Article 45436 of comp.sys.amiga.hardware: Path: news.csos.orst.edu!flop.ENGR.ORST.EDU!gaia.ucs.orst.edu!connected.com!eskimo!sleuth.eskimo.com!sherlock From: sherlock@sleuth.eskimo.com (Jonathan Marsh) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.graphics,comp.sys.amiga.hardware,comp.sys.amiga.tech Subject: Bogus Software Alert Distribution: world Message-ID: Date: 22 Jun 93 18:56:23 PST Organization: Perpetual Motion Machines Ltd. Lines: 486 Xref: news.csos.orst.edu comp.sys.amiga.graphics:15886 comp.sys.amiga.hardware:45436 comp.sys.amiga.tech:19075 Receintly I bought a new HP DeskJet 500C printer & ofcourse wanted a "better" printer driver than CBM found for v2.1 ... Called up HP & several other sources to include the author of the attached article at Creative Focus. A few days later I bought CF's "super_DJC" printer driver for $35. It's pure bull shit. I can't drive anything but the BW cartridge (lamely) & causes the printer to insist that the color cartridge be changed when you try to print a color image. The font support this driver supposedly has is nothing more than a kludge. They also do not return phone calls... This outfit is I think a real strong reason to call BS upon those programmers who piss & moan about piracy. Make a bloody demo to prove the ware functions as claimed. Gold Disk, you listening? But don't jump on the pirates as if I can find it, I use it & then if it's good, buy it. (Like DICE) Besides, most pirates just want games anyway, not real software. Scan this LONG dribble from "Dr. Gerald Hull", contemplate thy navel & don't waste your money on CF's wares. Less you get burned. THE ETHIC OF SOFTWARE PIRACY Dr. Gerald Hull Software piracy is a pervasive practice amongst computer users, especially at the micro and personal computer levels. Even those who engage in it agree it's a problem. However, many of the attempted solutions, such as copy protection schemes, are regarded as more annoying than the problem they're supposed to solve. Let's explore some of the moral and legal dimensions of this controversial practice. The Prevalence of Piracy I belong to a user group in upstate New York. One of our members recently released a commercial software product, and I'm happy to say that it is doing very well. It has been favorably reviewed in many of the major Amiga magazines, and he has sold nearly 1,000 copies. There are blemishes on the gloss of his budding entreprenuerial venture, however. Our developer recently discovered that a copy of one of the first seven units of the program he sold has shown up on a pirate bulletin board. To join such a board, someone sends them two or three copies of programs they don't already have. Once admitted, you simply download any program you want. The developers and producers, it goes without saying, never get any compensation, except for the rare guilty conscience. What's worse, he only discovered this because his program had been pirated by one of the members of our very own group! Not even the bond of collegial fellowship was sufficient to offset the attraction of getting something for nothing. What does this tell us about human nature, and today's self-obsessed "moral" climate? Old Rules Don't Always Apply It is more or less a truism these days that human civilization has gone through three great transitions. There was the Agricultural Revolution at the dawn of history, the Industrial Revolution that liberated us from the limitations of muscle power, and now the Information Revolution, exemplified in the increasingly universal distribution of computational capability. The usefulness of such grand perspectives may be debated, but at the very least they underscore the fundamental changes human society has undergone. One consequence of this change is that traditional ideas about right and wrong -- what is moral and what is not -- often seem ill-suited for dealing with the new and novel practices that have emerged. This is surely the case with software piracy. One of first discussions I read on the subject was published some years ago in the IEEE SPECTRUM magazine. The author (I long since forgot who it was) stated flatly that piracy is no more and no less than theft. You wouldn't steal a package of chocolate chip cookies from you local grocery, he argued: software piracy represents exactly the same crime. The invalidity of this argument, I think, is obvious to almost anyone who thinks about it. If indeed software piracy is just as wrong as stealing cookies, it surely isn't exactly the same thing. For when you steal cookies, the store owner has one less package in his inventory. But when you make an unauthorized copy of software, the producer does not suffer the same tangible loss: his inventory is unaffected. I suspect that many people who pirate software alleviate their conscience with precisely this consideration. They see themselves as not really "taking" anything from the producer of the program. Underlying all this is