Software piracy

Hi there,

This is in response to a few posts to MMM recently.

I think part of the reason it happens is because people think
copying software is similar to taping e.g a video of a t.v. program
or a radio recording.

I believe there is something called common practice
(if anyone here is a lawyer maybe they can explain more)
- the idea is that if people do something which you could have prevented
and you don't try to do anything at all to prevent that, then after a while
you can lose your rights in the matter.

The radio and television stations never tried to prevent
people from taping their programs, probably because they
didn't mind about it, and so it is now okay for us to
do so (for our own use of course). So for instance, it is okay to
use a video recorder to tape a t.v. program, and then
play it back whenever one wants to, without the need to
wait for it to be shown again on t.v - I think if they
had insisted on it early on the companies could
have made that illegal - no matter whether they
were successful in enforcing it or not, just if they
had tried to do so they could have done that. But
apparently no-one tried - they can't have been bothered
about it.

With software the situation looks similar because a lot
of unauthorised copying does go on, but the difference is that
all along the software writers have done what they
could to prevent it, unlike the radio and television
stations who haven't cared about it at all. It doesn't
matter how successful or otherwise one is. So they have never lost the
legal protection for their software, and so it is
indeed piracy in this case.

Something like that anyway...

Same would apply to copying cds - it may seem similar to
copying a radio or tv program but isn't because
people who make the cds do what they can to prevent
it happening. So that too is piracy.

I think it could in principle apply even to making mp3s of a
cd one owns already for ones own use as one is copying
it, isn't one, to a medium different from the one one
bought it in - but in that case it is acepted to be okay
so probably that is another case of common practice.
Uploading those mp3s to the web for others to download
isn't okay because those who make cds have tried to prevent
it (whether successfully or not doesn't matter).

I think it's the smaller software companies that
get most hit because one gets very few registrations
anyway - a rate of registrations at a tenth of a _percent_
of those who download wouldn't be at all surprising
for a shareware program, (think about it, if you are
in the habit of registering, what percentage of the programs
you try do you register? Probably rather few if one is
in the way of downloading them from the web or getting
them from cds, so a shareware author can only expect
maybe a quarter of a percent or less of all the downloads
to be registered, and then that is going
to be reduced further by piracy).

Some probably run at even less than this - many have only a handful
of registrations in the entire life of the program,
sometimes perhaps only one registration,
which is discouraging for the authors, even ones
who do it more as a hobby and aren't trying to make
a living from writing software. I'm sure many must
give up once they reach that point,
who could have gone on to make good programs
for everyone to enjoy.

On the other hand, if you do register, especially
for a low profile program, you'll probably
encourage the author quite a bit to keep going,
possibly through difficult times. In the case
of some programs it might be the only registration
he / she received in that year.

In the case of FTS I'm running at a steady rate
of about two or three registrations a month and
have been doing so for several years - that is pretty
good for a non commercial shareware program - but hope
with the release FTS 1.09 that these numbers will go up
so that I can actually perhaps make a living
from software writing :-). Ten times that number
would do the trick (as I have rather ascetic tastes
and don't need much to survive on) and I have hopes it will
become reasonably popular.

Robert

> The radio and television stations never tried to prevent
> people from taping their programs, probably because they
> didn't mind about it, and so it is now okay for us to
> do so (for our own use of course).

They did try, and in the resulting and famous Betamax case
the Supreme Court ruled that taping for home use is within
the "fair use" provisions of US copyright law.

> But apparently no-one tried - they can't have been bothered
> about it.

They were very bothered about it, and now they're on to being
bothered about devices which remove commercials. Legislation
has been proposed here and in Europe that would make such
devices illegal.

> I think it could in principle apply even to making mp3s of a
> cd one owns already for ones own use as one is copying
> it, isn't one, to a medium different from the one one
> bought it in - but in that case it is acepted to be okay
> so probably that is another case of common practice.
> Uploading those mp3s to the web for others to download
> isn't okay because those who make cds have tried to prevent
> it (whether successfully or not doesn't matter).

This places too much importance on what you're calling common
practice, at least with respect to US law. Copyright law gives
the copyright holder certain rights for a certain period. Patents
too. It doesn't matter how long the owner fails to go after
pirates. Take the patent on LZW compression, which Unisys only
started enforcing 10 some years after the internet was full of
gifs.

> I think it's the smaller software companies that
> get most hit because one gets very few registrations
> anyway

Yep.

-Carl