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Ethical Question

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>IMO the two are at least somewhat related.>If there's no legal ground on which to do this it can't be>ethical, therefore deciding that there's no legal ground is a>good way to close the argument.>Were there legal ground it might still not be ethical of>course.Couldn't agree more Jeroen. The legality of an action goes to the core of an ethical arguements viability.Absent a Legal or Moral Standard most Ethical discussions collapse into a sea of relativism and all suffer.:-)


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Ron Hamilton PP|ASEL

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an ethical person stays within the law and in that context decides what to do based on conscience.An unethical person acts solely out of self interest without regard for the law or anything except that self interest.Prohibition was put in place by people considering it a requirement for an ethical society.The ban on posession of gold may have had similar grounds, I'm not familiar with the reasoning behind it.As ethics change, so do the laws governing human behaviour (or they should). Just saying that something once was illegal that we now consider ethical behaviour holds no ground.It was at one time considered proper to execute prisoners in public by ripping their intestines out of their living bodies and throwing them to the extatic crowd of onlookers.Yet now that's considered "cruel and unusual punishment" and quite illegal.So the law has changed to follow the ethics of the society it's supposed to serve.

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jwenting, I'm still not persuaded that conformance to the law of the land is, by definition, ethical.One of the things that has made the USA great is a willingness on the part of we the people to ignore laws that make no sense or that are unreasonable. We fought a War of Independence over that very issue, and when it comes to warfighting it US doctrine that we will think for ourselves while obeying orders.And the WW2 resistance movements of places like Holland and France showed the importance of not slavishly adhering to laws that are unjust, especially not when they are martial laws imposed from outside.

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Mike, Jeroen,In my last post I attempted to make the point that ethics arguments depend upon the establishment of not only a Legal but Moral Standard.Absent a Legal or Moral Standard by which to judge whether a practice is Ethical the arguments fall to the ground.If one chooses Law as the Standard by which Ethical judgements are made then in a legal sense, violations of law are judged unethical practice.If one chooses Morality as the Standard by which Ethical judgements are made then in a Moral sense, violations of Morality are judged unethical practice.In idealistic terms Law and Morality as Standards are inseperable eg. both depend on the other to justify their existence as a Standard.Todays societies seek to argue away the existence of both Legal or Moral Standards in favour of the "whatever I want, whenever I want it mentality" :-)


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Ron Hamilton PP|ASEL

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I couldn't agree more, Mike. This baloney of blindly following the "law of the land" is ridiculous. I'll fall short of saying it's un-American, but it certainly doesn't line up with our history.I don't subscribe to the mass sale or distribution of a previously paid for license key, but don't be telling me if your software turns out to be useless to me (even if it's not your fault) that I don't have a right to recoup some of my expenses by reselling that key to someone who might end up using it. If I can't do that, how dare you charge the prices currently being charged for your downloadable software and then not offer a refund policy! In that case, I'm starting to wonder who the real pirates are!As I stated in my original contribution here this thread digital rights and EULAs are still being hotly debated and simply because developers say "this is mine forever even if you did pay for it" in their documentation doesn't make it so. Even if he does say it ruder or louder than anyone else.Smooth skies!Chuck B.PS: AND ANOTHER THING: This thread is now 7 pages long -- if it hadn't been originally posted on the FS9 board, I wonder how many others would have never would've seen it, either. There are too many sub topic boards here! *:-*

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Chuck, you've missed the point of the thread altogether if you feel that you have a legal or moral right to sell or distribute the Intellectual Property of another.While the practice is often accomplished it does NOT follow that it is legally or morally justified.People rationilize violations every day and our prisons are full of such folks but at the end of the day they are still on the wrong side of the arguement:-)


Best Regards,

Ron Hamilton PP|ASEL

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Ron, I understand the thread completely -- I'm afraid it's you who've missed _my_ point which is: I don't altogether agree with you. Simple as that! -- for further information, please read paragraph 2 of my previous post, and my initial contribution somewhere on page 1 or 2 here.(Keep in mind that as of right now I have abided by all stipulations in all EULAs for software for which I have paid for.)Smooth skies!Chuck B.

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Chuck,It's quite clear that you disagree but it does NOT follow that you are correct in your statements which I've quoted here."but don't be telling me if your software turns out to be useless to me (even if it's not your fault) that I don't have a right to recoup some of my expenses by reselling that key to someone who might end up using it." "As I stated in my original contribution here this thread digital rights and EULAs are still being hotly debated and simply because developers say "this is mine forever even if you did pay for it" in their documentation doesn't make it so. Even if he does say it ruder or louder than anyone else."We've all heard the arguements against Legal and Moral Standard but I would like to point out the fact that such arguements have yet to defeat or nullify the existence of such Standard even though that is the intent of such arguments.That argument seeks to disolve prohibitions on resale and/or distribution of an authors Intellectual Property and will likely fail any Legal or Ethical test.Consider the fact that authors of Intellectual Property seek protection in the form of prohibitions on sale and distribution simply because they do not wish to suffer at the hands of those who disregard Legal and Ethical prohibitions.The very existence of Legal/Moral Standard prohibits you from reselling or distributing Intellectual Property that you do not own or have not been granted reseller/disribution rights too.The present day thinking of some is that they simply disregard the Legal/Moral Standard and act in whatever way they choose while still others seek to eliminate the existence of Legal/Moral Standard altogether.What a mess:-)


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Ron Hamilton PP|ASEL

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makes you wonder whether it's worth the frustration to release software (or any intellectual property) for sale, doesn't it Ron?