uncertainty about the concept of property. Traditionally, possession of things is mutually exclusive: if one person has it, the other doesn't, and vice versa. The Notion of Intellectual Property Things that can be copied for a trivial fraction of their "true value" (however that is determined) are not, of course, restricted to the computational realm. For example, books can be photocopied and music can be tape recorded. To a significant extent they share the moral and ethical dilemmas posed by software piracy. Since taking a copy does not represent a tangible loss, recourse is usually made to a notion of "intellectual property." Software (like books, music, et cetera) isn't physical but is instead a pattern of organization that can be transferred from one physical thing to another. But it cannot simply be assumed that this new kind of property is morally equivalent to the tangible variety. Saying they are the same doesn't make them so. So the fact that we can extend the notion of property doesn't automatically resolve questions about the related concept of theft. Is taking a photograph of something "stealing" its image, as some primitive tribes are supposed to believe? Should that be wrong? Classical composers borrow at will from the themes of their contemporaries and predecessors. Is that theft? Indeed, did "My Sweet Lord" really steal from "He's So Fine," or is that simply a case of law and lawyers gone berserk? Morality and Fairness It's important to realize that moral questions of right and wrong cannot be resolved simply by reference to what is or is not legal. Law represents a society's fallible attempt to codify the important elements of correct and incorrect behavior. However, there are moral issues outside the purview of the law -- for example, politeness and considerateness. And further, the laws of any given society at any time will almost certainly fall short of the ideal in some respects. In the case of software piracy, the law may not be what it should be. Nor can we answer moral questions simply by reference to what people in fact do, or what biology, psychology, or sociology may cause them to do. As the Scottish philosopher David Hume pointed out, we should not confuse "ought" with "is." Even were it demonstrated that people are by nature selfish, aggressive, territorial, or whatever, we may still raise the question of whether they ought to be so. Many people, of course, rely on the Bible or some other religious or spiritual tradition to spell out the difference between right and wrong. However, there are many books and many traditions, which contradict each other in almost every respect. One says X is right, another says X is wrong: how do we choose between them? Moreover, as mentioned earlier, the problem posed by software piracy is an issue new to our age. It simply was not foreseen by any longstanding moral traditions. The Bible says "Thou shalt not steal," but is understandably vague on the difference between tangible and intellectual property, and what moral difference that might make. In response to considerations like these, many people retreat into some form of "moral relativism," the idea that different people, or groups, or cultures have different values. What's right or wrong for one person may not be the same as what's right or wrong for another. The problem with relativism, however, is that it provides no basis for rationally resolving disputes between competing interests. That's why moral right and wrong, by definition, is supposed to be the same for everybody. But how do we tell what's moral? The nature of morality represents one of the most profound problems of philosophy, and we should hardly expect to resolve it here. Instead of worrying about what is "really" right or wrong I propose a simpler approach. Let us suppose that morality is only a question of "What is fair?" Different parties in the dispute over software piracy represent different interests. A fair solution is one that treats all those interests as equal. The idea is to satisfy each side to the same extent, favoring none over the others. You can see that fair solutions have the unique characteristic of being equally acceptible to all sides of a dispute. Anyone who proposes a solution that treats their own interests as more important will always face an obvious objection. Why should anyone else accept it? They might be forced to accept it, of course, but that "is" does not imply "ought": it does not justify it. A Class Conflict Piracy is best understood as just part of a larger problem, that the rhetoric of an earlier generation would have labeled a "class" dispute. One the one hand, we have the producers of software, including developers, and marketers; and on the other the consumers, including buyers and other users. Each side has their own interests, legitimate complaints, and dubious practises. The bottom line for the producers is to sell a lot of programs and make a lot of money. They may also