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Comment by msmith | Hacker News Reader

Yes to all of your reasons, but I think you missed the biggest one:

- Many of us produce and sell software and we understand that pirating makes it harder for people like us to make a living at it.

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I actually voted both yes and no, since I do pirate software, but only software I own. I don't consider it piracy, because it doesn't impact anyone's ability to make a living off of it (it usually just saves support costs) but the law sees it differently.

Also I did pirate a game from the early 90's because I couldn't figure out where to send a check.

http://downloadgameonline.blogspot.com/2008/08/enchantasy-qu...

Actually can't even find the game itself anymore, I'm sure I have it on my hard disk somewhere. Think it was by Eric G. Abel or somesuch. I would very much like to send the guy a check and get a legit key.

"Pirate your own software"? I don't think that would count as piracy. If you own the copyright on it, or own the company that owns the copyright, or run the company that owns the copyright, then surely you can copy it as many times as you want. How could it be possible to view any copying of that as 'piracy'.

I think he means installing software he's purchased on multiple computers.

One example I’d make is getting dongle-free or CD-free copies of software. This is especially handy for laptop users to get a cracked copy so they wouldn’t risk losing something and getting left high and dry while traveling. This is considered illegal in some jurisdictions. (The DMCA here in the States is somewhat vague, since there’s an accessibility exemption, but it’s never been tested in court for this use case, AFAIK.)

I do that with books--- I generally will buy a hardcover, then pirate a searchable PDF, if I can find one.

Wasn't that true in 1990 also? Lots of hackers worked for or owned software companies, yet lots swapped disks or downloaded from BBSs as well.

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