Talk:Copyright infringement of software

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[edit] Section

At this time, I see no reason for there being a warning for there to be a NPOV warning on this article. It presents legal and moral perspectives, and while it is not completely NPOV, it does present the different viewpoints well and therefore is as close to NPOV as can be had.

Further, in recent entries on the talk page (*here) I am not seeing anything that blatantly merits the NPOV and factual error warning. I am removing it; if it is replaced kindly explain the specific issues with the article. Yes, I will be following this entry, and I am interested in it truly being NPOV. I think there should be more references to documents off of the Wikipedia which present the different perspectives. I will work towards adding those. --TaranRampersad 29 June 2005 01:46 (UTC)

I will post some of my POV objections to this article. I'm sure others exist. The whole "Software piracy as price control" section. (Although it appears that all but the title are missing..) Although "Unauthorized copying as being the ethically correct choice" is almost NPOV, it does read POV. For example, the rhetorical question "More feasibly, will such a society proceed further down the slippery slope and copyright (and potentially monopolize or control) things that are normally currently shared, such as specific strains of crops or certain medical procedures or compounds?" IMO is POV. I am also not happy with some of the text towards the end of "The effects of copyright infringement on our culture". Although I will admit, this article is a lot better, but this is not through re-drafting but removing large hunks of text.
Although my initial instinct was to put the tag back on. I will leave it up to others to decide if the article is still significantly POV to justify a tag. --JiFish(Talk/Contrib) June 29, 2005 13:06 (UTC)
I would agree. There seems to be an awful lot of justifictaion for a criminal act. The section 'The effects of copyright infringement on digital culture' especially is not only badly written, but seems very biased. Also, the case against copyright infringement of software isn't presented at all. 21 May 2006 09:43 (UTC)
    This entry is becoming more and more POV with each edit, yet the POV warning remains gone.  Now it doesnt even
    address "software piracy" at all, but rather lists under "copyright infringement of software" despite the fact that 
    the former term is widely accepted by everyone except those who are ideologically opposed to copyright and, therefore,
    grudgingly accept the latter.  The entire article basically reads as a laundry list of reasoning for why it should be 
    fine to infringe upon software copyright.  To be honest, I think this article really calls into question the integrity 
    of the Wiki.  Especially since it is *exactly* what one would expect were they to come to the Wiki looking for this topic
    and *expecting* ideological bias.  If the Wiki can't rise to the challenge of staying neutral on pet issues of the
    technology community that tend to be the contributors, then it's useless.  To anyone who would say "well fix it", the 
    article cannot be fixed.  The entire thing should be tossed as it is not repairable in its current state.  Anyone neutral
    on this issue can see that.  It completely argues from the point of those who oppose copyright.  It doesn't even make the
    attempt to discuss how producers of content should be rewarded for their effort by those who want it for free (there are 
    far more people who want to consume than are able to create).  That's simply treated as a non-issue by this article.

    For those who apparently believe that this article is NPOV, just turn off your ideology for a minute and look at it.
    The topic at hand is barely defined before it launches into rationalizations "some believe that software licenses
    cannot be broken by someone who didnt purchase the software", "Richard Stallman (quoting Stallman is PURE POV) feels
    that it is UNETHICAL to charge for software".  I mean really.  Richard Stallman is a hardcore radical on this issue
    who appears increasingly irrational and unreasonable as the debate wears on.  Why is the article on "software piracy"
    being used to fight the "war against copyright"?  THAT is the real problem here.


I commented out "Open Source Software and its Effects on Piracy" since the current version wasn't written in a neutral way. For example last sentence was: "If the Bazaar model can be implemented successfully it is truly the best solution for solving software piracy." (I mostly agree with that, but this is clearly an opinion, not an objective fact). I think Open Source Software should be mentioned in this article, but someone rewrite that paragraph from a NPOV, please. Michał Kosmulski 19:09, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I removed the text below for various reasons:

  • it would be better located in the copyright or islam articles.
  • it appears to be just one Islamic scholar's opinion, not a generally accepted view in Islam
  • Islamic countries typically sign up to the same international treaties as other countries, e.g., some are members of the World Trade Organisation, others have signed the Universal Copyright Convention or Berne Convention.

