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Software pirate gets six years
August 25, 2006 -
Microsoft to ease up on piracy check-ins
June 9, 2006 -
Study: Software piracy costs $34 billion
May 23, 2006
Nathan Peterson, 27, of Los Angeles, sold copyrighted software at a huge discount on his site, iBackups.net, prosecutors said. The FBI began investigating the site in 2003 and shut it down in February 2005.
U.S. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis III on Friday ordered Peterson to pay restitution of more than $5.4 million. Peterson pleaded guilty in December in Alexandria, Va., to two counts of copyright infringement for illegally copying and selling more than $20 million in software.
Justice Department and industry officials called the case one of the largest involving Internet software piracy ever prosecuted.
Last month, Ellis sentenced Danny Ferrer, a Florida man who pleaded guilty to copyright charges in connection with multimillion-dollar sales of pirated software, to six years in prison.
Software piracy resulted in a loss of $34 billion worldwide in 2005, a $1.6 billion increase over 2004, according to a study commissioned by the Business Software Alliance.
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software piracy
when the alliances fight back. Mark my words. Let's keep prison for
people who should really be there. IE: Murderers, Rapists and
Republicans. This insanity needs to stop.
He didnt just take it. He took something that didnt belong to him and SOLD IT!!!
That said pirating is pathetic and anyone who does pirating (im simply referring to software not music thats a different story) should be penalized.
Software is a luxery and not something you can steal.
However whats worst is when people steal **** like MS word when there are FREE ALTERNATIVES. I have no respect for that. If you dont want to pay get a free one. It may not be as good or what your used to... but if you absolutely need it... pay full price.
of Democrats and non-politico's that should also be placed behind
bars.....
Also, the economy was pretty much gasping on the operating table a year before he left office.
I bet he still wishes 9/11 had happened on his watch so he could have a legacy other than Monica.
http://www.teckmagazine.com/content/view/631/43/
nickel and dime operations and go after real offenders like politicians and CNUT editors.
Divide the BSA figure by about 20 and you're closer to the truth.
I don't really think there's any excuse for software piracy now-a-days. I'm using an open-source OS, open source office apps. I buy software where I need it, like Quicken which I've grown accustomed to. Once, I bought it through eBay, just to get a broken CD-R in the mail. I was laughing all the way to the negative feedback page after getting my money back. The seller got de-listed soon after that.
Anyways, how many poor third-world country people buy software on eBay or from guys in the continental US? Probably not that many. Sellers like this genius have to be sought out, so that crappy malware-ridden pirated software doesn't get installed and end up creating zombies on the web.
BTW: dividing by 20 percent (0.20) would actually increase the number. Try it in your calculator: 100 / 0.20 = 500.
Microsoft's expenditures in developing a certain product (say "Windoze" for instance) are probably only a tiny fraction of what they demand for it! You tell me there's a lot of buyers?! Well... socks manufacturers are in the same situation: everybody uses socks! I don't see any socks manufacturers in Forbes' first 10!
Why's that?
hobby when Adobe Photoshop costs $699.99...?!?! NO WAY is
anyone in their right mind going to shell out that kind of cash just
to play around with such a program. I'm sure if they slashed the
price in half Adobe would see MORE than double the normal sales
and a lot LESS software piracy..!!
The real story is that some guy tried to profit by ignoring the laws and was caught. He was convicted and sent to jail. Now he has to serve time and thousands of people are using unlicensed software.
The core issue is.. people are stealing. It doesn't matter whether or not they consider it 'too high priced' to pay for or 'not worthwhile' or that 'the money should go to the artist/creator but instead is funneled into companies and corporations.'
Those are all just justifications for people to say 'it's ok for me to steal this, and I don't take it seriously because.. <insert justification>.
However, it's silly to think that this is something that will change.. there are things that are overpriced, and there are things we'd rather have than not have that fall into said category. People are going to keep pirating, and the corporate response seems to be 'sue them all! throw them in jail! Set a harsh example and maybe it will cow people down!' This is really.. not effective. Partly because piracy will always find a way to run rampant even if it means going back to the old school days when people traded boxes of Commodore 64 disks with games and programs with their friends in person. I know people of all moral and religious backgrounds who will not bat an eyelash at the idea that their software is pirated because society does not take it seriously, and people like sharing and doing favours for each other (including making copies of songs, helping install pirated copies of windows, etc. etc.). Education and criminalization of it by corporation is not going to make people take it seriously.
