Software pirate caught in sting operation

[Moederloos]

But thats the problem, as a community we feel that our own protection from violent crimes should be a higher priority than a varsity student selling pre-installed [illegal] windows.

I'd rather know my tax is going to protecting me and my family and providing SAPS the tools to do so. You have to agree that people's priority is their family over some stranger pirating. Doesnt make pirating trivial, it has it place, but in todays world, is it really such a deal the (media,companies) make out? Or are peoples lives not as important as an original windows vista being sold?

Exactly.
Where is the concern over "tax loss" or "eroded earnings" when it comes to murder, rape and mall robberies.
The police are too freaking useless to solve real crimes - so they "solve" small ones.

It is quite simply disgusting.

 

[Arthur]

But thats the problem, as a community we feel that our own protection from violent crimes should be a higher priority than a varsity student selling pre-installed [illegal] windows.

I'd rather know my tax is going to protecting me and my family and providing SAPS the tools to do so. You have to agree that people's priority is their family over some stranger pirating. Doesnt make pirating trivial, it has it place, but in todays world, is it really such a deal the (media,companies) make out? Or are peoples lives not as important as an original windows vista being sold?

Of course people are more important! Infinitely so. But I would aver that the failures in our current policing in SA arise not from a lack of resource but from bad management, poor training, inadequate skills, lack of professionalism, bad service culture, incompetence, etc. You will not get any better security if the SAPS IP unit is disbanded or reassigned ... in fact, this will be symptomatic of yet further decay of standards and police competence.

The SAPS IP unit is not consuming tax resource that could be better spent on fighting hard crimes. The current crime problem is not because the SAPS are underresourced or don't have enough money - they're much deeper than that, but we are now venturing into sociology and politics...

The SAPS IP unit is tiny, around 5-6 people I think. Your normal cop-station cop wouldn't know how to spell IP, and s/he certainly never has anything to do with it.

 

[Fudzy]

But thats the problem, as a community we feel that our own protection from violent crimes should be a higher priority than a varsity student selling pre-installed [illegal] windows.

You guys don't seem to get the cops involved with the commcercial crime unit are mostly accountants and IT people.

 

[Fudzy]

Ps. Everyone seems to have jumped onto this bandwagon thinking that the police (as the entire force) are only concerned with catching petty white collar criminals. Let's not lose focus that the OP is regarding a IT related news story on an IT related forum. I agree we need more police, infact we need a better army at times but that doesn't detract from the fact that its good news when the cops do their jobs right.

 

[eltherza]

but we are now venturing into sociology and politics

Yeah, lets not go there!

But it think the reasons why pirating are taken so lightly are evident in today's world are obvious. And hugely debated.

But remember, that the cost of the piracy on my tax isnt limited to just the police force. Lawyers, judges, time and of course the money it'll cost me to keep him in prison are also in effect.

I think a good survey of "hard crimes" in a community vs. Pirate crimes would be interesting, maybe because hard crimes are so common [for the lack of a better word] people feel that piracy is very much petty and dont feel so bad [if at all] over piracy.

 

[Arthur]

...And using PUBLIC resources for a private company profits over protecting the public isn't a moral issue? Piracy worse than murder? Where are your moral ethics?

Be careful where that line of argument leads you.

The police are not protecting private profits. They are protecting property rights, in exactly the same way they protect your private property rights when your own property is stolen.

Consider the alternative: if police were to refuse to act against theft of say a company's machinery (which is used to manufacture goods for profit) or the products of that machinery, on the argument that they are merely protecting private company profits, then society as we know it would fall apart.

In principle, all property should be protected - that's why we have a police force in the first place. It matters not a jot whether the property is used for pleasure, leisure or profit.

Instead of complaing when the police do protect private property, we should get very concerned when they fail to do so. And many in SA feel they are inadequately protected from regular property crimes, with good reason. But should we not rather work to improve police efficiency and effectiveness? Besides, as I argued above, the SAPS IP actions are not at the expense of real crime fighting.

 

[eltherza]

Be careful where that line of argument leads you.

I worded to "protecting the public" over "serving the public" for that reason, IE. Is threatening someone's life more important than protecting someones property.

But I fell i've stressed that issue enough (perhaps to much), lets move on?

 

[stormy]

Poor poor bastard.
Guys..we all tend to be much more critical towards others than to ourselves.
Way to go police! Bust a homeless guy and then gogo MyBroadband..make it worse and put it on a national news site..FAIL omw.
Pirate software shops usually simply pay the police off to keep selling their stuff, bust those guys plz Leave the homeless and stupid students alone or just give a warning for goodness sake.

