Software Piracy

The act of pirating software is almost as old as the concept of software. In fact, depending on how broadly you define software, piracy of information has been around for generations. Therefore, the ethical quarrel has been around for just as long. There are and have been those who feel it is wrong to steal information and those who either don’t care or feel that they deserve information for free. This specifically has become a common topic with the digitization of movies and music through the internet. With more and more pathways to transmit data there is more ways for pirates to get a hold of the information. In the recent years, sites like “the pirate bay” have been actively pursued by governments to shut down the operations and having some success. The problem with sites such as these is each user that downloads a file can then become a source to be downloaded from and therefore the source of the pirated software is constantly moving and changing. As well, mirror sites can easily be set up to counter act one specific page being taken down. My opinion on this topic is that the act of piracy is wrong. Although tempting to want games or movies or music for free, the act of essentially stealing a production team and artists product decreases the payment the author receives. When the author receives less payment there are less incentivized to make more of that content. So even if you liked the content you downloaded illegally, you are propagating the end of that exact content in the first place.