jolpis:
ye have to admit things that isen’t made anymore is an exeption
dedwrekka:
There is so much stuff out there that is completely unavailable, but is still in copyright. It's not worth it for the publisher to produce more copies because the market is so small, but it is almost impossible to find, even second hand. In this case, you wouldn't even be denying the maker any money. So is it still bad to copy such an item? I don't think it is so clear cut.
cornixt
ye have to admit things that isen't made anymore is an exeptionIt's not an exception in any shape or form. It's still illegal and still against copyright. Just because they don't drop a few dozen copies of the book on the market anymore, doesn't mean pirating it is any different than pirating something that's widely available.
jolpis
Now, on the other hand, there are two main reasons why people pirate something:
1) The original is hard to find (either in their area or in general). For instance, out of print items, movies that are difficult to find in an area with any certainty, single songs from a CD (Hey, some people don't want to pay for a whole Cd when they only like one song), ect.
2) The pirated copy is somehow viewed as better than the original. Whether it's because it lacks DRM, because there's errors that have been fixed, because you can copy it (or load it to MP3, or view it as a computer file) easier, or whatever.
I have mixed feelings on it, but don't kid yourself. Just because it's hard to find or cheaper the pirating way, it doesn't make it any better than pirating anything else. Having scruples on doing something illegal doesn't make it better.
Xander:
Copyright laws are generally pretty ridiculous and out dated. What’s the difference between showing my buddy a copy of my Warriors of Chaos Army Book in person, versus online.
Should mere replication of something be a crime? This has not been properly dealt with under the law in my view.
Copyright laws are a huge grey area. I don’t hold a lot of stock in them, personally.
Tarrakk Blackhand:
They used a 10 inch disk that could carry 100k or was it 10k memory on them.It was 8". I still have all my old Apple ][ computers. I still love them, even thought they're so obsolete. At least back then EVERYONE could program a computer using Apple Basic.
Two Heads Talking
[quote=Xander]Should mere replication of something be a crime? This has not been properly dealt with under the law in my view.
dedwrekka:
And tieing this in with the 1970's and 1980's, remeber when the computer magazines like Compute had the basic programs printed in the magazine and you had to type them in by copying them out from the magazine, typing them into your computer, line by line? That was another one of those "Grey Areas" because if I wrote the program and sent it to Compute, then they would print it in the magazine and then someone would type it in, line by line, and then copy it onto a few discs for their friends. So where was the copyright protection on that one? :DSimple, by sending it in to them, you gave up the right to protect others from copying the program just as anyone else who sent a program in to them did. That was the early days of what's now called "Shareware" and "Freeware". The copyright is still there, but you give up the right to prosecute based on it till you give notice that you no longer want others to copy it.
Well, that was still in the days when computers were all about "sharing the love", as it were. Well, most of the original computer geeks were X-hippies.
Tarrakk Blackhand
Which is the reason GW goes on occasional IP lawsuit threat crazes. Because if they don't occasionally back up their claims to their IP, anyone and everyone could come along and steal bits from it, and they'd lose control of it.
The laws are a little different in each country, though.