Software Piracy - Another View

by Roberto Verzola

Reprinted from the World Press Review, courtesy of the Third World Network Features agency of Penang, Malaysia.

Many Manila computer users copy programs from computer shops or from the computer Bulletin Board Systems (BBSes) that have proliferated around the city.  They give copies of these programs to friends and colleagues who, in turn, give copies to other friends and colleagues.  In the terminology of Western software companies, they are pirates: Copying commercial software and giving it away to friends and colleagues is called piracy.

I have seen pirates in movies, and they are a mean bunch.  They are villains who steal, kill, and plunder.  At the movies' endings, when these good-for-nothing pirates get their just due, the audiences invariably applaud, for the pirates get the punishment they roundly deserve.

It is no fun to be called a pirate.  Or to be treated like one.

I have seen a number of people who come from or work for Western software firms.  They come and visit this country of pirates and perhaps make a little study of how much they are losing from piracy in the Philippines.  Quite a number of them, I would say, come to the country to do some pirating themselves.  However, they do not pirate software.  They pirate people.  They pirate those who write the software.  They pirate our best systems analysts, our best engineers, our best programmers, and our best computer operators.

There is quite a difference between pirating intellectual property and pirating individuals.  It costs our country perhaps $10,000 to train one doctor.  Training a second doctor would cost another $10,000.

Training 10 doctors would cost $100,000.  In short, given an "original" doctor, it would cost us as much to make each "copy" of the original.

When the Americans pirate our doctors, they take away an irreplaceable resource, for it takes more than 10 years to train a new doctor.  The Philippines has approximately one doctor for every 6,700 citizens.  When the U.S. pirates this doctor, it denies 6,700 Filipinos the services of a doctor.  And every year, the U.S. takes away hundreds of our doctors.  How many Filipinos have died because they could not get the services of a doctor in time?

What about a computer program?  Whatever amount Lotus Corp. spent in developing its spreadsheet program, it costs practically nothing to make a second or third copy of it.  When Filipinos pirate the program, they have not stolen any irreplaceable resources, nor would it take Lotus 10 years to replace the program, nor have we denied any American citizen the use of the program.  It is still there for Americans to use.  When the U.S. pirates our doctors, it does not take a copy and leave the original behind.  Instead, it takes the original and leaves nothing behind.

Copying software is a benign case of piracy.  Pirating doctors is a malignant case.  We have been victims of this malignant form of piracy by Western countries for a long time.  They should be the last to complain when they are affected by a benign one.  This piracy debate will become even more important in the future, because advanced countries are now developing computer programs that can mimic what goes on in a doctor's mind.  We can say with some certainty that the U.S. will raise a big row if we pirated this one program.

In truth, the terms "piracy" and "theft" of intellectual property are emotionally laden, but they are not very accurate descriptions of the act.  Legally, one might be charged with violating the copyright or patent laws of a country, but this would normally be different from the crime of theft or actual piracy.  Using these words, however, automatically connotes immoral action on the part of the copier.  Thus, in the polemics against the Third World, "piracy" and "theft" are favorite terms among advanced countries, particularly the U.S.

The term "piracy of intellectuals" can likewise be used, if one wants to ascribe a sense of immorality to the act.  This is not to imply, of course, that countries own their intellectuals.  Both intellectuals and intellectual property have other important attributes, aside from simply being commodities on the market.  Notwithstanding the fact that advanced countries normally encourage the best brains of the Third World to work for them through various incentives and enticements, these intellectuals have their own reasons for doing so.  Perhaps the chances for personal and professional advancement are better.  Perhaps the environment is more conducive to their own temperaments and predispositions.  Perhaps they were persecuted in their home countries, and so on.

The Christian Bible tells of the miracle of the loaves, when Jesus and his apostles had only five loaves of bread and two pieces of fish to feed 5,000 people.  Every time I give away a copy of my favorite program, I remember the miracle of the loaves.  Indeed, how can you be selfish if you can give things away and have more than what you started with?  How can we deny a good friend if we can also keep it for ourselves?