Re: Your opinions about software piracy

[dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar)]

Pola Gupta said

<<Re: Research study on software piracy

        We are conducting a study to investigate people's
attitudes towards software piracy.  In order to accomplish
this research project, we have designed a web-based survey.
We would appreciate your assistance and cooperation in
completing this survey.  It should not take more than ten
minutes to complete this survey.  The survey can be accessed
by any web browser at the following location:

        http://www.cs.uni.edu/~pola/survey/survey.cgi

Thank you in advance.

Dr. P. Gupta & Bart Pola
University of Northern Iowa
United States of America>>


For a supposedly objective study, it seems a bit of an outrage to
uncritically borrow the loaded phrase "software piracy" from the
Software Publishers Association's advertising campaign.

Words are important -- by choosing a word that brings up images of
violent attach on the high seas, leaving the victims dead, or certainly
without the gold they started with, you are heavily loading the result
of your survey (is it being funded by SPA? if not, they could not have
wished for a more cooperative team).

You should restart this project using a more neutral term like "research
study on copying of licensed software" or something like that. Opinions
differ on what the law does allow, and certainly differe on what the law
should allow (in particular, the issues of the doctrines of first use, and
fair use, are relevant).

There is also the issue of the validity of shrink wrap license contracts
in non-shrink wrap states. These issues are not simple, and if you are
trying to understand people's attitudes, your first duty as academic
researchers is to carefully phrase your approach to try to be as neutral
as possible, otherwise you appear as advocates from the start.

Robert Dewar
New York University