Can proprietary software be justified?
Yeah.
For example, does Microsoft deserve my money for how much of a dumping they’ve taken onto Windows since Windows 8? No, they don’t.
Because if I did give Microsoft my money, I’m REWARDING them for their half-assery.
What’s the justification for not allowing me to make a copy? Those who decry piracy call it theft, but it’s not theft since they aren’t losing anything. Not a physical product they could run out of, nor a potential sale as has been shown time and time again; people who pirate a thing generally wouldn’t have purchased the thing anyway.
It IS justified lol.
why is anyone still trying to justify piracy? that’s step 2 of a conversation that even non-criminals are on step 9 in
Believe it or not, I’ve met people like this. I know a guy who was worried about showing a movie to our Meetup group.
Not because he was afraid of getting caught. He thought it might be unethical.
it’s crazy how worried normal everyday people are worried about accidentally hurting the feelings of corporations. especially post-covid.
To be fair, I think it’s because they equate it with stealing. The propaganda works. Most people think that stealing is wrong, and media corporations have put a lot of money into convincing people that filesharing = stealing. Hell, even people who are okay with filesharing call it “piracy”, because that’s the corporate framing they were brought up with. (Just look at the name of this sub.)
Richard Stallman calls this out in this essay:
The term “piracy” is used by record companies to demonize sharing and cooperation by equating them to kidnaping, murder and theft.
I mean, yes, I enjoy saying “yarr”, and “yo-ho-ho”, and all the rest of it, but I have to admit that’s the result of a successful propaganda campaign. Before people called it “piracy”, they called it “filesharing”. And, of course, that was a problem, because everybody knows that sharing is good and should be encouraged; but piracy is evil and should be stopped.
