On Sat, 2 Sep 2006, Justin Kremer wrote:

> 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.

It is a violation of a legal agreement when a software license is 
violated.  I am not sure where the law stands on downloading programs that 
seem to have been distributed in violation of the license.  That isn't the 
important thing.  Let's just say that it is illegal to download copies of 
programs that are being distributed in violation of the license agreement.

The thing I want to address is the notion that such distribution damages 
the company that produces the software.  That isn't clear.  When a program 
that usually costs $500, say, is being distributed for free on the 
internet in violation of the license, many people will download the 
program for free who would never have paid $500 for a properly-licensed 
copy.  So, a company that might have expected to sell 2,000 copies at $500 
apiece might find that 1,000,000 copies were freely downloaded on the web 
against their wishes.  But that means that 998,000 more people are using 
their program than would have used it otherwise.  Are they worse off? 
Well that depends on how much they sell.  It could hurt them, but it also 
could help them.  It depends.

It's like this with MP3 distribution in P2P.  Do record companies sell 
more or fewer CDs as a result of MP3 distribution?  I don't know.  It's 
hard to track.  The industry claims are sometimes pretty silly.  They make 
a hell of a lot more now than they used to because of the much lower 
expense of production and distribution afforded by digital technology. 
(Vinyl albums are way bigger, heavier and harder to make.)  They also have 
competition from smaller operations and from bands who do their own 
recording and distribution.  There is a lot to take into account.  I don't 
buy most of their arguments.  If it were my band, I'd want to see large 
scale MP3 downloading -- that would be awesome!


> 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?

What you are saying here is similar to what I wrote a few days ago.


>> 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.

They let me read the book right there, but they are "harmed" by that, if 
your argument holds for scanning causing harm.

The problem is that we don't know if copying software causes harm.  I'm 
sure that you are right about book stores and music stores though.  They 
don't know if it will harm them but they suspect that it will.  It's not 
like that with theft.  If I steal a book or CD from the store, that is 
obviously causing harm, and it is obviously different from copying.

Mike