Philosophical Quandry: Piracy

[PvK]

I always have random strangers press the "I agree" buttons on my software.

[Thermodyne]

What about the software that came with your name brand computer. You follow the agreement and one day the system gets old and dies. So you get a new one. You wipe the old systems drive and give the whole thing to the GW. Then you try to install YOUR software on the new system only to find that it can not be installed. This is called a restricted license. I for one feel that you should be allowed to exchange that Version of the software for an open license unless you agreed in writing to the restricted license.

[PvK]

Maybe the "morality" discussion is suffering from different ideas of what the term means... or something.

I don't think Fryon meant that because human sacrifice was not immoral to many cultures, that that means it (or any "lesser" offence) isn't immoral for all cultures. Quite the opposite, it seems to me he was saying that each culture has different definitions of morality. In countries like the modern United States, there are many cultures at the same location, with very different convictions about what is right and what is wrong. Also in the US, some of us assert the right to decide for ourselves what we think is right or wrong, and to disagree with others about it.

The mistake, in my opinion, is to try to force everyone to live by the same culturally-based rules. Not that there shouldn't be such rules, but sometimes it's unwise to try to force all cultures to live by the same rules. Separation into countries with different laws and customs serves many purposes, and makes the world a much more interesting and hospitable place as a whole. Fortunately there is often enough common ground to agree on things like human sacrifice, however, though not always. I was told recently that killing unwanted daughters is still legal in India, for example.

PvK

[Slynky]

Originally posted by PvK:
I always have random strangers press the "I agree" buttons on my software.

ROFLMAO !

[Fyron]

Quite the opposite, it seems to me he was saying that each culture has different definitions of morality.

Precisely.

[PvK]

As for the actual topic of the thread...

in my opinion, cassette recorders and xerox machines were the beginning of the obsolescence of legal control of public media duplication. Affordable CD writers, the Internet, and contemporary computers, as well as audio/visual encoding devices, have made it entirely practical to share almost all forms of media freely with everyone on the planet. The service of location, distribution, and duplication of almost all media can now be trivially and extremely inexpensively performed by computers.

The world's economic and legal systems [are] quite obsolete and extremely counter-productive, compared to technical realities. We've got these megacorporations invested in the old system of ownership desperately trying to keep us from using computers to do what they do naturally - copy data. Our culture as a whole hasn't really figured out what has happened yet, and has no consensus on what to do about it.

However, this situation is an ocean that can't be held back forever by an artificial dam. Or at least, humans will be an even sillier race than they already are if they try to keep themselves from being able to copy data forever.

PvK

[ July 11, 2003, 20:33: Message edited by: PvK ]

[Loser]

True. Change will come. But it may not be a good change. If a good distribution model, one that compensates the artists, is not developed, certain forms of art (ones that are not valued for Live Performances, the way musicians really make their money) may fall back to the sate in which they existed before the birth of Free Artistry in the Renascence.

[broad generalization]

Change will come. Men to not make history. History makes men.

[/broad generalization]