While it no longer makes economic sense to manufacture buggy whips, perhaps there is a Renaissance in the construction and sale of jack boots?
Maybe the loud voices in this forum just enjoy stealing other peoples work without having their own work stolen, but bogus free speech arguments and hysterics about jack boots do not justify what is at it's core an immoral act.
We have an independent judiciary and that is there for a reason. Whether terrorism or copyright infringement, the government has no right whatever to decide on individual cases and facts. That is the job of the judges.
Take the matters to court!
But I also wish the rest of the posters here would state their opposition to piracy while they defend the pirates on procedural grounds.
It's like when skin heads march. All sensible people defend their right to hold a peaceful demonstration but it is good taste to also point out ones disapproval of the ideas those skinheads espouse.
The lack of voices making such clarifications has been notable.
And it sounds like typical apologist arguments.
To those lamenting this action: do you pirate music, movies, or software?
Seriously though, you could be making the same case for slavery prior to the 13th amendment.
But while Voltaire was willing to defend the speech (and presumably the due process rights) of those with whom he strongly disagreed, he did take the time to point out his disagreement while doing so.
I would just like to hear more voices in this forum express their distaste for IP theft when they are forced by the foolish actions of the government to speak out in defense of pirates.
I just get the sense that some people here might have pirated material and defend the pirates and second guess the business decisions of IP holders as a sort of sub-conscious defense mechanism. No one wants to think of oneself as a bad person but surely software piracy is wrong.
Any solutions necessarily involves infringing on free speech (this) or infringing on an individual's right to do what they want with their purchases (DRM), so yes, I do support torrenting.
Are you really suggesting that creators of IP should not be able to profit from their work? Where do you work such that such a world would not directly impoverish you? Not to mention destroy the entire US economy.
While I understand that there are serious due process questions raised by this story, the tone in this forum seems to go beyond that to outright support of intellectual property theft. That is worrisome to me.
So, if you rent a car, does that mean its OK to drive it around the corner and sell it to someone else? you paid to get hold of the car, so it's yours, yes?
Oh, wait, no it isn't. You paid to rent it for a finite period under certain conditions, and signed a contract to that effect. the same is usually the case where software is concerned, but since you don't like the terms of the software contract too much, you feel free to ignore it, and redefine your licensing of the software as a purchase, granting yourself all kinds of new rights which the original creator never intended to give to end users. Now, you're welcome to say that software is way overpriced or those terms are so onerous you refuse to comply with them, a point of view I have some sympathy with. But at least be honest about the fact that you're choosing to ignore the contractual terms offered by the licensor and agreed to by the licensee.
edit: I don't mind being downvoted, but at least point out why you think the argument is flawed. Otherwise you're just blaming the weatherman for telling you that its raining.
I used the analogy of the car because we're familiar with it - we all understand you can buy a car, and also that you can rent one on a temporary basis. The kind of transactions you can perform on an object are not a function of the object itself.
So with software (or a movie or book etc. etc.) I could sell you all the rights: not just to use/watch/read it as a consumer, but to exploit it for commercial gain as a publisher. This is like the purchase of a car; you can do whatever you want with the property you now own. Or I could just grant you a limited license, reserving other rights for myself, as with the rental situation. This is what happens now when you 'buy' a piece of software or media - you're really buying the rights to a single copy of it. You can still do whatever you want with that single copy, but as soon as you start making your own copies - even if you're giving them away for free, or simply making them available via bittorrent - then you've gone into the publishing business. Now I don't necessarily approve of this approach, but that's how things are. You're getting into a contract with a publisher when you buy their wares, just as surely as if you had rented a car. That it's trivially easy to circumvent the terms of that contract doesn't alter the fact that you're a party to it.
Look at it this way: suppose you owned a printing company, and you happen to have all the technology you need to make books of any kind. And let's say you can also easily get them into bookstores. You get a hardback copy of Harry Potter's Secret Diary, a supplement to the popular series of books that is sure to sell millions. Since you have a book-style printing press on hand, you spend a busy week making plates and then rush out a paperback edition, on which you make a handsome profit. You've used your own paper, ink etc., so the original publisher is no worse off and hasn't lost a single copy of their stock.
Is this cool?
I get into a contract with a publisher when I buy their wares?
I have never had to sign a contract when purchasing a book AND I have never not signed (always requred to sign) a contract when renting a vehicle.
Again, physical objects and intellectual property are not the same thing.
As a software author myself, I sympathize with your situation, but the risks here are much bigger than the loss of income to piracy.
And secondly, but far more importantly, I for one am not willing to give up my freedom of speech and right of due process to protect your monopoly on a few specific bit patterns. We give murderers, rapists, even child molesters their day in court and the right to question the evidence brought against them, to question and examine witnesses, to be judge by a jury of their peers and to petition the government for redress of grievencess but if they help others find places where they can search for specific bit patterns and make a copy of those, we give them none of these rights?
At this point all that is left is realize that I have been trolled.
So the definite culprits of piracy are not "thieves" but bad pricing and inconvenient installation. The absence of "thieves" would not translate into more sales.
So while we started with an online offering, users demanded a desktop version and we delivered.
It is easy to assume that because your business is not a victim that those business that have suffered are just not as good at delivery, but I think you are wrong and I would argue that even businesses that make bad decisions deserve to have their IP protected by government action.
Here more people seem to care about freeing knowledge than profiting from it. They see large entities like old IBM, current Microsoft as impediments to progress, overcharging for software, making large profits from business customers and not spreading the benefits of that software or making software poorly suited to the less well off. That's a vague description of the sentiment.
Eventually these groups face off in arenas where arguments don't count and someone comes out ahead.
It's impossible to stop piracy technologically, lawyers can only threaten or fight little skirmishes for publicity to discourage the general populace from it. Ultimately struggling businesses need to put up more than arguments. It took music companies a long time to get around to that, could have been much smoother with less lawyers and more service.
10 years?
50 years?
100 years?
You can't say "I'm disregarding all of these arguments" and then claim there aren't any proper arguments against intellectual property.