Piracy works, Romanian president tells Gates
By Gareth Powell
The Romanian president thanked Bill Gates for allowing his country to pirate Microsoft programs. This may strike you as a strange and unusual attitude. It is not.
For example, in Hong Kong many business people believe, very strongly, that if it had not been for endemic corruption Hong Kong would never have become the economic power-house that it did so quickly. There is much, much less of it now — indeed, remarkably little — but from, say, 1950 to 1980 it was the way of doing business. And, perhaps as a partial result, Hong Kong boomed.
An odd and immoral belief that corruption can be a good thing but it is one that is widely held.
Thus it comes as no surprise that Romanian President Traian Basescu believes that pirated Microsoft software helped Romania to build a vibrant technology industry.
What does come as something of a surprise is that he told Bill Gates so — in public.
Traian Basescu — his second name has some special Romanian markings on it but they are not on the keyboard I am using — was meeting the software giant’s chairman in Bucharest to celebrate the opening of a Microsoft global technical center in the Romanian capital.
He told the diplomatically quiet Bill that: ‘Piracy helped the young generation discover computers. It set off the development of the IT industry in Romania. It helped Romanians improve their creative capacity in the IT industry, which has become famous around the world. . . Ten years ago, it was an investment in Romania’s friendship with Microsoft and with Bill Gates.’
Romania, which has just joined the European Union, introduced anti-piracy legislation 10 years ago but some 70 percent of software used in Romania is pirated. Getting the stuff is very easy. And it is due to the large amount of software available illegally that the employees at the new facility are already familiar with Microsoft’s programs.
However, Romania is trying to get its house in order. As reported by BBC News in 2003:
Computer programmer Varujan Pambuccian, a member of the Romanian Parliament, says that for too long, young computer workers in Romania have thought that hacking and writing viruses was a resume builder, the first step toward landing a well-paying computer security job.
‘We’re trying to explain to them now that this is not a way of finding better jobs. This is a way of finding better jails.’
The message has plainly not reached into every corner of Romania. Maybe someone should tell the president.
Related:
Entry was posted
on Sunday, February 4th, 2007 at 6:50 pm
under
Read more entries by Gareth Powell.
Stumble It!
February 4th, 2007
If I may say, the markings in Mr. Basescu’s name are called diacritics. While they are not inscribed on your keyboard, your keyboard can produce them very easily.
I think it’s hilarious what the President told Mr. Gates. Also, it’s very true. Many kids in Romania played and worked on computers that were running pirated software in the 90s. I was one of them. My high school did not have and indeed could not have afforded licenses for Windows, Microsoft Office, and some of the other software they were running on the school computers.
Was it wrong to use the software anyway? Sure. Now, when our parents made an average of $100 a month and could barely afford to put food on the table, the debate did take a slightly different shape. I remember serving on the editorial board of our schools newspaper, and debating whether it was ethical for us to continue to print the paper while using pirated copies of Windows and Word. Inside, we all knew it was wrong. But we also knew that there were no other computers for us to use anywhere. That was our opportunity to learn computers and stay knowledgeable and of course to play all the games that we could sneak into our computer lab.
Somewhere between morality and pragmatism, pragmatism won.
Piracy, of course, is wrong in all cases. Don’t treat the subject lightly, though. You’ve never been there. Never had to make those kinds of decisions.
As for President Basescu’s remark’s, of course he should not have said it. But it was true. Some of us were introduced to the wonderful world of computers by virtue of pirated software.
February 5th, 2007
I have learned diacritic and will not make that mistake again. You are incorrect in assuming I have never been there, never had to make those decisions. I do it all the time in assorted countries in SE Asia. In China I am involved in a charity just getting books into schools. My own view is that piracy under those circumstances is totally justified.
Do I worry about that in my own case? I have written, and had published, about a dozen books. Slabs of them have been ripped off. It worries me not in the slightest. And I have written software that has also been copied to fare-thee-well. I take it as a compliment.
July 20th, 2007
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows download
!!! Gates: how piracy worked for me in China !!!
http://jaknatoo.blogspot.com/2007/07/harry-potter-and-deathly-hallows.html