In Islam, copyrighting of ideas and the concept of intellectual property is Haram or forbidden, since: "Knowledge is the ownership of whoever possesses it and not the ownership of the one who taught it only. Thus, as long as a person has the knowledge, it is his/her property, but once it is revealed to others, by any means, it becomes allowed for everyone to use it with or without the permission of the original owner.

Therefore, no one has the right to copyright because whatever is written in that book, for example, is knowledge. As long as that person possesses that knowledge, it is his/hers, but once he/she gives it to people verbally, in writing, or in any means, it becomes allowed for all people. Teaching that knowledge, by these people, to anybody is also allowed. Then, making copyrights on any kind of knowledge is a prohibition to what is already allowed by Allah. Making copyrights is making teaching knowledge, acquiring knowledge haram. Therefore, it is not allowed for anyone to have copyrights. This, however, should not give the impression that one can buy a book or a computer program, for example, and claim that he/she is the author of that material. Claiming such thing is considered a lie in Islam (not stealing) and it is haram."

See also:

http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:www.ummah.com/islam/taqwapalace/copyrights1.pdf

( PDF converted to text on Google)

In the article, "Also software piracy is sometimes misapplied to the distribution of software at little or no cost even when the software license permits such distribution, as in the case of free software."

Is this true? I have never heard of it. If so, we would better put it to freesoftware article too -- Taku 16:13 Jan 3, 2003 (UTC)

No, free software is not software "piracy". There is some misunderstanding here. Copying is not "piracy". UNAUTHORIZED copying MAY be considered illegal. And that's what people call "piracy". However, some consider "piracy" a not adequate word, and some take any way of copying as illegal. We must make the right distinction. Tcascardo

No no I meant who is there such a misunderstanding. I know exactly the difference. But I don't agree that the sentence, that is "Also software piracy is sometimes misapplied to the distribution of software at little or no cost even when the software license permits such distribution, as in the case of free software." Do you agree with this sentence or not? If no, I will delete it or you can do it too as always. Taku 03:54 Jan 4, 2003 (UTC)

I do not agree it should be misapplied, certainly not. But if that's a fact, it should be noticed, should not? TCascardo

About the exchange from "free" to "not-for-profit"... Although free copying should not be misunderstood as free software would, I agree that the correct distinction should be made. Great job for doing it elegantly. TCascardo

"The term software piracy refers to copyright violation for profit, i.e., the unauthorised selling of counterfeit computer software, music, movies etc."

Are music and movies considered software? I think there are differences between software and digital media, software usually has some "licensing terms", defined by the authors, yet digital media is usually solely protected by intellctual property law.

Yes, you are of course right, this is something that needs to be pointed out. --snoyes 04:16 Apr 4, 2003 (UTC)

My first reading of this page is it is blatently not NPOV

I agree. The term "Software Piracy" is not NPOV. The fact that people have been using the term for a long time is irrelevant, and is a frankly wrong argument (it's the same as saying that "vile" isn't a pejorative term, because people have been using the term for some centuries). This article needs to be renamed under a heading such as "Unauthorised copying" (and all the POV stuff reworded), and the heading "software piracy" needs a short note to the effect that it is a non-NPOV term for unauthorised copying and a pointer to the main article. -- Cabalamat.
The term software piracy is not NPOV per definition. Might it be better to empty this page and redirect to copyright violation? 80.126.238.189 20:22, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Me too (three, four?). But the text does belong somewhere. Not sure it should be its own article. Hmmmmm. - David Gerard 23:48, Jan 30, 2004 (UTC)

I disagree. It is not for us to be judges of how to uselanguage. If this is the phrase that is used to describe unauthorised copying of software, then this is the phrased that is used. If X is vile according to the dictionary definition of vile, then they are vile. No matter how bad it makes them look. Re the redirect to copyright violation page idea - this has been done once and makes that page look silly - 95% about computers and 5% about copyright. I really strongly disagree with that. And finally to David G. why does it not deserve its own article? Illegal software copying is a hugely legitimate topic - look how much material there is! Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 09:53, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)

