Stealing: The double standard?

[8086]

As far as 'hacking' oscilloscopes/hardware goes, I believe that if a company is stupid enough to sell you hardware that is the same as more expensive models, and expect you to pay a fee to 'upgrade' via software, they are stealing from you and not the other way around. If you buy the hardware, you can use the hardware.

Software is a different animal. What do you really buy if you buy software? A licence. But then the issue begins to be 'how to enforce the licence?' which then gets you into DRM and all that nonsense, which pisses consumers off.

Generally, if I can afford software, I buy it. But there's a lot of software that I simply couldn't afford to buy, and the company that owns it chooses not to offer a free or cheap version. In that case, they don't lose a sale, since I was never going to buy it anyway, and if they decide not to offer a version I can afford, then they lose.

It can be argued that it isn't stealing because it doesn't deprive someone else of the software. But at the same time, it does deprive the developers of money. But if you weren't in a position to buy it in the first place, I don't see the problem to be honest. And hey, maybe if some day I can afford expensive software package X, because I used it for years for free, I'll buy it. If I didn't use it for years I might not have chosen to buy it. It all works out in the end.

If you can actually afford it and choose to get it for free, that is different. Then you are stealing.

[8086]

I kind of uncomfortably agreed with you up until this point.

That is not an actual definition of stealing. It may well be a natural extension of what you were saying previously but I wouldn't consider it a "logical" extension.

Technically correct. I was using it colloquially. In moral terms, if you like, rather than legal.

[lemmegraphdat]

Some of you people are just like the Occupy Wall Street hoodlums. You think that you should have something just because you want it. You wanting it is a perfectly good reason to steal some other persons hard work. Just like what happened to Dave.

[lemmegraphdat]

Some of you people are just like the Occupy Wall Street hoodlums.

Some of the vendors of these products are hardly innocent angels. There is software you pay for in good faith, you install and later find out it doesn't do half the stuff it's supposed to. Then if you acctually talk to a rep it must be your computer. The solution is pay for maintenance upgrades. Why should I pay for something a hundred times over. Then there is hardware. Power supplies that don't deliver the rated power other gizmos that fail just after warranty. The entertainment monoploly, ISP monopolies etc. Everybody is a thief how bad a thief you are perceived as is directly related to your PR budget.

I never saw any of this as a way of getting out of a licensing agreement. What kind of cheap crap are you wasting your money on anyway?

[EEVblog]

As far as 'hacking' oscilloscopes/hardware goes, I believe that if a company is stupid enough to sell you hardware that is the same as more expensive models, and expect you to pay a fee to 'upgrade' via software, they are stealing from you and not the other way around.

No, that's just marketing a product a certain way. If you don't agree, you don't have to buy it.
To say a company is stealing from a customer by charging too much is just plain silly. A company can charge however much it wants for it's products, and they will live or die in the market by that choice.

If you buy the hardware, you can use the hardware.

Agreed.
If a company makes the decision to sell you a product with something extra locked inside then they take the risk that people will be able to access it without paying extra.
Several well known companies I have spoken to about this freely admit they knowingly take this risk. It is part of their business and marketing model.

[8086]

As far as 'hacking' oscilloscopes/hardware goes, I believe that if a company is stupid enough to sell you hardware that is the same as more expensive models, and expect you to pay a fee to 'upgrade' via software, they are stealing from you and not the other way around.

No, that's just marketing a product a certain way. If you don't agree, you don't have to buy it.
To say a company is stealing from a customer by charging too much is just plain silly. A company can charge however much it wants for it's products, and they will live or die in the market by that choice.

I was specifically talking about selling multiple models with the same physical hardware. Yes, it makes business sense, but you can't agree with my later statement and disagree with the first. If you buy the hardware, you can use the hardware. Again, I'm using the word 'stealing' in a colloquial moral sense.

[NiHaoMike]

Look at exaggerated MPG rating for cars/trucks. What a $40k plus vehicle is chump change to you too I suppose?  I think they actually finally started to clamp down on that at least.

Look up "hypermiling" and you'll beat the MPG ratings very easily. The car companies just need to give away a sheet of paper (and maybe a DVD) containing hypermiling tips with every car they sell. Costs them almost nothing but would greatly reduce the amount of poor MPG complaints.

