Everybody's doing cards like that now. We're about three months away from a fully paid Carribean trip on Amex, and I got back just over $400 in cash from my Paypal card last year.

Wasn't that Apple's strategy with cheap/free machines for schools...?

Apologies.

My point regarding the car analogy is: The fact that taking the car deprives someone of its use and taking the software does not deprive someone of its use is irrelevant. For one thing, we're not talking about whether or not we are depriving another user of the software of its use.

Taking the Ford off the assembly line deprives Ford of its value (whether it's used or not) and taking the software deprives the developer of its value (if the software is used). If the software is not used then I would admit that no deprivation of value has taken place.

If the software is not used in the active sense for which it is marketed, but in the limited sense that acme.mail.order suggests, then we're embarking upon a gray area slippery slope that make it too easy to slide all the way down to the bottom. That is, there is some degree of rationalizing taking place and so the result is dependent upon the rationalizer. I might agree with acme.mail.order's rationalization but not with someone else's. However, other alternatives might exist which, though more bothersome, eliminate the need for the rationalization.

Ideals are, well, ideal; but on the other hand, what else shall we aim for (even though we might occasionally fall short). To aim for less is to fall into a morass of amorphous semi-principles. Entropy applies to the Principles of a Society as well as to the house which has nobody taking care of it. If those Principles are not preserved to the best of our ability then the next generation will view those Principles as principles which are adjustable as our needs see fit. Several generations later they might not even recognize them as principles anymore, but as something a 'sucker' does. I don't know what I would have answered before I had children, but with my children I know that they indeed learn what they see me do, and they do not know about or understand the case-by-case rationalization which I might use to skirt the rules. The result is that they'll develop a faulty idea about right and wrong unless I stick to the Ideal as best I can.

Yes, this is more academically known as the Tragedy of the Commons. "Free" resources always have hidden community costs which only become apparent when people take as much as they can.

In other words, the argument does not scale well. If it's established that piracy creates no loss simply because the original user is not deprived of use, the rise and fall of the revenue stream's value becomes disconnected from the value of the software to the overall user base. If the number of people deciding not to pay rises, the revenue stream can drop regardless of its popularity. If enough people fail to pay, you can reach a tipping point past which it is no longer economically viable to produce the software. If you deny this, you are basically saying that you expect enough people to pay and you don't expect to be one of them, and that's a really questionable statement, morally speaking.

On the other hand, if it's established that piracy does create a loss, the value of the revenue stream rises and falls in proportion to the value of the software to the user base as a whole, and development of software of value is encouraged.

actually I agree with you, however M$ doesn't apply this to all apps. Virtual PC cannot be installed on multiple machines, and not just because of the os. The license says only for use on one machine.

I have to say, I'm always amused at the argument that it is trivial to physically copy a CD, so it's not stealing.

Does it really seem like software prices are solely there to cover the cost of the distribution media? What exactly do you think you're paying for when you do buy software? The manual?

I know this has already been covered in the thread, but still the argument is common enough for me to feel the need to bring it up again.

And in unrelated bafflements, I have to mention that I've known a lot of software developers who pirate software. What are they thinking?

(yeah, it's late, and I'm not making a lot of sense. I blame it on the Guinness.)

WOW! I never imagined this would turn into such a debate. Some very interesting points have been brought up.

As I mentioned earlier I was sitting on the fence with this one. But when I saw Tiger for 69$ (education discount) I went ahead and made the purchase. It should be here in a couple days.

As I was fast-forwarding past a commercial on my DVR, I wondered...

Am I stealing the program I'm watching? If not, why not?

If nothing else, I don't believe you ever agreed or signed an agreement or contract saying that you would watch the commercials. The advertisers pay the broadcasters for space during a show in the hopes that someone will see said commercial and buy their product.
"Real world" comparisons don't work with software... just look at patents to see that.

If you never attempt to install a piece of software, you may or may not have agreed to not make a copy of it (depends on if there is a license agreement sticker on the CD sleeve or somewhere).

I know a LOT of license agreement mumbo jumbo has been thrown out in court during law suits, but if you installed a commercial application, there is a good chance that you did click "I Agree" to a license agreement of some sort, which contains restrictions on whether you can install it on multiple computers (for any or no reason), copy the media, make a backup of the media, etc etc.
If you do something outside the scope of the licensed terms, then you are breaking your agreement with the developer, moral or not.

I'm no lawyer but I believe the TV networks asked this question in court a couple decades ago and they ruled you weren't stealing it (I guess it fell under "fair use") and therefore the use of a VCR as a time-shifting device became legal. But again, I'm not sure if that is precisely how it happened.

