How do you feel about pirates?

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^ Yeah, there are ways of legally obtaining proprietary software for free. My university has an arrangement with MS whereby I can get XP Pro, Vista Ultimate, Office 2007, and a few other programs without paying for them directly. And MS also offers some programs directly to students as promotions- any university student (or even high school students now) could snag a copy of Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio, etc.

One bit of "piracy" that I really do agree with though....

NO CD Cracks.

I hate it when I buy a game on CD for my kids and they have to keep inserting the thing before they can play. Don't they realise that kids scratch/break these things.

Similarly, if I install a game, I don't want to have to find the CD whenever I want to play it. I installed it dammit.

Also, libdvdcss2 for ripping DVDs. I don't own a television, so if I want to watch a DVD, I do it on my computer. I'd rather just store the movie on my hard drive and use the disk itself as a backup.

I agree with the people that say free software is the way to go. They can be a lot better than the retail versions.

I'll only use torrents to get TV shows that aren't on TV anymore and doesn't have an official DVD release and to get the newest version of FreeBSD or Ubuntu.

I doubt it's this way any more, but back in the day (early 90s), Microsoft had 'vendor' prices for their packages. The MS rep would come by maybe once in a year, or you'd go to an 'oo and ah' conference, where they'd roll out a new OS or suite. I got Office for $35, Windows 3.1 for the same, and I think Office 98 for the same later. (granted, this is when they were still brand new).
I could have got server software for $185, but I didn't need/couldn't afford it at the time.

Somehow, I think those days are over...

First of all, sorry for a 1 month bump (and for being inactive for over a year until I wrote this ).

I have always loved videogames and apart from a couple I got burned from my uncle I own every single one of them legally. The same goes for my movies, but not my music (I can't buy music online until I am 18 and I can't find my favourite artists in a CD store).

I am dreaming about becoming a game developer in the future and as such I feel very strongly about Copyright laws. I am not going to be mad if someone pirate my software, but I would be very demoralized and sad if I found that a huge amount of people are using it illegaly with no thoughts of ever giving anything back. If I spend time working on something I should have the right to demand something in return, no matter how easy it is to reproduce.

To be honest, I wish a world where pirating was legal was possible and people really bought what they think was good. But there are so many "moral loopholes".
For instance if someone have to make the choice of buying something material they like or something immaterial they like, they could easily just pick the material object and then say "Oh well, I can't afford that anymore so I should pirate it".

From what I have seen people don't use pirated media as a way to try the product out, they pirate it because it is free and there is no risk involved, with little thought about paying anything. But that may be because of my young age, I hope more grown people have a more realistic and moraly sane view of piracy. I hav even heard one of my friends say "My mother say I shouldn't ask for games for christmas, because they are free" when we where younger. Very strange since his mother is an artist and should have a better understanding of Copyright in my opinion.

I am not going to pirate anything (unless I do it of peer preasure, I am a weak person), I am honestly worried that if I start I will not be able to stop and that I will fall into the same pit as so many others and end up becoming as "bad" as them.
I am considering about using no CD cracks, though. I have separated parents, and I can't have all my discs at the same place.

Oh well, I am sure a solution will be made sooner or later. If there is anything we can learn from history it is that things always work out in the end. They did find a way to make money out of radio and TV for instance.

I would like to show you an article about PC piracy. http://www.tweakguides.com/Piracy_1.html
A small sidenote, the author of the guides on that webpage is depending on Copyright laws to make a living, a lot of people copy others articles and "steal" traffic to their sites. That means less money from advertisments and donations to author and that in return means he have to spend more time making money from something else.

Information wants to be free, but it also wants to be expensive, that tension wont go away.

I buy some of my software / media but also often download movies, music and games. I try to buy mostly the less mainstream stuff. It's hard to buy xbox 360 games for 70$ and then have to spend another 20-30$ on downloadable content .... And I download mostly movies that aren't out on DVD. (I don't see why it would be wrong if I am going to buy it later)

I think that Pirates perform a very useful and valuable service. The amount of software, movies and music that you can find on the internet nowadays is phenomenal. Piracy has expanded my world in an amazing way. I can find foreign music and films to which I would not otherwise have had access.

Pirates? Ok, I guess, but when's the last time they went to the Series?...

Everytime I go to internet forums that are disscusing piracy they say things like. "I pirate just to try and buy what's good" or "the companies are evil" and I belive them and think "maybe piracy isn't so bad".

But when I see my classmates pirating a 19 dollar game (they liked) by a small developer wich they could have tried for 60 minutes for free I just feel... demoralized. They just put the crack there, no thoughts of giving anything back, they didn't even look at the price before pirating.

As someone very intrested in games development I beg all of you... please pirate responsably, or don't pirate at all!. I think my future can turn out pretty ugly if this trend continues

Exactly.

I feel the same way. I feel that awesome software (like indie games at a nice price) deserves support. Anything else...I honestly don't care. I feel sometimes, with the shovelware some developers do (like those MP3 to WAV convertors that can be done with open source tools), they deserve to be pirated.

That said, I have experience in software reverse engineering and what some people consider to be the "dark arts" in reverse engineering soo...that isn't a help either. But I do feel good software deserves support; bloated software, mass-produced junk, ridiculously overpriced software, and stuff that's useless, doesn't, in my eyes.

Movies...
There's almost no excuse. I hate it when people offer me pirated films.