What is a rip off is Ford's "Ecoboost", or at least some of their implementations. There are loads of complaints that it doesn't do any better or even worse than the non Ecoboost version.

[Galenbo]

I don't feel guilty to have Labview Full and Photoshop (total +5K) on my PC for personal and hobby use.
I even feel it's criminal to not let everyone experience new skills by asking so much money.
All programs should be free for personal use.

I should feel guilty if I use free cracked programs if I make money with it.

 

[nctnico]

I'm pretty convinced big software companies put cracked copies on the market on purpose to get a bigger installed base. Once the economic situation in a country or area gets better they cash in. Someone from Indonesia told me the company he worked for got 'raided' for illegal software. Ofcourse they had no license for any piece of software so they had the choice between shutting the company down for changing to open source or just buying the licenses.

[Tinkerer]

Opinions differ on this. Last I heard, the actual numbers of things downloaded vs bought was something like <5% for illegal downloading. I am sure that number is far smaller for people who download things to actually make money from it.

There was an article in either Popular Science or Scientific American where the author looked at piracy. The author had just written a book and asked on the forum what the readers thought about piracy. Obviously the reaction was mixed, but a clear trend was that many people think that those who download stuff would never have bought it to begin with and thus no one is really losing money from it. That if your program or book or whatever is good enough to begin with, people will want to give you money for it because they value it. Plus it will allow you to reach a larger audience because people will be able to see what they are getting before hand.
So he actually released the book on the internet for free as well as sold it. Guess what happened. His sales were actually slightly increased from what was expected despite the fact that there was a copy floating around for download.

I admit I have torrented a couple games and without exception, its almost as much of a hassle to download them that way than to simply buy them. I did like the games so much though that I went ahead and later bought legitimate copies after having been able to try them out. The thing is that its a pain to simply get cracked versions working correctly when legitimate versions work right away. In the end, I prefer to actually send money because its much easier.

The whole using illegally downloaded programs to make money, yea, I dont like that either. If you are really going to make money from this stuff, you should do things the right way.

[M. András]

I'm pretty convinced big software companies put cracked copies on the market on purpose to get a bigger installed base. Once the economic situation in a country or area gets better they cash in. Someone from Indonesia told me the company he worked for got 'raided' for illegal software. Ofcourse they had no license for any piece of software so they had the choice between shutting the company down for changing to open source or just buying the licenses.

well it could even makes sense. just look at how some pretty pricy software is protected, just a damn license key, and it accepts it via phone activation too, its the easiest way to make the software usable without touching any of its files. even the damn games needs files replaced/rewritten to make it work and it cost 10-40bucks then why so little protection on a multi thousands dollar engineering software? they would still gain sales and market if they would offer for fractional price of the full software a none commercial license, get the program to watermark the outputs of it and the machine shops pcb fabs would not let you order from that part more than 10-20 depends on the size and usage to allow inviduals to make a decent 1 off prototype for themselves or a complete product for themselves and not be able to mass produce it from that file, even make the tools not allow to commercialize that file by opening in a licensed software and resaving it to clear the watermark, it should be recreate completly in the lincesed tool, or it will still be a non commercially usable document. look at the pricing of solidworks for students 150british punds was the first hit which i found when searched for student version, if they can offer the premium version of their software under student license which watermarks its output then why should not use the same scheme for non commercial licenses, they would still gain market buy a big margin, maybe from those inviduals who doesnt have legal acces to the more sophisticated programs would make better use of it then those who make a living from them? better design, better functionality? its pretty hard to make something decent with scissors and stones, i mean this for "free" and not so free softwares which are still in its childhood, buggy as hell mostly useless not able to create so many things or heavily limited in its process. its not productive, it will not inspire creativity.

they should make it clear and even get a damn court recognize that if a company or a freelancer engineer is making profit from a product they should have a commercial license to do so. if not should be closed down and fined for a vast amount. goddam it if you use a cad tool commercialy it will pay for itselft within few months. if its used for personal usage to make 1 off things for your usage even to replace something broken part in a machine which cannot be bought anymore or has a pretty high markup, like that fluke network analyzer tool's plugin modules ffs thats a small pcb in a plastic case with few passives.... andat what price? it should be a fairly prices non commercial license without any support, they gain market with it and if the person gets a job in the revelant industry and the company has no cad tools yet or use a stone age one could recommend one which he will be productive its a win for everyone cos the company will pay up the big bucks for the software

[nctnico]

Opinions differ on this. Last I heard, the actual numbers of things downloaded vs bought was something like <5% for illegal downloading. I am sure that number is far smaller for people who download things to actually make money from it.

