I'm just curious what is going on lately on this site, the internet and the world in general lately with regards to what can be summed up as the universal motto, 'Give me everything for free'.
Seriously, digital media and the proliferation of computing makes it extremely easy for things like movies, music, books, games and software to be copied, burned and sent to others. Then when the people affected by these activities steps up to say something, people tear into them for being 'uber-money making whores' of companies, yet without them, people wouldn't have any of those very things they felt compelled to effectively just steal. There is some kind of spiteful, hateful, entitlement driven idea being fueld from somewhere in many people's heads.
Furthermore, why do so many people feel so entitled to obtaining all these things for free? I realize one person stealing from a company like Microsoft, isn't a very big deal to Microsoft, though that doesn't make it any more 'ok'. Even ten people, so what, its not a big deal, but how about 500, 1000, 10000 or more? That's a lot of lost profit for work done. Now I know Microsoft isn't necessarily hurting (or are they, I don't know i'm not an analyst), the fact is a lot of people are actively stealing, copying and burning software such as Windows, and they thinks it cool and alright to do so, always by means of some fairly lame excuse, typically thrown right back at that very company for some reason or another.
This is frustrating to me because I make my living writing software, its whats putting food on my table and allowing me to live. The same goes for any other product that is copied and stolen in mass quantities as I spoke about above, even if a single person feels its okay to steal like this, its affecting somebody.
The common excuse is "screw them, they're rich enough", but in saying that they are usually referring to Bill Gates or others in the top echelon's of the company. However companies like Microsoft, Dell, Google (though most people like Google for some reason), phone companies, publishing companies, etc. are all comprised of thousands of workers. So the millions or sometimes billions of dollars companies make will often go back into the company and operating capital. The biggest cost to almost any business is the payroll. Stealing in effect hurts a lot of people potentially, especially when many people do it, which is clearly the case.
I personally don't see anything wrong when companies that are actively and obviously being ripped off step in and try to do something to stem the damage (wether that be requiring registration, licensing codes or changes to licensing agreements), however there is a LOT of animosity in the world towards this kind of reaction from such companies and I just don't see where its coming from, other than people are obtaining a sense of entitlement from somewhere, whats what I'm trying to figure out.
Regardless, the end result of these activities is for digital media to be very tightly bound to the individual in some way, so that the ability to copy and give to another will be destroyed or overaly time-consuming or complex to be worth the thief's time.
The other result is the open-source movement (at least with respect to software), which I think has its benefits as well as it downfalls. (I'm never quite sure how they make money unless its from donations or some kind of advertising system
)
I sure wish more people had respect for the hard work the people that make the things a lot of people are stealing.
I'm just curious on others thoughts on this stuff.
Seriously, digital media and the proliferation of computing makes it extremely easy for things like movies, music, books, games and software to be copied, burned and sent to others. Then when the people affected by these activities steps up to say something, people tear into them for being 'uber-money making whores' of companies, yet without them, people wouldn't have any of those very things they felt compelled to effectively just steal. There is some kind of spiteful, hateful, entitlement driven idea being fueld from somewhere in many people's heads.
Furthermore, why do so many people feel so entitled to obtaining all these things for free? I realize one person stealing from a company like Microsoft, isn't a very big deal to Microsoft, though that doesn't make it any more 'ok'. Even ten people, so what, its not a big deal, but how about 500, 1000, 10000 or more? That's a lot of lost profit for work done. Now I know Microsoft isn't necessarily hurting (or are they, I don't know i'm not an analyst), the fact is a lot of people are actively stealing, copying and burning software such as Windows, and they thinks it cool and alright to do so, always by means of some fairly lame excuse, typically thrown right back at that very company for some reason or another.
This is frustrating to me because I make my living writing software, its whats putting food on my table and allowing me to live. The same goes for any other product that is copied and stolen in mass quantities as I spoke about above, even if a single person feels its okay to steal like this, its affecting somebody.
The common excuse is "screw them, they're rich enough", but in saying that they are usually referring to Bill Gates or others in the top echelon's of the company. However companies like Microsoft, Dell, Google (though most people like Google for some reason), phone companies, publishing companies, etc. are all comprised of thousands of workers. So the millions or sometimes billions of dollars companies make will often go back into the company and operating capital. The biggest cost to almost any business is the payroll. Stealing in effect hurts a lot of people potentially, especially when many people do it, which is clearly the case.
I personally don't see anything wrong when companies that are actively and obviously being ripped off step in and try to do something to stem the damage (wether that be requiring registration, licensing codes or changes to licensing agreements), however there is a LOT of animosity in the world towards this kind of reaction from such companies and I just don't see where its coming from, other than people are obtaining a sense of entitlement from somewhere, whats what I'm trying to figure out.
Regardless, the end result of these activities is for digital media to be very tightly bound to the individual in some way, so that the ability to copy and give to another will be destroyed or overaly time-consuming or complex to be worth the thief's time.
The other result is the open-source movement (at least with respect to software), which I think has its benefits as well as it downfalls. (I'm never quite sure how they make money unless its from donations or some kind of advertising system
I sure wish more people had respect for the hard work the people that make the things a lot of people are stealing.
I'm just curious on others thoughts on this stuff.
* This post has been modified
: 19 years ago