But... I bought a DVD which ended up having playability issues and was unable to take it back because I bought it from a small store in a remote location. It's my right to obtain a replacement copy.

I wanted a copy of Michael Mann's "the Keep" which I personally really like. I've gotten rid of my VHS because it's old and falling apart and I've moved all my other films to DVD. It's unavailable anywhere in the world because the director doesn't like his film and won't release it. Again... IMHO, it's acceptable for me to obtain it by other means. I don't have a laserdisc so obtaining a laserdisc image ported to DVD is acceptable. If the film ever becomes available, I'll buy it.

Doctor Who - it's the one show that I need to watch ASAP before I get "spoilt". I'll download it in order to do this but I always buy the box sets (almost on the day) when they are released in Australia.

Music
I'm not particularly big on music anyway and I usually just buy what I want. There are some albums that I feel have been "pirated" from me. Those albums where you hear one or two good songs and buy the album only to find that everything else on the album is crap. They irritate me.

I've pirated songs in the past and most times I end up buying the album - or I end up buying the DVD. If I didn't listen to the song over and over, I'd never have been interested in the artist. I don't listen to the radio at all, so it's the only way I'd ever "discover" a new artist.

Games/Software
I pirated a lot of games and software in my early days (pre-Windows). It all evened out. For example; I pirated Wordperfect 4.2 (brilliant software) but paid good money for Wordperfect 5.1 for Windows (utter crap). I pirated Windows 3.0 but have paid for every version since. I pirated King's Quest 2 and several other sierra titles but have since bought the box sets which contain them all anyway. The pirated versions were still better because (a) I used better quality discs and (b) The key disc anti-piracy systems were disabled.

I've never pirated any console games but I've had a lot of Playstation 2 games pirate me. Every single one of those games which has a good picture on the cover and rubbish gameplay, or every single game where you can't get past the first couple of levels (yes, Simpsons Game... I am looking at you) is an example of a game pirating me. They take my good money and leave me with something I can't use.

I only do it if the software in question has either no demo, or a very restrictive one. Then I'll download and test it out. If I like the product, I'll uninstall/delete everthing, and buy it. If I don't like it, I'll just uninstall/delete everything the second I'm certain I don't want to buy it. I've been screwed out of my money by crappy software with little to demo before, so I'd like to make sure that never happens again. Personally, I believe all software should come with SOME sort of demo, preferably one that's only limited by time so you can try all aspects of the software before you commit to buying. I'll never for keeps, though.

[quote=gbollard]I've never pirated any console games but I've had a lot of Playstation 2 games pirate me. Every single one of those games which has a good picture on the cover and rubbish gameplay, or every single game where you can't get past the first couple of levels (yes, Simpsons Game... I am looking at you) is an example of a game pirating me. They take my good money and leave me with something I can't use[/quote]
Argh, I know the feeling but I honestly think piracy have a much worse effect than "reverse piracy". As I said, far to many are just pirating because they can without giving anything back for piracy to be sustainable, that is why I don't pirate anything (except if the original disc is broken) no matter how huge or evil the companies who made the product are.
My friend actually wanted to pirate a movie so we could watch it, I said no and we rented it instead. 15 minutes and about 3 dollars later we where watching it. I think that is the only time I have had the guts to actually stand against piracy.

But I do pirate music, I simply because I can't buy my music. I can't find the music I like in CD stores and I am not old enough to buy anything online yet stupid rules, why can I buy CD's but not Mp3's? Makes no sense.

If every pirate was like you I would raise the jolly roger myself
The problem with demos with limited time is that it can easily be exploited by removing the time limit. I won't go in to details but from what I understand it is a lot easier than to crack a real copy protection.

I personally think that the future of software, at least games, lay in making the program unusable if you can't connect to a server. By storing some of the important information there, it will be impossible to copy the application. I am not saying this is a good solution for the consumer, but the high piracy rate leave them no choice.
Remember, programmers can't make money preforming in the same way as musicians can, and they can't make money from cinemas, so they will be worse of than the movie or music industry IMO.


If there is a free alternative I would use that one instead of pirating a program wich does the exact same thing. They don't even deserve to be pirated, it would be a lot better if thoose who pirated it would wake up and look for a free alternative. That way the free program gets more support and the paid one get less attention. Wich I think we can all agree is a good thing

It's like all thoose who pirate Photoshop, yes the program is expensive so it won't hurt if someone pirate it (as long as the companies buy legit copies, wich I think they do)because it's not a lost sale. But if pirating photoshop wasn't an option they would find GIMP (wich as far as I know can do almost anything photoshop can and is completly free) and in the long run make the companies more aware and willing to use it.

So, in a way piracy is hurting free software too

Adobe would almost certainly make more money (not just more sales, but more revenue and higher profit) if they lowered the price of Photoshop. It's a program that many people would find extremely useful, but $700 is far too expensive for most people- that's more than Vista, Office 2007, and an anti-malware service combined. A lot of people would probably be willing to fork over $100 or $120 for it, whereas almost no one is willing to pay the current $700. As it stands now, people who want Photoshop generally just pirate it because the price is too exorbitant.

Why not use 2 different kinds of licenses? One for commercial use and one for private use wich is cheaper.
Or perhaps license it for use with a different amount of machines, the company who needs to have Photoshop on 8-10 computers would pay more than the private person who uses it for only 1 or 2 computers.

Just some loose speculations.