be interested in providing quality software with decent support. However, if forced to choose between them, the "survivors" will always select bucks over good intentions. The consumers' goal is just the opposite: their basic desire is for well-supported quality software. If required, they are willing to pay good money, but many of the more "acquisitive" will be attracted to less expensive routes (piracy for example), when available. So despite their apparent differences, we see that both producer and consumer confront the same moral question: How important is money? Abuses by Software Producers Producers wrong consumers when they maximize their income at the expense of the quality provided. This is clearly unfair: they are treating their interest in making money as more important than the users' interest in receiving decent software. Producers can do this in many different ways. The software itself may be buggy, ill-designed, or incomplete. That is, it may fail for one reason or another to perform its assigned task. Documentation is often inadequate. This can be exacerbated by the failure to provide adequate customer support, leaving the user without convenient recourse for the program's shortcomings. Producers can overcharge for a program, either initially, or through extortive updates and upgrades. This offense is admittedly "subjective" insofar as there is no consensual standard for "how much" program quality equals X amount of dollars. Nonetheless, almost everbody has their favorite examples of software swindle and exploitation. Software producers have almost complete control over the terms of the licensing agreement, whether or not they add the insult of "shrinkwrap." They exploit this by imposing arbitrary restrictions on the use of their software: for example, that a given copy of a program can be used by only one person (the buyer) and on just one machine. Finally, they frequently pile on top of this a "nugatory warrantee": clauses which disclaim almost any obligation to satisfy any requirement. Abuse of this kind is so pervasive that the computer magazine ABACUS (now sadly defunct) once ran a "software disclaimer" competition. The winning entry ran, in part, like this: "Cosmotronic Software Unlimited Inc. warrants the diskette(s) on which the program is furnished to be of black color and square shape under normal use for a period of ninety (90) days from date of purchase." There are those that argue that if you don't agree with the license, don't buy the software. But first, it is often impossible to discover the terms without first buying the software, as in "shrinkwrap" agreements. And second, anyone who followed this course on principle would end up with very little software. It is clearly unfair to guarantee nothing and give consumers no voice in determining how they can use the software they have paid for. Finally, producers often resort to inconvenient if not harmful copy protection schemes. These may restrict the users' ability to back their software up, or impose awkward restrictions on its use. The self-serving nature of copy protection is most evident in the hypocrisy of software companies which market backup software that doesn't backup their own products. If users have a right to backups, it is a universal right. Abuse by Software Consumers Consumers, on the other hand, wrong producers largely through software piracy. There may be occasions in which harm is caused by false or malicious rumors about a company or product. However, by and large consumer abuse takes the form of piracy. (This is why, of course, producers resort to copy protection. Unfortunately, this ends up unfairly hurting the legitimate owner as much or more than the illegitimate.) But we don't need to solve any metaphysical puzzles about the nature of property to understand that it is unfair for one party to take benefit from another without just compensation. Equality of interests implies that people should benefit equally from their transactions with each other. If you claim to deserve greater benefit, I can always ask why you think your interests are more important. It is clearly unfair for pirates to benefit from software without reciprocating just compensation. Of course, we cannot infer, because producers harm consumers in many ways, and the latter hurt the former in only one, that producers are therefore "more guilty." You cannot determine the amount of unfairness simply by counting varieties of wrongdoing. It is the extent of the damage that you do someone, not the number of ways you do it. A Plague on Both Their Houses It is my estimate that overall producers and consumers of software are about equal in the ill they do each other. To be sure, one of the problems with the fairness approach is that it is often difficult, and sometimes impossible, to gauge precisely the respective harm or benefit done to competing interests. Nonetheless, a single consumer can injure many producers by pirating