1. THERE ARE NO REAL COSTS AND NO ONE IS DEPRIVED. Software is inherently different from physical products. It costs nothing to *reproduce*, and therefore imposes no direct costs on manufacturers, nor any significant cost to the planet. This point is essential. If you steal bread in order to eat, someone else is deprived of the bread. If you steal software, no one is deprived of that software.

Developers have to be paid for their time. If you're not paying them, they're not being compensated for their work. You can't claim you would never have bought it, because you don't know what would have happened if you didn't have the option of piracy. You might alternatively have acquired a different piece of software for the same purpose and therefore who produces it is effectively losing out on money. There's also the issue of rights. You have no right to use the software because the rights holder has not given you the right.

3. THERE ARE LIMITED COSTS TO THE CONSUMER. Some make the claim that pirates raise the cost of software. Because software is a virtual product, it contains little or no real-world costs. It is not something that reliably decreases in cost in mass production, or a drop in natural resources. There is little reason to assume that the cost of Windows 7 would decrease if everyone who ran it owned a genuine copy. It is more reasonable to assume Microsoft would absorb the additional revenue.

Microsoft is an awful example to use. Try the example of a company which only has one or two small software products. Every lost sale hurts them. Every person ringing up for support without having paid for the software hurts them.

4. NO NORTH AMERICAN SOFTWARE COMPANY HAS BEEN BANKRUPTED BY PIRACY. 2D Boy, maker of the World of Goo video game, claimed that 90% (really 82%) of its users were pirates. Soon its parent company Brighter Minds filed Chapter 11. Was it due to piracy? Not likely.

By your logic, it's okay for me to beat someone up, as long as I don't kill them. Just because the effects aren't as bad as they could be, doesn't mean it isn't wrong.

4. THE MORAL RIGHT OF VIRTUAL PRODUCT PRODUCERS IS ITSELF POLITICAL. This moral right to products of the imagination is not written into the laws of nature. It is a law created by people, originally conceived to be of benefit to society by safeguarding the incomes of inventors of new products and ideas. Today intellectual property rights law is the product of the intervention of large corporations, and are to their benefit. The benefit to the average person or to culture generally is questionable. Therefore the basis to this moral right is itself questionable.

Plenty of laws aren't laws of nature. The thing is that they're still laws. Unless the law is overtly immoral, you should be obeying it. I don't see too many pirates actually going and campaigning for change in the law. Instead they sit at home, downloading stuff.

5. SOFTWARE IS A FORM OF POWER WITH POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS. Software introduces novel forms of power into the world, which are employed by the end user. Software is therefore not merely technical or financial in nature, but also political because those who have access to software and its effects. An illustration: a child who has had a lifetime access to Photoshop will have marketable capacities children who did not have that access will not have. An illustration: citizens who possess copies of software developed for military and police functions will be informed about the powers of government. Software access is therefore one marker of privilege, deprivation, and citizenship. We might say software imposes costs on citizens by creating novel power gradients.

That's absurd. Software is just another tool. It's no more a form of power than any other tool. There is certainly no right for every citizen to have or have access to the same amount of 'power'. Your gripe is with unequal distribution of wealth because no-one is barred from purchasing tools as long as they have the money. What you really want is some sort of communist (and I don't intend that in the polemical sense) utopia.

6. THE CONSEQUENCES OF SOFTWARE IMPOSE A COUNTER LIMIT. The moral right of software developers is limited by the consequences of the software they produce. Software is socially, economically, and culturally disruptive. It changes the relation between the haves and have-nots. Because software developers impose effects on the world and on fellow citizens, these citizens have a right to impose limits on software developers. Software developers do not have an unlimited right to infinite profits, real or imagined.

You state opinions as if they were facts. You're again pretending that software is in some way different to any other tool or luxury when your reasoning could equally apply to a hammer or a Ferrari.

