Aqua-Soft ForumsSome people requested that I post my piracy essay when it was done, well, I just finished the rough draft, there will be some later additions, after I recieve the interview from Contra, and make revisions based on what my classmates think.
Please post suggestions!
Note: I have not run spell check, nor have I read through it...
that will be the next step 
Without any further ado:
Over twenty-five percent of computer software in the United States is pirated (Head). This means a significant number of Americans have committed a federal offense under the law of the United States of America. Are these felons behind bars? No! They escape this grotesque crime without a scratch on their record, or a bill in their hands. This is what the outrageously wealthy software companies want you to think. In most cases, software piracy is, indeed, moral, ethical, and efficient (in some cases, it is actually legal). Of course the pirate gains something out of the deal, but it can be proven that the “victims” of these heinous acts can be rewarded as well. The piracy of software is actually a win-win situation for many businesses and individuals alike.The issue of piracy erupted when Sony first released its BetaMax, which was a predecessor of the VHS tape. Movie companies filed a suit against Sony in the late seventies, because their product allowed users to infringe on their copyrights. In the end, the recording industries lost the lawsuit, because the judge determined that since BetaMax could be used for legal purposes, the company could not be punished. Thus, the fair use act was born. It was accepted as undisputed law until the late 1990’s, when the Senate proposed the Digital Copyright Millennium Act, which placed more restrictions on the electronic copying of data (including music, photographs, movies, and software).
This law was brought about because of an emerging trend, called file sharing. A small company named Freenet introduced a new technology that would mean a change to many Americans’ lives (Roemer). This new program allowed users to swap files for free via large servers owned by Freenet. Immediately after this new product hit the internet, thousands of users began to share their files. Most of these first traded files were audio from some of the popular musicians of the day.
After Freenet’s success, a new company emerged. Napster, as it was named, allowed users from all over the world to swap files with each other, just as Freenet had. Napster soon gathered millions of dedicated users, who now shared music, videos, games, and more. When the major music labels realized that users could get free music online, they set out to destroy Napster. Eventually, the labels won, through immense court battles, which concluded that Napster was operating illegally. Their mistake was in how they handled the files. Since they were hosting copyrighted materials on their servers, the company itself was infringing on copyrights. Thus, they did not fall under the protection of the Fair Use Act.
Once Napster was shut down, its legions of loyal fans had to satisfy their file cravings elsewhere. Thus, P2P was born. P2P stands for peer to peer. In this new form of file sharing, users swapped files directly with other users machines. This, reasoned the developers, would ward off any attacks by the Recording Industry of America (RIAA), and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). The new network connected all users running applications based off of the Grokster model. Several new applications, such as Morpheus, Kazaa, Grokster, and many more soon picked up Napster’s abandoned users. Word quickly spread, and many new users jumped on the bandwagon. Soon, the Grokster network claimed that they had over 100,000,000 users. That is nearly thirty times the population of Iowa!
Of course, the RIAA was not going to let users steal their music, so they retaliated, going after the major P2P networks. Surprisingly, in the fall of 2002, the recording industries lost the lawsuit, because since there were no central servers, the companies could not be held responsible for what their users do.
The most obvious reason that is given when trying to discourage software piracy is that the programmers put a lot of work into the program, so they should get paid. In the words of Contrasutra, “…[how is it fair if the developers] spend years of their life writing and get no money?” If no programmers made any money, there would be no more programmers, and then there would be no more computers, and then there would have been no 1990’s. Computer Science is still a developing field, if a profit is not easily achieved, then we will deter many great amateur programmers from aspiring to be professional programmers.
While this may be true, there are still instances where piracy is legitimate. If a brother and a sister (living in the same house) need to use Microsoft Office for a school project, but they only own one copy, Microsoft would tell them that they need to pay $400 for another copy. That is simply outrageous. For most families, $400 dollars is a small fortune, not to mention $800! Technically, this is illegal, but people must fight for what they believe in. In the 1960’s, it was illegal for African Americans to sit in the front of the bus. They fought for what was just, just as every computer client should be doing now.
