Software Piracy At the Workplace? 1006
An anonymous reader writes "What does one do when a good portion of the application software at your workplace is pirated? Bringing this up did not endear me at all to the president of the company. I was given a flat 'We don't pirate software,' and 'We must have paid for it at some point.' Given that I was only able to find one burnt copy of Office Pro with a Google-able CD-Key, and that version of Office is on at least 20 computers, I'm not convinced. Some of the legit software in the company has been installed on more than one computer, such as Adobe Acrobat. Nevertheless I have been called on to install dubious software on multiple occasions. As for shareware, what strategies do you use to convince management to allow the purchase of commonly used utilities? If an installation of WinZip reports thousands of uses, I think the software developer deserves a bit o' coin for it. When I told management that WinZip has a timeout counter that counts off one second per file previously opened, they tried to implement a policy of wait for it, do something else, and come back later, rather than spend the money. Also, some software is free for home and educational use only, like AVG Free. What do you when management ignores this?"
Bide your time (Score:5, Insightful)
Do what you're told. Look for another job.
Re:Bide your time (Score:3, Insightful)
Do what you're told. Look for another job.
Be a good little wage slave and don't get uppity and challenge your masters until you find new masters. Or call the BSA [bsa.org]. Of course if you're going to do that, better not to identify yourself by bringing your concern to management first.
Re:Bide your time (Score:1, Insightful)
Your answer is at http://www.monster.com (Score:4, Insightful)
I can see two honorable paths here:
You can find them FOSS substitutes for their existing software.
You can find another job.
If you want to be optimistic you can stand your ground with the managers and state: "I will not install software unless I'm certain we have a proper license for it." And see if they show you the door, or attempt to find some kind of compromise. People that take the time to look seriously at Open Office often like what they find. So there is a slim hope, but odds are, these are not the class of people you want to make a career with, and you'll be happier working somewhere that ethical compromises are not a daily expectation.
It's funny, isn't it... (Score:4, Insightful)
Instead of saying "Well, I do seem to be surrounded by CD-R copies of commercial software activated with leaked VLKs, I must be a dirty pirate." they say "I'm obviously a good person, and good people don't do bad things, therefore the things that I have done could not possibly be bad."
This would be merely harmless idiocy, were it not for the fact that most of those people are completely wrong.
Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
get another job (Score:5, Insightful)
Document Everything (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Bide your time (Score:1, Insightful)
Different Approach (Score:5, Insightful)
Instead of accsing the company of piracy (even if they're guilty), use another approach.
Say, I'm concerned that renewing future licenses will be very expensive. Say, the 1,000 copies of Winzip at $30 each is $30,000. 7-zip is a free alternative that actually works better, and will save the company $30,000 the new time those licenses need to be renewed. Alnd OpenOffice saves $400 per license over MS Office. OpenOffice comes with free PDF export functionality, which saves the $500 Acrobat license.
You may get approval to install free, legal alternatives and get rid of the pirated software. Even better, instead of being seen as the problem (the person who has a moral objection to their piracy), you'll be seen as a solution.
Re:Bide your time (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry but thats pretty crappy advice. He should be recommending free alternatives, not jumping ship. He should also expect to see some license irregularities time from time, especially in small business. He should bring this up, with the working alternatives. If you quit every job with a challenge then you'll end up no where.
Contact the BSA AFTER you secure other employment (Score:5, Insightful)
The ethical thing to do at this stage in the game is to drop a dime on'em. The sensible thing to do is to ensure that you still have an income afterwards. Count on the boss finding out and retaliating; whether that is illegal or not, factor that into your plans.
Live with it or find another job (Score:5, Insightful)
In office environments like this, management's stand is very unlikely to change. Trying to change their minds will be an exercise in futility, so you need to just focus your decision making on whether or not you are willing to stick around and be a part of it, or would rather look for another job.
Re:Contact the BSA & request an audit (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Bide your time (Score:5, Insightful)
So, it's okay for people to not say anything about corporate software piracy (hundreds if not thousands of dollars), but if you pirate a game for home use (around 60 dollars) or pirate a single song you're supposed to shut your mouth, end up in court and pay millions in damages?
Talk about double standards.
Other professions have liabilities and so should IT.
My job used to be like this.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I am a sysadm/web developer for a smallish manufacturing business. When I got here, there licensing was a complete and utter mess. They had about half the number of Office licenses as needed (And half of those were Home/Student Edition), they had a centralized AV solution that they were still getting updates for but hadn't paid for in three years, and just overall were NOT compliant.
I brought it to the company president's attention. Buying 40 Office licenses at a time (Probably around $10000 for Small Business) as well as 70-80 AV subscriptions (Maybe another $2000), and various other server and client software (Around $12,000 more) was not something they wanted to do. They did agree to take it slow and get legit over a period of time. During that period, I did install Office on more machines but they bought the licenses over a period of 18 months. In the end, I am happy to say we are nearly 100% compliant.
