You seem to imply that perhaps it was not moral. Please read the references I supply in this other thread about that issue:
http://forums.macosxhints.com/showpo...1&postcount=28

Actually, I wasn't trying to imply that it wasn't immoral, I was just trying to use an example that Phil St. Romain would find more relevant to the discussion than my book example.

Copyright law is a means to an end. It is a set of laws totally separated from morality. It is a way for society to encourage innovation. Without it, innovation would suffer because of a lack of incentive to create (or so goes the theory).

100% morality free.

from Opium:
My simple point is that government should not dictate what a persons morals entail. Staying on topic with software let me try this example: Is what Apple did to Konfabulator moral? Apple did nothing illegal. What if copyright law changed tomorrow altering the legality of that action? Whould that change the morality behind the action? My arguement is that it should not.

I'm not following your point. What does copyright law have to do with the license agreement that Apple and a user come to? That's part of a business transaction and the government has nothing to do with that. Even without copyright laws, Apple could sell their products and insist on certain restrictions of usage. Copyright laws have to do with someone else taking Apple's work and making it their own, and that's not the moral issue posed in this thread.

Copyright law is a means to an end. It is a set of laws totally separated from morality. It is a way for society to encourage innovation. Without it, innovation would suffer because of a lack of incentive to create (or so goes the theory).

I understand copyright law to be a means to insure that one's work is not stolen by another. Unless theft is not considered a moral principle, then I don't see how one could assert that copyright law has nothing to do with morality.

100% morality free.

Actually, I'll bet you're not, unless you think it's OK to steal, kill innocent people, rape, etc. ;)

I have a feeling that I am facing an uphill battle. It still is an interesting argument though.

If you choose to argue that point you are discussing contract law, which is entirely different. Theoretically, I guess that if you feel that violating a contract which you entered into by opening a package is immoral then you must have a point. I guess I never considered that angle.

You would be right that it is the means, but it is only the means and not the end. Copyright was created (and is still used) to encourage innovation. The way it does this is to give the creator of the work the ability to profit from that work for a fixed amount of time. After this amount of time has elapsed the work goes into the public domain. If you would like to learn more you could read Gillian Davies book "Copyright and the Public Interest," or the 'history' chapter in any basic copyright text.

But this is where I would argue that the government has exerted its influence over your moral beliefs. To select a random religion, on an English language forum I will choose Christianity (for no other reason than that it likely has the largest following of practitioners on these boards). The bible says "Thou shalt not steal" but I still cannot locate a "thou shalt not duplicate materials, should such duplication cause another financial loss." It is because it is not there.

"Stealing" in the traditional sense, is the removing anothers personal property with the intent to permanently deprive the true owner of that property. Society has been of the belief that this was immoral for as long as records exist to document it. Conversely, copyright law is a creature that did not exist until the creation of the printing press. The fact that this is now called "theft" by the law books, books written by politicians, does not mean that the Old Testament should be reevaluated in the context that new definition.

Stealing is stealing, & copying is copying. Otherwise Christ would have sure been in trouble for that 5 loaves and 2 fishes trick. Could you imagine the profit that baker must have lost? ;)

OK, Opium, one last round for me on this aspect:

Theoretically, I guess that if you feel that violating a contract which you entered into by opening a package is immoral then you must have a point.

Not opening a package, but clicking an "I agree" button which signifies agreement with the terms of licensing. That agreement is part of the business transaction -- contract, if you will -- and breaking it is a moral issue, having absolutely nothing to do with copyright laws. Giving one's word and then going against that is not simply a legal issue, but a moral one.

Copyright was created (and is still used) to encourage innovation. The way it does this is to give the creator of the work the ability to profit from that work for a fixed amount of time. After this amount of time has elapsed the work goes into the public domain.

And the reason the creator can profit from it is because it belongs to them exclusively, and cannot be copied by others. Else how would they profit from it? I don't disagree that innovation is encouraged, here, but the means for encouragement is the guarantee of ownership for one's creation.

The bible says "Thou shalt not steal" but I still cannot locate a "thou shalt not duplicate materials, should such duplication cause another financial loss." It is because it is not there.

That's because you're not understanding the prohibition conceptually, but are insisting instead on an impossible literalism. Stealing is taking something that doesn't belong to you and which you have no permission to possess. What that something is need not be spelled out once one comprehends the concept.

Anways . . . this is only tangentially related to the thread topic, and so I'll pass on further discussion of it. You and others are welcomed on my own forums at http://shalomplace.com if you've a liking for this sort of thing.

Pax!

I got an iPod the other day. I want a different set of earphones for it 'cuz the ones that came with it hurt my ears. Darn Apple. I paid a wad of money for it. I saw my neighbor in the elevator with a better set. I tried to take his. He pushed me into the wall and broke my arm. Guess he thought I was trying to "steal" them.

I wonder where he got that idea?

I tried to explain to him that I had paid a lot of my iPod and it was hurting my ears and I should be entitled to have better earphones.

Margaret

Cute, but once again, not at all related to copying software.

