On 9/2/06, Mike Miller <mbmiller at taxa.epi.umn.edu> wrote: > On Sat, 2 Sep 2006 markring40 at ippimail.com wrote: > > Because it is everywhere if I illegally use just a couple *little* > > programs no one really gets hurt. Larry shows us how that attitude can > > cause real damage to people. > > No one is hurt by your use of a lot of really big programs either. Going back to your car metaphor, no one would be hurt by me stealing their car, unless I ran someone over or shot someone in the process. Someone would lose money, though. Similarly, if I feel that I need to use a computer program that a company licenses for money, but I download a copy of it instead of buying a copy, then someone has been deprived of money that is owed to them by my act, and regardless of whether you feel pity for the company which I have deprived of that money, it is illegal here in the United States. If, on the other hand, you find a free program that will do the task instead of the original program, you have also deprived that company of the money that they would have made on the sale, but THAT is fully legal! That's just showing the beauty of a free market. So, why not attack the big corporations in a way that is legal, instead of a way that is illegal? In fact, isn't that part of what the poll was about in the first place? > > I'm not intending to moralize. Just pointing out that no matter how > > much we might rationalize our unlicensed use of some software. It is > > still theft and one needs to accept the consequences. > > But as others have pointed out, copying programs is entirely different > from theft in the usual sense of the word. If I steal your car, you don't > have your car and you have thereby been harmed. If I make a copy of one > of your CDs, I don't believe that you have been harmed. If there is any > harm, it is of an entirely different kind than if I simply took your CD > away from you (i.e., stole it). Of course I am not harmed by you making a copy of my CD, but the company that licensed that CD to me for a fee is indirectly harmed by that. Would you walk into a store that sells CDs and start making copies of their CDs right there? I have a feeling they would ask you to leave, or call the police. Would you walk into a bookstore with a digital camera or scanner, and start making digital copies of their books? I have a feeling they would also ask you to leave, or call the police. Try telling either of them that you're not actually harming them. I doubt that they'd see it that way. - Justin