It struck me as a sub-discussion of another topic, rather than a natural article in itself. - David Gerard 12:35, Jan 31, 2004 (UTC)
Software Piracy is perjorative, it implies that it is a Bad Thing. There is quite some controversy weather this is actually the case! See how many people actually commit copyright violations every day. It's rather unlikely that you won't know people who do it, or maybe you even do it yourself. Now, do all those people call their actions Software Piracy? Hmm probably it's a specific "propaganda" term, likely introduced by the BSA. Rather unlikely to be neutral eh? I really don't think it's NPOV. How about "Copyright Violations in software?" 80.126.238.189 13:33, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)
"It implies that it is a Bad Thing"... well isn't ripping-off other people's software and using it without permission a Bad Thing? To be slightly hyperbolic about it : why not rename Murder to Unrequested end of life by another party, as murder is perjorative, it implies that it is a Bad Thing? Or to pick an example that is more appropiate, in the sense that it is widespread like copying software apparently is, what would be the better name for an article: Speeding or Driving faster than the speed limit? Surely the former? Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 13:55, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Obviously the people who do it don't think it's a bad thing. Anyone opposed to the concept of copyright isn't going to care.
(more analogy stretching) Well obvious murderers don't think murder is a bad thing, then. So to avoid offending them, we really should rename the page? Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 14:21, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I don't follow this argument. "murder" is a normal legal term. So is "piracy": it implies robbery with violence, and what does murder and piracy have to do with copying information? ( 14:32, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)
"Piracy" has been the standard term for unathorized reproduction of literary works (even when such acts were not illegal due to limited intternational copyright protection) since at least the 1880s when the term was used for unauthorized performaces of Gilbert and Sullivan works, and for unauthorized copied of books by Mark Twain. I suspect that it is older than that in this usage. Obviouly this term is from the POV of thsoe who deplore or want to forbid such copying. But this term is widely used, and the acts it descrbies do exist, adn are deplored by many. Those are facts.
But why do you think there is a need for a separate article about copyright infringement of software, as opposed to any other type of material? There doesn't seem to be much difference ( 13:58, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)
We have plenty of material on software - indeed specific only to software like the study I referred to about software piracy being a competitive advantage in a competitve market. We have little general material, the article was lop-sided at copyright infringement and not so here. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 14:21, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)
If there is enough such material that really can't be applied to infringement of CDs, DVDs etc., then fine, use a neutral term such as "copyright infringement of software". ( 14:32, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Ripping-off other people's software and using it without permission is a Good Thing. Quite frankly, I believe society would be better without Copyright law. I think there's a sizable minority of people who agree with me, so just write it NPOV, for NPOV's sake. Connelly 09:17, 6 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Good point. Do you have any specific suggestions about changes? In regards to previous comments about whether we should use the word "piracy", many pirates happily use the word. There is also no replacement for some related terms - how do you say "pirated software", for instance? I think we should use neutral terms like copyright infrigement, unauthorised copying, etc. to replace "piracy" whenether possible, but in some cases using the words "pirated", "pirate", etc. is OK.Paranoid 09:47, 6 Jun 2004 (UTC)
We also need some comments on the economic effect of CIoS. There are some positive and some negative effects, both should be covered NPOVly. Paranoid 09:47, 6 Jun 2004 (UTC)
The difficult part will be getting hard numbers. The BSA will have numbers aplenty, but we would have to note they're pretty soft - David Gerard 11:19, 6 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Don't see any argument for excluding the term 'Software Piracy' in fact it may even warrant a separate article. There have been plenty of historical groups proudly refering to themselves as pirates, it's a common term in the media and the software industry. Anybody engaged in the infringement of software copyright for the purpose of profiting thereof, who doesn't want to see the term "Software Pirate" used on Wikipedia is a poor sod who hasn't really grasped the concept of an encyclopaedia. They probably also want Nigger deleted. --JamesTheNumberless 10:14, 23 May 2006 (UTC)


HEY! In reverting you removed all the completely valid, completely sourced material that I added to the article. This is completely unacceptable. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 14:24, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)

