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DPChallenge Forums >> General Discussion >> legal smegal!! hands up if you're a hypocrite! :-)
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 02/18/2007 11:27:46 PM · #1
first i wanna write a disclaimer and say that this post is, although serious, also meant to be light hearted and a little 'tongue in cheek' ... so please don't get all up in arms.

i think that there's a lot of us who are hypocrites regarding legality and copyright.

i'm gonna call myself out ... and use myself as an example.

firstly, i admit that i'd be furious if someone stole my image and was using it for their own purposes (especially if they're making money off it). all of the arguments come into play - it's my intellectual property, it's copyright theft! how dare they!!!

yet, i used a pirated copy of photoshop to create that image ... and i was listening to illegally downloaded music while i did my editing.

funny ain't it?

i can make money from photoshop, but i didn't pay for it. that's exactly the same kinda theft i'd be angry about if it happened to me.

i also admit that i haven't bought a music CD in at least 4 years. all of my music comes courtesy of p2p. i can afford software and music, but i prefer to spend my money on shiny new cameras and lenses.

there's a lot of arguments about big faceless corporations vs the little guy ... or music cartels ripping off consumers and artists ... but copyright is still copyright!! it's still theft!!

ahhh ... to be human! :)

i should pony up the cash and buy a legit copy of CS3!
02/18/2007 11:32:28 PM · #2
So, what are you trying to say? You know, with all the "tongue in cheek" and everything...

BTW - My software is paid for, as is all of my music. I'm kind of in the minority I guess...doing the right thing doesn't come cheap (in many ways).
 02/18/2007 11:32:34 PM · #3
Originally posted by super-dave:
i should pony up the cash and buy a legit copy of CS3!


Uh. . . .yeah! Actually, if you register as a student, you can take advantage of the educational license! Because my BS in Nuclear Engineering Technology requires me to have CS2! :)
 02/18/2007 11:35:56 PM · #4
Originally posted by glad2badad:
So, what are you trying to say? You know, with all the "tongue in cheek" and everything...


i'm trying to say that we are keen to protect our own copyright, but i think the majority of people (yes, you're probably in the minority) have no qualms about occasionally evading the copyright of others (mostly software, movies, music etc) ...

and yes, i think i will buy a legit CS3 ... get it when i get my new putie with vista on it! :)
 02/18/2007 11:41:51 PM · #5
...

Message edited by author 2007-02-19 01:41:58.
 02/18/2007 11:42:26 PM · #6
Originally posted by EBJones:
Originally posted by super-dave:
i should pony up the cash and buy a legit copy of CS3!


Uh. . . .yeah! Actually, if you register as a student, you can take advantage of the educational license! Because my BS in Nuclear Engineering Technology requires me to have CS2! :)


Im glad to see your BullShit requires you to have such great BS!
 02/18/2007 11:46:12 PM · #7
Originally posted by RainMotorsports:
Originally posted by EBJones:
Originally posted by super-dave:
i should pony up the cash and buy a legit copy of CS3!


Uh. . . .yeah! Actually, if you register as a student, you can take advantage of the educational license! Because my BS in Nuclear Engineering Technology requires me to have CS2! :)


Im glad to see your BullShit requires you to have such great BS!


The sad part is that it really is legal. And, since I'm military, the government is paying for my education to boot!
 02/18/2007 11:54:29 PM · #8
Good subject. Back in 1996, I had tons of application software on CD that I hadn't paid for. I justified it to myself as "evaluation software", about supporting my computer clients, knowing the software well enough to be able to do so meant I needed to run it on my equipment. Gradually I started buying my own copies of anything I considered a core tool, however. What that meant though at first was NOT buying every upgrade. Like Photoshop, my first version was 3.0, but I didn't buy an upgrade until 5.0, then CS and CS2 because now it's such a core tool I can't do without it. Along the way I also started buying the plug-ins that mattered. I bought Quark Xpress but didn't update it past 3.32, used 4.11 clear into OS X days.

