An Open Letter To Jona Bechtolt

I've created this post, and my price tag is 20 dollars. If you wish to read the rest of it, you must pay me this sum, or you are committing a crime. There's really no grey area.

On a more serious note... Pirating software is nothing like stealing a candy bar. When you steal a material good, you are depriving someone of something. When you copy software, you're not taking anything away. People may argue that you are depriving them of potential sales, but that's not the same as stealing at all. I'm depriving a company of potential sales when I rant about their poor quality. That's certainly not a crime.

Now, just to clarify, that doesn't mean you shouldn't respect copyright. It's still a civil offense to use software if the copyright does not permit it. I use free and open source software because I cannot afford the crazy prices of software (among other things). I think putting a price on software is silly, yes, but that doesn't mean I pirate it like this person.

This guy is definitely overstating his own importance, at least with regards to his "Google footprint" and I have to wonder how many club owners he actually knows. http://www.google.com/search?q=jona+bechtolt, Analog Industries is a few results down.

interesting. From reading it, it sounds like the author is going to make it difficult for the pirate to move in the circles which the author has influence in? Personally I think I'd prefer to give the pirate the chance to pay for the software first, but I may have miss-read the blog post.