I was wondering how people rationalize their piracy/copyright infringement/whatever with respect to software - especially the CompSci's and CompE's.

It's just something I've been thinking about - I'm going to be graduating in May, and I'll then be a software engineer / developer. Basically, my livelihood will depend on people going out and buying software that I write... but I haven't run a legit OS that cost more than $15 for my entire life. So how can I justify charging people for software when I'd go about getting it for "free"? Basically, I can't. Everything I come up with either makes me a hypocrite or is indefensible.

I know there are many ways to force people to buy your software - games with multiplayer components, selling support contracts, etc, etc, but that's not the aim of this thread. (I figured this would come up so I figured I would quash it now).

Right now my line of thinking is: If I take it to be right to pirate software, then everyone should be right in pirating software. If everyone pirates software though, no one pays for it. Without some kind of financial backing, the software industry would not exist - leaving a lot of otherwise talented people without jobs, and leaving us without most of the software we'd pirate in the first place. (yes, free stuff would still exist... but again, that's not what I'm trying to discuss here). So how can you justify piracy?

Justify it by reading Adam smith. Do whatever's right for you, and fuck everyone else. If pirating a game is good for you (saves you money) - steal it. If writing code and asking people to pay for it is good for you (earns you a paycheck) - sell it.

And honestly who cares if you're a hypocrite? We all are at some level.

My justification is that I would prefer to pay for it, but I don't have the money for the software now. I would much prefer to have legit copies so I don't have to deal with the hassle of updates. I've always figured that I would eventually buy when I had the money. Maybe not games, b/c I hate wasting money on games. But definitely productivity software i would be willing to buy

IMO, if you charge for software, your service and commitment to your customer should be better than anything you can get for free. Basically, you follow the open source model for suggestions, have 100x better support, and you put out stable releases way more often.

A hardy "YARG!" is all the justification I need.

It also helps if somewhere in the past your family history has a bunch of 'misunderstood free marrrket traders' that no one likes to bring up.

Piracy is stealing, by definition and law. There is no justification, or rationalization, that can change that. Even if the company selling the product is raping the consumer, it is their right to ask whatever they want, and it is still theft to download it without paying for it. Even if the company behind the product has done terrible things, it is still theft to download it.

The correct question is, "how do you define what is right and wrong?"

---If you base such moral judgements on what is best for American citizens, then you should ask yourself, "Is this petty theft going to bring down America, short-change the future distribution of such products, or prevent others from enjoying similar benefits in the future from this company?"

---If you base such moral judgements on biblical definition, then you should ask yourself, "What does the bible say about stealing and theft? Does God approve?"

---If you base such moral judgements on the written laws of the United States of America, ask yourself, "Does this theft break any laws? Are there any clauses that may be a loophole around any such laws?"

---If you base such moral judgements on personal gain or benefit, then you should ask yourself, "Will I benefit from this theft? What are the odds of any long-term consequences stemming from this action?"

---If you base such moral judgements on any other set of standards, make sure to ask yourself if you are violating those sets of standards by performing the act.


In reality, there is no set definition for right or wrong. There are no evil bad guys, even they think they are doing some sort of good, perhaps not to the majority of people, maybe it is only for what they think is their own good. Different people use different standards for determining right and wrong. Sometimes they even violate those standards, or temporarily adopt a different set. Such volatility prevents any concrete definitions from ever being set and is probably the cause of the current question. Even our own government changes its laws to accept what is popular (vote) or paid for (lobbyists).

It can be such a cruel world.

Please remember this is a semi-open section. You might not want to give specifics or even mention that YOU pirate. Only your thoughts on the subject.

Also I killed someone... but if everyone killed everyone there would be no one. You can't do anything with this.

berto is bertonoid

I pirate so much that I have dubloons coming out of my ass.

Unless you know for sure where you'd be working at, that might not be the case. I'm a software developer for a company now, but I write internal applications used only by the company and not sold to anyone. Not that that justifies piracy or anything, but it doesn't make me feel like as much of a hypocrite as I would if what I worked on was sold to the public.

It is hard to justify it now. In college, it was a bit easier to justify it since by the time I paid for rent and bought food and stuff, I didn't have any money left. Of course, that doesn't make it any more legal. Now that I've got a real job and make a decent living, I'm trying to be better about that sort of stuff. I haven't acquired or bought any new software lately (aside from some iPhone apps but those are cheap), but the last few CDs I got, I bought legally from the Amazon MP3 store and I'm going to make an effort to stick to free/open source software, or pay for it if there is no free alternative.