So I guess instead of going to him with a HUGE bill, maybe write up a plan to go legit over the next year or two. They may balk at a one time large sum of money but be willing to pay $1000 here, $2000 there or something. Worked for me. If the company is too cheap to even do that, you probably aren't going to you as an employee and are probably better off starting to look around....
Get Out. Sleep Better. (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't think that the company president who "didn't know he was using pirated software" won't serve you up as the sacrificial lamb to the Powers That Be in a heartbeat when some disgruntled ex-employee rats to the BSA. At that point, you'll be out of a job the hard way, with the kind of black stain on a record that no young IT guy wants to have.
Re:Bide your time (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:get another job (Score:3, Insightful)
So is not paying for software.
If you are willing to steal from other companies, pirate software, etc., and openly lie about it, then chances are you don't particularly care about your customer, either. You care literally only about money, apparently.
undoing redundant mod (Score:3, Insightful)
Document... (Score:3, Insightful)
Document (as in "make sure the decision maker is aware of it") the need for an audit of software licenses. If they refuse to permit that, cover your ass as best you can and start looking for another job.
If they permit the audit, do it. If you come up short in the licenses-to-installed copies ratio, document that. If they refuse to mitigate (buy licenses or delete installations) cover your ass as best you can and look for another job.
It is your job to make the decision makers aware of the licensing terms, show them how the organization is or is not in compliance with those terms, and to educate them as to the consequences of failing to comply. If you are not allowed, at the very minimum, to do these things, rest assured that it will be you who is blamed when that willful negligence comes back to bite the organization. Cover your ass and get the documentation that shows you at least tried to get them to do the right thing.
Re:My job used to be like this.... (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't think that means what you think it means (Score:2, Insightful)
Sorry, I don't understand you. You were trying to explain how endangering one's job to avoid engaging in unethical behavior is a cowardly thing to do?
Re:Bide your time (Score:1, Insightful)
Exactly. If the "software police" ever file charges against your employer they will point to you as the person who did this and they had no clue. CYA. Find a job and move on as quick as you can. Otherwise you are the scapegoat. Don't laugh either as this happened to a close friend of mine in IT. When you do get another job turn em in. That is my advice. LOL. They were going to screw you if they needed to so give it to them.
Re:Bide your time (Score:5, Insightful)
I.T. is the farthest thing from a profession.
No barriers to entry, no professional society to get bounced out of.
Accounting, engineering, law, medicine are professions - we're computer janitors.
Re:Bide your time (Score:2, Insightful)
I would add: Document everything. Save any emails about software installations, make a spreadsheet contains: Name of Software, Key used, Installed on, Requested by. Make an effort to get all software purchase receipts from your purchasing people, and attempt to collate the data points. Send a report to the president once a month, telling him what is in use and what your licensed for. Don't make threats, accusations, implications. Just state the facts, and keep a copy of what you sent, in case you need it later.
While your documenting you might find that you are licensed for the software, if not in actuality, at least in spirit. For example, if you bought a machine from Dell Small Business and got Office in a bundle, but wiped it and re-installed with your own image, you're at least within the spirit of the license, even if you're really not supposed to. If this is the case, don't worry about it. Look for another job if you must, but otherwise be happy.
If it turns out your not licensed for anything, don't worry about. Look for another job, be happy, go and send the BSA a note on the way out the door. Tell them what you found, the conversations that you had and your attempts to rectify the situation.
Re:I don't have all the answers for you, but... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Since you brought it up... You're liable (Score:4, Insightful)
The BSA is almost as sociopathic as the Company President in the slashdot summary. If you go to them, expect to be blackballed just as surely as if the company got ratted out by someone else and you took the blame.
Would you work for a company that stole cars to maintain its motor pool - and you are the head of the Motor Pool Division? Time to find a new job. Times are tough, but jail time is worse.
Re:Bide your time (Score:5, Insightful)
It's about having priorities. If you believe getting "far up the corporate ladder" is more important than your own ethics, then you're spineless.... or never had the ethics you thought you had. And you should be watched for malfeasance.
The corporate, administrative, and political systems all live by the "good ol' boys club", "blue wall of silence", and "team players" code. If you hate it... don't become a part of it. If you like it, then I don't want you in those industries.
Re:Contact the BSA & request an audit (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't work quite like this. Microsoft has no more right to demand an audit of your systems than you do of their systems. They can only demand an audit if you've already agreed to do so in a licensing agreement you consented to. Generally, if you get a corporate site license or possibly other volume licensing from MS, you have agreed to on demand audits. If all the MS software you have came with the machines (like Windows and often Office) or you bought shrinkwrap versions, you don't have to agree to anything unless they have a court order.
-ec
Re:undoing redundant mod (Score:3, Insightful)
I also hate those stupid "choosing an item in the list equals submitting said choice".
Choosing something in a list is one step, submitting your choice is another.
