Philosophical Quandry: Piracy

[teal]

Personally I find EULAs to be slightly immoral.

Since the company has a monopoly on the product they are distributing in a sense they are coercing you into agreeing to the EULA. (admittedly a very very mild form of coercion, but a form of coercion nevertheless.) As an aside I believe this is why all the forms you have to sign in order to take a chemistry class waiving the school of any responsiblity should you get hurt are invalid. They wouldn't let you take the class without the form so they were coercing you into signing it. The end result is the same as if you hadn't signed the form, the school is liable if they were negligent and/or actively caused you harm and not liable if they weren't. Sorry I'm tired, it tends to cause more pointless asides...

Back on topic... Since the EULA is basically forced upon you it is not valid. On the other hand one can't have uneforceable agreements because in a certain sense everything is coercion because if both sides didn't need what the other had, why were they deeling in the first place? So a compromise must be reached. The company can't ask you to agree to *anything* in order to use thier product and the customer must still follow certain agreements if they are considered to be reasonable requests.

Strangely enough this has come up before in history... I don't know the exact chain of historical events. But the long and the short of it was somebody tried to prevent libraries from loaning out books on similar legal grounds to what we are discussing. Understandably the libraries sued. The courts saw that this was silly and came up with the "doctrine of first sale". A copywrite owner has the right of first sale of their product. After that the new owner can do whatever they please with their purchase. Including loaning it to a friend. As far as I'm concerned, this is the appropriate moral ground for software sale as well. Liscensing is like "renting" a book. Not just renting a book, but forcing me to rent a book by not offering the reasonable opportunity to buy that book. (EULAs also often force you to read that book in only one certain location and with only one pair of glasses....)

Transactions involving copywrited materials can not work perfectly using free market ideals because they are inherently mini-monopolistic things. Since they are monopolies the consumer needs protection against the copywrite holder. The right of first sale is an important protection for the consumer and I, for one, am dissapointed to see it thrown out of the world in the digital age by the despicable legal trick of EULAs. Consequently I think it is the moral thing to do to continue to act as if the contracts governing the sale of books are in force with software as well.

So back to the original question posed by Fyron. Yes it is immoral to copy your SEIV game and give it to a friend (no matter how long or short they intend to use it). Because this is something that you could not do morally do with a book. On the other hand it would not be immoral to uninstall SEIV from your computer and loan it to your friend for a bit and then get it back.

There is a wrinkle here though. With a traditional boardgame you are not required to buy one copy for each player involved (not even such games as Magic:the gathering in which most players do just that). So why could you not set up your SEIV game on several different computers at once for simultaneus (or even PBW) play assuming (since this whole discussion is hypothetical anyways) that the players only played games with each other. I believe that you could do so and still remain morally in the right.

One more thing I just thought of. It is not immoral to make a mixed tape for your friend. I suppose this is because of the fair use provision. It is permissible to copy something when used for certain purposes and one of those is furthering the bonds of friendship by sharing something with your friends. How the fact that I want to say making a mixed tape is ok, but copying SEIV is not ok can be resolved I'm not sure... In any case I'm sure I have rambled enough...

Teal

[Fyron]

The original question was very clearly only to provoke comments, and so my absolute ruling on it is utterly unimportant, as I have now commented.

What other possible purpose could a question have than to provoke comments? A question is asked to get comments on the matter!

[Jack Simth]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:

quote:

---

The original question was very clearly only to provoke comments, and so my absolute ruling on it is utterly unimportant, as I have now commented.

What other possible purpose could a question have than to provoke comments? A question is asked to get comments on the matter!

---

Get an answer; get a solution to a problem; teach someone else something; insult someone via sarcasm or irony; convince someone to take a particular course of action; debate tactic: a method of challenging a debate opponent on a potential flaw in their position ... there are a lot of reasons.

[Fyron]

Note how every single one of those possibilities are comments on the question? They are comments that serve different purposes, but all comments nonetheless. Just pointing out that you made a vacuous statement.

[Jack Simth]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
Note how every single one of those possibilities are comments on the question? They are comments that serve different purposes, but all comments nonetheless.

Granted I'm commenting on the question when listing those possibilities; however, not all of the possible reasons listed for the original question require a responding comment to achieve the desired effect. Specifically, I listed three that don't:

teach someone else something

A person being taught does not necessitate that person taught comment on the question. The purpose of the question is to teach in such cases; comments are only desireable as a method of confirming the learning. They are not directly relevant to the question, and are not truely part of the purpose for the question.

insult someone via sarcasm or irony

Again, no comment is necessary (on the part of the target or anyone else, for that matter) for the insult to occur (although it may require some words preceeding the question, we are specifically discussing responses to the question here, so that is immaterial).

convince someone to take a particular course of action

If I ask you why you don't try something, then you try it, I have successfully convinced you to take a particular course of action, regardless of wether or not you comment on the question. For such cases, comments are irrelevant; it is the action that matters.

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
Just pointing out that you made a vacuous statement.

Why the insult?

[Fyron]

Why the insult?

Insult? I see no insult. I merely labeled the sentence as what it is. Insulting would be if I called you vacuous, which I did not do. I guess if you want to take it personally it could be seen as an insult, but that is not how it was intended.

[Jack Simth]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
Insult? I see no insult.

Then you aren't too terribly perceptive.

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
I merely labeled the sentence as what it is.

So are you maintaining that all listed possibilites have comments as their goal, without addressing my expansion of what I meant? That's odd.

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
Insulting would be if I called you vacuous, which I did not do.

Not directly - but in calling a statement someone makes vacuous, you are saying that that person makes vacuous statements, which in turn implies that they are vacuous people.

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
I guess if you want to take it personally it could be seen as an insult, but that is not how it was intended.

You are saying it wasn't intended that way, but you aren't apoligizing either. Odd.

[Fyron]

So back to the regularly scheduled philosophizing...

[Jack Simth]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
So back to the regularly scheduled philosophizing...

And you neither defend nor rescind your statement that mine was vacuous when challenged. Odd. Nor do you apoligize when I explain how your statement was an insult. Also odd.

[ July 12, 2003, 09:02: Message edited by: Jack Simth ]

[Arkcon]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
The problem with that is that you are bending the word culture to suit your purposes. That is a sub-culture at best (probably not even that).

Well, I disagree with this point of yours, Imperator, even more strongly than I disaggree with the originial point of this discussion.

I don't know what the most rigid definition of a culture is, but an ideology that's held by even a few can spread, like a cultural virus. Linkont cross the memes.

I'm oh so tempted to list a specific case ... but I want to keep this thread civil.

[ July 12, 2003, 11:31: Message edited by: Arkcon ]