Philosophical Quandry: Piracy

[Fyron]

But I do believe there are certain fundamental issues of right and wrong that are moral issues. Stealing and murder are two of those.

That is what I said, you know (essentially). Whether stealing and murder are morally wrong or right is relative, depending on the culture in which you live. But, those are certainly absolutely moral issues in every culture. It is the specific value of them that is not absolute.

[Thermodyne]

OK a company sells CD burners. Same company sells recorded digital media. People use the recorders to copy and distribute the digital content. Said company now asks for protection from its customers who are purchasing burners to burn media. That’s kind of a strange situation IMHO. The company helped create the problem; shouldn’t they invest in a solution? Also, if a pier to pier provider makes it possible for people to easily break the law, would this come under the laws pertaining to public nuisance and disorderly enterprise. There is no threshold of intent to be met under these laws.

[Baron Munchausen]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
EULAs are not actually legally enforceable. You can make as many copies of any CD as you want. As long as you do not distribute the copies, it is 100% legal, as they are backup copies. If you really want, you can go make 150000 copies of your Windows CD. As long as you keep every Last one, Microsoft can not do anything to you.

Actually, should Microsloth discover that you possess 150,000 copies of your Windows CD they would probably sue, and argue that possession of so many copies indicates intent to distribute.

[Arkcon]

Originally posted by geoschmo:

... is immoral or merely a cultural belief. The question was whether or not copying software was moral. I said it was not and then got roped into a discussion of whether or not anyone has the right to say whether anything is moral or not.

Geoschmo

Hey there, I'm jumping in with a carefully snipped quote from Geo because it meshes well with my point of view.

Consider a "community" of hackers and software crackers, who've developed a "culture" of stealing software.

I think their culture is wrong. A bad culture. Bad. Bad. Bad. ... Bad.

I won't accept the premise that I have to respect that culture -- in my own mind.

I may not have any right to condemn it publicly, or act against it. After all myself or any group that holds similar convictions are as fallible as anyone other individual or group.

But I agree with Geo, the most basic fundamental rules of right and wrong shouldn't be lost on anyone. And I've said so before in a slightly different context. Link: Conceptually it is wrong.

I will agree that maybe stolen software registrations are hard to compare perfectly with a household burglary. And yes, the definition of killing gets messy when we consider warfare, government executions, and heck even the decision not to be a vegan.

But the Golden Rule works pretty good in many instances.

[ July 12, 2003, 03:20: Message edited by: Arkcon ]

[Jack Simth]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
Yes, it is beyond a shadow of a doubt illegal piracy. I am not asking about legality, but about morality. Is it wrong to do this? Why or why not?

Technically, you are asking about ethics, not morality; ethics are rules of right and wrong (which is what you are asking); morals are how well those rules are followed. However, this distinction is seldom material, and more people don't get it than do get it, even in professional literature on the subject. I suppose then 'what exactly do those terms mean?' becomes a question of where language gets its meaning: from usage or from some concrete thing out there? I suppose it doesn't really matter - it's mostly a distinction without a difference.

As for what you are asking ... here's a little riddle to add fuel to the fire:

All ethics are absolute. All ethics are arbitrary. All ethics are applied universally.

These aren't actually contradictory, even though they first appear so.

An explanation:
Part 1) All ethics are absolute.
Ethics are rules, by definition. If the rules include a line saying that this situation or that situation or all situations are ethically fuzzy, then (for those rules) this situation or that situation or all situations are ethically fuzzy. Period. That's absolute, even though it leads to relative situations and variable conclusions about particular instances and general cases.

Part 2) All ethics are arbitrary.
If you take any ethic (any ethic at all - it doesn't matter which one or from what ethical system) and ask "why?" (and actually get a response, oc) you get an underlying principal of some kind (e.g. because of this other rule, because of these other rules, because of these principals, because X said so, because that's the way I feel, because that works the best, et cetera). If the response is one of the "because of X" where X is a principal or rule or principals or rules or any combination thereof (including X said so), you can ask "why" again (or an appropriet variant, such as "why should that be important?" for things that are obvious facts, as an example; "why should we follow what he/she/it/they said?" if an entity/group/person/being is referenced; or even "So why should logic matter?" if all else fails). You can repeat this process until one of several things happen: 1: Responses cease to be forthcoming. 2: The responses fall into a loop ("Why A?" "B" "Why B?" "C" "Why C?" "A"). 3: The response becomes one that is obviously arbitrary (e.g. "Because that's the way I feel" "It just is"). 4: The response becomes one of an emotional argument (e.g. "don't you feel that way?").
1 demonstrates that there isn't really a reason (no reason -> arbitrary), or that the responder has had enough of questions (no data one way or another; find a different respondant/starting question). 2 implies arbitrary as such loops are arbitrary (which loop to pick? There are theoretically an infinite number of such loops). 3 is obviously arbitrary by definition. With 4, it should be pointed out that different people/beings/Groups feel different ways; choosing which person's/being's/group's feelings is an arbitrary choice.
As long as case 1 doesn't happen, the ethic is arbitrary. If case 1 happens, there are a few sub-possibilities: a) there is no reason, thus it is arbitrary; b) the respondant doesn't know, and is trusting an arbitrary source; thus the ethic is arbitrary; c) the respondant is just tired of the questions/dead/gone/sleeping/whatever. 1c is just thrown in for completeness; it is rather immaterial. Cases of an eventual 1c are assumed to be arbitrary. I'll leave it up to a potential opponent to argue that it isn't.