Welcome to the real world (Score:4, Insightful)
Most small businesses have a hard time dealing with software licensing. Any money that they have to spend on software is less money for them to spend on other things like employee salaries, power bills to keep the lights on, toner for the printers, etc. It sounds to me like the OP has already shot himself in the foot by bringing it up to management.
If pirated software really bothers you then find another job (good luck with that in this market). However ratting your employer out to the BSA is a dickhead move. Whether you like it or not, they are currently paying your salary, and the salary of at least 20 other people. The odds of them getting audited for license compliance are just about zero, unless someone rats them out.
I'd take a long hard look at the situation. There isn't an easy answer. Either you rat out your employer and impose significant costs and lost productivity on a company in a struggling economy, or you live with being a thief for a while until you can find another job. If I were in that situation, I'd just suck it up and start looking for another job. I wouldn't cry myself to sleep if Microsoft loses out on the licensing revenue for 19 copies of Office. And I certainly wouldn't torpedo a company that is providing employment to my community just so that the BSA and Microsoft can earn a couple thousand dollars.
Re:Bide your time (Score:5, Insightful)
Find another job, while documenting everything you have. Tell your new employer, flatly, that you feel you're working in an ethicsless stability hell-hole that could be sued into the ground at any point, and that you've brought up numerous internal illegal activities to upper management repeatedly and they've flatly denied it or told you to ignore it. Be prepared to justify the extent of the behavior as far-reaching, and clarify the intent of continued behavior at all levels of management. Be prepared not to be hired by shady companies, and to be immediately hired on by companies that hire specific licensing compliance personnel to do their own internal audits (yes, companies actually search themselves for illegal use of products so they can determine business advantage to using them and either ban their use or obtain the proper license).
Tell your CURRENT employer this in your exit interview if you must... but its not any business of any future employers. It could even be considered a violation of your confidentiality agreement to tell others about this (you could get sued...) Also, if you tell a potential employer about something a former employer did wrong, they will be wondering what you will be saying about them in the future. In business the old adage "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all" is one to live by.
If you feel you must take further action, file a report with the BSA (not the Boy Scouts of America - the Business Software Association) and be prepared for a shitstorm to ensue.
In any case, get out ASAP. You are liable for your actions regardless of the fact that you are just following orders. Installing known pirated software for your employers is actionable -you could personaly face penalties. Telling the boss NO when he instructs you to install the software could get you fired as well.
You tried to tell them about the problem. They chose not to listen. Now get yourself out of harms way.
Re:What do you expect? (Score:3, Insightful)
It's only piracy when someone else does it! (Score:4, Insightful)
A trip down memory lane:
"Selling games is strictly self-serving also. Apparently, you think its fantastic for companies to be driven by greed, but the customers should be selfless? Same old shit as the banks - capitalise the profit, socialise the loss."
(damburger 24 Oct Score: 5)
"In what you gave as an analogy, the hypothetical person STOLE food from the restaurant- the restaurant is out the food and drink the person took by not paying. In the case of infringement, someone merely takes a copy thereof- and nobody's out anything save maybe a cash transaction that might or might not have happened. They're not out their original copy, so it's not theft."
(Svartalk 24 Oct Score: 5)
"If I copy something that an artist produced, it doesn't cost that artist either time or effort. The time and effort has already been spent, they have no way of getting it back.
The only possibility is that they might get payment in compensation for it. As long as anything I do does not affect their chance of getting this compensation, I see no possible way in which it can be immoral. Therefore, as long as I can be sure that I am not going to pay for a copy, I see no way that making my own copy is immoral."
(julesh 24 Oct Score: 4)
"Yeah just like getting bit by an ant 'hurts' me, but not really. It's just an ant. Nothing to have a hissy-fit over like IRAA and the BSA seem to be having.
BSA: 'Oh noes! We've been bit an ant. The end is nigh'
US: 'Stop being a wuss.'"
(commodore64_love 12 Oct Score: 4)
I think what's going on here is most people see business purchases of commercial software as a way to justify their own piracy, like this person:
"Through college I had the full version of Matlab/Simulink. I used toolboxes that the school didn't have when doing class projects. I learned everything I could about it and the toolboxes available.
Now, 6 years later, I was able to talk my boss into buying a few extra special toolboxes for the work we do. Something close to $30k a seat a year. Had I never 'pirated' all that software I would have never been able to sell my self to my company, nor sell my company on Matlab toolboxes."
(0100010001010011 12 Oct Score: 4)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bide your time (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bide your time (Score:5, Insightful)
Since you're the one that complained, they will naturally suspect you when the BSA or someone else shows up. Wait until someone gets fired or there's a tiff with the boss and an employee or something like that -- in other words, don't file a complaint until someone else there would have a reason to want to nail the boss, then file it so the timing makes it look like that person is complaining, not you.