7. PIRACY SPREADS THE WEALTH. The spread of software by piracy is a redistribution of wealth, in this case from the privileged class of software developers and those who can afford those products, to the often much less privileged class of end users, many of whom cannot afford products. Poor people, and children who have no income benefit greatly by piracy. It is claimed that Walmart has single-handedly kept the standard of living level during decades of decline in real incomes. Likewise piracy benefits the poor and disenfranchised, leveling the playing field. Because this redistribution is gained at no real or virtual financial cost to the software developer piracy provides a valuable service to society effectively free of charge.

Again absurd. Piracy devalues whatever is being pirated, hurting the developer. Software is not a necessity or right so there is no reason to 'level the playing field'. You are making an a pirori assumption that everyone should be able to use any piece of software regardless of income.

8. AN ABSOLUTE INTERPRETATION OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS IS ITSELF AMORAL. An absolute interpretation of intellectual property rights ignores the costs imposed by software. It focuses on the producer, irrespective of the consequences on society, or the underprivileged.

IP rights are intended to benefit society by first of all encouraging people to produce IP and secondly by releasing it to society as a whole. You are so obsessed by the second that you ignore the first and ignore the necessity of the first in order for the second to occur.

Because it is a form of power, software should be free for all in a democratic, egalitarian society.

Why should forms of power be free? If I own a car and my neighbour doesn't, I am more powerful - does that give them a right to a free car? No. You've thought none of your arguments through.

Why shouldn't someone have the right to make informed decisions about what to do with their money?

No-one is forced to buy music, movies etc. If you don't have enough information to make a purchase, then don't make it. Besides, thee are plenty of opportunities to become informed. There are previews on many online stores, physical stores often have areas where you can listen to music, radio plays more popular stuff, things like Spotify and Last.fm provide opportunities to listen to pretty much whatever you want, bands go on tour... there's no shortage of information.

People are so taken with the rhetoric that copying is stealing that they no longer recognise the value in the work itself.

Pirates don't recognise the value because they refuse to pay for it.

Whereas they should be encouraged to support creators they are told 'here is a price for a copy, pay it or be branded a criminal',

That's a blanket and foolish statement. Plenty of people say 'support the creator'.

a rational person who doesn't like the price will risk being branded a criminal and the creator will get nothing.

How is that 'rational'?

And you don't have a right to charge for something just because you produced it, except that which is written in law.

Funnily enough all the stuff that's being pirated, the creators do have a legal right to charge for it, so what on earth are you on about?

Not everyone follows the law blindly.

Meaningless rhetoric. Show me how the law is immoral. I've thought about it and am firmly convinced of its morality. You don't seem to care about morality.

And watching/listening to something for free doesn't equate to any financial loss if the audience has no intention of making the purchase, whether there's a free version or not. However, a decent experience may translate to a sale.

You're missing the point. You have no right to a free version if the rights holder doesn't release one. What I'm saying has nothing to do with financial loss.

Get over yourself, modern life means we don't have to buy blind.

What does that have to do with anything? There are plenty of opportunities to listen to albums without resorting to breaking the law. Even if that was the only option, you could simply not buy the album. You are operating out of a false sense of entitlement.

If piracy was so rampant, they'd still be bit-time players. The reason these industries is huge, is because people are buying their content.

That doesn't make the actions of pirates moral.

If I'm really not going to pay for it, I don't see that it makes any ethical difference whether I pirate it or not. It doesn't cost the original artist anything for me to do so, after all, so I don't see the ethical issue with this.

Then you're blind. The developer produces software and doesn't permit people to use it unless they pay (which they have the legal right to do). If you use it without paying then you're obviously being unethical because you have no right to use it.

There is essentially no way I could ever afford that software (the quote I got for a copy was something like twenty months of disposable income for me), so I really don't think I have done anything unethical in copying it. I'd love to see a convincing argument that I'm wrong.

If you can't pay the cost, you have no right to buy it. The right is owned by the developer.

