Thread: Piracy is Socially Acceptable

A humble question:

If it does not cause too much effort, could one of the powers that be merge related threads and topics into one? There are so many posts in different threads and sub-fora on related or the same topic ... some house-cleaning would help to keep on top of interesting contributions, instead of having to hunt them down from a dozen places that are scattered all over the board. This thread here, for instance, is closely related to RIAA: Piracy is “Under Control” But Wait – “Rampant Theft” Continues

Back to the issue at hand:

A couple possible reasons why clandestinely, more people find the petty theft of bits and bytes more acceptible than other forms of robbery:

• It's immaterial and therefore not exclusive, meaning the one from whom something is downloaded can continue to use it, contrary to physical goods.
• Nobody has the money to buy all that we download, i.e. if we did not download the software, we still could not buy it anyway, with only a few minor exceptions in the case of cheap shareware tools.
• Software downloads are something that a lot of people are more likely to engage in (or their children, grandchildren and nephews) than in stealing something physical. Consequently, since we all like to get something for free, it would not be smart to condemn something we or our loved ones are doing, just in case something goes wrong one day ...
• Most people do not think of the spare time programmer or small development team, but associate software with big corporations à la Adobe, Corel, Microsoft and so on. The news focuses on screaming stories about teenage millionaires who became super rich with some irrelevant time-wasters like social networks, further enhancing the perception that software programmers get a break too easily.
• Given the avarice and greed of the corporate world and their political lackeys, there is a feeling of «these guys are stealing much more than I ever could».
• The media have totally given up on morally educating audiences and teaching virtues. In books and movies up to the 1950-60s, the hero had to be good and do the right thing in order to justify his actions, not shooting somebody in the back, even if the bad guy deserved it. Nowadays, protagonists are just as cynical and rotten as their opponents.
• Families are no longer intact, social cohesion and unwritten contracts are breaking up, education sucks and parents do not guide or teach their children to learn, study, work hard and be good anymore. They would rather see them playing the stock market and become rich over night with some shady deals.

Especially the last three factors reflect a general change in our societies. When sports stars are outed as drug addicts and their trainers as pederasts, corporate leaders bring the financial system to a collapse and inept politicians merely serve as their puppets on a string or are outright inept, ignorant and stupid, there are no role models left to follow. Moreover, the authorities have lost their authority to demand sacrifice and silence from their populations if the latter are merely exploited to fill the pockets of the 1%. In a world where leaders mostly lead us from one ecological, economical or social catastrophe to the other, it can come as no surprise that the voting cattle follows their lead in terms of «let's grab what we can», because by being good and honest, they feel, «we'll only get it in the neck».

Of course, we all know that societies and communities function best and to the benefit of all when everybody behaves nicely, according to the old virtues and morale that we all know. There are even mathematical models that prove this and we can see it in practice when comparing Scandinavia with South America, for instance. The problem is the black rider syndrome, and it is worst when the black riders are those that are supposed to protect and uphold the rules, grabbing into the treasure chest themselves while demanding others to do good. Adhering to ethical standards always is more difficult than following one's lower instincts, but there is a limit of abuse that people will take before feeling bu...-fu... For a while, they might try to vent their anger publicly by demonstrating and occupying Wall Street, but if that does not help -- because those that bend the rules are the same guys that make them -- they will retreat to no longer caring (reflected by low participation in elections and similar public activities and initiatives). In a way, software piracy could also be seen as the little man's revenge for all the frustration and helplessness he feels when those who preach drink the wine without leaving him water.

So, can the numbers from the poll really surprise us?