Re:Bide your time (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree, except for one thing. By your definition, software engineering isn't really a profession either. There is no professional association that accredits software engineers or kicks them out for writing crappy software. The barrier to entry isn't really that high either. I have yet to see a commercial software application that had any REAL warranty. Software warranties boil down to: "if it works, great. If it doesn't then too bad for you". If there are no consequences then there is no need to have a legally responsible engineer.
I still find it amazing that companies are so heavily dependent on software that nobody really stands behind. I think this explains why IT can be such a miserable job. The company has to have someone to blame!
Re:Bide your time (Score:1, Insightful)
I work for a small company with four full-time employees. We have quite a bit of pirated software that we use alongside FOSS options. The fact is that the software we have will never be paid for, and I enjoy my paycheck far too much to raise a stink about. That's assuming I've got some sort of moral issue with using pirated software, which I don't.
So, really, I don't fucking care. Arrr, matey.
Re:Welcome to the real world (Score:3, Insightful)
I see you are from "don't snitch" school of thought. Well, that is a dumbass move. The company would gladly slit his throat and throw him to the BSA if they thought it would protect themselves, and you know it. He owes them nothing.
Personally, I hope you get to be on the receiving end of the negative side of "don't snitch".
Re:What do you expect? (Score:5, Insightful)
Obviously said by someone who's never put a lot of work into a program, video, script, or anything else that requires creative work, then wondered why he wasn't making money on it.
If I build a house, I get paid by the people who use it. If I put the same effort into, say, a film script, that might take anywhere from 6 weeks to a year to write, why should people get it for free?
Interesting how the kiddies who've never had to work for a living thing they should get everything for free and don't have the backbone to produce anything worthwhile in exchange. They're the real users or AOLusers -- use and use and too impotent to produce on their own.
Re:Let me get past the easy comments... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Bide your time (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Get Out. Sleep Better. (Score:5, Insightful)
Not necessarily.
If it's within your purview, you can always try ordering licenses for the software in question, or submitting the purchase request through proper channels. When asked why, explain that you cannot find any licensing information, and you're looking to protect the company's interests.
That said, it's not your job to make policy, nor is it your responsibility to protect the financial interests of the publishers of the software in question.
So, keep a record of all of your meetings and document all conversations you had with any superiors regarding the situation. Obviously you don't want to include any especially damning details one way or the other -- your goal here is not retribution, it's job and career security. If you said nothing to management about a problem you knew about, then you're at fault. At the same time, you don't want to take the fall if/when someone reports your company. Keeping records will help to defend against either scenario, and improve your job prospects should you be "let go." It's evidence that you were trying to be a team player. CYA -- Cover Your Ass -- but don't rock the boat unless you're prepared for the consequences when everyone ends up in the water (including yourself).
Re:What do you expect? (Score:2, Insightful)
If I build a house, I get paid by the people who use it. If I put the same effort into, say, a film script, that might take anywhere from 6 weeks to a year to write, why should people get it for free?
If you build a house you get paid ONCE by the people who use it. Why should one effort at a film script (or software or music, etc.) grant you income for life? Maybe you should just get paid for it for 6 weeks to a year or however long it took to create. The idea that you should be paid for life (plus!) for a relatively short period of work is as ridiculous, if not more so, than people thinking they should get everything for free.
Re:Bide your time (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Bide your time (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Bide your time (Score:3, Insightful)
Blackmail does not require the demand or exchange of money. It can also refer to demanding specific services or actions be performed, as well. As long as you're demanding that somebody do something they might not otherwise do, and the demand is backed by a threat of some sort, it's blackmail. In this case, it is blackmail, as it's quite clearly a case of saying "buy these licenses, or I go to the police". If I were the manager in question, I'd fire him on the spot. If the licensing issue were to come up in the future, I'd simply tell the software companies in question that this is part of the reason he was fired, and that we are already in the process of legitimizing the software licenses.
It's also entirely possible that, despite his evidence, they actually do own licenses for the software. It's not uncommon for a company to use a volume license for software X, but to install it all from the same image/source, which can often be a burned CD or network drive.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Bide your time (Score:5, Insightful)
One thing about being a professional is that every guy in the field is chained to the same code of conduct.
Imagine this conversation with a lawyer or an accountant -
Boss - please do %dodgy_thing%.
Lawyer/Accountant - Hell no, I'm not getting disbarred/whatever for you guys, and furthermore there's not a lawyer/accountant in the country who will put their name on %dodgy_thing%.
In the IT world there's lots of people who would happily install pirated software, the company can just turf the original poster and hire someone else off the street.
Re:Then THEY should get another job (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bide your time (Score:5, Insightful)
I've found, from past experience, that it's always good to be honest in your interviews. I flat out told a company that ultimately hired me, that one of the main reasons I'd left my previous job was that I felt that management didn't understand the industry, and that there were some questionable ethics going on behind closed doors. The company hired me. And on day 1 of my training, they said that ethics and openness were paramount within the company, and that if I ever felt that something was hinky, I was to e-mail my manager, and CC his boss. Within that organization, I *never* needed to take them up on that offer.