These are all things that you might want to do on an amateur, rather than professional, basis, but where it is becoming increasingly harder to do the interesting, cutting-edge things without spending ludicrous amounts of money on professional software.

But you don't have an entitlement to be on the cutting edge. If you want to be there, pay the price. If you have support, pay the price. If you want features, pay the price. If the only thing suitable for your purposes costs something, pay for it. Your desires do not equate to rights or entitlements.

Or pirate it. Unless you have a convincing argument that doing so is immoral, rather than simply illegal due to the fact that it is legally and practically indistinguishable from the case where you would pay but would simply rather not (which is immoral and therefore should be illegal).

If it's illegal, then it is immoral unless you can prove that the law is immoral.

What gives you the moral right to restrict him from listening to/using it.

I'm not restricting him; the law is. If the law exists, you need a compelling moral argument for breaking it.

It isn't like there is some law of scarcity involved that makes it necessary to restrict access? No, in fact, the only reason to restrict access to him is so that you can feel superior.

Right. I'm anti-piracy because I want to feel superior to someone I've never met, probably never will and will have forgotten this time next week. It couldn't possibly be anything to do with the fact that I think people should be compensated for the work they do, that I think it's unfair for some people to decide whether or not to pay for software depending on whether or not they feel like it, or the fact that I think the law should be followed unless there's a compelling moral reason to ignore the law.

You own the lebensraum. Not him. And you just have to make that point.

That is quite possibly the most bizarre 'argument' I've ever come across.

Laziness is the greatest virtue of all. It is mother of all inventions. Those who claim that it is a sin, are those who want to strive backwards into the middle ages.

If I sat on my settee all day, doing nothing, that would not drive society forwards.

Why get a more limited program when the more advanced programs costs the exact same amount to copy.

Because it's illegal and immoral to not pay for something that has a cost.

It is just wasting the resources of society to go with an inferior product.

No. It's refusing to compensate the people who have a legal right to charge for their work. Paying for goods and services isn't inefficient.

Of course, wasting resources is exactly what you are promoting. Efficiency is not in your vocabulary.

Oh please. Morality's not in yours.

You have the right to claim that, but it doesn't make it true.

So where's your argument for a right to use something for free when you think it's too expensive? More relevantly, where's the legal argument for it or the moral argument for breaking the current laws? Individuals don't make laws and don't get to selectively ignore the law.

I don't use it, but if I wanted to, I would not be able to, so I'll ask: are prices for 3ds max fair?

People who make a living from it seem to be getting by okay. What is your definition of 'fair' and how is it relevant to setting a price? Business exist to make money, not to provide services at minimal profit levels. If you don't like what someone charges, you go elsewhere, create an alternative or avoid the need for such software.

That's abuse of monopoly if you ask me.

Your opinion isn't relevant since you don't make any legal decisions on the matter.

I'm not comparing who's the most moral, I'm saying that piracy is unjustified. And libraries aren't pirates.

That was a case of a company messing up, not a moral argument for the right to pirate. I mean seriously, it took you 6+ months to get a copy of MATLAB? What were you doing all that time? And just because there was a problem that would cost you money doesn't mean you have the right to break the law to get round the problem.

Well, this is the classic "try before you buy" combined with factors like "I have a few friends over and --- asks me if I have a specific album", in both cases I'm unlikely to listen to it again and the act of listening to it once will actually be a waste of my time.

I can see how it makes your life easier to break the law, but you seem to be operating on a sense of entitlement that you don't have.

I see you missed the "(DRM)" bit in my post, I like to have control over data, something which I suspect I'm not alone in here on slashdot.

Just because you want to do something doesn't mean you have the right to do it. If you want DRM free stuff and a DRM-free version is available, then buy it. If it isn't, then tell the company they've lost a sale and don't buy it. If you don't like DRM at all, try and get the law changed. They thing is, you'r not a moral crusader; you're just someone who wants the world to work on your terms and doesn't care how ethical that is.