If its something I really enjoy and can find in a store, I'll buy it.
If its from a good company, I'll buy it.
If when I buy it I'm going to get more than $50 worth of bugs (Through patches or support) then I'll buy it.
If I play/watch through it more than once, I'll buy it.
If the company doesn't punish me for buying it, I'll buy it.

I have quite a bit of respect for Valve (for fair distribution) and Bioware (for making good games and supporting them -forever-).

That being said, there aren't that many companies I don't like, and would never purchase a game from, except for EA. ( I did however purchase Mass Effect for PC, which was a mistake [Bioware game]) I know that when I install a game with an EA sticker anywhere on the box made in a long time, I'm picking up a piece of digital dribble:
- Need for Speed Underground, NFSU2, and NFS: Most Wanted as well as a couple other EA games all use the same installer (It will load the wrong images in the side bar if any of those other games are installed). Not that big of an issue until the install itself fails because the other game is installed and therefore you can only have 1 of those 3 installed at a time. This isn't a huge deal, until it happens with unrelated games (Sim City 4 I think?)
- Sim City 4, Need For Speed Carbon, Mass Effect all suffer from bug issues that either crash the game frequently or make it unplayable. If you manage to navigate the EA site to locate the patches section for the game, you find that EA has released one or two patches, and then promptly gave up on trying to fix any further issues, which means that the issues that crash your game are still unresolved.
- Spore:
'We were very focused, if anything, on making a game for more casual players. “Spore” has more depth than, let’s say, “The Sims” did. But we looked at the Metacritic scores for “Sims 2″, which was around 90, and something like “Half-Life“, which was 97, and we decided — quite a while back — that we would rather have the Metacritic and sales of “Sims 2″ than the Metacritic and sales of “Half-Life“.' - Will Wright.
I used to adore Will Wright. Sim City 3000 is one of the best games I've ever played, but EA has made him all crazy. If profit is your bottom line when making a game, then you're going to get backlash from consumers who aren't satisfied that your took their money and got away. And I don't want to hear that I've paid $50 to get a game that you didn't make as well as you could because you wanted to have a higher profit margin, AND then shove a spork firmly up my ass when I find out that if I had stolen it I could have installed it many more times than your pathetic 5. (up from 3 oooooo)

I don't buy things just to spend money. I buy things because they are worth money. If they are worth the money I buy them.

I realized a lot of the software I used to pirate was just like... why? I didn't need it and almost EVERYTHING I had was just for the novelty of having that program/game/whatever.

Thanks to the msdnaa I've gone legit with all my stuff and not paid a dime. I don't really play computer games anymore which I used to pirate the shit out of. If I have a cd key for a game then I don't mind downloading it if the cds are at home or something but I don't really play them much.

Hell, I even bought a 360 over the summer and actually bought some games for it opposed to immediately modding it and downloading them. I think it was because I actually had the money for them and didn't have to worry about buying food for the next few weeks.

Yeah MSDNAA is the shit in my opinion in terms of keeping my computer more legit in terms of software.

When it comes to computer games I base alot of it on how much I like the company that makes it, that is why I own HL2+some other steam Games and why I own Sins of a Solar Empire and Galactic Civilizations 2, I think Valve and Stardock/Ironclad know what is up with games, they don't load them with DRM or anything like that. And also the quality of the game, I am not going to drop $50 on a FPS that is only going to provide me with 8 hours of play time. But I will buy Medieval 2: Total War which has provided me with over 200 hours of playtime since I got it 2 years ago.

When it comes to computer apps, they are just so expensive, and by this I mean like productivity software, although at least there are free alternatives out there I just don't find them nearly as good, and example is Dreamweaver, I would love to own Dreamweaver but it costs $380 http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Dreamweaver ... 332&sr=1-6 that is 2 months rent for me. AKA alot. There are free alternatives out there, but they just straight up aren't as powerful or feature rich.

And I also have a 360 that isn't modded and never will be.

Now while I see what you're trying to say, you went about it in the wrong way. No, they cannot do anything with this, but if someone were REALLY interested, it would give them probable cause to dig deeper. While I know that's unlikely, I'm just making a point because you felt the need to be a sarcastic asshole. And don't think I won't turn you in myself you fuck. Ahahaha jk benhameen. <3

Also, FWIW, MSDNAA has provided me with 3 XP and Vista keys along with Visual Studio .NET and other various programs. Yay MSDNAA! I haven't had to illegally obtain an operating system since sophomore year of HS. As for music, I'll download it, but if I like the artist, I'll also buy. I'd also like to make mention of Ruckus and how wonderful and FREE it is although you'll have to rip off the DRM (which is illegal but who cares, it's my music). And movies... I don't care if it's illegal, it should be illegal to charge $10/ticket. I handle justice in my own way.