Re: FN-FORUM: activation code for photoshop

date posted 19th August 2007 15:26

On Sun, Aug 19, 2007 at 01:26:36PM -0000, Mike A wrote:

> 1. Software theft is theft of property.

Wrong. It is an infrigement of copyright under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988:

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1988/Ukpga_19880048_en_3.htm#mdiv17

It has some of the practical effects as theft as opposed to sale: the 'owner' does not get some of
your money. There are other loosers as well: those in the supply chain and the tax man.
A quick look at the act and it seems not to contain the word 'theft'.

> 2. It is generally regarded as a civil matter with organisations such
> FAST dealing with it (http://www.fast.org.uk/typesofsofttheft.asp).

It is a criminal offence, remedies, etc are here:

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1988/Ukpga_19880048_en_7.htm#mdiv107

Be careful about FAST - they do try to push the boundary a bit the other way
with a bit of FUD. Remember that they are a vendors' organisation, whose interests
are served by getting you to buy more s/ware - sometimes more than you need.

There is the whole area of EULAs, especially the ones that you need to click on
to install - sometimes this is the first/only time that you can read read it.
Some of these EULAs are over the top, eg: preventing you from selling the s/ware
with the machine that you installed it on; or trying to remove rights that you
have (eg preventing you from looking at communications streams to reverse engineer
protocols -- that is why I did not agree to the skype EULA and so don't use it).

> 5. In the circumstances, it is right and helpful to debate the issue of
> IPR theft, especially when, as put forward by the original poster, the forum
> is used as a vehicle for advancing distribution of, or communicating, IPR
> theft devices. That the Police are not interested in or have inadequate

Beware the concept of IPR, this is often overblown. There is a lot of corporate
pressure to extend this beyond what is reasonable, 2 issues:

1) extension of copyright. Some of the early Disney cartoons should have fallen out
of copyright recently; except that Disney ''made political contributions'' and
the length of copyright was extended 20 years.
See:
http://homepages.law.asu.edu/~dkarjala/OpposingCopyrightExtension/

2) software & business process patents. This is used as a weapon by (usually large)
businesses to stop others (usually smaller busineeses) from out innovating them.
There is a lot of pressure to try to bring this into Europe, fortunately this
has been resisted so far.
For more info on this heinous idea, see:
http://eupat.ffii.org/

> resources to deal with such crime may be an issue, but if it is the case
> then other developers are correct in pointing out that the majority here
> have higher ethics than to condone or participate in criminal activity.
> 6. If the original poster made a mistake during his path towards becoming
> an ethical Web professional, that's okay. Others here have assisted.

--
Alain Williams
Linux Consultant - Mail systems, Web sites, Networking, Programmer, IT Lecturer.
+44 (0) 787 668 0256 http://www.phcomp.co.uk/
Parliament Hill Computers Ltd. Registration Information: http://www.phcomp.co.uk/contact.php
Chairman of UKUUG: http://www.ukuug.org/
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