking that poor students have a moral right to steal, then what prevents them from taking other "rich" student's laptops?

And what constitutes poor? Naked and starving or the student too lazy to get off their *** and get a job and only live off the allowance their mom gives them? Please.

Re: Is it okay for a student with limited financial resources to pirate software?
 

Get a job?

Re: Is it okay for a student with limited financial resources to pirate software?
 

Got one, thanks, but I'm always looking! :D

Re: Is it okay for a student with limited financial resources to pirate software?
 

If you're a student, you get a fatty discount. If you're not a student you should be working which means you can save for the software if its that important to you. If you're not working then go find a job. There are career services available for the unemployed that give you access to tools like Office, Word and etc. Go to your local library to access the internet and most have basic tools like word as well, if not Open Office.

We live in the computer age. the resources are there.

Re: Is it okay for a student with limited financial resources to pirate software?
 

I would love to know how many of you guys who say "no" never pirated anything.... including songs, videos etc.

Re: Is it okay for a student with limited financial resources to pirate software?
 

Sorry about that, you know how the human mind loses track of time sometimes. Now that you've reminded me it's the '10s, I'll try a completely different argument: Next time you buy a pizza, if you don't give me half of it, I'm going to call that theft. No, wait, actually, I think I'll just go all-in and call it murder.

I can do that, right? Since in 2010, apparently nobody cares that the definition of theft involves depriving someone of property, just as the definition of murder involves depriving someone of life.

Non-sarcastically, as "sad" as my reusing old arguments may be, attempting to guilt-trip or prejudice by disregarding definitions to call something by a scarier name is even sadder. If your arguments as to why information should receive property-like legal protection, or why that legal protection should be morally binding, cannot stand on their own merit when using accurate terms like "copyright infringement", then you should find some new arguments.

Wow. The ignorance is staggering. Do you really not know that the publishing lobby's efforts to secure legislation stripping people of their natural right to copy their own property dates to the early days of the printing press, not the "electric box"? The only thing changing in the '80s was the barrier to entry -- and by then, the legal framework of copyright (and the assumption of its moral validity) had already been established with little scrutiny, because at the time it did not really affect most people,

You mean the only way to make money from previous works, without having to develop new ones? Sure -- although even that ultimately fails, as people will copy it, remove the ads, and reupload it.

Maybe, if you'd even read what I said, you'd realize that I was suggesting a completely different class of business models, where one doesn't speculatively invest in developing a work, then seek ways to force people to pay it back, either directly, or by bartering their eyeballs on a screen, which you in turn sell to advertisers. Business models where you directly sell the service of producing content , and get out of the distribution market altogether.

Well, here, you're arguing to the wrong guy. ;)

When I spoke of someone who didn't have money, so they couldn't have bought it, so there was no real or potential lost sale, I was using that as an example to show why that argument is ridiculously broken -- in fact I consider it ridiculous precisely because, if accepted, it leads to the conclusion that whether piracy is "theft" or not depends on whether the person could have (and, even more awkwardly, would have) purchased it legitimately, which is obvious nonsense.

I completely share your disgust with arguments that the morality of theft, copyright infringement, or anything else should depend on the depth of the perpetrator's pockets.

Re: Is it okay for a student with limited financial resources to pirate software?
 

That was the point of the question. It wasn't "is it understandable", "is it a forgiveable offense", etc. It was "is it OK". In my reading you yourself here just voted 'no' in the above poll.

Re: Is it okay for a student with limited financial resources to pirate software?
 

Nice. If you find an extra one lying around send it my way. I like long arguments and beating a dead horse.

Re: Is it okay for a student with limited financial resources to pirate software?
 

I actually did acquire a few songs and videos years ago the illicit way. But I didn't feel right about it, and no longer have them. I own tens of thousands of dollars worth of software and media now, and all legitimate. And some of that was acquired when I was almost poor... I should write a book on finding sweet software deals. :D

Here are some hints:

• you can download a Microsoft Office 2010 trial that lasts for a year. No strings attached.
• used software. Great deals can be found.
• competitive upgrades. I got Photoshop and Illustrator extremely cheap using them.
• Developer and consultant programs. As a consultant I was getting thousands of dollars worth of Microsoft software for $300 per year, all legit.
• Trade shows. Microsoft put one on for the Windows Nt 4 release and gave out FREE CDs of NT 4 and Microsoft Office. I came home with several and made a lot of friends and family happy.

EDIT: as a designer, songwriter, inventor and programmer, I feel I would be a hypocrite for not paying for creative works if it's expected.

Re: Is it okay for a student with limited financial resources to pirate software?
 

It would be interesting, yes, but not particularly meaningful without way more depth than a poll can provide.