Do I have an idea to reduce piracy and promote both people and companies to get what they want? Nope... but the problem isn't going to be ever resolved by both sides being hardnosed. Software is obviously still a profitable business otherwise you'd hear of a lot more companies going out of business because of 'piracy'.. which begs the question.. if there's a 34 billion dollar loss (which is probably innacurate) and the global software market can absorb it and still profit enough to make it worthwhile... then there's obviously room for software to fall into a much lower price range.. makes you wonder if piracy isn't pre-factored into the retail price of software these days, which would open a whole other line of interesting questions.
How is an amateur graphic artist suppose to dabble in such a
hobby when Adobe Photoshop costs $699.99...?!?! (CompUSA
price). NO WAY is anyone in their right mind going to shell out that
kind of cash just to play around with such a program so naturally
they are going to search for the alternative, pirated software. I'm
sure if Adobe slashed the price of Photoshop in half they would see
MORE than double the normal sales and a lot LESS people
motivated to buy software piracy..!!
There?s always going to be theft, unfortunately you can?t stop that. But what can be greatly reduced is those consumers in the middle not quite criminals, but is tempted to load unlicensed software because they simply get sick and tired of perpetual costs for stuff that doesn?t work. Thus the birth of SAS ? but that?s a whole other discussion.
Take music and movies for example. Let?s face it, most of it?s crap. Disposable entertainment. Now I would argue that if DVDs were $4.99, and distributed everywhere, say gas stations, local convenient stores, super markets, etc., they?d sell a heck of a lot more, thus cutting way into the illegal digital distribution market. The greedy movie studio that releases a DVD at 4.99 will triple its sales in the first 6 months.
Besides, it's not as if the value of the car doesn't instantly drop as soon as you put the key in the ignition to drive it off the lot, it's obviously bloated in price. It's only hurting some faceless company that's insured for loss anyway, and heck all my friends share stolen cars.. they're such friendly people.
Fact is.. theft is theft. It doesn't matter if you think it's unfair or not... whoever has the rights to something decides what people pay, and not liking it is not a justification.
That being said.. the truth is, people don't care about piracy. I know people from a multiple of moral or religious backgrounds who wouldn't bat an eyelash over someone offering them a copy of some software.. be it music, or a copy of windows. While there's no way to legitimately justify the theft, people do not now, nor will they anytime that I can see, take it seriously.
Slapping lawsuits on people arbitrarily and trying to put some kind of fear into people isn't going to work. No amount of moral or economical outrage is going to work. So either things will continue on merrily as they always have, or companies will find a way to make a compromise to reduce piracy instead of working on the persecution and villification angle (not that they should *have* to, but someday they may get the point that sometimes you do whatever it takes to make something work instead of 'sticking to your guns'.
Poor logic for THEFT ...
"I'm sure if Adobe slashed the price of Photoshop in half they would see MORE than double the normal sales and a lot LESS people motivated to buy software piracy..!!"
You're complaining about software that costs $700, but magically if it dropped to $350 you would rush out and buy it? And 100% more people who would not normally buy the software would go buy it b/c its down to $350? You must be joking us... You wouldn't pay more than $10 for it and you know it. No matter how cheap it is, you would go steal it.
Adobe is not dumb - if they start slashing prices, it would no longer be viewed as a standard, and you would bring it status down to the level of the competitors. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to know if you have the leading piece of software you want to appear to be above your competitors - not at their level
think it's too expensive, buy a cheaper, and more importanly, legal,
alternative.
The loss would only occur if a sale would have been made otherwise.
Take out China (where they wouldn't have bought the software), and suddenly the loss disappears.
"CEO's, big business, professional athletes, and musicians are all overpaid!!!! They DESERVE to be stolen from!!!"
Really? Or are they merely paid what the market can bear? Same with software. Adobe can sell their software for whatever amount they want TO WHOEVER THEY WANT, and you know why?
A little thing called CAPITALISM (vs. the Marxist Socialism currently being hawked by the left-wing media - "The rich are just too dang rich, and they're all Republicans" - sound familiar?).
Oh, and because we're a DEMOCRACY, if you don't like the rules that have been established BY THE PEOPLE, you have every right to rally your troops and start a revolution. Just don't blame Adobe when you get thrown in the wack-house. And quit making lame excuses to justify your illegal actions.
you can easily copy a program and not harm anyone.