Coincidentally, that organization was one that routinely monitored computers for pirated software. When they found something questionable, they e-mailed the person whose workstation it was, asking them to either remove the software or provide a license for it. If they didn't get an answer within 1 week, they'd e-mail the person's boss. 1 week after that, they'd have IT reimage the computer.
Be honest. You're more likely to get a job that actually suits you.
Run, for more than the obvious reasons. (Score:3, Insightful)
Begin looking for another job as soon as possible. Document your communications with your manager and attempts to get them to go legit. But leave as soon as possible.
The reason is simple: a company who believes it is okay to do what they're doing is not going to appreciate what YOU do. Your raises will never be good, the respect you garner from upper level management will be negligible, and you will always be treated as a second class citizen that is there only because the world requires it. The companies that do what you're describing are those who view technology as a "necessary evil" and "money sink" rather than the enabler it should be.
Beyond absurd (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow. What a great justification of illegal activity. Sorry, but djheru is right. Threatening to report illegal activity unless it is stopped is not blackmail. Threatening to report it unless I get some money is, but blackmail involves the blackmailer benefiting.
You've basically made the argument that no one ever has the right to threaten to go to the police if the criminal activity doesn't stop. That's beyond absurd.
Re:Bide your time (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What do you expect? (Score:3, Insightful)
There's a reason why things are like this, and that's because no one would bother writing professional-quality software if they didn't get paid enough for it. Think all you want about how immaterial things should be free, but if all information somehow had to be free then you wouldn't have anymore professional software around, you'd be stuck with crap like GIMP or Blender and would never again see anything like Photoshop or 3DS Max. There's thousands of man-hours of work that go into each such commercial program, man-hours from highly qualified and well-paid people. Someone has to pay for that work, cause if no one does then these people won't touch that ever again and look for a real job that pays.
It's ludicrous to say that you own a particular configuration of 1s and 0s
That's the stupidest fucking argument on the topic I've ever heard. If everything comes down to just a bunch of 1s and 0s, then why don't you just create them as you need them? Oh, what's that? Creating what you want is non-trivial and the only way to create that is to do it the way it's currently done, which costs money? By the way, not believing in private property is communism. It's like, someone painstakingly creates something and then some wanker like you comes up and goes "this is now property of the people, thank you".
TL;DR you sound like a broke ass basement dweller who wants all his porn, games, movies and music for free cause has no money, and who'd never create anything worth a dime, so it's easy for you to whine and demand that everything is offered to you for free. I'm a self employed software developer and make a living off a program I created all on my own, I create value with my work, you wouldn't know what that means.
Re:Bide your time (Score:4, Insightful)
At this point he will either become furious and fire you on the spot, gaining you some unemployment, or he will fix things. If he's a real sociopath, though, he may just fix things and then fire you anyway. It's probably best to pull this after you have another potential job lined up.
Even if he doesn't fire you, he'll probably find ways to punish you and make your life hell. It's probably best to pull this after you have another job lined up and want to quit anyway.
Re:Then THEY should get another job (Score:5, Insightful)
The better (business) solution is to speak to management in terms they can understand - money.
I'm not saying that they need to feel threatened. Instead, point out that you are looking out for the interests of the company and want to ensure all bases are covered in the event of a short-notice software audit.
Then you outline a plan to audit the computers on your network and a plan for remediation (buying licenses, uninstalling software, and/or using some sort of network-wide metering package). Again, this should be done with the focus on how much this will cost the company versus not complying and getting caught with unlicensed software. Remember, management really only cares about budgets and how much of it needs to be expended. It might also help to explain that your own ass is on the line as the IT admin and that, by formally notifying management (you *are* documenting this formally, right?), they are just as culpable if/when a BSA audit occurs.
Part of a good admin's job is to audit the environment regularly for such things, anyway. Even if no action is taken on the findings, at least you know where you're starting from when action ultimately does need to be taken - for any sort of project, not just software license management.
Re:Then THEY should get another job (Score:4, Insightful)
You're not very good at extrapolation, are you? I'll admit I share a very tiny sliver of your hope, but I'm certainly not holding my breath. If any kind of sane copyright laws get enacted during my lifetime, I'll be very surprised.
Re:Bide your time (Score:3, Insightful)
Except that this isn't a criminal matter, and you're not going to the police to report a crime. You're going to a civil organization which will litigate a civil matter. Namely, alleged software piracy.
The point stands... if I were a manager and one of my employees came to me with an ultimatum like that, I'd fire them on the spot. If you're planning on going to the BSA, just do it. Don't threaten your employers with the nasty consequences if they don't do what you want them to do. It's hugely inappropriate to go to your employer with an ultimatum. There's proper ways to handle situations like this, and threatening to go to the BSA isn't the smart thing to do. Neither is ignoring the situation, as that can come back to bite you in the ass.