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>makes you wonder whether it's worth the frustration to>release software (or any intellectual property) for sale,>doesn't it Ron?Given the mentality of some it is frustrating at times:-)In other discussions we've seen on this topic we've come away amazed at the attitudes that have crept into societies when it comes to Intellectual Property Rights. In this thread alone we see folks posting idiocy as a norm.Statements and attitudes such as "I'll do what I want, when I want, and how I want" with Intellectual Property that is not owned reveal more than we care to to observe.Users failure to understand that the basis of software use is limited to a licensed copy of an authors Intellectual Property seems to be at the heart of the matter. The assumption that a purchase of a limited licensed copy of software XYZ somehow gives the purchaser unlimited rights to the underlying Intellectual Property Rights is absurd to say the least.At the end of the day those assumptions are the primary factor in software piracy distribution. The discussion then becomes a comedy of errors as folks protest loudly that they can do whatever they wish without regard to legal/moral standards or even argue that legal/moral standards should not exist:-)


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Ron Hamilton PP|ASEL

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jwenting,I've decided to hold my product back for that very reason. That way I will not have to deal with people whose morality differs from Ron's and yours, nor will they be able to victimize me.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxI guess I would like to observe to the Chucks of the world that by failing to do the Right Thing, by making the choice to be common thieves, you are killing the geese that have been laying the golden eggs for you. I'm certainly not the first to pull out, and I will not be the last.If you keep this up, your only source of meaningful addon aircraft will be Microsoft, and those will not be high fidelity addons. And when it comes to utilities, except for the odd bit of functionality like SimConnect, your only source will be "abandonware", which is an outrageous concept, but you know what I mean.

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...EULAs are still being hotly debated and simply because developers say "this is mine forever even if you did pay for it" in their documentation doesn't make it so. While there may be some debatable terms in EULAs, there can be no debate about the fact that what you paid for is a licence to use the software. You never bought anything else and certainly not any right of owneraship. That is a straightfoward fact in the same way if you hire a car you only have a licence to use it - you have no rights of ownership and certainly no rights to the intellectual property in its design. Even if you buy the car outright you still don't acquire any intellectual property rights.

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"...EULAs are still being hotly debated and simply because developers say "this is mine forever even if you did pay for it" in their documentation doesn't make it so." -------------------------------------------------------------------Precisely MGH.:-) The statement quoted above is inaccurate. While EULAS may be debated they do remain in force and enforcable.The INTENT of the EULA is not in question. The INTENT is to protect the Intellectual Property Rights of the author and there is no automatic transfer of Intellectual Property Rights by EULAS and other Licensing Prohibitions/Restrictions.The truth of the matter is that authors own the Intellectual Property Rights whether licensed customers understand that concept or not:-)


Best Regards,

Ron Hamilton PP|ASEL

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Mike, I don't support theft and its no-doubt cost me some money in the past as well. You post, however, seems to be odd taken in light of the current evidence of software availability. Availability appears to be robust. I have no statistics on piracy, probably no one does cuz the black market doesn't publish information, but lets just assume that since the internet has existed piracy rates have been higher than before the internet, but constant since then as a percentage of users. Thus the percent margin decrease for a company would be unchanged between 5 years ago and today. Sound logical? If not, what would be the argument to suggest piracy is on the rise? If you agree piracy rates are stable (as a percent of users), then we can look at the rise and fall of addons and addon companies as being influenced by other factors, primariy I suspect the increased complexity of making addons for fsx, the added costs of making ever more sophisticated products, and the costs of supporting a complex mix of pre-existing products, now made more difficult due to mixed and incompatible versions.Now I will agree that one factor that would expand black market would be major price increases. If addon companies attempt to maintain revenues in the face of these new costs by raising prices, yes...that will stimulate black market. No different than the smuggling of cigarettes expands if a state increases its excise tax too much over that of a neighboring state. If I'm going to close my addon company due to low margins, the convenient message to send is that piracy is killing my revenues. But if my ideas above are correct, the impact of piracy should be unchanged from previous years or if more now, more as a function of companies outpricing the market willingness to pay. As far as your product representing a dying goose, you deciding to not enter the business is not a takeaway for the market as your product is not real until its realized. What defines the market is the presence of products, not the absence of "could have been" products. A recent thread making fun of all the "x" names was all about the plethora of new products bursting on the scene. This demonstrates the presence of products.I think there is a shift in the market, towards products that are more likely within the allowances of the sdk...products with general landclass appeal, general vector data upgrade appeal, and less to do with modelling, as in new airport scenery or aircraft addons. That makes sense based on constraints newly found in compatibility and new messages regarding a change in backward compatibility rules.But a "golden goose" being killed...the evidence doesn't seem to support the notion.Cheers,Bob

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Bob.Bernstein, You and I, and dozens of other people and I, have been over this stuff time and again in two dozen threads on five different forums, and I'm not going to discuss this stuff any further, except to make the observation that I have made, which is that piracy has an obvious chilling effect on the willingness of payware developers to develop.As for what you wrote, "your product is not real until its realized", it IS realized. It's simply that, based on what I learned during the piracy threads period, I have chosen not to complete the packaging job and not to release it to the public.I will make a further remark after all ... I think that you, a presumed conventional company employee, have a lot of nerve telling entrepreneurs -- financial risk takers -- people who knock themselves out to bring to the public nifty products that never existed before -- how they ought to be running their businesses.

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