Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!att!dptg!rutgers!mailrus!bbn!oliveb!mipos3!omepd!griff
From: griff@intelob.intel.com (Richard Griffith)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Piracy
Message-ID: 
Date: 9 Aug 89 12:41:08 GMT
References:  <119399@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> <4030@cps3xx.UUCP>
	<119606@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> <5021@alvin.mcnc.org>
Sender: news@omepd.UUCP
Organization: BiiN Information Systems, Hillsboro, Oregon
Lines: 78
In-reply-to: raw@mcnc.org's message of 5 Aug 89 00:48:23 GMT

In article <5021@alvin.mcnc.org> raw@mcnc.org (Russell Williams) writes:


>In article <119606@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> cmcmanis@sun.UUCP (Chuck McManis) writes:
>>In article <4030@cps3xx.UUCP> porkka@frith.UUCP (Joe Porkka) writes:
>>
[stuff deleted]

>>BBe _definition_, anyone breaking the law is antisocial. That's true
>>if you go 60MPH in a 55MPH zone, or you pirate software. 
>>
>>or have your machine confiscated. No one cares. Just like the highway
>>patrol doesn't care that you were on a straight road, on a clear day,
>>with 20 mile visibility. 
>>
>>To the person who walked into the science fiction convention with 
>>all of the pirate software. Call the cops, throw them in jail. Every
>>person in the room with a disk can be tried and convicted of receiving
>>stolen property, and the people who put on the convention can just
>>be convicted of theft. If it is the moral responsibility of every citizen
>>to obey the laws it is also the moral responsibility to report to the
>>enforcement arm of society when they are broken. 
>>

[ humorous sarcastic reply deleted]

>	   Most of us are antisocial to some degree.  Many people will break the
>law if they cannot conceive of any harm being done, while good comes to them
>or others.  Society makes rules which can at times be bad on the micro level
>because they were constructed on the macro level.  If you're willing to accept
>what the law is as the definition of morality, then maybe you'd be happy in 
>an ant farm, but individuals have reasoning abilities which they excercise
>in the discretion of how the greater good can be acheived.  Whether or not
>that includes copying is for the indivdual to decide, but my moral beliefs
>are determined by my thoughts and experiences, not by what the majority
>believes.

  What you have both said is, essentially, true.  And, if the person who started 
this thread was SOOO upset over the amount of pirated software at that convention,
he should have *called the police*. >period<  You see, while there is corruption
and thievery at virtually every level of our social structure, it isn't going to
change until *everyone* starts to make that change.  Yes, Piracy is a bad thing,
whether that piracy is "I copied this program" or "Buy My NEW program ZYX, it's
great - does x and y and z and it's Neat-O!" on the box of a piece of garbage 
software.. (Yes, IMHO that is piracy also, If I buy the right painting to put on
my software box, You'll buy it) .

  Face it, this society isn't "moral"...(Think about it - a womans bare breast
on national television is anethma to the "morals" of the majority - but just
last sunday night I saw a piece of a show where a woman's leg was ripped off...
This is Moral???? "Do unto others..." :-^ ) Don't drag the "morals of society"
into this - society has no morals, or if those morals exist - they're perverted.

  (back to comp.sys.amiga, sorry for the social commentary) Is there a lot of
piracy on the Amiga?  Sure.  More than other systems?  Nah - I once saw a pirated
copy of the ENTIRE SOURCE CODE FOR MESSY-DOS... yep source code.  For the 
whole bloody ball of bat guano... I haven't seen anything like that for the Amy
yet... Games? yep, lots.  "Application" software, most, altho the pirate I talked
to lamented that nobody wanted to copy *that* save to have an unprotected copy
they could easily backup instead of the one they *bought*.  You see, productivity
software is really hard to use without manuals... (unlike MS-dos's Lotus, which
has been pirated heavily, thanks to much cheaper "third-party" user manuals all
over the market) 

So to whoever started this mess:  You don't want to develop for a machine that 
has rampant piracy - Fine, develop for the apple I - I'm sure there isn't much
piracy there, course, there isn't much of a market either.  IMHO, you probably 
got scared off by the Amiga's OS - it takes a little more expertise to develop
under AmigaDOS/Intuition than it does under most other machines.  so...

                             - griff



--
:Richard E. Griffith, "griff" : BiiN, Hillsboro Ore.
:SCA!: Cyrus Hammerhand, Household of the Golden Wolf, Dragons' Mist, An Tir 
:These are MY opinions, if BiiN wanted them, They'd pay for `em!