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Pirating abandoned content?

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mouser:
Some people for whatever reason collect, & they will collect & collect until they can't any longer. Not as much going on now-a-days, but it happens. No rhyme, reason, or ethics aside from feeling that since it isn't used, just collected, no harm done.

Many people just cannot afford - period. Morals, ethics, none of that makes much difference - is more a luxury of those who have the good luck to spare the time debating it. They are not themselves harming anyone if they read a pirated book, or run a pirated/cracked version of Windows - they can not buy it - there is no choice. Trying to tell them that they do not deserve even such minimal benefit from technology, when they hardly stole supper off anyone's plate, is both insulting and irrelevant.
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i tend to agree with you there, at least in my gut i do.

mikiem:
...even if piracy does not in any way hurt the company whose product is being pirated -- it may end up subtlety damaging the free/open source community, by decreasing the demand and support for free/open source alternatives.-mouser (May 16, 2008, 05:38 PM)
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I think with biz, maybe -- there are benefits to showing clients you're running the latest, best, hi-$ tools, rather than taking the risk that your client may know or accept that the open source alternative is just as good if not better. 

Otherwise IMHO no... Hang out in the video forums and sure some folks will go after the pirated stuff just to say they use it... The majority though would rather have optimized, open source software that works, even preferring it in many cases to the hi end stuff.

Edvard:
Guilty as charged. Let me explain...

About 7 years ago, I received a 100MHz 486 with Windows 95 from my Mother, who had got it from someone who didn't need it anymore.

I found out I could make music with it, and scoured the (dialup) internet for freeware music software. I upgraded to a 233MHz pentium around the time I found d-Lusion who had some VERY nice drum and synth programs for download.
Here's where it gets sticky...

I wanted to purchase these products because they worked very well. Guess what?
I couldn't.
On the front page was a notice that "due to the actions of one of the developers" they were "no longer selling licenses" for their software, even though they were still up for download.
I wanted to use the software and was more than willing to pay for it, but... :huh:

I did what many before have done and Googled a serial.  :nono2:
I checked back at the website every few months or so, waiting for my opportunity to pay for the time I had, in reality, stolen. But it never changed

Lo and Behold, I discovered a year or so ago that their software is now freeware, with a PayPal donate button.
I have less money than I did back then, but one day my conscience is going to have a meeting with my wallet and we are going to push that button, even though I don't use the software anymore...

Thoughts?

cathodera:

the thing I am enjoying most about this thread is that almost everybody is looking at the question from the standpoint of "what's fair?" Not what is best for this or that company, not would adhere to this or that law (which depending on what country we're talking about, was probably written by this or that company), not even trying to decide what would be most compliant with one or another religious doctrines - just "what's fair?"

What is fair to the author, what is fair to the aspiring reader.

My own view, by the way, which I don't think I bothered to insert into any of my 7000 word treatises, is that abandoned is abandoned, as in I left it on the park bench. Enjoy.

And how can one better honor an author than by reading his work? Even if you read it in a library or obtain an electronic copy of it from the personal home page of a 13 year old in Ulan Bator.

If you don't have a way to pay an author for an abandoned work, the work itself might give you some clues about other people the author would like to see get some money. If you can afford it, send them some.

Or if it is something like that math textbook, maybe you could send money to an org that provides books to people who don't have them!

Just because you can't pay the author doesn't mean you can't pay it forward.   :P

Deozaan:
The only abandoned software I've pirated is FARR. :P

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