their software, and a single producer can harm many consumers with deficient software or support. In this respect, the extent of their respective wrongdoing seems roughly equivalent. An important distinction between the two sides, however, is that producers' wrongs are almost always legal. Depending on where you live, there may be laws regarding "implicit" warrantees. Unfortunately, few users know of them, and fewer still have the time, money, or influence to pursue such matters through the courts. Whereas, of course, software piracy is illegal. This is why I emphasized earlier that morality and legality can be separate things. However, while producers have the law on their side, it is law that is almost impossible to enforce. Unauthorized duplication of software is generally undetectable and unpreventable: almost all copy protection schemes are broken as soon as the software is released. On their side, consumers have the "invisible hand" of the marketplace. That is, in the long run the producers that give less quality for the dollar should sell less, and gradually give way to more competitive offerings. Unfortunately, self-correction by the market is a lengthy and often uncertain process. And it is little compensation, to buyers of today's worthless software, that someday in the future economic forces will wreak their revenge. The Verdict is Guilty No doubt, just like producer abuses, software piracy is due in large part to acquisitive tendencies innate in the human animal. But in addition, it can hardly be doubted that the "anomy" or lawlessness of piracy is also a reaction to the fact that the legal deck is stacked against the software consumer. Neither of these considerations should be thought to excuse piracy. We earlier noted the importance of distinguishing between "is" and "ought." One consequence is the need to distinguish between "explanation" and "justification." A psychological or biological explanation may show why in fact someone does something (why it is), without thereby justifying that action (showing why it ought to be). To be sure, the wrongdoing of each side may balance out in a crude manner. But equal and opposite unfairness is not the same as fairness. Or in more familiar terms: two wrongs don't make a right. Indeed, this is one reason why "class" analysis has fallen into such ill repute. We have to look at people as individuals as well as members of certain classes. And in individual terms, we can see that the blameworthy producer harms pirate and non-pirate alike, just as piracy exploits both decent and dastardly producers. A Benign Form of Piracy After all this careful analysis, the reader may expect at this point a bold and sweeping solution for software piracy, and the allied issues dividing producers and consumers. I sincerely wish I had something of the sort to offer. Alas, the reader will have to settle for something more modest: a temporary, stopgap remedy for producer abuse, and a possible longterm approach to ameliorating the underlying legal imbalance. To date, most of the effort has been focused on the software pirate. One copy protection scheme after another has been tried, only to be defeated by hackers. Licensing agreements have become evermore strict, only to be ignored; lawsuits are extremely rare. Stern lectures fill the editorial pages of computer magazines, but piracy thrives unabated. So I propose focusing on the other side of the problem, by taking the perspective of the consumer. The first thing users can do is research as carefully as possible any contemplated software purchases. While I do not agree with the ethic behind the slogan "Let the buyer beware," you have only yourself to blame if you rush into buying something without trying to find out what it is you are getting. The Amiga community is blessed with a large number of excellent, user-oriented magazines, filled with informative software reviews and commentary. As important element of their research, the potential buyers will want to "test drive" the software. In favorable circumstances, either a nearby dealer or friend will already have the program, so that you can examine it first hand. This is the best way to see if it meets your requirements, if the documentation is any good, if copy protection is being used, and so forth. As a means of test driving software, I personally tolerate the non-authorized transmission of software, that it, getting a copy from someone for sampling purposes. If I find myself making significant use of the software, I go ahead and buy it. This is fair, I think, because the producers who benefit me get proper payment, but not those whose programs are worthless. But whenever I have advocated this type of "benign piracy" on the networks it's invariably the subject of great controversy. So let's take an honest look at some drawbacks and disadvantages. First, anyone who takes this approach must realize that it is no more legal than the more irresponsible forms of