Come on, it should be obvious here, people can't really think that taking someone's physical property is the same as copying the property.

Some guy told me he used your credit card number today. He said it wasn't theft because you still have your credit card number, so nothing was taken. He also said that if you can't afford what he bought today, just file a claim under your credit card protection guarantee and the insurance companies will take care of it. I said that if everybody did what he did, insurance rates would go up and add costs to the system. He doesn't pay for insurance so he doesn't care about rates going up. He also said to have a nice day.

You forgot to mention that he used it to buy a copy of Tiger!

Doesn't bother me, I don't have to pay for it. He can deal with the credit card company.

Lots of cute attempts to say the same thing, but it's still just as untrue as it was at the beginning of the thread.

wow...this thing made it to 3 pages...never would have thought.

I'm quite surprised at the amount of "Yes" votes in the poll results. :rolleyes:

I think that "cute attempt" pretty conclusively KO'd your earlier point which insinuated that stealing concerned taking someone's "physical property," or at least that's the impression you gave. I'm also decidedly unimpressed with your "I don't have to pay for it" point, as somewhere down the line, you will, in fact, have to pay for others' unethical behavior.

"3 pages." Well, sometimes a quasi-philosophical discussion related to computer issues is fun and interesting, I guess. ;)

OK, you win. :D

Yes, in science they call this cause and effect, action and reaction....in the spiritual world, the 'kingdom of heaven' doesn't know about good or bad (that's probably why it's called heaven)...but let's just say that there are consequences...

Good or bad is up to all to decide...

.

If a developer has a software title, each unit of that title exists as an entity once someone uses it. If it did not exist then no one could or would use it. If someone uses a unit of that software and pays for it, then the developer has made money from that unit. If someone uses a unit of that software and does not pay for it, then that unit still exists and has been stolen because the developer did not receive any money for it, either the asking price or the value of that unit of software as perceived by the pirate. The only thing that was not stolen was the physical medium on which that software originally resided and the costs to put the software on that physical medium (this must be what you're referring to). So the pirate owes the developer (the cost of the software - $3.00 for the cd/vd and production).

By your argument, since it does not exist, then the developer cannot sell it either and is doing something fraudulent by selling it. Existence is not equal to having a physical component. There are a lot of things in this world which one cannot touch but which certainly exist.

The developer deserves that payment for (1) the cost to originally design & test the software, and (2) some profit for the developer. To say that the developer has lost nothing because the software does not have a physical existence also says that if everyone were to pirate the software title then nothing was stolen from the developer of the software because it never existed. You might say that this will not happen, but surely, particularly given the results of this poll, substantial financial damage is resulting.


With respect to 'Thou shalt not steal.' (really not limited to Christianity), that is far more broad than opium is reading it. [Moreover, the 5 loaves and fishes analogy carried over to software would be more like me writing my own version of Tiger instead of using Apple's. Apple would have no claim on that; the baker has no claim on the recipe for bread or for ingredients which are not his/hers]. The person born in Bangladesh has just as much claim on the resources of this planet as I do. To consume whatever I want without contributing something back to the disadvantaged of the planet is a form of stealing.

The reference to copying physical property is not relevant either. If I were to copy someone's computer using my own materials and the general observance of what the computer is, then that would not be the same as stealing it. This would be like writing my own Tiger to do the same things as Tiger by observing what Tiger does.

Copying a developer's software (since you are using their actual code) is like copying someone's computer by using their components, and that is stealing.

In the middle-ground would be to steal from Tiger's code (reverse engineering or direct reading) to get ideas for my 'own' very similar code to write Tiger. The physical analogy would be to take apart someone's computer and then building my own based on those exact specifications. That would not be stealing the specific physical parts, but it would be stealing the research and development monies that went into it (either Tiger or the computer).

I did NOT say that. All I said was that copying software simply does not fit any of the physical analogies that people try to apply to it, usually in a high and mighty tone. I'm not advocating piracy; I'm saying that such spurious arguments are irrelevant.

I don't see how the credit card thing applies one bit. I seriously do not care about credit card number theft, it's not my problem. I can't see how I pay for it in the end, since my credit cards pay me, I don't pay them. Yeah, I guess they could pay me more if they didn't have to deal with fraud, that's one point. People who carry a balance do pay for it in interest, but that's not my problem.

But if you'd like to apply this analogy, we could say it's like stealing a car. If I had to pay for it, then you'd effectively be taking the property and depriving me of using it. Once again, copying software does not deprive another of its use, which is why I argue the car analogy. Different argument than right or wrong.

MacMath: very succinctly put.

However (not that I'm disagreeing, 'cause I have the same opinion) digital media has created the new position of "The authour has lost nothing because I would not have paid for/would not use this product." If I use Gimp but three times a year someone sends me a Photoshop document I have to work on I won't want to drop $700 on Adobe just to convert about 6 files per revision to tiffs.

I remember Gates being (mis)quoted in the '90's as saying something like "I don't care if people like students copy my programs. They'll get used to them and buy the next version later instead if learning something new"

Where can I get one of those? ;)