What the submitter should do is what others have come forward to suggest: namely, either find another job, or make a business case for either buying/rebuying the licenses (reminding them that if somebody went to the BSA it'd be *very* expensive to get caught with their pants down is not the same as threatening to do so yourself), or for switching to software that doesn't require a license. Make it clear to management that you want to work with them to remedy the situation so that it doesn't become a problem with the BSA, rather than a threat that if they don't fix the problem you *will* go to the BSA.
Re:What do you expect? (Score:5, Insightful)
You make a pretty big leap, saying that disagreeing with the current application of intellectual property laws is the same as not believing in ownership of private property.
If you make something, you deserve to charge money for it. It's a big jump to then say that your great great great grandchildren should also make money from it. An even bigger jump to say that you can transfer your rights to someone else who can then make money from it in perpetuity and an even bigger jump to say that the people who buy your product don't really own it but are only leasing it for however long you say and not a moment longer.
The notion that intellectual property rights have certain limits, especially on the length of time you can claim those rights has been part of the laws of copyright and patent for a very long time. Given the ephemeral nature of ideas, this makes sense and has been a system that works. It's only since certain people, usually not the people who actually come up with the ideas, have started trying to assert longer and longer copyright periods, limiting the rights of the purchaser and coming up with perverted notions such as "licensing" products to consumers instead of "selling" those products, that there has been a serious pushback from consumers.
Making things and buying and selling those things is a two-way transaction that has been part of the social contract for a long time. Recently, one side of that transaction has decided to assert their financial power by making the rules of the transaction less equitable. That has caused many people on the other side of the transaction to believe the whole setup is bad, which leads to widespread rulebreaking.
You can say that the people breaking the rules are criminals or communists or even terrorists, but it would be easier to swallow these assertions if those on the supply side of the transaction had acted in good faith from the beginning. Unfortunately, "taking advantage of a powerful position" has become a sacred rite in the religion of free market economics. So, you end up with a surprising number of people who lose respect for the entire transaction. Maybe it's in the nature of human societies that every so often, when a transaction becomes unbalanced, that there is a widespread breakdown in following the rules which escalates until the system can be retooled. This seems to be what's happening in the realm of "intellectual property" (and, I can argue, in the entire system we know as "capitalism").
Behaviors that should have ended with feudalism now become "good business practice". No wonder so many people now believe that all of free market economics is a scam. One thing for sure, it's unlikely the system is going to be fixed by escalating the inequity of the transaction.
Re:What do you expect? (Score:3, Insightful)
You are confusing the utilitarian aspect of someone (i.e., the government) protecting original ideas versus a morally justified right to having that idea protected.
I like how you implied I don't believe in private property because I believe scarcity is the main factor in property rights--I argued that anything scarce should be considered to be property. Anything that cannot be informationally copied. That's the difference between stealing and transcribing a book.
A more easy way to look at it is the level of arbitrariness involved in protection of this "property." Intellectual property rights are entirely arbitrary--the number of years you have a right to it, what IS and ISN'T considered fair use, those are all completely arbitrary and vary from nation to nation. You cannot merely know without being told beforehand what your intellectual property "rights" are. With scarce property, such as a chair or so on, your rights are pretty intuitive and more basic.
There's a reason why things are like this, and that's because no one would bother writing professional-quality software if they didn't get paid enough for it. Think all you want about how immaterial things should be free, but if all information somehow had to be free then you wouldn't have anymore professional software around, you'd be stuck with crap like GIMP or Blender and would never again see anything like Photoshop or 3DS Max. There's thousands of man-hours of work that go into each such commercial program, man-hours from highly qualified and well-paid people. Someone has to pay for that work, cause if no one does then these people won't touch that ever again and look for a real job that pays.
Again, that is a utilitarian argument and not a moral one. Or more accurately, that is an argument out of convenience and not out of whether it's right or wrong, and you have not established why it's wrong to copy software, merely that negative consequences will result (and I do not deny that).
That's the stupidest fucking argument on the topic I've ever heard. If everything comes down to just a bunch of 1s and 0s, then why don't you just create them as you need them? Oh, what's that? Creating what you want is non-trivial and the only way to create that is to do it the way it's currently done, which costs money? By the way, not believing in private property is communism. It's like, someone painstakingly creates something and then some wanker like you comes up and goes "this is now property of the people, thank you".
I'm not saying people are owed or deserve that software for free, merely that copying software is not unethical because information is not [i]materially scarce[/i] (your usage of scarcity was an equivocation).
Saying that because thinking up or implementing a good idea grants you magical exclusive rights to it is ridiculous. It is like arguing that being the first to think of and implement a new scientific experimental paradigm grants you the exclusive right to that experimental paradigm. It's ridiculous.