I admit I have torrented a couple games and without exception, its almost as much of a hassle to download them that way than to simply buy them. I did like the games so much though that I went ahead and later bought legitimate copies after having been able to try them out. The thing is that its a pain to simply get cracked versions working correctly when legitimate versions work right away. In the end, I prefer to actually send money because its much easier.

I don't know for games but cracked commercial software is easier to get working than the legal version. Another problem is the lack of second hand copies. For some reason software makers have succesfully killed the second hand market even though it is legal so buy and sell second hand software in Europe. If you have the disk you have the license.

[AlfBaz]

There's another scenario for cracked software...
Years ago I needed MS Visio, so I went out and bought it. It was when they first started online activation and the license was tied in with your unique PC hardware. For me the licensing procedure was such a pain in the arse I downloaded the cracked version and never bothered with the one I bought

[vk6zgo]

Historically,Hardware comes from a different tradition to Software.

There were definitely efforts to enforce Patents in the early days,but they slowly withered away,until most commonly used circuitry became effectively "public domain".

Generally,Manufacturers did not try to prevent end users from modifying their products to increase their performance over & above its original capabilities.

They made a token effort by adding ominous mutterings about loss of warranty if non-original parts were used in repair,but this was largely ignored.

Many user modifications made the equipment more reliable,& in some cases,made it perform to specifications for the first time,ever!

In 1988,I was involved in efforts to convert a manned  TV Transmitter site to Automatic operation.

Note that this was not "remote control"---all that was required from the Studio was to present video on the Studio-transmitter link,& the Auto system would do the rest.

This required much delving into Transmitter & ancillary equipment,& a lot of "Reverse-Engineering" .

Just one example is when we modified a 1970s Marconi video switcher to operate from external signals,& to also switch audio.(the convention is not to split video & audio sources.)


Were we stealing from Marconi?

Were we illegally,or immorally,using their IP,by duplicating part of their circuitry?

Should be have ordered a new device which did what we wanted,from them,or another supplier?

Well,Marconi didn't seem to make anything like that anymore,so we had a look at an alternative supplier.

They used the same circuitry as Marconi,( wonder if they paid for it,or if it was public domain) & couldn't offer audio switching,so would have to be modified,anyway.
(We discovered later that we could have bought a very expensive switcher from Grass Valley which could do both---still with eerily similar circuitry.)

Try to tell the Big Boss that you need to replace a perfectly capable piece of equipment at around $10000,
because you might upset the original Manufacturer,& see how much traction you get!

To say nothing of new Transmitters at around $500000 each,if we followed that philosophy all the way!

A large part of early Software sales were used in Offices by Admin people,who were happy enough to fork out for a "package" & use it as specified.
Hacking of such systems was frowned on,as it could cause direct loss of sales.

Firmware in Test equipment seems to be in a "No Man's Land" in between the two traditions.



.

[Kryoclasm]

I would say neither of them qualifies for stealing, since stealing requires depriving someone of property in all jurisdictions I'm familiar with. Neither in the case of downloading Altium, nor in the case of upgrading the scope/DMM do Altium/Agilent/Rigol actually lose the original item. It's not like a DS1102E disappears from the Rigol warehouse every time someone modifies their DS1052E.

"since stealing requires depriving someone of property or PROFIT FOR VALUE in all jurisdictions ."

If you wrote a video game, operating system or whatever and you worked and put effort into it...

Next you would like to earn a profit by selling it.

So, you then sell 5 copies but 200 copies make their way to those who want your creation, but don't pay for it because they can get away without paying for it....

Is it any different than walking into the software brick and motor store and walking out with a boxed copy of windows 8 under your shirt?

That seems like THEFT to me.

[EEVblog]

Hardware manufacturers should not care if people modify their gear.

They don't.
I've yet to hear of an example of someone in our industry being sued, or even having the finger wagged at them because they modified a hardware product they bought and paid for. Most manufacturers simply void the warranty in that case - you're on your own.
It's simply a non-issue.