Whether or not the BSA is being harmed as much as they claim, their statistics are quite powerful. They are being used to lobby governments to change the laws in radical ways, such as to legislate-away information technology property rights. If you think you are hurting the BSA by infringing their copyright, think again. If you want to "stick it to the man" the right response is to switch to using competing FLOSS, not to grant them more political power by infringing their copyright.
Look for someone against the Digital Copyright Act! Freedom to the People!
However, the transactions remained illegal.
When the poor steals from the rich it is wrong. When the rich steal from the poor it is called 'good business'.
Everyday Big Pharma has its research scientists travelling around the world to 'discover' new plants to 'treat' diseases. They take from the world's people's centuries of knowledge gleaned from centuries of experience of people's on their own lands. The theft of this knowledge and these plants and some of their active components is referred to as biopiracy. Right now the country called India is taking on Big Pharma for the crime of biopiracy. Big Pharma thinks that it can just use what belongs to someone else and not consult with the owners about it. The plant in this case is Turmeric, a widely used spice with incredible healing properties.
The list of this piracy goes on and on. Unfortunately, when the Big Pharma get hold of these medicines, they often corrupt it, rendering it useless. For instance the active ingredient in Milk Thistle, an incredible liver restorer, is useless unless taken as a whole plant.
My point is this. When is Big Pharma going to jail for its theft of intellectual property owned by First Nations Peoples? When is Big Pharma going to jail for being the charlatan racketeers they are? When is Big Pharma going to jail for selling drugs that kill people, for profit, based on fraudulent research?
For that matter, when is the government going to go to jail for allowing the development of the horrific sex slave trade that is all over the internet?
When is Google.com et el going to jail for selling unknowing men, women, and children being assaulted with ......?
Yes, there is big time theft in U.S. and Canada.
I consider the theft of peoples minds and bodies a more unconscionable, violent and horrendous crime than some software. But it is not even mentioned, anywhere, anytime.
That is what I was told. They can use, "Anyone, anywhere, anytime, anyway they want." "We are above prosecution." It must be true. On Google alone these sites have grown several million in the last five years.
Did someone say "land of the free"? Only if you are already rich then you are free to do whatever you want to anyone, anywhere, anytime.
Dianne
Google isn't doing this. Just because their computers are crawling the Internet and happen to discover sites that are related to these horrible problems does not make Google the guilty party. Do you really think they can filter the entire Internet?
If companies sold software for what it is really worth (more than half of the current retail values), most people would not bother anymore with downloading it all. Not everyone can dish out $$$$ for so many programs that are only to be used once or twice.
This guy for selling it to make himself money, yes, that is wrong, but jail??? Make him pay back money sure, but we need these jails for the real bad guys.
For eveyrone else who pirate software for their own use to do something quick, give them a break. People can not dish out $5x for Office everytime they upgrade, or $2xx for the next MS OS. Or $4x for video editing software to only convert a single file. Not everyone can find free alts to do what they need, and trial versions suck. So I can feel for those people a bit.
If companies sold software for what it is really worth (more than half of the current retail values), most people would not bother anymore with downloading it all. Not everyone can dish out $$$$ for so many programs that are only to be used once or twice.
This guy for selling it to make himself money, yes, that is wrong, but jail??? Make him pay back money sure, but we need these jails for the real bad guys.
For eveyrone else who pirate software for their own use to do something quick, give them a break. People can not dish out $5x for Office everytime they upgrade, or $2xx for the next MS OS. Or $4x for video editing software to only convert a single file. Not everyone can find free alts to do what they need, and trial versions suck. So I can feel for those people a bit.
You must consider value, not just price. Take fancy tennis shoes & name brand clothes, for example. It's not how much they COST TO MAKE that sets the price, it's the MARKET that sets the price based on the VALUE they bring ... some people call it CAPITALISM. For example, what VALUE has Adobe PS brought to the graphics industry? Well, ask a professional (which, by the way, is who Adobe had in mind when they developed the program) how much time, energy, and money PS has saved them over a year's time. I'm guessing well over $600.
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"Not everyone can dish out $$$$ for so many programs that are only to be used once or twice. "
So should I get a discount on my iPod because I use mine less than my neighbor does his? Horrible, horrible logic.
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"yes, that is wrong, but jail??? Make him pay back money sure, but we need these jails for the real bad guys ..."
You're probably right. I mean, come on, he just stole like $5-20 million dollars worth of intellectual property right out from under Adobe executives, employees, and developers only to resell it for his own gain. It's not like he's Ken Lay or something ... right?