I would say that you do deserve to get paid for your software, but given your hysterical yet amusing attitude I would be interested in knowing what program you made so I can torrent it :) Who knows... maybe I'll start really soon :)
Re:What do you expect? (Score:5, Insightful)
(Please bear in mind that I didn't read the grandpappy post, just the bit you quoted and your response.)
The FOSS movement does not equate the two concepts "a particular configuration of 1s and 0s" and "creat[ing that sequence of 1s and 0s] as you need them" as you have. The problem is in the notion of doing something cool once and then making money off of it for the rest of your life when there is zero cost to mass produce (i.e., make digital copies). This is where the FOSS movement and I part ways a bit, because FOSS says that it's "unethical" to do this. I'm not quite sure what that means, but I know if the cost of mass producing something is negligible, it's certainly impractical at the very least.
From the standpoint of a healthy capitalist society, I regard software more as a service (and don't confused SaaS here, I'm talking about box software like Windows) than a product. Capitalism is supposed to reward people for doing useful work. Patents and copyrights were originally conceived to do this, but over time they've become more and more about allowing one to rest on one's laurels and live a life of luxury for having done that one cool thing. I'm not exactly sure where this expectation of entitlement comes from...what other line of work doesn't require you to show up everyday to get a paycheck?
The "service" part of software comes in the form of extension and support. If I make something cool and release it for free, I may be paid to support it (ongoing labor), or even extend it (short-term labor at a particular customer's behest). Even in the case of being paid to do an extension I otherwise would not have done, I as the developer and strongly incented to release it for free to all because it presumably makes my original software more valuable and will drive further business.
Not coincidentally, this is actually how most commercial software companies actually work. I used to work for a well-known company that made marketing software, and they would routinely cut their prices 50%, even up to 90% to make a big sale. That sounds crazy until you understand the logic of it, which was to lock up the far more valuable support contract. In other words, what the market was saying is that the software itself wasn't valuable to customers—the support and ability to get feature requests answered, on the other hand, was. And so the pricing structure reflected that...give (or nearly give) the software away, and charge the real bucks for what the buyer is actually willing to pay for.
This happened on nearly every deal at that company, and it led me to wonder why they even bothered with charging at all...why not just give it away for free download on the website? Sure, a lot of small fish that otherwise wouldn't be able to afford it would start using it without ever paying a dime into the system...but so what? We weren't going to make money off of them anyway, and by removing the barrier to entry we open the door to at least small or one-time support fees, get better feedback for laying out our roadmap, and potentially deprive a competitor of a sale, increasing our own marketshare.
Re:Bide your time (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What do you expect? (Score:2, Insightful)
there are other considerations for society as explicitly discussed in the case law and other sources. however, i'm not necessarily even that put out by lifetime copyright, even though the original term of copyright was 10 years (and authors could lose copyright protection before their books were even well known due to the means of travel and communication of the time (horse and sailing ship)).
The problem with infinite copyright is that it stifles innovation the same as no copyright does. People are restrained by copyright from riffing off prior work. This can have negative societal consequences as political, social, and philosophical works frequently need to reference the current art. It's very onerous to tell people to buy 100 books because they're all still under copyright when excerpts would be more appropriate.
In addition, my biggest beef is the continual extension of copyright beyond the lifetime of the author solely to preserve Disney's profits because they're too lazy to invent new content or use trademark protection for mickey's damned ears.
Walt Disney's dead. Unless he's a follower of ancient Egyptian religion, he can't take it with him. His kids need to figure out how to make money themselves.
Re:Bide your time (Score:4, Insightful)
As I work in both IT and Education I have been offered membership in a union and steadfastly refuse to join one of those corrupt, self serving, industry destroying political lobbies.
Oh go cry us a river.
First and foremost, I would like it made clear I am *not* a member of a Union,...however, considering the garbage I've had to deal with, I'd gladly join one if it were available. I really grow tired of this "anti-Union" talk from people WHO WOULD BENEFIT FROM COLLECTIVE BARGAINING THE MOST.
I don't understand where this belief comes from that *you* (or I for that matter) have a duty to be the martyr on the cross of exploitation by major corporations. I don't care if you're talking about IT in a company like IBM, or a Construction worker down on 5th street. Taking advantage of your employees is TAKING ADVANTAGE OF YOUR EMPLOYEES...there's no other way to look at it.
As someone said earlier, is the company going to take responsibility if this gets discovered, or are they going to forget all about the fact they were told something wasn't kosher and decide it was all the fault of this "lone rogue person"
I'd put money on the corporation covering their ass every time.
Re:What do you expect? (Score:3, Insightful)
Technlogy is NOT "changing everything." Not many peope can write software, compelling stories, make good movies, video games, etc. As long as THAT doesn't change (and I don't see it changing anytime soon), copyright is just as valid today as it was 200 years ago.
Someone is providing a benefit, which, while not physical property, does mean they deserve to be paid.
Unless you don't want USEFUL software.
