Doug

This is not an ethical question - it's a market question.

If the creator knowingly publishes something into a market that has the potential for piracy, he has to:
a. avoid that market
b. do something to the product that inhibits theft
b. price it accordingly
c. prosecute offenders vigorously

All of those choices affect the cost and appeal of the product in one way or the other and they are marketing choices, not ethical choices.

The ethical twists become absurd.
Suppose I hum a tune from West Side Story to pep myself up while driving to a client.
I can make the case that I'm making money from the use of that song.
Is that theft from the estate of Leonard Bernstein?







>>Now what's next is Harsh desires to continue bearing fruit (earning money) without additional labor (since digital copies are free). Instead of giving a copy to everyone to benefit from, he wants to erect legal walls around his finished product to create a monopoly. In such a condition, nobody can enjoy his product unless they pay.
>
>So music should be free unless the musician plays it live. The composer (who may not be the musician) deserves no compensation other than an hourly wage for the time it took him or her to compose the song, and if he or she wants additional money, they should either write more songs or go lay bricks for a living. If a musician gets sick and can't play music, too bad for him or her -- no new performances means no revenue. What you've done in the past is meaningless, it's what have you done for me lately that pays the bills.
>
>Extending this analogy, perhaps there should be no need for banks. I should only be compensated for exactly what my needs for today are, so there's no need to put any money aside for anything in the future.
>
>Your solution of getting paid once and giving it away for free after that doesn't work in the real world, nor would it be a mechanism many people would consider to be reasonable. What's wrong with paying for the privilege of the use of someone's labor, whether you are the only one paying for it (as in the case of the person who funded the development) or one of many (those people that use the software)?
>
>Doug