 

[killadoob]

Sadly our cops are let down by the system as much as themselves, they get paid poorly, they catch criminals only to see them released on 1k bail by our justice system. So blaming cops for the countries major crime problem is not all that fair in my opinion.

Do you know how hard it must be to arrest someone for raping a baby and seeing them released on 1k bail? If we actually kept criminals in jail our crime would go down but when the cops do their job most of the time the criminals walk away on cheap bail.

So it is easy to blame the cops for our crime problem rather than look at why there is such a bad crime problem.

 

[eltherza]

Do you know how hard it must be to arrest someone for raping a baby and seeing them released on 1k bail?

Not only that, but threatening the police officer (and his family) afterward is pretty tough to deal with.

 

[Moklet Kcuf]

The police are not protecting private profits. They are protecting property rights, in exactly the same way they protect your private property rights when your own property is stolen.

Everyone is familiar with this analogy. But no, pirates are not stealing in this sense, it's not as though Microsoft is going to find an arm of it's empire dumped in a ditch.

Pirates are copying, and the argument around how you define this as theft is the issue. We should debate about Copyright itself, not our police force etc.

It seems some commentors are angry, blaming the police because they are uneasy about being classed as criminals themselves.

I don't know how many MYBB users there are , but it's probably safe to say half of them are technically criminals, in the eyes of Copyright Law.

Sure we amount to an army of parasites, in the view of Copyright owners, but are we criminals?

Arthur, you might find this award wining film interesting, rip a Remix Manifesto It addresses the argument in favour of Copyright infringers. Maybe then, you wont see it all so cut and dry.

 

[killadoob]

Mok in this country to be deemed a copyright criminal you need to sell the goods, for instance if the cops come to my house and check my hdd fulla stuff they cannot charge me with a crime. If i am selling stuff off my hdd the cops can arrest me and charge me with a crime.

So no people who download in terms of the SA law are not criminals and need to be sued by the party they have "stolen" from.

Now selling microsoft goods that you have pirated is wrong because that person is making money off something they did not make.

 

[PeterCH]

Bwahahahah, must i believe You? Is the relative in Brussels as high up as those friends in Japan?

Anyway, enjoy.

Just because YOU don't know anyone, doesn't mean I don't know a few people.

 

[PeterCH]

So redistributing pirate software is OK? WoW!

Morally?

If he gave it away to someone who'd not have bought it in the first place - yes MORALLY it is OK. I don't see why some poor sod should have to pay R3K for Office to only use it to write a few reports for his class or a few newsletters for her knitting-club.

If he sold it and people did not know it was warez - bad.

From the POV of the software co's - it is all bad and I understand them, but I have little empathy for most of them. There are some software cos which charge less for their software - Apple is one. For $1,000 you can buy the second best (after AVID) editing suite for pros. A person could make his whole livelihood on that package.

The law and ethics/morals are two different issues often.

The law often allows ethically wrong or immoral things - eg adultery is legal but wrong, while punishing ethically correct things - forced TV license payments.

BTW don't assume that I pirate. My stuff is legit. My MS, Apple, Adobe, AV etc software is all paid for.

 

[PeterCH]

They do have the option of getting OpenOffice for free and it's more than capable for 90% of the people out there.

That option has only recently come to play. Remember that OO has only been around for a few years, even so - few ppl have heard of it and places like Game and IC don't stock it. Salesmen also push commercial software - eg Office.

Granny buys Office to type up letters - and never uses Excel, PP or Outlook. Is it fair she has to pay a lot of cash for it? I'm not arguing legalities here.

 

[PeterCH]

Stealing is stealing no matter how small the stolen piece of whatever is. Some of you might argue that piracy is not wrong if you use it for yourself but it still comes down to stealing.

I am not proud of being a pirate but some software is just too expensive to buy and unfortunately I can't do without some of it. Like Windows, who here has gone to, for example, Incredible connection to buy a copy of say Vista Ultimate? R4000+!!!

Anyway on a side note I found this article and thought it would be good to share...

P2P not to blame for content industry failures says EU

Copyright infringement is not stealing. Please don't confuse the two.

I'm saying this as someone who recently paid $900 for a legitimate copy of Adobe PS CS4 Standard for Mac.

 

[Carbon_Fibre]

Bottomline, piracy is not really cool, but it's fine to pirate Microsoft

 

[EtienneK]

Good. Like I've said countless times before, people who pirate for money must be locked up.

 

[PeterCH]

Good. Like I've said countless times before, people who pirate for money must be locked up.

Does that include those who download the latest eps of LOST from torrentz and not buy them on DVD?
(They did it for money too.)

 

[Kosmik]

Does that include those who download the latest eps of LOST from torrentz and not buy them on DVD?
(They did it for money too.)

I think he means those who do it and sell for profit.