It was the easiest way to repair such damage. I didn't examine your new material, by all means add it back ( 14:32, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)
You mean you hadn't read the updated article? But you decided to call it damage anyway? Please read it and add it back yourself. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 14:34, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I call your reverting the article to an old title "damage". The new material may be fine. It would be fine to take your last version and move it to copyright infringement of software, but this leaves the copyright infringement article looking a bit redundant. ( 14:39, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Thanks for doing that. Sorry I lost my cool a little before. I know the current situation is not perfect, and maybe some more of CIiS could be in CI but this a better situation then a week ago I think. Sorry again. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 15:15, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)

It might be a good idea to explain why sometimes copyright infringement might be The Right Thing To Do.

Hmm, actually there are entire groups of people who argue that copyright law as currently written is *broken*. Especially the way that (in the USA) Congress keeps extending the duration of copyright. It's getting so bad that sometimes materials simply vanish or are destroyed before copyright on them ends (if at all). So sometimes people like librarians and archivarians and people in similar jobs must break the law on purpose, just to preserve what is there!

A different but common example is computer programmers taking source code home with them. This is technically against the law, and yet it would be stupid not to do so (The programmers' copy is sometimes the only off-site backup available in small companies) . If you were to ask around very carefully perhaps you'd find examples of how often companies have been saved by this practice. 80.126.238.189 00:49, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)

[edit] 1 Feb 2004 edits

I made a variety of edits to the introductory sentences and list of possible infringing situations. Some notes:

  • I generally replaced illegal with copyright infringement, since illegal is often thought to mean criminal and most infrngement is not criminal (though it can be in large volumes).
  • I mentioned some US decisions. I'll add links to them when I get around to writing the articles on them (and after I look them up again!)
  • I changed license restriction descriptions to say "try to" or similar because the legality of such clauses is not certain, as the US case on purchases with hardware illustrates.
  • The copyright infringement article is small now but there is quite a lot to write on that and enough material about infringement of software to merit an article of its own, IMO. Both will probably grow over time, so I'm inclined to let the wiki do its job and take care of things. Jamesday 04:09, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I removed the following text:

In some developing countries, software piracy is not considered illegal. In Russia, which is not a signatory to the Berne Convention it is legal to copy any software as long as it is not in the Russian language.

This is simply not true. USSR signed the convention, albeit without retroactive protection (so everything before 1970 is in the public domain, icluding all books, music, films, etc.). Russia is the successor of the USSR, so it is a signatory (even though it didn't actually sign it, don't know how to call it then). You can't copy the software in English, but (may be it should be included, but may be not):

  • only the copyright holder can complain, so it's ok to copy stuff if you know the author will not have time to file the lawsuit in Russia
  • the buyer is not liable. He can usually claim that he believed the software is ok, he has a receipt that it's bought in a normal store, all taxes are paid, etc. This is especially true since pirated discs usually have same packaging, say "all rights reserved" on them and you can buy licensed software right next to pirated in many (most?) places. Most specialised CD/DVD/video shops (even large chains) sell pirated software, even large chains.

Paranoid 10:06, 4 Jun 2004 (UTC)

There is a crucial part missing from the introduction (and the article in general). We have to determine whether downloading software from P2P (FTP, IRC, etc.) is piracy/copyright infridgement. Do you have any ideas? Is it often (ever) referred to as piracy? If yes, it must be added in the intro (with the comment on its legality in many/most places). If it isn't, we must explicitly say that downloading is not usually considered piracy (but it may or may not be infridgement). Paranoid 12:20, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Formally, piracy refers only to sea robbery, not copyright infringement. So downloading is never piracy. It may or may not be copyright infringment, depending on local laws. Sometimes copying for personal purposes such as education or research is permitted. Sometimes copying is legalized by a blank media tax system. Generally it is the person downloading who is creating a new copy, but this is done using the equipment and original copy provided by an uploader. Goatherd 21:39, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)
The use of the term "Piracy" as an informal term for unauthorized copying has a long history, and indeed goes back to teh time when there was little or no effective international copyright protection. Given this history, the use of the term is IMO legit, as long as it is recognized that the term is inherently POV. It is not a legal term, but an informal term for an act that may or may not be illegal, and that some consider immoral.