Part 3: All ethics are applied universally.
Implicitly or explicitly, everyone has a system of ethics that they univerally apply. Note that an ethical system includes (implicitly or explicitly) how to deal with those who follow a different system (e.g. calling differences wrong or not).

Parts 1 and 2 aren't contradictory: arbitrary refers to the basis of the ethic while absolute refers to the ethic itself. Parts 2 and 3 aren't contradictory: arbitrary refers to the basis of the ethic while 'applied universally' refers to the judging actions and/or people.

Ethics are arbitrary, so when people disagree, debate doesn't cause agreement unless one side (A) can find something in the other side's (B's) ethics of more importance that supports A's Version (also requires that B's ethics include weighing contradictory ethics to rule one out for the situation in question; some ethical systems could allow for contradiction).
Barring that (also barring altering a person's stance by other means), agreement will not be reached on points of contention.

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.

Perhaps I should have held off on the explanation in the interest of furthering discussion? Ahh well, it's done.

[PvK]

Ok, so I think when Geo says murder and stealing are wrong, that might translate to the "culturally correct" as "every human society defines some acts of killing and taking from others as wrong".

PvK

[Will]

Well, I'm jumping in a bit late, it seems...

So people don't have to read through six pages of stuff, like I just did, the original question :

Suppose you make a copy of SE4 for a friend. Your friend will play the game for a bit and decide if he likes it or not. If he likes it, he will buy it. If not, he will uninstall it and be done with it. Just him forever playing on this copy is not an option to be considered in this thread.

In this specific situation, I don't really think it is immoral. From my view, to say otherwise is very close to saying it's immoral to letting the same friend play your copy, on YOUR computer. I don't think anyone would question the morality of bringing your computer to a friends' house to try out the game, with no copying issues. However, an option like that is not always feasible, so you bring the CD, install, try, uninstall.

I can't seem to find a copy of the SEIV EULA -- and I don't feel like digging out my CD and starting an install to read it -- but I will assume that it prohibits installing on someone else's computer without uninstalling on yours. So, yes, it's illegal. The morality of it, however, is different. Some have said that they already provide the demo, and that should provide for the trial instead of trying out someone else's complete copy, and it would be immoral to give something other than the demo to try out the game. But I wonder, when Shrapnel was at Origins, did the computer that had SEIV running have the Demo, or Gold? I would assume that since there was almost no risk of the copy on that computer going anywhere, that they would have put Gold on it; show off the full functionality of the product, and you have a better chance of getting a buyer. Letting my friend play the full Version has little chance of the game going anywhere else; if I had the slightest doubt that it would be distributed elsewhere, I would install, show off, and uninstall all in one sitting.

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by Will:
But I wonder, when Shrapnel was at Origins, did the computer that had SEIV running have the Demo, or Gold? I would assume that since there was almost no risk of the copy on that computer going anywhere, that they would have put Gold on it; show off the full functionality of the product, and you have a better chance of getting a buyer.

Well it was the full Version. But as the publisher they have the right to make this decision. And regardless of whether your supposition is correct or not you really don't have the right to make that decision for you and your friends. I could agree with the suposition (I don't, but I could) that a fully enabled Version would generate more sales then a demo, but not being the developer or publisher I don't get the right to set their policies regarding the best way to gfenerate more sales.

The reason I don't agree with your suposition is that I believe that someone can tell in 100 turns if they like the game or not enough to buy the full Version. The reason for using the full Version at Origins is one of practicality. People didn't sit there at the convention and play 100+ turns. Richard played the game in between talking to people all weekend long and people would walk up and watch for a while, or do a few turns themselves. It would be a little inconveinent if someone walked up at turn 98 and wanted to watch a few turns and he had to restart right away. That's not an issue for someone playing the demo from the start.

Geoschmo

[Will]

Yes, the publisher can decide how their product is distributed, and with what limitations. However, in this case, it isn't really being distributed... the game is there for maybe an hour, and then it's gone, and the friend decides whether to buy or not. If you physically brought your system over to your friend's house to show of the game, is that still immoral? Or, the slightly easier route, bring your friend to your system to show off the game, is that immoral? How about uninstalling on your system, installing on your friend's, uninstalling on your friend's, then reinstalling on yours? All bring about essentially the same results, and in all situations, Malfador and Shrapnel aren't affected (except perhaps by getting a new buyer). To me, it all just seems like varying numbers of flaming hoops to jump through, when there really is no necessity for any hoops.

[Fyron]

Originally posted by Arkcon:

quote:

---

Originally posted by geoschmo:

... is immoral or merely a cultural belief. The question was whether or not copying software was moral. I said it was not and then got roped into a discussion of whether or not anyone has the right to say whether anything is moral or not.

Geoschmo

Hey there, I'm jumping in with a carefully snipped quote from Geo because it meshes well with my point of view.

Consider a "community" of hackers and software crackers, who've developed a "culture" of stealing software.

I think their culture is wrong. A bad culture. Bad. Bad. Bad. ... Bad.

I won't accept the premise that I have to respect that culture -- in my own mind.

I may not have any right to condemn it publicly, or act against it. After all myself or any group that holds similar convictions are as fallible as anyone other individual or group.

But I agree with Geo, the most basic fundamental rules of right and wrong shouldn't be lost on anyone. And I've said so before in a slightly different context. Link: Conceptually it is wrong.

I will agree that maybe stolen software registrations are hard to compare perfectly with a household burglary. And yes, the definition of killing gets messy when we consider warfare, government executions, and heck even the decision not to be a vegan.

But the Golden Rule works pretty good in many instances.

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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).