Piracy and India
It was kind of a shock to me when I saw people in the UK buying softwares. Not anything rare but stuff like Windows OS and MS Office. I was like, are you kidding me? No smart fella would buy these softwares. These are so available from your friends and if you dont have one, the wonderful world of torrents are always there.
After a few days I realized that the people here buy softwares not because they are dumb but because they are honest and needless to say, you might also get prosecuted for keeping pirated softwares. I have read people getting fines as much £3000 for downloading illegal songs.
But in India its a different story. We don't even realise that we are doing something wrong. Its unfair to expect that the piracy laws will be enforced when they have to enforce so many other things such as curb on Valentine's day celebrations, safe screening of My name is khan(for which they had to do over time) and facilitating honour killings. Its not just a fault with the police but we as a society have our morals screwed up in our minds. What we find immoral in the east are sometimes totally opposite to what it is in the west. In the east bribing some one is fine but having sex before marriage is a no-no. In the west its a total opposite because the former is an immoral thing(without any arguments) as well as unlawful but sex before marriage is seen as a personal choice.
Any ways coming back to piracy I am amazed as to why people cant choose open source soft wares against pirated ones. They are not only free but they many of them have much more features than a proper licensed soft ware. But I guess you can never think that straight when you are in India because 1) Pirated softwares are so easy to get and 2) Pirated softwares are so easy to get!!
Probably you have to come out of India to see our world with a pair of eyes from this world to realise many things than just piracy alone.
After a few days I realized that the people here buy softwares not because they are dumb but because they are honest and needless to say, you might also get prosecuted for keeping pirated softwares. I have read people getting fines as much £3000 for downloading illegal songs.
But in India its a different story. We don't even realise that we are doing something wrong. Its unfair to expect that the piracy laws will be enforced when they have to enforce so many other things such as curb on Valentine's day celebrations, safe screening of My name is khan(for which they had to do over time) and facilitating honour killings. Its not just a fault with the police but we as a society have our morals screwed up in our minds. What we find immoral in the east are sometimes totally opposite to what it is in the west. In the east bribing some one is fine but having sex before marriage is a no-no. In the west its a total opposite because the former is an immoral thing(without any arguments) as well as unlawful but sex before marriage is seen as a personal choice.
Any ways coming back to piracy I am amazed as to why people cant choose open source soft wares against pirated ones. They are not only free but they many of them have much more features than a proper licensed soft ware. But I guess you can never think that straight when you are in India because 1) Pirated softwares are so easy to get and 2) Pirated softwares are so easy to get!!
Probably you have to come out of India to see our world with a pair of eyes from this world to realise many things than just piracy alone.
posted by WriteHanded at 4:42 AM
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