Replied to: learn.liberty.edu

Please note, the post below is a school assignment that required that I write a post with a contrary view of the thread which meant I had to defend software piracy, which is something that I DO NOT support or condone. This is purely an academic exercise.

Hi Bobby, Thank you for your thoughts on software piracy. You had some interesting points both on legal and moral grounds, but there were a couple things I thought I might respond to. First, you mentioned that a Christian shouldn’t use unauthorized software because it is considered stealing and that the Ten Commandments forbid theft. This however, is under the assumption that a Christian is living under The Law rather than by grace. I would argue that a Christian is free from the law, and thus the idea of stealing software, an already abstract concept is not a sin. Second, you argue that software piracy is limiting jobs as you mention that “lowering software piracy by just 10 percentage points during the next four years would create nearly 500,000 new jobs and put $140 billion into ailing economies” (Dale & Lewis, 2016, p. 191). I would argue that plenty of businesses don’t hire more employees when they get more money and the lack of software piracy doesn’t necessarily mean there would be more jobs but just that the owners of these software companies would make more money. Considering the fact that the majority of software piracy is for over-priced software by large companies like Microsoft and Adobe, the likelihood of jobs actually being affected is fairly low. Finally, I think it is important to reflect on the fact that software is abstract. Most people that pirate software either don’t have the means to purchase it or wouldn’t purchase it, even if they didn’t pirate it. In this case, software piracy isn’t affecting anyone except it allows the person who pirates the software to be able to use something to better their life that they wouldn’t have had access to before that. Thanks for your time, Eddie

References Dale, N. & Lewis, J. (2016). Computer Science Illuminated, 6th Edition. Burlington: Jones & Bartlett Learning.