Guest Post: Stealing Software: Is It Wrong Or Isn’t It?

This guest post was written by Michelle Carrington, the founder and co-editor of Really Big Tech News, which recently donated $5,000 to a non-existent non-profit organization, DataFlexibility, which promotes yoga education in Silicon Valley.

Software used to be so simple. You used it at the Atherton public library free, but you didn’t get to say what would be installed, and there was lots of dirt on the keyboards. If you decided to install software on your Tandy, you paid. People copied software onto floppies and passed them on to friends. That was just about as far as P2P software piracy got. Stealing software was when you shoplifted BASIC from Fry’s Electronics, and it was pretty clearly understood that it was “wrong.” I know: I got caught.

Maybe that’s why so many people who are older than say 30 think that downloading software is ethically wrong. They remember that software is something that you pay for. They still download the software, of course. But they know they’re doing something they shouldn’t be doing.

But if you’ve discovered and come to love software in the last decade, I don’t see how you can be expected to know when pirating software is ok, and when it’s wrong.

Let’s put the law aside for a moment – this post is about doing the right thing. We’ve been hammered with messaging from the government and the software companies that downloading or sharing software on the Internet is stealing, unless you pay for it. We see the EULAs before installation saying it’s wrong. We read about lawsuits against companies that install and offer pirated software. Our government is even willing to threaten other sovereign nations over software piracy.

But over the last few years the line has blurred to the point where there really isn’t any line any more. We can install free social software applications on Facebook and Google and lots of other awesome sites. It’s ok to do it with Facebook and Google, but it’s wrong to do it with Adobe, just because the first two are cool but the other is obsessed with profit? Just a couple of years ago anyone installing a pirated version of Microsoft Vista was violating copyright and subject to being labeled unethical. Today, Microsoft is happy that anyone is installing Vista.

But downloading software, that’s still wrong, right? Nope. If you live in China, you can download software legally for free. No problem. Nobody cares.

Above I said I wanted to put the law aside for a moment. Now I’ll come back to it. Because the law, and particularly the U.S. government’s willingness to perpetuate the absurdity of copyright law as it applies to software, is all that the technology companies have left. No one in their right mind could formulate an argument that downloading software on the Internet is “wrong” at this point. All the software companies have left is the law.

Eventually the reality of the Internet will force the laws to change, too. One way or another the software companies will eventually surrender, and software will be free. I’m just not sure who will want to write it but I’m talking to Loic Le Meur about that since he knows how to find people who are willing to write code at very low rates.

Until software is priced at its marginal cost ($0), I refuse to feel guilty for downloading and sharing software. Every time I install a pirated copy of software, or share it with a friend, I’m doing the software companies (and malware creators) a favor. One that eventually I should be paid for since I realize that Really Big Tech News isn’t going to sell for $100 million. Until that day comes, don’t even think about trying to tell me that I’m doing something ethically wrong when it’s considered quite legal, with Chairman Mao’s blessing, in the iPhone app store.

Editor’s Note: thanks, Michelle, for providing a fascinating argument that clearly explains why software companies shouldn’t have intellectual property rights but why record labels should!