[Legit-Design]

I've yet to hear of an example of someone in our industry being sued, or even having the finger wagged at them because they modified a hardware product they bought and paid for. Most manufacturers simply void the warranty in that case - you're on your own.
It's simply a non-issue.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2009/oct/15/texas-instruments-calculator

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/04/sony-settles-ps3-lawsuit/

I can see why people are always worried because the risk is real. If the companies ask lawyers I know the lawyers want their fees.

EDIT: In Texas instruments case, I guess modifying the firmware could make them lose sales. I've heard some schools only allow certain calculators and before tests teachers can lock out third party/extra programs with master device. So this system would be broken. Good thing everyone knows once you put it on the internet it never goes away.

[Fagear]

I'm at Dave's side.
If I bought something (no matter: HW or SW) - I own it. I can do anything I want with it.

If there is possibility to hack/tweak something - I can use it. Add/remove parts or bytes.

Say, I bought a car with V6 under the hood and simple audio system.
But then I discover that the motor is actualy V10, but 4 cylinders just switched off (by SW control or some little HW parts missing). And software of audio system is actually including many options of sound processing and also GPS navigation included - but simply disabled.
I have no moral (and any other) things that can stop me from "enabling" V10 and advanced sound system with GPS navigation. If I want, have skills and tools to do it myself. I can buy or make additional parts, download SW from memory, look into it, change something and then upload it back. Am I stealing something? No, I am not.
Some thing with Rigol hacks: HW is already capable of doing anything and all options are already inside the FW in the lowest device. I may hack it to top-level fully optioned model if I want and if I can (have skills and tools). Nobody can forbid this to me. Am I stealing something? No, I am not.

It was explained above: if manufacturer cut some cost in production, making devices the same - he took the risk already. Don't put features that I did not ordered - and it will be fine.
Do not solder top-end amplifiers, fastest ADCs, replace them with lower cost and not capable of doing better performance. Do not include code parts in SW that are needed for purchasable options. Install that code only when option is bought.
And yet again - I can buy lower end device, and (if I want, I have skills and tools) I can figure out what to replace to get better performance and what to write, compile and add into SW to add some features. And I will not be stealing anything again.

It funny to read some people that are stating "adding backlight LED - is OK, soldering blob to enable some feature that can be bought - is NOT". There is a double standard already.

Say, you don't even know and care about any options that you can buy, and you do them yourself by modifying your HW or SW.
Let's say it is some device with LCD and no backlight. You open it up, solder some LEDs and other components - and you have a backlight, you are happy. So if manufacturer have no option for adding backlight in you device - it is OK to modify, and if manufacturer can actually sell you such upgrade for money - then it is NOT OK and it is stealing? Nonsence. Double standard right there.

If I want to modify SW (for PC or FW for device) - I will modify it. If I want to change some text, font, color, bitmap - I can do it if I want. And if I can (accidentally or on purpose) enable some hidden features that I like - I will keep them. And won't feel worried. Same SW, same tools, same situation. But "color - OK, features - not OK".
No hidden features - no problem.

If there is no hidden feature - I will have to get access to something that is not mine (somebody's optioned device, software download center account) and download SW from it to get some feature - that's a crime. Because that was not mine. If my car have V6  - I can't modify it to become V10 or V12. I have to bought new engine (say purchase option) or steal it from other car (crime). If my car have system software, that can not do some things (say, optioned ABS, GPS nav or ESP) and they are not in FW - I can't patch it to enable them (unless I can write my own code and add it) without getting (by crime) access to some source of code (HW in other car or download page).

Selling something with hidden and turned off features is stupid. And then complaining about somebody had enabled it - double stupidity. Just like selling you a sport car with V12, with every possible electonic function (ABS, ESP, suspension control, stearing profiles and others) already installed but for less money and with flipped switches under the dash to turn most functions off to get you a low-end car capabilities. And hoping that you will not find those switches and will not turn them on.

[nctnico]

I'm at Dave's side.
If I bought something (no matter: HW or SW) - I own it. I can do anything I want with it.

If there is possibility to hack/tweak something - I can use it. Add/remove parts or bytes.