The software market is significantly different to the entertainment market which has specific implications regarding software piracy. The software market is characterised by positive network externalities, which is an economic term for value created in a transaction that is not accounted for in the transaction. Similar to telecommunications, software's utility to an individual rises as the number of individuals use it. When this is considered within the context of a market entry strategy, gaining the largest initial group of users becomes essential for a business to thrive since that business will have the most value added to its software. Software piracy increases the rate at which a package is adopted. Thus, piracy of a particular package in the early stages of a new software market segment results in that package gaining more rapid diffusion and almost irreversable control of the market. The fundemental question regarding the economic effects of CIoS boils down to the trade-off between the loss of potential sales with the value that the increased number of users (both legal and illegal) add to the software package. In the case of Microsoft, the piracy of early Windows editions aided the company in gaining control over a market. Subsequently, this dominant market position has not been challenged due to the abuse of setting the industry standard. The only competition that Microsoft realistically has is from open source software.

[edit] Malum prohibitum or malum in se

I found that certain copyright infringement of software is a malum prohibitum offense. Copyright infringement of abandonware may be a malum prohibitum offense. Malum prohibitum copyright infringement may not cause financial harm to the copyright owner, but it is illegal only based on historical writing. Plus, the copyright system is far from synch with socioeconomic reality. Tedius Zanarukando 28 Jan 0:15 2005 (EST).

[edit] Cocoa Puffs

"This is comparable to the monopoly of individual breakfast cereals -- Kellogg's Cocoa Puffs is like a monopoly because you wouldn't want a breakfast cereal that is roughly like Cocoa Puffs, you would want actual Cocoa Puffs."

BS. Malt-O-Meal bagged cereals are more than acceptable facsimiles of G and K brand cereals. (In fact, a taste test showed a preference for Scooters cereal over G's Cheerios cereal.) Besides, Cocoa Puffs is a G cereal, not a K cereal. --Damian Yerrick 02:50, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Pardon my French...

...but this entire article smells of bias and wishful thinking--no, scratch that. It smells of shit and demonstrates better than any logical argument why Wikipedia will remain forever the laughingstock of all intelligent life on Earth. 69.203.80.227 11:28, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

  • So edit it. Deh 21:48, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)
The first poster was right -- this entry is nothing close to neutral or unbiased. As it stands, it's essentially a treatise on the "copywrong" philosophy. And it DOES make Wikipedia look goofy. And "so edit it" isn't the appropriate answer to the implicit question: What writer thought this was an acceptable entry, and why?
  • If you want to research who wrote what, you can find out who made various edits to the article via the "history" tab. You could certainly ask any non-anonymous authors why they wrote what they did via their Talk page. And then you could try to convince them to modify their remarks to remove the bias. However, I suspect you'd typically find it more fruitful to edit the article directly. Deh 16:07, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Software Piracy Price Control

Does anybody know what happened to taht part? If it never existed, then remove the section marker. If it was vandalized and nobody noticed, please repair it. ThanksBubbleboys 16:36, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

I assume this section was (rightly) removed for being POV. The user that removed it must have forgetten to remove the heading. --JiFish(Talk/Contrib) 16:36, August 6, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] "The effects of copyright infringement on our culture"

OK, I like this section. But I think it has NPOV issues. --Nerd42 (talk) 04:58, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] should this be remove?

"With the Nintendo's new console, the Nintendo Revolution you'll be able to download old games onto the console." This statment detracts from the whole paragraph, section, and article. I'll remove in a day, unless someone can think of a reason why it should not be remove. my reasons for removing it are: it doesn't flow with the section, It belongs in the nintendo revolution article more so than this article, and is not suffient enough to be a sentence in the paragraph.