Another point that piracy detractors would make is that software is not a necessity. It is true that programs are not essential to life; if you don’t get a program, you won’t die. But, these people don’t realize that programs can be used to make money, in turn putting food on the table. For some people, the only way to obtain the software needed to eat is to pirate it.
For people at home, software piracy also doesn’t hurt the economy, or the company, because there are some programs that home users just wouldn’t buy. One example is Adobe Photoshop. This is a professional graphics editor, which costs about $700. Now, most people would never even consider spending that much on a program, but through P2P, they can get it for free. This does not cost the company any money at all. They don’t lose a sale, because the pirate was not a potential customer anyway. They also don’t lose any of the production costs, because the actual software is still usable by someone else.
This is what makes software piracy so different from flat out stealing from a store. If you go into a store, and steal a program, the program is not available for other people to buy. The company, and the retail store lose the profits that they would have gained from a legitimate customer.
Another common misconception widely believed by anti-pirates is that if you pirate a product, you are saying it is worth nothing. They apply the simple economics principle of supply and demand. This would state that if you pay nothing (don’t buy it), the price should go down, because the company is not making any sales. If you pirate, you are messing up the system, because the demand is going down, but the supply not going up. Fortunately, this is not the case.
Pirates do not think that the software is worth what it is being sold for. So, their only options are to be ripped off by software companies, or to pirate the software. There is no option to pay somewhere in the middle. What are the pirates going to do? Hand Microsoft a check for twenty dollars with a note: “This is for the software I pirated from you”? When these large companies see that they are losing profits, they do the worst thing imaginable, they raise prices. The only way that they could significantly reduce, or eliminate piracy would be to lower the prices to reasonable levels. When they raise the prices, they just provoke more piracy.
Large businesses, like Microsoft, actually realize that they are ripping people off. They then proceed to charge different groups of people different prices. For example, Microsoft Office is four times less expensive for students. Even though they are making less money, approximately 50% of this is still pure profit (FissyB). Basically, what they are doing is manipulating the price by what they think you can pay. This is completely unfair, and should be against the law.
Piracy can actually be beneficial to the future of companies. In the case of Photoshop, most of the professionals who use it learned on pirated copies. These developers, most of which started out in the lower middle class, eventually make enough money to buy Photoshop. Also, Adobe is not worried about home users, because they make most of their money from large companies who buy their products in bulk. It is when these large companies start pirating, that the companies, and the economy are hurt.
Finally, software piracy can help a company to become the prevalent power in the enterprise. In the case of Microsoft, the only reason that they were able to achieve complete and utter monopoly over the computer industry is because of piracy.
If pirates stopped using windows then Microsoft would lose about 2/3 of its users. It would cease to become the de facto operating system.
The people that had been buying it would now buy the new de facto operating system --> Linux
Therefore, piracy make Bill Gates rich. (FissyB)
Bill Gates, as most people know, is the richest man in the world. Why? Because of pirates. Microsoft has never had the best operating system, and still doesn’t, yet it is used by the vast majority of computer users. This is because of Microsoft’s monopoly. To get the programs you want, you must “own” a copy of Microsoft Windows. The reason for this is because the companies that make the software want to target the OS with the most potential users, thus Windows is the ideal platform. The reason is because in the early days of Windows (3.1), some people decided to try Windows. To “try” it out, others pirated it. It got to a point where the majority of Windows copies were illegal. This really didn’t matter, because the scale was so large. Microsoft sold copies of Windows bundled with PCs, and thus forced people to buy it. With only one third of their users paying, Microsoft had built and empire, and stockpiled over $20,000,000,000 dollars. If all of the pirates of Windows switched to a free operating system, Windows would be finished. Therefore, they will not build in tougher anti-piracy measures into Windows, because it would mean the downfall of their business.
In the end, software piracy can be definitely be rationalized. Not only can it be rationalized, it can be put on a pedestal. Software piracy is the reason that there is so much compatibility in PCs, so much skill in the arts, and so much freedom on the net. We would be fools to outlaw P2P programs. All of the aforementioned points prove that piracy is beneficial to society as a whole, as well as individuals, and companies. After all, if piracy was really all that bad, wouldn’t the government have cracked down on pirates long ago?
wow, it looks a lot shorter on here... it is actually six pages... hmmm... oh well...