The tragedy of the commons more or less sums up the history of civilization. Nearly every site of human civilization on this earth is less capable of sustaining life than before civilization happened there. So I'm not surprised that people have the attitude of, "It's just sitting there, why not copy it." That seems to be human nature. That's kind of scary to think about in the long term. An author I like named Jared Diamond writes about an extreme example of the tragedy of the commons: Easter Island.

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/24/042.html

He also has a book out about collapse in societies in general, but I haven't read it yet.

http://us.penguingroup.com/nf/Book/B...033375,00.html

That was my point with the car theft analogy.

So if I extract the files without an installer and never read or agree to the EULA, then it's ok...?

At least one network exec has publicly stated that using a DVR/Tivo or even leaving the room during commercials is breaking your "social contract" with the networks and advertisers. I'm sorry I can't recall who said it, but it was widely publicisized at the time.

Ah well, screw it, my point all along has been that it's murky gray and the ethics of it all are both different from the legalities and not completely clear.

I run my machines as styrafome does. I don't have an Apple laptop, but if I did, I'd be tempted to share with this in mind: I've bought the system for me to use, not for the machine. I can only use one of the machines at a time so I'm only using one copy of the system I bought. My problem with this, of course, is that that isn't the way the law interprets it, and I never turn my desktop machine off. Ah well.

Who cares what the law says? Just be ethical about it, not like the software police can come in and search your home or office.

Article on Software Piracy.
 

MacCentral has an article on software piracy today.

I am really astounded that the vote sits at 19 to 19 today.

The ethical question is whether you are justified in buying something that imposes conditions on its use and then disregarding those conditions because you don't like them.

Suppose I'm leaving the country and I agree to sell you my dog on the condition that you walk him for at least an hour a day. Are you justified in later skimping on the walks because you don't think a dog really needs that much walking?

Now there's an analogy that I can live with. And no, it's not ok, but then I like dogs better than I like lawyers... :D

Of course, with software, the terms of the agreement are rarely revealed to you before the purchase. And most stores won't take back software if you open it, review the EULA, and don't agree to it. Does that mean it's ok to violate it then?

Yes, this accurately describes the original issue of this thread.
...sorry for further taking the thread off course by the above post.

Many, myself included, expanded this into a discussion of piracy in general by putting forth and refuting common 'arguments' like: "It is not stealing because I would not have bought it anyway." and "It is not stealing because I'm not depriving anyone of its use.", and my most recent post continued to pull the discussion off topic.

I feel strongly enough on this issue that, while I'm apologizing for posting away from the topic of the thread, I'm going to leave the post there.

My own policy on software
 

The way I practice this is simple:

I pay for my OS (although I did install a friend’s copy of Tiger before purchasing my own) and the software that I use to earn money (such as MS Office, ViaVoice). I pay for utilities (such as Retrospect, and Norton which I’ve since trashed). I pay for software which gives me pleasure. I may upgrade to iLife05; bought Myst Revelation, etc…

I must confess, however, that I do have pirate copies of some software – Quark XPress and Photoshop. I have them for one reason only: To open files sent to me by clients, of mistaken file type, that I cannot otherwise open – in order to read them. (Happens a handful of times a year, tops.)

Now these two latter applications are very expensive, and some may believe that I should pay for a license. I must confess, however, that I have utterly no bad conscience.
But if I started using them for design or photo work, then I would gladly fork over the appropriate portion of my paycheck. After all, that helps pay for somebody else’s

With best regards,
ArcticStones

I'm with ArcticStones on this - pay for what you really do use whether professionally or for fun, but try before you buy if possible. If the software has unrealistic demo restrictions under which you really can't try before you buy, I might try a pirate copy. I'm amazed at how some authors castrate their demos and then expect folks to buy. No matter how appealing, I won't buy without a real demonstration because no software is returnable for a refund, and for all I know, software demos that won't save, export, or print might have problems doing those things. If I like the pirate, I buy. If I don't, I trash.

One ironclad rule of mine, however, is that I always, always pay for shareware if I continue to use it, even if only occasionally. If I think it's overpriced for what it does, I trash it. If I get no response to a query from the author, I trash it. I recently trashed a demo copy of Script Debugger, for example. I won't buy it because I had a problem with the demo, but couldn't get so much as an autoreply from the author. I really want to encourage those folks, but not if they just "put it out there" and then leave the scene.

Just curious as to what kind of files you need to open with Photoshop that you can't open with Graphic Converter? And what kind of non-professional needs to be opening files created by Quark XPress?