In 2000? 2001? Whenever the first iPod came out, I started out with "other peoples' music" and then realized I had 300 discs worth of stuff I'd purchased. Traded it to Brooklyn's "iPod meister" for a new video iPod, and ended up with all that digitized as part of the trade. Well. Having my cake and eating it too? Yeah, he bought my retail CDs for $1 apiece, and I gave up the media/artwork/liner notes and got back the space it took, albeit as only MP3s rather than AIFF or something less lossy.

Somewhere in there I became sensitized to copyright as regards the images I was creating. And completely stopped getting music that wasn't mine, with one notable exception last October (you know who you are...) but my chief copyright violation now is copying and pasting interesting stuff from 'net sites into e-lists.

Leaving the warez behind wasn't that hard--not sharing music was much harder but I am pretty vigilant about my images and it's only fair to treat the musicians similarly. If only the record companies hadn't been such sh!ts for so many years, they'd sure have less trouble now. I saw it from the inside as a rent-a-geek to many of the labels.
 02/18/2007 11:54:58 PM · #9
All of my software/music/movies etc are legal.

I'd rather not do things illegally. Maybe it's just a "faceless" corporation that made that software/music/movies, but that corporation is made up of a lot of people with very real faces.


02/19/2007 12:34:41 AM · #10
I mentioned something like this in a post once, and only the "saints" posted - quick to point to their own perfection.

I'm with you Super_dave - I guess recognition is the first step to reconciliation.

BTW, I own ALL my music, and PS, and have never ever sampled a peanut from the bulk bin

Message edited by author 2007-02-19 00:35:35.
 02/19/2007 12:34:47 AM · #11
Not entirely equitable examples... I think the listening to of pirated music is more like someone snagging one of your photos for use as their desktop - personal enjoyment and not personal profit. The pirated photoshop thing, though... That seems a little fishy. Especially if you get your livelihood from the things you make in it. Completely broke college student, myself (too broke for the educational license!), so I switched to GIMP. ;)
 02/19/2007 12:36:30 AM · #12
Originally posted by EducatedSavage:
Not entirely equitable examples... I think the listening to of pirated music is more like someone snagging one of your photos for use as their desktop - personal enjoyment and not personal profit. The pirated photoshop thing, though... That seems a little fishy. Especially if you get your livelihood from the things you make in it. Completely broke college student, myself (too broke for the educational license!), so I switched to GIMP. ;)


TEACH ME OH GIMP MASTER... im kidding
 02/19/2007 01:01:05 AM · #13
Originally posted by digitalknight:
I mentioned something like this in a post once, and only the "saints" posted - quick to point to their own perfection.


Well, it would require a not very bright person to publically admit to a crime with a $100,000 to $250,000 penalty per infringement, in a forum that has their name or details attached.
 02/19/2007 01:27:00 AM · #14
This may have been sparked (I don't know) by my response to the OP in this thread seeking to buy an older copy of photoshop from someone who has upgraded, where I pointed out that this is not legal.

Now, I don't want to stand up and call myself a "saint", but I don't use pirated software, illegal copies, whatever. I never have. And I don't understand how people that do can justify it. But maybe that's just me...

And it bothers me too when people I know, friends of mine, ask me if they can copy some software I have for their own use. I hate being put on the spot like that. It doesn't happen now that I've moved to Massachusetts (all my software-needy friends were in California, I don't really know anybody who uses computers the way I do out here) and I'm glad for that.

Call me a stick-in-the-mud, but I was raised by a father who I literally NEVER have seen break a single law (including speeding) in my life. Some of that rubbed off, though perhaps not as much as should have, because he's a better man than I'll ever be...

R.
 02/19/2007 01:33:35 AM · #15
Not everyone justifies what they do... they just do it.
 02/19/2007 01:39:41 AM · #16
How is it that the people who cheat somehow consider themselves superior to those of us who don't? Calling others "saints" sarcastically says more about the person using the term than it does about the target.