Re:What do you expect? (Score:3, Insightful)
But that's just it: they don't have to buy it. And apparently there's a large segment of society that does not feel such an impulse to respect intellectual property laws. That's the point of my argument here.
The only time we've seen such a large portion of society openly willing to break a law has been prohibition against alcohol and marijuana. And one of those laws fell and the other is weakened every day.
That's why it's important to look at the reasons behind the public's unwillingness to respect intellectual property laws. There's more at work here than just the fact that suddenly otherwise law-abiding citizens have decided to become criminals. And those on the supply-side of content creation and patents (including me) better think about this situation very carefully because simply escalating penalties to scare people, setting up snitch 800 numbers and suing the pants off college kids and old ladies is not going to get the job done.
Re:Then THEY should get another job (Score:3, Insightful)
Just know what you're getting into first and make sure you're ready for that. Getting calls from lawyers from your previous job on your current job usually doesn't earn you cool points with bosses no matter how right you were...
Re:What do you expect? (Score:3, Insightful)
There's room for many models. It is the entertainment industry that is trying to force the economics of content into the same model as used for physical goods such as chairs.
Actually, they don't stop there, they want it both ways. Treated as information when it impacts their bottom line, treated like physical property when it's your bottom line. They sell downloads, however grudgingly, reaping huge savings in distribution costs from doing all the copying and delivery electronically. Then they try to insist their customers not do what they do by threatening legal action if people don't treat downloads as if they were physical objects, pushing idiotic DRM schemes, making insultingly ludicrous analogies, and when all else fails making disgusting appeals to our sympathies with the "starving artists" and "support capitalism" baloney. Those are like listening to Madoff give a speech on the virtues of honesty and financial probity.
I really do think copyright has to go. If we as a society want to encourage art beyond what can already be done with the incredible advances in technology, there are other ways than hogtying ourselves with these antiquated, nonsensical laws. What I mean is that before the 20th century, we lacked the means to record performers. Copyright was useless to them. They had to earn all their income from live performances. And those were to audiences of a few hundreds at most, with only clever amphitheater design to make them audible to their listeners. Performing to a different 1000 every weekday for 10 years would get a 19th century performer heard by fewer than 3 million people. Today, not only can we record performances, we can do all kinds of studio work to make recordings better than live could ever be. And we can broadcast performances all over the world, and amplify sound so tens of thousands of people can enjoy a single live concert. Yet the industry hinders the engineering wizards who made that and them possible, endlessly fighting every technological advance. Take away this weapon called "copyright" that they've been gouging and smashing lives with, and set down a few more ground rules to stop their abuse of musicians.
Re:Bide your time (Score:3, Insightful)
So -- the boss is a crook. Not on the level of a literal pirate, of course, but he's a sneak, the kind of liar who thinks pretending not to see something in plain sight means denying it was there isn't a lie.
What in the world makes you think he isn't planning to pin this on you?
OK, we all know that won't get him out of it, but he's just demonstrated that he isn't exactly the world's sharpest thinker. People like that have a way of being just clever enough to make your life hell. And "anonymous" wants to know how to *fix* this situation? It's like listening to a woman tell you all the iron clad proof that her husband is cheating on her, then have her ask whether you think he might be seeing someone else. The fact that she has to ask tells you everything you need to know.
The number one cause of *serious* unhappiness at work, in my experience, is being forced to do something makes you feel like you don't have integrity. "Integrity" isn't some management buzz-word like "excellence". It's something that's very dear to any reasonably healthy human mind. Integrity is, of course, matching word to deed, doing what you said you will, and being truthful about what you have done. True, we all tell little white lies, but when something bothers you, it's wise to listen to that feeling, because it means that the lies aren't so white anymore. That's when it goes beyond how you present yourself to customers and vendors who ought to know the game. That's when begin to doubt that you are the person you thought you were. Unless you've got to pay your kid's chemotherapy bills or something like that, there's now way that's worth it. Every time you give into that, it's like you kill yourself a little bit. Keep it up and pretty soon your body will be walking around doing your master's bidding, but practically speaking nobody will be home. You'll be nothing more than another soul-less drone slaving away, wiling to endure any indignity for a paycheck.
This is a hell of an economy to say this, but when you're miserable because the people you work for are managing in the world of make-believe, maybe your purely monetary self-interest and your self-respect aren't in conflict after all. What would you rather say in a few years, "I did all kinds of stupid things for that idiotic company, then it crashed and burned and I spent years and thousands of dollars to make the problems go away," or "I thought what they were doing was wrong so I quit. I had a hell of a time making ends meet for a few months, but I did what I thought was right." Speaking as a former manager, all the biggest headaches I had were from people who didn't have the integrity to face up to a problem. The honest engineers working for me might not *tell* me a happy story, but they consistently delivered more than I thought they could when things got rough. The other guys simply made the problems worse. I have no patience for make-believe in management, because sooner or later it catches up from you and exacts a price you can't pay.
Re:Bide your time (Score:2, Insightful)