But software - the best kind of software - is really more similar to a screwdriver than a book. A book is just data, and more useful as an example in discussions about IP/piracy. Software is a tool. My copy of `dd` is my screwdriver. My copy of Emacs is my combine harvester. Software freedoms are connected to the idea that you should be able to own your tools, and use them as you see fit.
I've already pointed out, tools _are_ covered by IP in the from of patents, including some screwdrivers, so arguing we should treat software like we treat tools is walking right into a horrible trap.
How can you suggest piracy has nothing to do with licensing? OMG! Piracy (non high-seas type) by _definition_ is the violation of a license. It's almost as though you don't understand fundamentally what liecenses and IP are as concepts.
Book and the information in them are tools and are exactly like software. We follow recipes in cook books, we follow DIY guides, we type code from books into computers and run it, we enjoy literary and visual printed entertainment. Programs are texts in the general sense, that's literally what they are.
> I've already pointed out, tools _are_ covered by IP in the from of patents, including some screwdrivers, so arguing we should treat software like we treat tools is walking right into a horrible trap.
It's not as much walking into a trap as it is showing that the way physical goods are covered by IP laws is starting to get ridiculous as well. Software just makes this painfully visible.
> OMG! Piracy (non high-seas type) by _definition_ is the violation of a license.
Maybe in case of videogames it is, but I'd say it's arguable. Books, movies & music don't generally come with license agreements. Piracy is first and foremost a copyright violation.
> Book and the information in them are tools and are exactly like software. We follow recipes in cook books, we follow DIY guides, we type code from books into computers and run it, we enjoy literary and visual printed entertainment.
You're confusing form with function. Software may be like books in its form - strings of numbers encoded on a physical substrate, to be read by a machine - but is totally unlike books in its function. `cp` isn't a book, it's a digital equivalent of a photocopier. Photoshop isn't cooking recipe, it's a digital equivalent of a 1950-era photo studio. Most software functions as tools that transform digital stuff into other digital stuff, but when you connect appropriate hardware, software becomes a tool affecting physical world.
> Programs are texts in the general sense, that's literally what they are.
If you want to go there... in this sense, screwdrivers are text too, because OpenSCAD drawings describing them are text, and G-codes driving CNC machines are text too.
>Piracy is first and foremost a copyright violation.
Copyrights and patents are licenses. The first statute establishing copyright was called the 'Licensing of the Press Act 1662'. '...ownership in copyright includes exclusive licenses of rights'.
>...in this sense, screwdrivers are text too
No they really aren't, they're objects which is why the laws around their ownership and transfer are fundamentally different, the design though is intellectual property and is a text. It's information. In your original post you said a screwdriver can be freely copied - no it can't, not if it's patented and many of them actually are. This basic error comes from a fundamental miss-understanding about the nature of these things. If you look closely at why you came to that incorrect conclusion you might start to get to grips with this.
Information and physical objects are not similar in the way you think they are.
