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Comment by neverm0re | Hacker News Reader

How about when you pay USD$10,000 for a niche software package with a crappy USB hardware dongle with drivers that only work on Windows XP, despite the application itself working just fine under Windows 7 64-bit?

When I asked the vendor, I was told I could pay another $10,000 so I could buy a new version of the software that just so happened to have a newer DRM dongle.

At that point you really have four options:

1.) Hope someone else pirated it. 2.) Kill a few evenings cracking the application with IDA Pro. 3.) Forever remain on Windows XP on a graphics workstation, unable to use the entirety of RAM installed, or some horrible dual-boot situation isolating you from the rest of your tools. 4.) Pay ANOTHER $10,000.

Seriously, you have no position to tell anyone that there's 'no justification'. It's obvious you're missing real world experience here. I picked #2, myself, but I'd have rather saved time and picked #1 if it had already been done.

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I have the real world experience and I stand by my position. It does suck and I can empathize and of course I can understand why you'd pirate the software but are you really going to try to tell me that it's not wrong? Can you honestly say that not paying is okay because the price is too high and you don't agree with the reasons why you can't run your dongle on a new OS? That's what it comes down to in the end. It's about not wanting to pay and disagreeing with the price. The fact that you know the dongle should work on your machine doesn't put you in a position to know why they want you to upgrade. Anyone in that situation would have a knee-jerk reaction and jump to thinking its a corporate conspiracy and they're just gouging people. That's plausible. Or maybe there's a legit reason that you don't know. But in either case, no matter how ridiculous the experience is (and I grant you that the example you provide is very unreasonable) it still doesn't change the fact that someone created something of value to you, you want to use it above all alternatives, and you choose to pirate it which is wrong.

Suppose I go to the Apple store and I want a new MacBook Air. I have to wait in line for an hour. Then when I get into the store they've upped the price by $10k. Then, even after swallowing my frustration, I look to pay but all the checkout guys are busy. So I decide this is fucked up and just walk out with it. You'd agree that was a messed up situation but it's not okay for me to walk out of a store without paying.

The point is something I can't fathom anyone disagreeing with. There's a product. It has a price. If you want it you have to buy it. If you take it without paying that is wrong. How can you disagree with that?

Yes, I can clearly and with good conscious say that it is 100% a-ok to break the lock or take a cracked copy of software you already paid $10,000 for to operate with a $180,000 system if the vendor is going to gouge you over a trivial issue.

I'm really sorry that you live in a fantasy world sponsored by the MPAA and RIAA. I've already paid my pound of flesh to get my work done, intentionally not backporting a dongle driver to force upgrades at $10k a whack is the stuff slime is made of. They do this because they know very well there are not many/any alternative vendors for this equipment, which happens to be an exotic motion capture rig absolutely critical to my work. Fuck that and fuck anyone who tells me I have to grin and bear it or otherwise just wave my hands and go without all because otherwise I might offend their sensibilities over how I might see their software. Personally, I don't care about your software. It hasn't done anything slimy to me yet. You're safe.

I'm sorry, I misunderstood part of what you said. I'm actually cool with people cracking software they've already paid for. That's fine. To me that's like modifying your car in ways that stop it from being street legal. You should be free to do so but at the same time I won't feel bad for you if you were ever stopped for speeding. Now that I understand your example better I don't think you're comparing equivalent things. It's one thing to just take something because you don't like the price and it's another thing to break contract and modify something you've already paid for. Both are still wrong but I can see the justification for the latter.

you think cracking his own copy of the software, which he purchased, so that it will run on windows 7, is somehow less ethical than paying the publisher another $10k for the same software that they have unlocked for window 7?

edit: here's a thought experiment. supposing he managed to build some sort of passthrough sandbox that simply intercepted one or two system calls and made the application think it was running under window xp when it was actually running under windows 7. would you find that unethical too?

Your analogy is incorrect. Making a copy/breaking DRM is not the same as stealing. Stealing deprives the original owner of a physical good, making a copy does not. That's why I wouldn't agree with you walking out of a store with a physical product.

No. The copy argument is bunk. It's not about depriving someone of product, it's about depriving someone payment. In the case of software there is unlimited supply but there isn't an unlimited amount of consumers. Each consumer who circumvents the payment process deprives the creator of the payment they ask of their work. So now you'll argue that they wouldn't have paid anyway but that's also a terrible argument. The original post shows that some people would pay but won't because it's too "inconvenient" to. Furthermore, even if they wouldn't have paid anyway they should have, it's still wrong that they have and use the software and they still deprived the creator of payment. You wouldn't say a shoplifter isn't hurting anyone because they wouldn't have paid anyway, would you? To all these argument I would say they're just clever mental gymnastics made up by people who want to justify piracy.

You are the one doing mental gymnastics. I never said it was right to make a copy, I said it was not stealing. I am sorry that you want so badly for them to be the same, but they are in fact legally different for very good reason.

I would not say the shoplifter is hurting anyone since shoplifting is distinctly different from copyright infringement. He would be depriving someone of their property. Copying something does not deprive the IP owner of their copy.

I'm not trying to justify any immoral act, I trying to prevent justification of absurd laws that infringe on people's basic freedoms (SOPA et al) by stopping people from using hyperbolic statements.

5) pick a new software vendor and tell people why

There is no justification short of "needed to save someone's life" for stealing. Your piracy hurts the "good" vendors in the same vertical because they aren't getting funded.

"Re-elect Governor Marley: When there's only one candidate, there's only one choice!"

Good thing nobody is stealing.

So modifying software you've purchased is stealing now? I read the situation as him fixing another company's bug because they refused to do so.

If you paid for it, defeating the dongle isn't something I think of as stealing. If you pay, go for it. I read it as getting the new version for free, that is a different kettle of fish.

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