| Matthew Rosewarne on 26 Oct 2007 01:25:50 -0000 |
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On Thursday 25 October 2007, Toby DiPasquale wrote: > Why would I care about that if I'm going to *buy* their products? If I'm > a legal customer, I don't have to care what they do to the guys who > download their stuff off of USENET illegally. As a member of the market, I > decide whether or not its worth it and then buy it or not. Part of my > purchase decision is never what they are going to do to some kid in his > basement for downloading the thing I'm buying from some POP in Finland. I > only care about that if *I* am going to try that move. > > Besides, your statement is patently false, in that everyone in software > knows that a certain amount of piracy is not only tolerated but actually > good for the upstream creators of the software being pirated (for market > share purposes). The software piracy "lobby" is also mainly Microsoft, not > Apple. Apple is a hardware company, after all, not a software company. Well, my second comment was an aside, referring to other actions (DRM, legal threats, closed protocols, etc.) that Apple performs, not about the legitimate practise of preventing illegal copying. However, claiming that Apple isn't a software company, and thus isn't culpable for its own actions with regard to its software, is missing an essential tenet of the market. It doesn't really matter what they make, only whether or not you pay them. By purchasing an Apple product, you are explicitly endorsing their practises and encouraging Apple to continue using them. You aren't causing Apple to change its behaviour by, for instance, buying an iPod and hacking around its closed protocol to use it with Amarok. As long as Apple gets paid for the sale, they have no incentive whatsoever to make it easy for you to use their products. Loading Rockbox onto your iPod so you can play your FLACs or OGGs won't convince Apple to start supporting open formats, since they get paid anyway. The only real leverage you have is the money in your pocket, and whether or not you choose to give it to a company that employs such abusive tactics. > Also, if Free Software cares so much about copyright, then its proponents > can't really get upset when others enforce their own copyrights, as the > GPL-bangers are just dying to get the chance to do one day. It's not that they are enforcing their copyright, that is entirely expected. The problem is that they decide to unfairly use copyright as a hostile impediment to customers and other vendors. Attachment:
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