Say, I bought a car with V6 under the hood and simple audio system.
But then I discover that the motor is actualy V10, but 4 cylinders just switched off (by SW control or some little HW parts missing). And software of audio system is actually including many options of sound processing and also GPS navigation included - but simply disabled.
I have no moral (and any other) things that can stop me from "enabling" V10 and advanced sound system with GPS navigation. If I want, have skills and tools to do it myself. I can buy or make additional parts, download SW from memory, look into it, change something and then upload it back. Am I stealing something? No, I am not.
Some thing with Rigol hacks: HW is already capable of doing anything and all options are already inside the FW in the lowest device. I may hack it to top-level fully optioned model if I want and if I can (have skills and tools). Nobody can forbid this to me. Am I stealing something? No, I am not.

It is a bit of a grey area. If you start modifying hardware for a profit you probably will find a lawyer on your doorstep. Over here people who modified or sold boards to hack game consoles got succesfully sued.

Some say the Nintendo DS more or less got killed by the RS4 cards. IMHO the real problem was the quality of the games. My oldest kid had a Nintendo DS with 100's of games on the RS4 card but he never played much with it. I guess all the games where so crappy that they weren't worth stealing let alone spending money on the RS4 card. When it comes to games I like to try-before-buy. When I was a kid I got burned one time too many for buying a game which looked cool but turned out to be total crap.

[NiHaoMike]

It is a bit of a grey area. If you start modifying hardware for a profit you probably will find a lawyer on your doorstep. Over here people who modified or sold boards to hack game consoles got succesfully sued.

The main issue there is that modchips are often used for cheating or piracy. The modchips that can only do homebrew should be safe, but the lawyers might not know the difference.

Nowadays, there's little good reason to run homebrew on a console when the consoles are basically PCs.

[PA0PBZ]

If I want to modify SW (for PC or FW for device) - I will modify it. If I want to change some text, font, color, bitmap - I can do it if I want. And if I can (accidentally or on purpose) enable some hidden features that I like - I will keep them. And won't feel worried. Same SW, same tools, same situation. But "color - OK, features - not OK".
No hidden features - no problem.

A demo version of software that expires or gives you a subset of the capabilities. That is not too hard to modify to give you the full software, is that stealing? Maybe you downloaded the software for free, or you paid a small fee to get it on CD, is it yours to modify as you please?

[TerraHertz]

Human cultural views evolved in a world in which only physical objects existed. There was no such thing as abstract information, or data. The only way to posses a tool or any other asset, was to obtain and keep the physical thing. All our traditional views and legal structures of ownership are derived from this historical context.

The most abstract form of information was the orally transmitted story - and no one tried to pretend that they 'owned' such things, because that was obviously impossible.

When printed books appeared, the situation didn't change much. One still had to manufacture the physical book, for anyone to posses it. And so it was easy to imagine that ownership of the pure information in the book was also possible. Hence copyright laws, though initially these were sensible and only protected ownership for a short time, from memory 15 years.

The problems began with copyright, and the idea of patents. Both these tried to apply ownership concepts that are really applicable only to physical objects, to the abstract realm of ideas, ie information. Back then there still wasn't any comprehension of how fundamentally different pure information is, from everything else in the physical realm. But it _is_ fundamentally different. Due to the digital technological revolution we are now fully aware of this. Or we should be.

Information by its intrinsic nature of perfect and easy replication cannot be owned. It can only be possessed, and shared. Attempting to impose laws that assume ownership of information is possible, is futile and ultimately immensely harmful to the technical and moral progress of society.

The pivotal incompatibility between our legacy concepts of ownership, and the true nature of data, is that we're still trying to insist that it should be possible to make a monetary profit from activities that are in essence only creating information. Writers, musicians, inventors, programmers, etc feel they have a right to make people pay to receive their works. Despite that these works consist ultimately only of strings of ones and zeros. Effectively, by information theory, each work is just one (large!) single number. So they are demanding to be paid, just for handing out a single number - interesting and enjoyable though it may be.

It's untenable. Worse, the end result of imposing laws that attempt to enforce that untenable demand of entitlement, is that society becomes bound by restrictive, enslaving regulation and monitoring - which in turn become tools of even worse repressions. We're seeing that process accelerating rapidly these days.

The only workable way out of this dead end, is to accept that creators of pure information structures can only ever expect voluntary rewards. The copyright and patents systems both have to be completely dismantled. Corporatism too, is fundamentally incompatible with any economic system crafted to be consistent with the intrinsic nature of information.

