Sharing/Giving or Copying/Pirating

I am sick and tired of hearing the excuse but I am sharing.

Bull. You better grab a dictionary.

I don’t care if you call it, sharing or loaning, but you need to understand the word you use or use the correct word and understand copyright law.

The fact is, just buying an eBook doesn‘t mean you own the copyright. If that were the case, the person who bought a Stephen King book would own the copyright to that book and the person who bought a Bible would own the copyright to that Bible and the person who bought an MS program would own the copyright to that program and the person who bought an MGM movie on DVD would own the copyright to that movie and the person who bought an EA game would own the copyright to that game and—I hope you get the point because I know that Stephen King, MS, MGM and EA will happily meet you in court, anytime, anywhere.

If you allow someone to have a copy of your eBook, movie, program or game WITHOUT the consent of the name of the person beside the copyright symbol, you are making or allowing copies to be made—IOW, you are pirating, you are stealing, you are a thief.

Yes, we teach our kids to share. When you watch your child share, it means your child surrenders possession of what your child has in their little hands to another child so the other child has SOLE possession of it in their hands and your child no longer has that object. In no way did you see your child make a copy of the item—what you saw was your child actually GIVING it away WITHOUT keeping ANY part of it. THAT is sharing.

I was both offended and stunned to be in a public place and watch two small children share by exchanging their toys while their parents openly discussed pirating.

When I asked the parents if they knew what they were plotting was pirating, stealing, they said sure, that they didn’t care and laughed.

I looked at the two children, my comment being—it’s a shame the intelligent teachers are demonstrating sharing—I looked back at the parents—to fools who ignore lessons—then I walked away.

What’s pathetic is that a parent is supposed to teach a child yet in this case, the dumb adults could learn a lesson from the kids.

It’ll be sad to learn of the day fate taught the parents their ways when their kids steal a car and go to jail. Then again, some parents are blind, stupid and just plain dumb.