A large fine, criminal record, and some community service should have been the punishment - never prison - we do not need protection from this man.
Think about this - I am sure most if not all his customers were perfectly well aware that you cannot buy software in this fashion. Every day I am bombarded by similar spam - at least the man was honest enough to supply the software - I wonder how often that is true.
The sentence that was handed down was most certainly simply to discourage others, but I personally think it is very, very wrong to make a scapegoat out of anybody and would have that written into the constitution!
What he did was wrong, but not sufficiently wrong to allow a judge to ruin his life. We need to put a stop to 'scapegoat' sentencing.
Cut that out...
Really? So because the oil prices in the US are increasing the level of risk must be going up.
Because the record companies are making so much they must be taking real risks by supporting nearly identical artists over and over again.
Making a large profit usually comes at the expense of the people who do the legwork. It's not so much risk in many cases as it is taking the profits at the top and trying to have some left over for the others.
Let's get profit levels back in check. Then people won't feel like they're being taken advantage of. I know that I, for one, would be more willing to spend more for something made by better compensated people.
That always makes me laugh. U.S. and Canada setting themselves up as the big supports of 'human rights'. Canada and U.S. is where the majority of this crap is produced. The victims don't even know what has been done to them. The police say, "If you don't know about it, it isn't a crime." So secretly rob a bank and if they don't figure it out it is not a crime. So, secretly, download other people's stuff, and it shouldn't be a crime either. According to the logic of about 8 different police forces in Canada.
In Canada, if a woman thinks she may have been drugged and raped and goes to the hospital the doctors commit her to a Psych ward for assessment.
If she goes to the police, they take her to the Psych ward for assessment. No drug test, no rape kit, no interview, no police report. The Hospitals say they can't do the test for benzodiazipine. What crap is that? So the land of the free, is free for the criminals, everyone else is 'delusional'.
Keep your mind about you.
Dianne
And what does Canada's rape handling problem have to do with filtering? I admit that if what you say is true that it is a bad thing, but it's a separate issue.
- costs of products
- by emeraldgate September 12, 2006 9:02 AM PDT
- The cost of products are not high because of 'developement' like is so often touted. Costs are high so the producer can make MAXIM PROFIT IN THE SHORTEST PERIOD OF TIME. Some pharmaceuticals cost 500,000 times what they cost to produce. The U.S. government will spend 2 Billion dollars of the American people's money for a flu vaccine that will make the White House et al very, very rich. You think they don't have stocks in these companies. The illnesses the people have mean money in the pockets of a very select few. Rumsfeld was on the Board of Directors of Gilead, the pharmaceutical company that developed the vaccine for the 'bird flu'. 10 years ago they gave marketing rights to Roche. Anyone with stock in Gilead is going to be very, very rich. They even passed a law that you can't sue the Pharmaceutical company if you die or get sick from the vaccine. Doesn't THAT just make you wonder? What would it have taken for Rumsfeld, the Secretary for Defense, to call up his subordinates in the Bioweaponery division of the U.S. military, and say, "Hey, cook us up a little air born virus that will make people sick and distribute it to a few places." Then after a few planted cases come to light, what would it take for his buddies in the Media, and the propaganda machine, to start hyping it up and a few years later some well invested scientists start backing up what the 'boss' says. All of a sudden you have a 'pandemic' on the horizon more dangerous than the Black Plague. Really. Really?
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- Yeah, profit is soo
- by sanenazok September 12, 2006 3:35 PM PDT
- EVIL!! I think all software should be made to make the world a nicer place. Too bad it's corporations that make software and they must make a profit, otherwise there's no reason for them to exist.
- Like this
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Showing 1 of 3 pages (145 Comments)We are all nothing but commodities. We are born with nothing and we will die with nothing of note because we are just commodities circulating money. We are bought and sold, over and over again. We are poisoned with poisonous food which makes us sick, so we give money for a bunch of useless Pharmaceuticals whose pawns the FDA approved the poisons to begin with. Is anybody out there concerned?
Software piracy is nothing like what the pharmaceutical companies are doing. You can live without software, there are plenty of open source GPL equivalents that work as well or better than copyrighted stuff. Pharmaceutical companies are wasting money on prime time advertising and marketing rather than research and any research they do is financed in part by the government. What percentage of Microsoft Word came from research under a government grant? Most likely very little or nothing.
Really, really nice rant, though.