software piracy. I have contended that the law tends to favor the producer, but this may not be accepted as an adequate defense in court, should one end up there. Second, this way of sampling software places a strong reliance on the personal integity of the user. There is nothing so easy as saying to yourself, "Well, I don't really like that program, even though I use it now and then." From my point of view, self-deception like this is original sin. Once you succeed at lying to yourself, deceiving others (to acquire an unfair advantage) is second-nature. And third, practicing benign piracy requires that you only transfer software to those who abide by the selfsame ethic. I would never join a pirate board, for instance, even though that might greatly expand my ability to sample software. By sending them software they didn't have, I would acquiesce in their unrestrained kind of piracy, which would violate the principle of fairness. I am responsible for what others do, when I help them do it. Longterm Solutions It should be obvious that I regard so-called "benign piracy" as a problematic policy: at best a stopgap measure. By tolerating transgressions of this particular law, one cannot avoid encouraging some disrespect for law in general, however good one's intentions. So while legality will invariably diverge from morality, there remains good reason to obey the law regardless. John Foust of Syndesis, aka AMICUS on PeopleLink, referred to benign piracy as a "vigilante" policy, in one of many acerbic interchanges on the subject. But his analogy is too extreme. Vigilantism has a deservedly bad reputation as the practice of taking the law violently into your own hands. Woodie Guthrie sang Tell me why does a Vigilante Man Carry that sawed-off shotgun in his hand? Will he shoot his brothers and his sisters down? That no good Vigilante Man. Piracy, even in its extreme form, is more akin to breaking a contract than breaking and entering. Since the benign form recognizes the obligation to compensate producers for useful software, it is more like selective anarchy than commercial terrorism. This does not make it innocent, of course. Anarchists tend to make increasingly selfish interpretations of which laws should be obeyed, and which not. This inexorably gravitates toward the chaos of relativism. Many versions of the law is no better than no law at all: there is no way to consensually resolve disputes. A more longterm solution to software piracy would take the form of legislation that more fully recognizes consumers' rights. Producers should not be allowed to arbitrarily restrict users' rights, and to guarantee nothing in return. Consumers have a right to bugfree software, to upgrades and updates at reasonable cost, to proper documentation, and responsible support. Buying software should not be like gambling. But even without the enactment of legislation, producers themselves can take important steps to reduce the practice of software piracy. Not with more repressive licensing and more stringent copy protection. That's part of the reason why people pirate in the first place. By taking every advantage of the law, producers have encouraged the perception that the law is against consumers. The inevitable result is anomy, lawlessness, piracy. Instead, producers should put on their software packaging, truthfully in bold letters, THIS PROGRAM IS NOT COPY PROTECTED, REASONABLE UPGRADES, YOU CAN'T BEAT OUR SUPPORT, LIBERAL LICENSE PROVISIONS, and SATISFACTION GUARANTEED. In short, they should make it clear that they don't intend to hide behind the law, and disclaim every responsibility to the user. The worst that can happen is nothing: piracy goes on like before. But, at the very least, pirates will no longer have the same excuse for irresponsible copying. And sales should increase: all other things being equal, buyers will prefer software that recognizes the validity of their interests. At best, consumers will begin to reciprocate the respect they have been given, and regard producers' interests as important as their own. Piracy will no longer seem a chic or tolerable ethic. Acknowledgements and References I would like to express my gratitude to the people who have troubled to debate these issues with me on the electronic networks. With few exceptions, I have learned from their opinions regardless of whether they agreed with mine. Special thanks go to John Foust, who can always be counted on to disagree with more cogency than I would like to believe possible. If you are interested in the legal aspects of the software business, I cannot recommend too highly Thomas J. Smedinghoff's THE LEGAL GUIDE TO DEVELOPING, PROTECTING, AND MARKETING SOFTWARE (John Wiley, 1986). And finally, you can find a great rendition of Woody Guthrie's "Vigilante Man" by Bruce Springsteen on the recent Folkways album, A VISION SHARED. Better yet, check out Woody's own version on THE ORIGINAL VISION and other Folkways albums. About the Author Dr. Gerald Hull is the president of Creative Focus, a software consulting firm located in Binghamton, New York. He has a Ph.D. in Philosophy in addition to an M.S. in Computer Science, and is currently working on a book on ethics entitled TELLING RIGHT FROM WRONG. Jonathan Marsh A.K.A. Sherlock Voice 206-782-4359 Data 784-0080 Article 45467 of comp.sys.amiga.hardware: Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.graphics,comp.sys.amiga.hardware,comp.sys.amiga.tech Path: news.csos.orst.edu!flop.ENGR.ORST.EDU!gaia.ucs.orst.edu!umn.edu!news-feed-1.peachnet.edu!gatech!howland.reston.ans.net!