{"id":7719,"date":"2024-02-24T23:09:41","date_gmt":"2024-02-24T21:09:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kameli.net\/marq\/?p=7719"},"modified":"2026-01-12T11:57:34","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T09:57:34","slug":"contemporary-accounts-on-early-finnish-software-piracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.kameli.net\/marq\/?p=7719","title":{"rendered":"Contemporary Accounts on Early Finnish Software Piracy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Since I happen to have access to the archive of the Finnish <em>MikroBitti <\/em>computer magazine, which was extremely influential among the 1980s home computer hobbyists, I&#8217;ve skimmed through the 1980s&#8217; issues both as pastime and for an upcoming article. One of the topics I was looking into was software piracy, already rampant by the mid-1980s. At that time there was effectively no legislation concerning software for that matter, so what looks like illegal activity from today&#8217;s perspective might actually have been perfectly fine. <em>MikroBitti<\/em>, too, addressed the topic multiple times, plus there were letters to the editor, so as a little project I decided to translate some of them to provide foreigners a glimpse of how things were discussed here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.kameli.net\/~marq\/mikrobitti-4-1984-p23.txt\">The copyright law applies to home computer hobbyists too<\/a> \u2013&nbsp;a well-known attack by a Finnish Commodore representative (MikroBitti 4\/1984).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.kameli.net\/~marq\/mikrobitti-1-1985-p6.txt\">Are people copying software criminals?<\/a> \u2013&nbsp;the answer from the editor in chief (MikroBitti 1\/1985).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.kameli.net\/~marq\/mikrobitti-2-1985-p20.txt\">Limited copying of software is legal<\/a> \u2013&nbsp;another answer which points out false claims (MikroBitti 2\/1985).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.kameli.net\/~marq\/mikrobitti-12-1988-p11.txt\">Should I copy software?<\/a> \u2013 a horror story where there were legal consequences (MikroBitti 12\/1988).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.kameli.net\/~marq\/mikrobitti-12-1989-p17-p19.txt\">The Secrets of the Computer Underground<\/a> \u2013 a curious, much later description of the warez scene (MikroBitti 12\/1989).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>And as a bonus <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kameli.net\/~marq\/mega-x-1-1989-p3.txt\">PIRACY Right or Wrong<\/a> from the short-lived Mega-X hobbyist magazine (Mega-X 1\/1989).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Enjoy while it&#8217;s hot (stuff) \u2013 I don&#8217;t own any rights to these texts, so theoretically someone could ask to take them down. Not very likely, though, since they&#8217;re more than thirty years old and the publisher was not Nintendo \ud83d\ude42 There might be some typos or grammatical errors, but all in all the texts should be well legible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>edit: One more addition.<\/em> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kameli.net\/~marq\/printti-8-1985-p10.txt\">Many Faces of the Software Bandit<\/a> (Printti 8\/1985).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>edit2: And another.<\/em> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kameli.net\/~marq\/printti-8-1985-p10-p19.txt\">Jesse Jameses are a different thing<\/a> (Printti 8\/1985).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>edit3: And yet one more<\/em>. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kameli.net\/~marq\/printti-1-1985-p7-9.txt\">Crime Is Widespread in the IT World<\/a> (Printti 1\/1985).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>edit4: And then<\/em> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kameli.net\/~marq\/german-pirates-mb-4-1990.txt\">Software Pirates&#8217; Paradise<\/a> (MikroBitti 4\/1990).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>edit5: This time<\/em> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kameli.net\/~marq\/copying-destroys-mb-5-1990.txt\">Copying Destroys the Finnish Youth<\/a> (MikroBitti 5\/1990) <em>and<\/em> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kameli.net\/~marq\/flipside-of-piracy-mb-6-7-1990.txt\">The Flipside of Piracy<\/a> (MikroBitti 6\u20137\/1990).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>edit6: And<\/em> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kameli.net\/~marq\/case-complex-mb-4-1992.txt\">Case Complex \u2013 Was the Name an Omen?<\/a> (MikroBitti 4\/1992).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>edit7: Then<\/em> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kameli.net\/~marq\/bsa-finland-3-1994.txt\">BSA Comes to Finland to Track Pirates<\/a> (MikroBitti 3\/1994).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>edit8: And<\/em> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kameli.net\/~marq\/bsa-hotline-1-1995.txt\">Report Illegal Software to a Hotline Number<\/a> (MikroBitti 1\/1995) <em>plus<\/em> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kameli.net\/~marq\/tough-sentences-mb-6-7-1995.txt\">Tough Sentences for Illegal Programs<\/a> (MikroBitti 6\u20137\/1995).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>edit9: Ending this batch with the four-page feature<\/em> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kameli.net\/~marq\/piracy-microcomputing-underworld-mb-1994.txt\">Piracy \u2013 The Underworld of Microcomputing<\/a> (MikroBitti 11\/1994).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Since I happen to have access to the archive of the Finnish MikroBitti computer magazine, which was extremely influential among the 1980s home computer hobbyists, I&#8217;ve skimmed through the 1980s&#8217; issues both as pastime and for an upcoming article. One of the topics I was looking into was software piracy, already rampant by the mid-1980s. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,15,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-demoskene","category-retro","category-tutkimus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kameli.net\/marq\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kameli.net\/marq\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kameli.net\/marq\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kameli.net\/marq\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kameli.net\/marq\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7719"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"http:\/\/www.kameli.net\/marq\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7719\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8962,"href":"http:\/\/www.kameli.net\/marq\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7719\/revisions\/8962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kameli.net\/marq\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kameli.net\/marq\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kameli.net\/marq\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}