[edit] United States

Errm. The opending section lists the United States as one country in which software piracy is extremely common. This would seem to contradict statistics today from the Business Software Alliance which has the USA as the country with the least software piracy in the world, at 21%. Vietnam and Zimbabwe, both at 90%, are surprisingly not mentioned in this list. I suggest this needs a bit of editing. BBC article --JamesTheNumberless 09:56, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I pirate stuff all the time off emule and bit torrent and you can see the country flags of all other people. From what I see, 5-10 countries in Europe along with Brazil and Mexico all have 3-10x as many people pirating stuff then USA. and this is NTSC stuff too. Just imagine Pal stuff. Also, most rare movies and games found on emule are all the Pal versions rather then NTSC. Lots of countries with less then 1/10th the population of the US seem to have even more people pirating 007craft 03:55, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Page duplication?

Hi, I wonder if some of you would wander over to Counterfeit software and tell me if it is, as it seems to me to be, attempting to be an identical article to this page? If so, it should probably be merged ... --JennyRad 18:43, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Well that page seems to be refering to piracy. However, counterfeiting is different from piracy. Counterfeiting is defined as (acording to the wiki article on it) "A counterfeit is an imitation that is made with the intent to deceptively represent its content or origins". If this is the case, software counterfitting would refer to people who make their own software and try to pass it off as official software. Like someone coding their own Itunes software that reads itunes and looks identical, but in fact, the music store is different and not apples. I would suggest not merging the 2 pages, but rather erasing the other page and replacing it with what software counterfieting really is (and its not software pirating). 007craft 04:00, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Image

Has someone hacked the picture on this page? Or is it some kind of ironic joke? IKR

  Why whats wrong?? Realg187 17:21, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright infringement benefits Microsoft

Article needs something that suggests the possibility that "piracy" can be beneficial to the corporation selling the software product under some circumstances:

We also look at the effect of piracy and ask whether piracy can ever be beneficial to Microsoft. This extension was motivated by analyzing data on a cross-section of countries on Linux penetration and piracy rates. We found that in countries where piracy is highest, Linux has the lowest penetration rate. The model shows that Microsoft can use piracy as an effective tool to price discriminate, and that piracy may even result in higher profits to Microsoft!
Source: http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/4834.html

-- Newhoggy | Talk 05:03, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Piracy is a mess

Okay, I have been trying for some time now to consolidate all information in piracy into one comprehensive article. Originally this was through significant additions to the article on copyright infringement, but piracy lies somewhat beyond the scope of that article. I just discovered this article, and VCD peddler yesterday. As well, you can find significant discussions in the articles on Bittorrent, RIAA and related articles. I was in the process of creating a proposed article in my user namespace to be at Piracy (information), but in light of the widespread discussion of this issue I've realized that this is not something that I can do alone.

So, I'm asking for help, or at least discussion of ways to clear up the present situation. Please comment on the proposed article's talk page, so that we can keep discussion centralized... despite the insanity that attempts to cover this rather complex topic. --IntrigueBlue 06:40, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

IntrigueBlue and I have been doing quite a lot of work over at IntrigueBlue/Piracy, and I think it's starting to develop into a good overview article on this topic, with lots of the existing articles working well as sub-articles. More eyes would be helpful! In light of the "piracy"/"infringement" discussions above, I would especially like some opinions on whether the article should actually be titled Piracy (information), or perhaps whether what we've built should be merged into the existing copyright infringement article. — Catherine\talk 04:33, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ROM

Nitnendo says its not necessary to backup,but it is!! What about when they all break??? ALso how else u get free games?? Realg187 17:21, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Nintendo Power touched upon this - they drew the comparison to being like copying every page of a Harry Potter book "just in case"... it doesn't make sense. Of course, that's a bit of a stretch for a comparison, but it's viable. You don't NEED to make backups, and more and more publishers are leaning toward not actually selling you the "game" but instead the license to run the game. Finally, the whole point is so that Nintendo makes a profit; despite how user-friendly they try to be, they want their money, and letting their hard work become freeware across the internet doesn't suit them. -K2JMan 15:06, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Large NPOV Issues

Reading this article makes one say "Fucking stupid." And for a good reason. After reading over this article, all I got out of it was that Asians are evil pirates, and America is the good and righteous developer of all software in the world. Seriously.