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!rtech!amdahl!dlb!megatest!mithril!albrecht From: albrecht@megatest.com (Dave Albrecht) Subject: Re: Bogus Software Alert Message-ID: Organization: Megatest Corporation References: Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1993 17:19:57 GMT Lines: 17 Xref: news.csos.orst.edu comp.sys.amiga.graphics:15911 comp.sys.amiga.hardware:45467 comp.sys.amiga.tech:19078 From article , by sherlock@sleuth.eskimo.com (Jonathan Marsh): > Receintly I bought a new HP DeskJet 500C printer & ofcourse wanted a > "better" printer driver than CBM found for v2.1 ... Called up HP & several other > sources to include the author of the attached article at Creative Focus. A few > days later I bought CF's "super_DJC" printer driver for $35. It's pure bull > shit. I can't drive anything but the BW cartridge (lamely) & causes the printer > to insist that the color cartridge be changed when you try to print a color > image. The font support this driver supposedly has is nothing more than a > kludge. They also do not return phone calls... > Uh huh. I don't know what your problem is, but I've owned both super_DJC and a 500C for quite a while now. It prints both grey scale and color an order of magnitude better than any of the stock or PD drivers all of which tend to print half of their shades at full saturation. While there certainly could be a problem with super_DJC I suspect pilot error. David Albrecht Article 45481 of comp.sys.amiga.hardware: Path: news.csos.orst.edu!flop.ENGR.ORST.EDU!rutgers!uwm.edu!math.ohio-state.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!hamblin.math.byu.edu!yvax.byu.edu!cunyvm!ctlcc From: CTLCC@CUNYVM.BITNET Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.hardware Subject: RE:Bogus software alert (lame excuse for piracy) Message-ID: <93174.182329CTLCC@CUNYVM.BITNET> Date: 23 Jun 93 22:23:29 GMT Organization: City University of New York Lines: 9 The DJ program for the Amiga does work. I know people in the NYC area that use it on their DJ500 systems and the new version supports DJ550s.. I think the person who posted that message was using it as a lame excuse to justify piracy on the Amiga. If he cannot get the software to work, he should make an attempt to contact his dealer or the software company, or post a message to us the Amiga community. But instead he has decided to use it to justify piracy. And we sit around an wonder why we have so little software. With users like this I myself would never write software for the amiga or if I owned a software house would not support the platform. People like this hurt, they dont help Article 45531 of comp.sys.amiga.hardware: Path: news.csos.orst.edu!flop.ENGR.ORST.EDU!rutgers!gatech!howland.reston.ans.net!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!csus.edu!csulb.edu!nic.csu.net!zimmer!news From: billmi@mondrian.CSUFresno.EDU (Bill Mills) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.graphics,comp.sys.amiga.hardware,comp.sys.amiga.tech Subject: Re: Bogus Software Alert Message-ID: Date: 24 Jun 93 15:07:18 GMT References: Sender: news@zimmer.CSUFresno.EDU Organization: California State University, Fresno Lines: 21 Nntp-Posting-Host: mondrian.csufresno.edu Xref: news.csos.orst.edu comp.sys.amiga.graphics:15933 comp.sys.amiga.hardware:45531 comp.sys.amiga.tech:19081 Before you flame, go back and do your homework! I have used Super_DJC for nearly a year, and it has worked great with a 500C! Not one single problem!!! As for color/black&white cartridges, it doesn't give a rip what you are printing (how can it, it would have to do a faux print to scan for any use of color, and then a real print) it omly selects wether or not to use the color cart based on what the program that is printing tells it to do. For example, if you are using FinalCopy_II and you have only black text in your doc, but your document is set for color, it will need the color cart. Do little utilities like this get pirated? You bet! I have even seen dealers pirate a 3rd party touch screen driver (which only cost $15!) and sell it bundled with a touch screen! Please, if you don't understand the software you are using, ask around for help before unjustly flaming a product. Otherwise, you are being grossly unfair to the manufacturer, litterally stealing sales from them with a falacy. Be seeing you... -bill