It cost adobe millions of dollars to develop that product. They did this so that people would buy it, and they’d have money with which to develop other products (and buy yachts). Let’s not use cars. Let’s use newspapers. It costs nearly 2 cents to create a physical copy of a newspaper after the original has been designed.

But stealing that paper is still stealing. And it’s stealing more than 2 cents worth of work. It’s stealing a little of the man-hours and the salaries and the research fees and the office upkeep and the equipment fees of the paper. In the end they created information, not a physical product. But no less time was put into finding and organizing that information for your benefit.

So you want to know how your pirating Adobe Photoshop is hurting anyone. How about legitimate users that have to pay extra for the product? How about the company itself and the employees who spent millions developing the product?

“But I wouldn’t have bought it anyway!”

Yeah, I know. But when you don’t buy things you don’t get to have them. Them’s the rules. There are lots of times I want something tangible: a car, a candy bar, a game. But if I took it, it would still be stealing. How is this any different?

apple=fruit
banana=fruit

apple does not equal banana even though they are both fruits.

stealing=violation of a law
piracy=violation of a law

stealing does not equal piracy, even though both violate a law… just not the same law (theft of property vs. copyright violation).

Trying to equate the two will literally take an act of congress to change our laws.

There can be no question as to whether or not it is wrong (it violates a law), but wrong does not equal the same.

Under this logic,

stealing = murder = securities fraud

All wrong since they all violate laws… just different laws, which does not make them the same.

I find it ironic since it would probably prevent theft in the short run because eventually someone would make some sort of patch to go around the protection.

However, piracy DOES hurt companies. A lot of videogame companies do not like makin software for the PC because of theft. For instance, Capcom blames the lack of sales for Devil May cry 4 on the PC on pirates. Because of this, Capcom opted to sell games like Bionic Commando Rearmed for the PC more than the versions on xboxlive and psn. EA no longer produce Maddan or any sports games on the PC because of piracy.

http://www.joystiq.com/2008/07/04/peter-moore-explains-ea-sports-pc-snub/

I always refer to piracy as theft because it all comes down to takin something that you did not pay for w/o permission.

I am wonderin why some ppl felt that piracy isn’t theft despite that the term “piracy” was initially used for robbery at sea? Personally, l think the suits or whatever just wanted to refer to piracy with a fancy name and some ppl just mistake it as something other than stealing.

I mean no matter what piracy is called, at the end of the day, somebody is modifiying a program or hackin into a website to make something accessable for free.

Then again most “pirates” these days tend to be kids and children, folks who have yet to learn the value of a dollar or a hard day’s work. Thus they don’t really value a lot of stuff and they think nothing of it’s theft. When I was a kid the most commonly stolen item was candy and comic books. Today the most commonly stolen items are MP3’s and videos. The difference is those of us who grew up pinching comics and gum either got caught and learned our lesson or we grew up and outgrew comics and gum. Today’s kids will never outgrow the internet and I fear they will never outgrow digital theft. When you never get caught you act with impunity and just get more brazen, to the point you don’t even bat an eye when you pirate thousand dollar production software like Maya or Max. Then when someone calls you on it you dance around the issue claiming that it isn’t real theft it’s simply “intellectual rights violations”.

Well it’s all “it’s not theft it’s copyright infringement” until someone nabs your ass and you are standing tall before a judge. Then you’ll quickly see how such mundane words as “copyright infringement” and “theft” both equate to heavy fines or perhaps jail. What they actually charge you with is almost inconsequential at that point… handcuffs feel the same no matter what they call your crime.

Same with graffiti. It’s great to young kids until their home gets tagged.

Everyone who loves or is ok with piracy, feels that way until they have their own product that gets pirated.