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If you don't want people using it for piracy, then release a crippled version.
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Piracy is a human right
GCS/GE d--(d) s-/+ a C+++ U+++ P-- L+@ E-- W+++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- r+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
The shortest horror story: On Error Resume Next
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I think, more to point, is that you would never know if it’s being used for something nafarious unless of course you added some form of app usage tracking. If your moral compass prevents you from releasing it in its uncrippled state that is your prerogative as the author. Personally, I wouldn’t worry about it; it’s not as if you have written a virus or Trojan that could do a lot of damage. Have a view of Louis Rossman’s take on piracy and see if that helps your decision:
Piracy is COMPLETELY justified: Louis tries NetFlix & remembers why - YouTube[^]
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This is the exact video that came to my mind reading the thread header.
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You have no control (or responsibility) over someone else's actions. However if it rests heavy on your conscience it is reasonable to choose to release a version with limited functionality. It still won't stop people from modifying it to suit their use cases. As far as piracy is concerned I don't think is an easy topic to address. It is a large gray area with several different shades.
If you make laws restrictive enough, everyone can be made a criminal.
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I would take one step back and ask myself WHY do I want to release upon the public a piece of software. For me, at various times and various programs, the answer was some combination of the following:
A. I think it is solving an important problem (hunger, world peace, etc.  ) and world should hear about this (direct greater good case). In this case, even if there are perceived negative consequences, I will release it for the greater good (damn the torpedoes!).
B. Other people could learn interesting things from what I've done (indirect greater good case). Than, if there are some problematic parts of the software, I would take them out and leave only the general framework.
C. It just tickles my ego and I want to show how smart I am (sadly, most frequent case). Well, if I honestly see some negative consequences, I will refrain from releasing it. My ego will be a bit bruised but I've got used to that.
Mircea
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It relies on some cool tech I made that I'd like to share with the board.
I've shared a piece of it, but the whole thing is greater than the sum of its parts and can be adapted to easily bind json data to a page on the server side.
Check out my IoT graphics library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx
And my IoT UI/User Experience library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
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I would give some counter-examples:
A steak knife may be used to cut one's steak, or to cut a person. Should we therefore ban (or control) the production of steak knives?
Jackhammers may be used to make holes in roads or to make holes in bank vaults. Should we therefore ban (or control) the production of jackhammers?
Lastly, software may be used for a legal & moral purpose (cataloguing DVDs owned by the cataloguer) or for an immoral (and possibly illegal) purpose (cataloguing pirated videos). Should we therefore ban (or control) the release of the software?
Note further that in many countries, making a copy of a DVD that you own is perfectly legal. The illegality may come in when one either (a) copies it from a Torrent, (b) broadcasts the DVD or makes it available for copying, or (c) plays it for a public audience (i.e. outside of home consumption). The US, with its DMCA, is very much on the strictest side of this issue.
To summarise, there may be some legal issues with releasing your cataloguing software, but I don't see any moral issues with it. Your call!
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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Yeah, where I think my software is different than a steak knife, is the worry that piracy will become the *primary use* of my "steak knife", outstripping legitimate uses for it.
That's what gave me pause.
Check out my IoT graphics library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx
And my IoT UI/User Experience library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
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Your tool isn't providing the content.
Your tool isn't providing a link to any content.
You're not instructing people how to get the content.
Seems pretty clear-cut to me.
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Don't worry, such tools exist already, Plex and Jellyfin to name two popular ones and Plex even comes with a paid version to unlock more features!
Is it ethically dubious? To me honestly not much, it's not like people commit less of a crime by downloading pirated videos and watching them using say a smb share and vlc on their TV
Would people use it to watch pirated content? If it has better features than the current alternatives I'm sure someone would
But I don't think is your responsibility to cripple it or keep it private as to not enable piracy, you are not the one committing a crime by using it to view pirated movies and people will do it anyway
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I'm thinking that if you cripple it, bad actors will find a way around that anyway.
Release it. I want to see it!
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honey the codewitch wrote: The problem is, you could use it in tandem with a torrent client, and filebot to basically give you a much nicer way to pirate and organize what you downloaded
The potentially illegal part here should be the torrent client, not the organizational software.
If the organization could be considered to be the illegal part, every maker of file systems would be in trouble.
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This was never a question of legality.
Check out my IoT graphics library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx
And my IoT UI/User Experience library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
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Perhaps not, but the same principle should apply in this case I'd say.
Any tool could be used in an illegal or immoral way. But in this case this obviously isn't the purpose.
For a torrent client the case looks quite different.
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It's funny because I actually have a legitimate purpose for torrenting but I'm afraid to do it without a VPN in case my ISP thinks I'm up to funny business.
It is the most reliable way to upload gigs of data to a server.
Check out my IoT graphics library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx
And my IoT UI/User Experience library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
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I always found good old fashioned FTP (FTPS nowadays) to be the best.
It was invented in a time when 3600 baud modems were considered hot.
(Not SFTP mind you)
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Title says it all
In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity. - Hunter S Thompson - RIP
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I don't understand the question.
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Then you must be a computer 
Hogan
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Tired? for darn sure. Pissed? not so much.
"the debugger doesn't tell me anything because this code compiles just fine" - random QA comment
"Facebook is where you tell lies to your friends. Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers." - chriselst
"I don't drink any more... then again, I don't drink any less." - Mike Mullikins uncle
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To be honest...
I use meanwhile frequently the help of ChatGPT.
It does not give me the ultimative result at first.
But with an iterative process, I usually (70%) find a solution with ChatGPT.
Therefore no, I'm not pissed off hearing about AI. For me it really helpfull.
Only my two AI cents 
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This.
The incessant talk about it can get annoying, but "pissed off"? No, over the decades I've learned not to let annoying things get under my skin. It's useful.
Typically, I might try to get it to give me a short sample showing how to use some obscure API. More often than not I still have to tweak the results (I'm not expecting anyone, or an AI, to do all my work for me), but asking it in plain English what you're trying to do is often far better than trying to come up with the exact right keywords to have a search engine bring back a relevant page.
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I hadn't heard/read anything about it all day...until now. Thanks for that! 
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
"Hope is contagious"
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I'm more p---ed off about people (read: members of the media) who have no idea how generative AI works claiming it will solve the world's problems and/or bring an end to civilization as we know it. 
Transformer ANNs in particular are very useful when trained on a vetted and well bounded corpus of text (e.g. user's manuals for software, service manuals for machinery, the works of Shakespeare, the IRS tax code, etc.) Persons who rely on the publicly available version of ChatGPT to do their homework or answer questions of any significance are only fooling themselves.
/ravi
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