If I pirate it I generally want to use specific features not available in open source alternatives (as I pointed out! Please do yourself and everyone else a favor and read comments before replying to them.)

Pot. Kettle Black. I addressed the issue of missing features. Pay for the features you want or don't use them. If you can't justify the price, then don't buy. It's really quite simple.

Also, just because I feel like using some Maya-specific feature that isn't available in Blender doesn't mean it would make any sense whatsoever for me to shell out $3000+ for a Maya license, no one pays for Maya unless they're doing for-pay work (and the developers are well aware of this and the "trial" version is a joke).

Then do without the features. You have no inalienable right to them.

I can definitely think of quite a few situations in which a vast majority of people would disagree with this argument (e.g. AIDS medicine licensing).

We're not talking about AIDs medicine, we're talking about software you want to use for fun without paying for.

That's a morally vacuous argument. The argument is self-dfeating because you won't buy it once you've bought it, therefore there is no way to prove whether you would have or not. Additionally intent to buy is no measure of right to own. It's absurd to claim that people who would buy software should pay while people who wouldn't buy should get it for free. Additionally it is illegal. Unless you want to claim that is immoral to charge money for software you don't have an ethical leg to stand on.

Sounds like you're just making excuses to justify yourself.

If something's expensive, why do you feel the right to watch it/listen to it/use it, when others have to pay? Isn't it more ethical to just not pay? As for convenience, that's no excuse at all, it's just laziness. Given the ease of legally downloading these days, it's even less of an excuse. As for pirating professional software for 'fun' or 'non-commercial' use, if you don't need all the features, then why not get a more limited program that does what you want and actually compensate a developer? On the other hand, if you do need the features, then pay the money or don't use it.

You don't have a right to use something for free just because you think it's too expensive.

I don't think they wanted special treatment, they just wanted to enable it to be used with iTunes directly

That is special treatment which no-one else gets, asks for or needs. Everyone else gets by just fine with access to the iTunes database.

Remember, Apple went out of their way to block the Pre from syncing with iTunes.

No they didn't, because they never prevented the Pre from syncing with the iTunes database; on the contrary, they still have full access to the database. What they did was prevent the Pre from masquerading as an iPod.

You could argue it is wrong for Palm to freeload off Apple's work by not making their own sync program, but Apple could have left it as it was and just said the Pre was unsupported don't blame us if it breaks iTunes or iTunes breaks it

That's a very naive statement. The customer would in all likelihood ask Apple why the Pre isn't working or even worse report problems with their 'iPod' which only later, after wasting people's time, turns out to be a Pre.

Bit of a false dichotomy there. No hardware is being bricked; you're being prevented from using a bit of unauthorised hardware (which by itself is still functional) with your Xbox (which is itself still functional). Those are the risks you run when you buy unauthorised, unsupported hardware.

Everyone seems to be missing a fundamental issue: okay, let's say I am fine with not being able to connect to XBox Live (lame), but where exactly do I end up when I purchase a new game that demands I upgrade in order to play at all, even offline (like CoD:World at War did)? Now I get to choose whether to lose money on the non-returnable, opened game or lose access to all my saved data and render my memory hardware useless? Swell.

Caveat emptor. Your real problem is stores not honouring consumer rights by allowing you to return a item.

This kind of thing is completely unreasonable: they are intentionally locking out this device for no other reason than to be anti-competitive.

Security is a reasonable issue. And people throw the word anti-competitive about way too much.

The adage is to vote with your money, right? Fine: never again, Microsoft.

Which is your right. Just as Microsoft are acting within their rights.

Nobody is stopping you from doing what you want with your own hardware. The problem only comes when you try to connect to connect to Microsoft's hardware (Xbox Live) or when you're offered free software (Dashboard upgrade). In neither case do you have a right to get anything - Microsoft can do what they want with their own network, including refuse access to people with compromised hardware and they're under no obligation to provide software updates to anyone, least of all people running unsupported hardware.