Pirates are not hackers and software piracy is also the Government’s fault

[ Thanks to M. Fioretti for this link. ]

“In January 2011 Italian newspaper Repubblica published an article that is a nice example of how much confusion there still is, in mainstream press, about the nature of software and copyright, their relevance for all citizens and the responsibilities of Public Administrations in these fields. That article may have been written everywhere, there’s nothing specifically Italian in it, so I translated my objections to it because they too may be useful outside Italy (to stimulate discussion if nothing else).

“The article titled Il Bel Paese dei pirati – siamo un popolo di hacker (translation: “The beautiful country of pirates – we are a people of hackers”) shows its poor quality and attitude before even reading it, from its very title.

“The message that the title sends is that software pirate (used in the original article as synonimous of “computer criminal”) = hacker.”

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