I have a friend Ill call Dave. (No, thats not his real name. Yes, hes realthis isnt a cover-up for me.) He works for a fairly large software company where he started as a programmer and has moved up to mid-level management. Its always interesting to talk about software piracy with him, because hes clearly of two minds about it.

On the one hand, working for a software vendorhe used to put in 14-hour dayshe hates the idea of people stealing what he worked hard to create. You ever notice that the people who say software should be free arent the people writing anything other than utilities? he said once.

On the other hand, hes the guy who showed me the beauty of Kazaa: the heir apparent to Napster, and a great place to download music, videos, and applications. His sister does a family newsletter, so one weekend he downloaded copies of Office XP, Photoshop, PageMaker, Quark, and Acrobatall the latest versions, each worth several hundred bucks, and all pirated.

When I asked him to justify stealing from Adobe, Microsoft, and Quark, he shrugged. The best excuse he offered (and I suppose its validto a point) is that neither he nor his sister would ever have bought these programs, so he wasnt depriving the companies of any revenue. In fact, he argued, by increasing the number of users, he was actually helping these companies acquire mindshare. There was an uncomfortable pause after he said this, while we both wallowed in the stupidity of the statement.

Daves two minds are professional and personal. The former hates people who pirate softwarehis, anyway. The latter is willing to come up with an excuse to make copies of several thousand bucks worth of CDs. Its akin to speeding on the highway: You hate it when its someone else, but you can justify if when its you.

How many people who, if polled, would agree that copyright infringement is wrong yet have made copies of magazine articles for friends? My mother does it all the timeshe mails me copies of things she read in Newsweek. (She has put her criminal past behind her. Now she send me URLs or tells me what to search for on the Newsweek site.)

Napster and now Kazaa users are the kings and queens of justifying copyright infringement. Record companiesbeing big corporationsare evil. The artists dont get enough of the money. (As if they get more when their songs are downloaded.) Who wants to pay for an album to get one good song? Everybodys doing it. Music wants to be free.

Im guilty of some of these thoughts. The music Ive downloaded isnt stuff Id buy; its stuff that I see and say, Hey, I remember that. Cool. Its not worth it to me to pay $15 for an album just to get Snoopy vs. the Red Baron. Sony must also agree with some of this logic: On the one hand, its a music label. On the other, it sells blank CDs, CD burners, and MP3 players. Go figure.

And here come DVD writers (if they ever agree on a format). If you thought the whining of the music industry was bad, wait till Hollywood starts in.

Whats to be done? The answer isnt better, stronger, faster copy protection. Does anyone really believe those wont be cracked in a matter of days? The answer is probably an entirely new way of looking at copyright, where artists and software companies dont own the perpetual rights to their products any more than a car maker does.

Sorting out copyright will be a long, messy process. There are some good articles on the subject thoughdrop me a note and Ill fax them to you. ANDREW KANTOR

Special Reports /

The Flip Side: Faster, Copycat! Burn! Burn!

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