• Did you pirate before you believed it was wrong, or while?
• EDIT: (Texrat-inspired) If before, have you gotten rid of it now?
• What sort of piracy, downloading instead of buying?
• Buying, then uploading or copy/sharing?
• Buying and installing on multiple machines?
• Using the OEM key for a new machine that came with Windows to install Windows on an old machine after you wipe the new one with a free OS?
• Buying in one format, then converting to another for your own use?
• Grabbing from ad-supported (TV/radio/web) and hoarding for possible rewatching?

What I'd find really interesting is a three-way poll:
Is software piracy ok?

• Yes, in general.
• Not in most cases, but with some exception for students with limited financial resources, etc.
• No, in general.

Re: Is it okay for a student with limited financial resources to pirate software?
 

I fail to see how the argument is broken, Benson.

Using that logic, someone who would never buy a Mercedes but steals one is not committing theft.

Re: Is it okay for a student with limited financial resources to pirate software?
 

When someone has put a price for their item/service/favor, then you dance around paying the amount by using a 1001 excuses, I call: BOLLOCKS.

You know what, I was about to spend $100 on software A, but my dog got sick. So I had to reallocate that fund for my canine conundrum and I was FORCED to pirate the software to get my job done in time.
BOLLOCKS.

You know, I have enough money in the bank to buy Adobe Photoshop suite, but I have enough common sense to save up the money instead. So I was forced to download it via torrents. BOLLOCKS.

I saw this nifty ad for an app but I'm not sure whether it's worth the asking price. So I did a quick torrent search and found it for free instead. I had fun with it for a couple of hours, but if you ask me to cough up the money, fair and square, I wouldn't have done that. It's not worth it. BOLLOCKS.

Bottomline is: if it's easy to pirate, then you'd pick up the copy for yourself first, THEN, rationalize your actions via a convoluted logic putting yourself as the ultimate judge of who is worthy of what.

Rationalize that...

Re: Is it okay for a student with limited financial resources to pirate software?
 

I love it how the best words slip by the profanity filter unlike so many of the more polite ones.

Re: Is it okay for a student with limited financial resources to pirate software?
 

But still.. the fundamental paradox in all this is that this statement is only accurate if by "steal" you mean pulls a device out of his pocket, scans the Mercedes, and prints himself an exact copy and drives away in the "new" one.

I would never buy an iPad. Though if I won one in a raffle or found one discarded I might find use for it.. but Apple has no hope what-so-ever of getting me to buy an iPad. Now I wouldn't "steal" an iPad either, because that deprives the owner of that iPad for something they paid for, their object. When dealing with piracy the only legitimate thing you can be accused of "stealing" is "time". The time it took to make product X because you aren't "stealing" anything physical. Now, if stealing time is a crime then every company in the world that's ever held a meeting owes it's employees some dues :D.

Having said all this.. I disagree completely with the original question asked in this thread. Either you believe pirating/"stealing" software is wrong or you don't. Either you believe stealing or thieving something physical is wrong or you don't.

Just because a starving woman steals a loaf of bread to feed her malnourished six year-old doesn't suddenly make the wrong a right. It might make it more understandable, but it doesn't change the thing itself. The punishment may change based on the circumstances, but the fundemental thing itself hasn't changed.

IMHO.. when you have to ask "Is it ok when..." you should immediately start to rethink your situation. Justification is like masturbation.. you're only screwing yourself :rolleyes:.

Re: Is it okay for a student with limited financial resources to pirate software?
 

Yes, I realize copying is a special case. But usually a unique product key must be obtained as well. These are usually cracked and sold/given away on the black market. They can only be used once. Far too often someone registers software with a stolen key and locks out the legitimate purchaser. It happened to my son on one of his games. Fortunately the publisher provided another. But still...

Anyway, the rationalization for piracy breaks down because it assumes all or most people who pirate software would not otherwise obtain it legally. If piracy was impossible, and they really wanted it, they would find a way to pay for it.

Re: Is it okay for a student with limited financial resources to pirate software?
 

Raises hand... rather shamefacedly

Seriously, I wouldn't be able to sleep with myself at night. :(

Re: Is it okay for a student with limited financial resources to pirate software?
 

If you can't see it, feel it, or taste it, it's not stealing.
Also never forget what George on Seinfeld once said..."its not a lie if you believe it".

Re: Is it okay for a student with limited financial resources to pirate software?
 

Utterly incorrect.

Services can be unseen, but they're still just as valuable.

Anyway, you folks who are convinced your rationalizations are valid aren't going to change your mind based on internet debate. Just as I'll not be swayed into supporting someone acquiring an item or service without compensation based on how much money they have at a given time.

Ah, what a slippery slope...

Re: Is it okay for a student with limited financial resources to pirate software?
 

what if you don't have a choice? Like when software vendors not accepting purchases from my country. We don't have a stable payment system?

And we don't have Cinema but I want to watch Inception.

Can I download torrents now?