This post cannot be long enough to discuss these matters in usefully complete form. But I'll end with one illustration of why information cannot be owned.

Information complexity exists on a linear scale, with no limit on its upper end. This article, books, music, computer programs, etc are all way down near the low end of the scale. They are simple things. Further up the scale we find the data structures of living things - the dna code of self replicating organisms. Already there's an obvious moral quandary - the arguments over whether anyone can 'own' the data defining a living organism. Including the dna sequences of human beings.

Of course corporations argue they can own gene sequences too - bwahahaha. (A dispute that is likely going to have to be resolved in blood.)

But then further up the complexity scale we come to... the data structures of sentient minds. Ourselves. And there will be even more complex things further up, but we haven't met them yet. So far as we know, though they are probably aware of us and our stupid, tedious misconceptions. Possibly in much the same way as we find bacteria annoying.

Anyway the point is, trying to pretend that information constructs can be owned, is by extension advocating the enslavement of sentient beings. Of humans for instance.

This is logical reality. It just isn't yet in-your-face obvious at our current level of technological development. But it will become so. Before we do manage to produce working strong AI, we'd better sort out our concepts of what information is, and whether it can be owned. Or we'll have a meat vs machines revolution to contend with, which won't end well.

[Rick Law]

Human cultural views evolved in a world in which only physical objects existed...

TerraHertz,  while I like to agree with you  and I like the idea of information being free, but I don't yet buy all the arguments.  I wish we can come up with an argument that can stand for I would like to see all information free.

This is an example of holes in the logic and is what I found difficult to close the loop on:

1. Karajan conducted the Berlin Philharmonic.  No one would argue that you need to pay to get in the hall to see their performance.

2. Karajan recorded the same piece in a studio, made a recording and sold the vinyl record.  No one would argue they need to pay for the little piece of vinyl disc.  2b. If someone transferred the content to a cassette tape and sell it, one would not argue that such action is illegal.  (agree so far?)

3. Karajan and that same recording company decided to clean the tape up, digitize it and sell the CD, no one argued you need to pay for the CD.  3b. If someone transferred the content to a cassette tape and sell it, one would not argue that such action is illegal.  (agree so far?)

4. Now the same CD is digitized differently into MP3 for it should be free?  If so, should I be able to package the free stuff and make a business?  Red Hat packaged Linux, but that was free by owner's choice.  Let say Karajan is still alive and he doesn't want to give it away, should he have a say?  What rights would Karajan has?

4b. Now the same CD is digitized differently into MP3 for a download purchase.  Say I downloaded it for $x, should I be free to "pass it along"?  What is Karajan's right if I am free to pass it along (or not).

Lastly, everything is really just information.  Mass is energy.  Matter is but specific arrangement of particles which is nothing but pure energy - it is how we arrange it that makes it what it is.  And how we arrange it is just pure information.

We eradicated polio (I think I got the right virus), and we have the info on the genome.  That once physical and once a life form is now just 1's and 0's.  Even we are all merely 1's and 0's.  A very long and ever string of 1's and 0's but a string of 1's and 0's none the less.

So, can anything be owned at all?

Rick

[Psi]

Once it becomes information, rather than physical,  paying per unit becomes redundant.
I don't think its really ethical to sell an individual item that costs zero to reproduce.

Imho once it's information it should be sold as an 'all you can eat' service


If you survey 1000 random people who buy music about how much they spend per year the average will be pretty low, ~$100 maybe.
An 'all you can eat' style music service for $100/ year would be a win for everyone.

[Rick Law]

Once it becomes information, rather than physical,  paying per unit becomes redundant.
I don't think its really ethical to sell an individual item that costs nothing to reproduce.

Imho once it's information it should be sold as an 'all you can eat' style.


If you survey 1000 random people who buy music about how much they spend per year the average will be pretty low, ~$100 maybe.
An 'all you can eat' style music service for the same money would be a win for everyone.

No payment implies no ownership.

Our genome can be digitized relatively easily now.  So, if someone choose to steal and digitize my DNA, it could be done.  Now that it is pure information, I don't have ownership right to that information, so someone can presumably make copies of me and I have no right to object as I have no ownership to that information.  Someone could even take the best of me, and best of someone else (or something else) and make a hybrid of me, and I have no right to stop it?

That doesn't sound reasonable to me.