It's not your intellectual property, so don't use it without paying for it. What's hard to understand about that?
 02/19/2007 03:33:18 AM · #17
Originally posted by Gordon:
Well, it would require a not very bright person to publically admit to a crime with a $100,000 to $250,000 penalty per infringement, in a forum that has their name or details attached.


that's a very good point ... but considering where i live, there's 0.000000000000001% chance of ever getting caught.

but you're right ... in some countries, it might not be wise to actually admit to pirating software and such! :)
 02/19/2007 03:34:05 AM · #18
Originally posted by super-dave:
Originally posted by Gordon:
Well, it would require a not very bright person to publically admit to a crime with a $100,000 to $250,000 penalty per infringement, in a forum that has their name or details attached.


that's a very good point ... but considering where i live, there's 0.000000000000001% chance of ever getting caught.

but you're right ... in some countries, it might not be wise to actually admit to pirating software and such! :)


See business get fiend every year because of the BSA. But software vendors have a hard time catching the rest.
 02/19/2007 04:46:23 AM · #19
I wonder why I have to pay for music?
There is a special copyright tax on blank cd's and dvd's here, no matter what I use them for. So why pay twice?

This really bugs me as I use most of my dvd's for backup.

And I bought all my music. I am oldschool, I want an official cd.

02/19/2007 05:03:51 AM · #20
Here's a question for ya regarding music downloads... My SO hates when I download music because she's afraid I'll get caught and get into trouble. However, I've only downloaded music I have on tape or vinyl and CDs that were stolen from my vehicle. I look at it as fair use, the same as if I ripped the sources I already have or have had. She on the other hand views it as dishonest because I'm not doing the actual ripping nor do I have the ability to actually transfer the music. So am I being hypocritical here?
 02/19/2007 05:31:53 AM · #21
Heh. I've always wondered if I stand to get in trouble for copyright infringement if I whistle a tune... that's reproduction right? Man am I ever in trouble seeing as I've got this song in my head that keeps playing back again and again and again...

Seriously though, while I'm not a huge music downloader, I do live in a place where most of the stuff I like is absolutely unavailable. Even if I wanted to buy it, I could not. So I don't feel like I'm actually taking anything from them. They are not losing income since I only ever buy music on CD second hand or if it is something really special. Of course I am a bit weird as a guy who's only ever bought like 10 CD's ever, and only has like a couple hundred songs altogether... and I still listen to them.

Things are a bit different when it comes to software though. That's something I deal with on a case-by-case basis. People often say that PS 7.0 is a good program to get because it's very capable and can be purchased for cheap in a computer store's bargain bin. So that's what I use. Now, the fact that I've not been to North America in nearly 3 years might say something about the availability of software for me from any 'bargain bins'. Would I buy a legit copy if I had the option? Probably. But then again, I'm financially locked tight for the next 3.5 years, so I might just wait. That root canal and crown might have to come first.

Interestingly, legitimate copies of software in chinese are often available on the street in proper sealed packages for a third the price of what they are across the big pond.

A friend of mine bought a legitimate copy of Windows XP for around 30 bucks US from an authorized retailer. How does that work, I don't know.

For my PDA, I have a bit more of a double standard. Probably 90% of the software I have tried does not work or does not do what it is advertised to do. Some companies don't offer trial versions or offer useless trial versions. I've been known to download a bit in some cases.

My point there though is that in the end, the programs that I use for 90% of my PDA usage are all paid for and fully legit. The only notable exception to this is a program which has taken a bunch of open and freely available fonts provided by Microsoft, as well as a program which was written by a company local here in Taiwan, the rights of which were entirely purchased by Microsoft, and subsequently repackaged by this software company, and then bundled with a bunch of their own software of which 0% actually works. I got the pirated version, selected to NOT install that companies parts, then used a freeware tool to remove the remaining vestiges of that companies software which were unavoidable, and it still doesn't even work as well as when it's natively part of the firmware.

I wrote Microsoft about the situation, seeing as the peices are already provided free for Windows XP, but recieved only automated acknowledgement.

Is my conscience bothered? Not at all. Would I pay to get the functionality that the program advertised? Pretty likely. Is it available anywhere else? Nope.

Like I said, it's kinda a case by case in some situations.
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