Originally Posted by Elhana
You are one of those people who keeps comparing software and physical goods, but do not realise that you can't steal software. Stealing is when victim looses something. I'm sure you wouldn't mind if someone took your sandwitch, copied/cloned it and eaten a copy while leaving your one intact.
It is incorrect when BSA says that when you install pirated software you steal from vendor, simply because if you were forced to buy it you might aswell most likely decide not to. Even more stupid it is to call downloading software that is free of charge in the first place - stealing.
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Something so amazingly inane was said that I am delurking this thread now.
You lack a greater knowledge of economics and laws concerning the following things: intellectually property rights, copyright, and hacking. You said:
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Stealing is when the victim loses something.
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I want you to remember you said that, because today, you're going to get a lesson on how pirating software is stealing.
Developer Nick has an idea for a great peace of software and goes to work producing it. Now, he has an amazing peace of software and decides that it's working so well for him that others should be able to enjoy it. Of course, he's a red-blooded, capitalist American, and he wants to make a buck or two off his work (which is his fair right since he's the one who made it — we call this intellectual property and copyright law). He hires Joel's Marketing Agency (and now he needs to make money off it to cover Joel's fees and desire for profit) to sell it for him since he's absolutely inept at dealing with people enough to sell his product. (He's a developer; mirite?!
Don't take it personal, guys. I love you, and you know it.) Joel decides the product would sell best at Sean's Software Retail. Sean has to sell it at a price that will cover the price handed to him by Joel (which meets Joel's fees and Joel and Nick's desire to make money), and he also has to cover the cost of his storefront and all the overhead that comes with it (in addition to his own desire to make a profit). Now, there is a concrete price for end users to pay in the purchase of the product. There is quite a bit of mark-up in the final price, but that's how it goes.
What Nick, Joel, and Sean don't know is that end user Nate who purchased the product is actually Pirate Nate (yar!), and Pirate Nate thinks the product is over-priced. Furthermore, he thinks the product is so good that everyone should have it. Pirate Nate creates a torrent of the software and uses a p2p torrent program to distribute it free of charge.
Pirate Nate has just committed theft against Nick, Joel, and Sean because he is reducing the number of potential customers that would pay for the product. If Nick, Joel, and Sean ever managed to sue Nate or if Nate ever got apprehended for it, a judge would rule that Nate has stolen money by preventing Nick, Joel, and Sean from making money. Not only so, but Nick, Joel, and Sean have lost potential customers, and in business law, potential customers are deemed real property. Furthermore, anyone who downloaded the torrent of the software is guilty (should they be caught) of being in possession of a stolen item, and that also is prosecutable in a court of law whether they actually committed the theft or not. Pirate Nate is guiltier still of violating Nick's intellectual property rights and copyright permissions by distrubuting Nick's software by methods to which Nick has not agreed and without Nick's permission.
Let's say Nick and Joel decide that rather than sell the product through Sean's Retail, they're going to set up a website on which Nick can sell his software. To offset the cost of the site's upkeep, Nick makes agreements with several advertisers who put up banner adds on his site and then pay him for the amount of hits they get on their sites based on how many people clicked ads from his. Pirate Nate, having seen the software, decides for his own reasons to bypass the security of Nick's site, download the software for free, and then (as in the previous example) pass it off through a p2p program. He is, as before, guilty of theft, but this time it has changed a little. Nick is not only losing money from the sale of his product, but he is losing money based on the hits from his banner ads. Furthermore, his advertisers are losing potential sales and customers. Because of this, a court would rule Nate's actions as theft against Nick, Joel, and Nick's advertisers, a violation of intellectual property and copyright laws, and Nate would further be guilty of hacking because he bypassed the security of Nick's site.
WoWMatrix hasn't behaved any differently than Pirate Nate in my example. The methods by which they make add-ons available to the public involve hacking, a vilation of intellectual property and copyright law, and theft for all the same reasons Nate's methods did. WM's methods just happen to be a little more grey than Nate's.
You may think the law is "stupid" or BSA is incorrect and side with Pirate Nate and WM, but the law is what it is so that Developer Nick and the people who make the mods you enjoy can be protected. It's their software, and they should have a say in how it gets distributed and who distributes it for them if they don't want to distribute it themselves. Like it or lump it, those are the facts.
I'm not going to stop you from having your perspective, but as long as you realize that everything I've said here is truth, I can agree to disagree with you about your perspective.
Originally Posted by MidgetMage55
Time to accept the situation for what it is, make personal adjustments and move on.
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Originally Posted by MidgetMage55
Time to...move on.
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Originally Posted by MidgetMage55
Move on!
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Qftbfs. (Quoted for truth, and bolded for significance.)