Let's go over my list of issues with this article:

  • Asians are race-branded as the biggest perpetrators of software piracy in the world.
  • North America is listed as the creator of "80% of the world's software." Can someone supply three (credible) forms of proof of this fact? Let's not forget that console games fall under software, and that many video games come from Japan. Did Japan just suddenly stop writing games one day?
  • The article claims that Americans are effected most by piracy. Seriously, it's like the article's author thinks that America has suddenly ballooned up to 3/4 of the world's population or something.

It is quite clear that the people who wrote such things are from a North American perspective. It would be appreciated if people would fix the wording, and remove these statements, as they're not only untrue, but inflammatory and one could even say racist. -Emhilradim 00:23, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV re. effects on digital culture

In general this article is impressively close to being NPOV but I have doubts about this section. In particular:

"Some people claim that copyright infringement is theft, but—in a technical, legal sense—it is not, since the copyright holder is not deprived of any item. However, it is still the case that the software author will not be paid for the infringing copies and, even if it is assumed that only a fraction of those infringing the author's copyright would ever have bought the software, the author will still suffer an economic loss as a result." ...(and subsequent comments on economic losses due to copyright infringement)

The effects of copyright infringement on economy may not necessarily be that clear-cut. The article states the obvious mechanism via which copyright infringement can erode sales. However, there are also arguments that in some circumstances, some forms of copyright infringement might help sales in some ways. For example, the argument that a modest amount of casual copying increases spread of media, brand/industry awareness and exposure, and this factor could potentially generate extra sales in the long run. There are other arguments documented under "Justifications" in the more general Wiki article on copyright infringement.

It's quite possible that the sources of potential gain may be outweighed by the potential losses, but it strikes me that this section only deals with one side of the economic story, and so is not entirely NPOV. -Tws45 16:02, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Update: I think there's been a bit of subtle vandalism of this section, it now reads "From an agricultural legal sense, the copyright holder is always deprived of an item", etc. It doesn't make sense (what relevance does agriculture have to copyright infringement?) and it reads like a POV strongly at the "copyright infringement is evil" end of the spectrum.

Ironically, getting a neutral POV will always be difficult because apparently it is illegal to carry out research that questions the correctness of copyright law! -Tws45 19:39, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV on the term 'piracy'

On a related note, whoever put in the Free Software Foundation propaganda section on copyright infringement!= piracy was not NPOV at all. Having a bunch of quotes from the FSF about how piracy is a bad word that shouldn't be used ignores 128 years of history. The debate is just people arguing semantics, anyway. Without the links and references, my section could be just one line: "It's been called that for 128+ years, but it's silly calling 'unauthorized information duplication' piracy, since piracy means rape and murder" Paladinwannabe2 15:16, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

The same concern seems to have caused an even more concrete problem. It appears to me that the content of the article is almost exclusively about what constitutes "piracy", the illegal distribution of (software) copies, while copyright infringement is much broader, including violation in the use of parts or variations of that software in derivative works, from sources or binaries, without permission. Reading the comments I gather this (Piracy) was the original title, but that it was changed to be politically correct. The current title is misleading. In fact, I came upon the article looking for information on specifics on the "reusing" sense of copyright violation, as opposed to wholesale copying of works.
~ Who is like God? (talk) 06:56, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

PIE JESU Xx —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.138.212.129 (talk) 12:49, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

It's doubtful that a centuries old usage of 'piracy' as applied to copyright law makes that usage intrinsically neutral. Many pejoratives (e.g. nigger) are old, but mere historic precedent neither implies nor ensures fairness. Casual usage of the highly contentious 'piracy' conflicts with a NPOV... unless perhaps we can imagine that the FSF is a foolish cult and the GPL its impractical creed, in which case fanatics should not dictate usage, but that characterization would be absurd since Wikipedia itself stems from the GPL. Instead we should cite 'piracy' as a term preferred by advocates for criminalization, while avoiding any indiscriminate use. --AC (talk) 07:04, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Article Top

The top of the article (above/around the table of contents) has most of its content discussing "types," shouldn't some of this data be broken up and inserted into the types section? 99.154.61.103 (talk) 20:30, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

I fully agree. I tried to fix it, but it wasn't easy as all those things were part of the definition. I have now simplified a bit, but other editors might not like it. --Merzul (talk) 18:59, 19 April 2008 (UTC)