The ability to change features, prices, and availability of things you’ve already paid for is a powerful temptation to corporations.
The ability to change features, prices, and availability of things you’ve already paid for is a powerful temptation to corporations.
It’s really not that different. The main difference is the audience size. For an independent musician selling merchandise, it would be equally insulting to them to tell them that they will be repaid in exposure if they give you one for free.
Making a copy of something “to see if you’d enjoy it” or because it’s somehow great for their exposure is mental gymnastics to justify piracy. Let’s just call it intellectual property theft and stop beating around the bush.
Copying isn’t theft. You’re about 40 years late to this conversation and you’re starting from the taste of boots? You’re equating an instantly reproducible, finished product with a service; your analogy sucks.
The entire goal of my comment was to avoid mincing words. As somebody who has first hand experienced copyleft violation, it sure doesn’t feel different on the receiving end. I feel this very personal experience is equivocal to copyright infringement. I’m not licking any boots—thanks for that accusation.
It’s easy to excuse illicit behavior from your armchair by gaslighting with the choice of words, because after all, violating copyright is just sticking it to the man, right? In truth, I feel that my software was stolen for profit and just for me as the little man, there’s no other word that comes to my mind than “theft.”
You should write an open letter to hobbyists. It worked for Gates. If your software was “stolen for profit” and that didn’t result in more people trying it and buying, I have bad news: it didn’t seem like it was worth the money to the people who tried it. JRC does many studies on piracy and the data shows that total sales are not displaced by piracy volume, again and again. You can make the argument that this is only true for games and music (typically the subject of these studies) but this hardline attitude of it being the same as stealing sucks.