To point 1: agreed. Being right does not give anyone license to commit atrocities or force their opinions on others, because people often need a bit of time to come to accept the truth for themselves. As long as there is no danger of imminent greater harm, it’s better to be patient and let them come to terms with it on their own.
To point 3: agreed. Best to just call a spade a spade. That said, if a company promises (even if only by implication) to provide unlimited access to a product or content for a given price, and then goes back on their promise and removes that access, it could certainly also reasonably be considered theft. Doesn’t matter if it’s technically legal, if they created the appearance of ownership, they were stealing by deception.
A good comparison might be home title fraud, where thieves create the appearance of owning a home by faking documents and signatures in order to legally transfer the title of ownership and then borrow against it. When that happens, we still hold the thief responsible and not the clerk who was fooled by a fake signature.
Doesn’t matter if it’s technically legal, if they created the appearance of ownership, they were stealing by deception.
A good comparison might be home title fraud, where thieves create the appearance of owning a home by faking documents and signatures in order to legally transfer the title of ownership and then borrow against it. When that happens, we still hold the thief responsible and not the clerk who was fooled by a fake signature.
If the party offended by WB had good enough lawyers, I’d say we could win a lawsuit somewhere and set a good precedent. The problem is, we are not banding up into a party. And hence, the precedent we get, is that if the company is powerful enough, they can do whatever they want with what we give them and not care about being fair (or anything else that might stop them from getting richer).
Similar precedents are being set in multiple different cases: automobiles, home-security equipment, farming equipment, mobile phones, police and governmental services…
There is one thing we can do though, vote with our money. Make a personal blacklist of offenders according to your own benchmark and whenever you feel the need to buy something from them, do what is in your power to use an alternative.
And start doing this before it’s too late and there’s no company remaining that is not on their bandwagon.
When enough companies realise it is better for their bottom-line to just play nice, they will do so.
If the party offended by WB had good enough lawyers, I’d say we could win a lawsuit somewhere and set a good precedent. The problem is, we are not banding up into a party. And hence, the precedent we get, is that if the company is powerful enough, they can do whatever they want with what we give them and not care about being fair (or anything else that might stop them from getting richer).
Right, and that’s why stealing would be an acceptable response in this case. If the TPTB will not provide justice, it’s up to the individual to take the matter into their own hands.
There is one thing we can do though, vote with our money. Make a personal blacklist of offenders according to your own benchmark and whenever you feel the need to buy something from them, do what is in your power to use an alternative.
Yes, and that is in fact the better, albeit also far more difficult alternative. If you pirate a popular software and use that, you might hurt the company’s bottom line a little, but you still help contribute to their (quasi-) monopoly status. In the long run, it’s better to build alternative solutions that do not artificially and arbitrarily restrict freedom. Pirate Photoshop if you must, but use GIMP if you can (or find another alternative).
It’s basically just the old “give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man how to fish and he can feed himself for a lifetime”. If you’re starving, you might need to have a fish first so your empty stomach doesn’t distract you from learning. In the same way, stealing can only be acceptable as a short term solution, but in the long term, you end up robbing yourself of the opportunity to learn and grow.
I used to use 3ds Max as a student. Switched to blender when in college, when I realised that there is no way I can afford to pay them if I’m doing 3D modelling just as a hobby.
For AutoCAD, thankfully I never needed it after Uni. For normal vector art Inkscape suffice for now. But I really miss the ye olde Oracle style type command to draw functionality. Honestly, I thought Autodesk made good software and if they were still providing perpetual licenses, I would definitely ask any company I entered to buy it (and not pirate) if they needed me to use it. But now, if I really need something for engineering drawing, I’ll probably make my own FOSS.
Photoshop? Tried out the UI, was too hard, went to Paint.NET. Now I’m on GIMP. Definitely better and no need to pirate.
Thanks for your response.
To point 1: agreed. Being right does not give anyone license to commit atrocities or force their opinions on others, because people often need a bit of time to come to accept the truth for themselves. As long as there is no danger of imminent greater harm, it’s better to be patient and let them come to terms with it on their own.
To point 3: agreed. Best to just call a spade a spade. That said, if a company promises (even if only by implication) to provide unlimited access to a product or content for a given price, and then goes back on their promise and removes that access, it could certainly also reasonably be considered theft. Doesn’t matter if it’s technically legal, if they created the appearance of ownership, they were stealing by deception.
A good comparison might be home title fraud, where thieves create the appearance of owning a home by faking documents and signatures in order to legally transfer the title of ownership and then borrow against it. When that happens, we still hold the thief responsible and not the clerk who was fooled by a fake signature.
If the party offended by WB had good enough lawyers, I’d say we could win a lawsuit somewhere and set a good precedent. The problem is, we are not banding up into a party. And hence, the precedent we get, is that if the company is powerful enough, they can do whatever they want with what we give them and not care about being fair (or anything else that might stop them from getting richer).
Similar precedents are being set in multiple different cases: automobiles, home-security equipment, farming equipment, mobile phones, police and governmental services…
There is one thing we can do though, vote with our money. Make a personal blacklist of offenders according to your own benchmark and whenever you feel the need to buy something from them, do what is in your power to use an alternative. And start doing this before it’s too late and there’s no company remaining that is not on their bandwagon. When enough companies realise it is better for their bottom-line to just play nice, they will do so.
Right, and that’s why stealing would be an acceptable response in this case. If the TPTB will not provide justice, it’s up to the individual to take the matter into their own hands.
Yes, and that is in fact the better, albeit also far more difficult alternative. If you pirate a popular software and use that, you might hurt the company’s bottom line a little, but you still help contribute to their (quasi-) monopoly status. In the long run, it’s better to build alternative solutions that do not artificially and arbitrarily restrict freedom. Pirate Photoshop if you must, but use GIMP if you can (or find another alternative).
It’s basically just the old “give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man how to fish and he can feed himself for a lifetime”. If you’re starving, you might need to have a fish first so your empty stomach doesn’t distract you from learning. In the same way, stealing can only be acceptable as a short term solution, but in the long term, you end up robbing yourself of the opportunity to learn and grow.