Piracy: the Ethical Side

By: Reach for the Sky

Almost everyone knows downloading pirated movies, music, etc. is illegal. Pirates understand that they will face fines if caught. We all know pirates are criminals, but are they necessarily bad people? Ask anyone old enough to have supported the civil rights movement and they will tell you that there is a difference between legal and right. Is that the case here? From hence forth, those who believe piracy is morally acceptable will be known as FREELOADERS and those who believe that pirates = devil worshipers will be know as WITCH-HUNTERS.

First lets talk about a little thing called the EULA. Witch-hunters like the RIAA love to point to it in court. Legally, it's a gray area. Some courts have accepted it in cases, others have thrown it out, and no court has addressed specifically the validity and enforceability of the End-User License Agreement. In my opinion, it's an ethical no-brainer, since almost all EULAs are "shrink wrap contracts", or contracts not made available to the user until after you buy the friggin software. They contain about ten million escape clauses to prevent the user from complaining if the software doesn't work or damages their computer, and are often massive in length. These contracts never require a signature, only a button click or a checked box. Publishers love to alter them after the initial agreement, I think I've had to agree to about a couple hundred of these if I factor in all the iTunes and World of Warcraft updates I've had to comply to, and remember, if they ever decide to throw in something I disagree with, they can just lock me out of software I've already paid for if I don't comply. I would normally default to "buyer beware" with this sort of thing, but these contracts are so sleazy and exploitative that it doesn't really apply to them. Your moral compass shouldn't point away from something just on the grounds of it defying the shrink-wrap EULA.

Now let's talk about the unauthorized download of software. Let's divide this up into the usual freeloader excuses.

1.) All software should be open-source and free.
2.) I would never pay for it, so it's not like the developer is losing a sale.
3.) I only do it to test out software, I'd pay for it if I think its worth using.
4.) I only download software after I buy a legit copy in order to circumvent invasive DRM

The 1st argument is relatively easy to counter. The people who spout this garbage almost universally have a few things in common.
A) They are not programmers or artists themselves, and have never actually put forth anything to the open-source community.
B) They have absolutely no idea of what goes into the development of the software they steal.
C) They don't actually care about the ideals they push, they just want something for nothing, and have an extremely tenuous grasp of the consequences of their philosophy.
This line of thinking has no base in logic or reality. Even if you are willing to put work into something you would then give away for free, there is nothing in ethical logic that requires others to follow your (uneconomical) example.

The second is only a little more difficult. Let's assume these freeloader in question is completely honest, and would never in his life pay for software X. It's not a lost sale, the developer of X is deprived of almost nothing. The problem lies in the fact that if it were okay to take something you wouldn't actually pay for, everyone would suddenly start raising their standards, and the developer would soon be out of a job, and the world would miss out on the revolutionary software Y, his next project. If it's not worth buying, it's not worth having.

The third is a favorite of freeloaders, as its about as close as they come to being morally correct. Unfortunately, as close as it is, it's still wrong. For the same reason it's not morally correct to shoplift something on the grounds that you'll pay for it if its worth the purchase. Generally, the people who favor this almost never find software they like quite enough to pay for, and usually are done "trying" the game around the time the credits pop up. Even assuming that the freeloader is being honest, the fact is that the risk of buying a product you don't like is a risk is something that's simply involved in the buying process, and demoing it outside the publishers wishes is cheating the system of business. If you aren't comfortable with risking your money on a poor quality return, don't pay for the product. On the other hand, downloading software in order to make sure it works on your computer before you fork over money for a non-refundable product is completely ethically acceptable, as opposed to what witch-hunters would have you believe, provided you do it in an entirely honest fashion, meaning if it runs on your computer, you buy it, regardless of weather you enjoy it or not.

I would like to remind the reader that this is a thought experiment about the morality of piracy. downloading unauthorized software is still illegal.

In my opinion, 4 is completely ethical, as I believe that the user has the right to do, within unrelated law of course, anything to their software they want. Witch-hunters, at this point intercede with the fact that this is not acceptable, as the user doesn't own the software, only a license to use it. But let's think about the environment surrounding the software. no publisher ever admits to selling only the license, outside of piracy lawsuits and debates. They never tell prospective customers that they won't actually own the software they are buying. Publishers constantly talk about selling games, music, movies, but they almost never even bring up the concept of a license until after the actual purchase. I believe software publishers should be held to this, or never be allowed to claim to sell the software, anything else is false advertising. Users should be allowed to install a game or rip music onto any number of computers that they own, any number of times they wish, and keep as many back-ups as they feel necessary. Re-distribution, however, must remain one-way. If you sell a piece of software or give it away to a friend, you must deprive yourself of the original copy and all backups in order to remain ethical.

That's about all I can crank out this week. Maybe next week I'll talk about the ethics behind the travesties of the witch-hunters like the RIAA and Ubisoft.