Why do people that normally would not steal a thing, find it OK to steal software?

Question

Getting a "CRACKED" copy of Windows XP or any other software is just like going down to Best Buy, sticking it in your coat and walking out. Stealing is Stealing!

Answer 1

Because people think they are getting by with something. Plus this is so common nobody thinks anything of it. Some people claim the software is to expensive so it's ok to steal it. If that is so then it's OK for me to steal a Corvette because I think they want to much for it. It just comes down to "everybody does it" so why shouldn't I? Just remember all the people you are hurting by stealing software and music. You are not hurting Bill Gates or the Rolling Stones, you are hurting the support people. I don't claim to be an angel but you are right stealing is stealing.

Answer 2

What's the difference between ripping software and shoplifting? None. Yet millions of us twist the arguments and kid ourselves we are not hardened criminals.
Call me prejudiced, but from what I know, I'd say you could well be a criminal.

If you're computer-literate enough to be reading this, there's a strong chance you will know how to copy expensive design software from your friends, or download alien-shooting games from the net without paying. And if you know how to, then the chances are you've done it.

Am I wrong? Don't worry, I won't tell.

The likes of you and me wouldn't normally like to think of ourselves as thieves. We don't pocket CDs in HMV or triple chocolate muffins in Tescos. So why are we happy to steal electronically?

According to the industry, it's because we're a pack of immoral cyber bandits. Developers across the world lose $11bn a year in business software alone, says the Business Software Alliance. It estimates nine out of 10 programs sold on auction sites are pirated.

HOW MUCH TOP SOFTWARE COSTS

Adobe Photoshop 7 - £535
Microsoft Office XP - £295
Macromedia Dreamweaver - £325
Through peer-to-peer file-swapping - FREE
Copies to mates - 15p per CD

The booty on your hard drive cost Americans 111,000 jobs in 2001, $5.6bn in lost wages and $1.5bn in unpaid tax. If that doesn't make you feel a twinge of guilt, you're obviously a hardened crook and should consider becoming a career criminal or an oil executive.

Admittedly, the figures may be inflated. How do they know you would have bought the software if you hadn't half-inched it? And how do we know that if you'd paid for it they would have spent the money on creating new jobs, rather than on executive jacuzzis or a new laser corkscrew for Mrs Gates?

Deflate the figures if you like, deep down they still remind us of what we always knew: our virtual shoplifting may feel safe, respectable and innocuous, but that doesn't stop it harming anyone.

When you make it out of the doors of cyberspace with your Mac bulging, someone somewhere loses out.

Stubborn little icons

All of which is terribly obvious and brings us back to the question why do we feel so comfortable with our theft?


Are you stealing from the Gates family?
Because it's virtual? We haven't taken anything solid or physical, so we don't feel we've taken anything at all. I'm sure that's part of it, although the icon stubbornly remains on the desktop, reproaching us every time we use it.

Another reason is our uncertainty that we've stolen anything. How can we have, when no one has lost anything they used to have? A valid philosophical question to be sure, though the law doesn't see it that way.

But the most important reason is also the most depressing. We don't feel bad because there's no risk of our being caught and punished. If I pocketed a bottle of whisky in the supermarket I'd be so anxious about the security guards grabbing me, plagued with visions of shame and humiliation, police cars and magistrates, that even if I got away with it I'd feel horribly guilty.

That doesn't happen with computer applications, even though they tend to cost much more than the kind of whisky I buy.

Ill-gotten games

This isn't a flattering thought. It suggests the main reason I tend to behave decently and honestly (in my own way) is not that I am decent and honest, but that I know bad things will happen if I don't.

BURN BABY BURN
26% of business software in UK is illegal
That's down from 42% eight years ago
Last week Briton Bilal Khan was jailed for a year for selling pirated software over Ebay
Source:BSA


How cyber piracy affects you

There's one more reason why we're not more troubled by our ill-gotten games, I think. It's that we don't really mind ripping off huge fat-cat corporations, which would probably do the same to us given half the chance.

The ethics of intellectual property are not only about individuals. If companies charge extortionate prices because they can, perhaps they ought to get their own house in order before suing customers. And if they package their software in sweatshops, who's ripping off whom?

Consider the cautionary tale of music CDs. Everyone, bar the music industry, agrees they've been sold at vastly inflated prices since the 80s. Along come CD writers and MP3s and the market collapses about their ears. Who's surprised?

If bootlegging acts as a safety valve to keep software prices sensible, might that not be such a bad thing after all?


So what are we to do? Perhaps "trial piracy" could offer a reasonable compromise between us and the marketers. The unconventional software billionaire Kai Krause suggests this rule of thumb: "If it's still on your hard drive after a year, pay for it.'

And if you can't manage that much, you can just relax in the knowledge that you are simply a Bad Person. At least you're not alone.

Answer 3

and if they charged fair prices and had a less intrusive way of going about things more people would buy it ... i figure i paid once for XP and dammit if i cant install it on more than one of my PCs' then im downloading one that i can .. and why would i pay hundreds of dollars for photoshop? i dont use it that much and if i couldnt download it then i wouldnt have it period .. i wouldnt run right out with a fistfull of hundreds and buy all the software i download .. however, if the price was right at the local store i would have no problem with it ... the reality is that i feel like im being manipulated and forced into paying for somthing that theyre trying to manipulate and gouge the price on, so i will never pay for one thing then ... and thats my attitude ..

Answer 4

People download software and other gadgets for PC because they don't feel bad about it. All they have to do is click and boom! they have the software, or the game, or the song, whatever it is they might be downloading illegally. They do it also because they know that it's viturally impossible to track someone down on their PC especially if the owner is very PC savvy.

Answer 5

Because it's more widely accepted by others than physically stealing an item. It's not right, but so many do it.

Answer 6

I agree with you.

I will only say this: the retailer paid for the product on the shelf whereas a download is only information and there is not a physical loss to anyone, assuming you would not have purchased it.

Answer 7

Because people don't attatch that with stealing. Plus you don't have security guards watching you online. If it was similiar, consequences, time, etc, then less people would steal.

Answer 8

Because they are not taking the thing from somone else. They are either downloading it or burning it. No other persons involved!

Answer 9

good question....i guess hey do it cause it doesn't really feel like stealing. but like you said it is

Answer 10

And your point.....