ALHOLK Posted March 5, 2002 Report Share Posted March 5, 2002 Hi! I wasn't trying to justify anything. I was just pointing out that both activities are just as illegal and whining about one but condoning the other is hypocritical beyond belief. I don't know if you are aware of it but I work in th software industry. I'm one the blokes that actually makes the programs. I'm paid a reasonable salary but will never get a cut of any revenues. In my case it has no significance as I work with technical programs that are of no interest to pirates. I have been in the industry for more than 20 years. It never ceases to appall me to se how MicroShaft is getting richer every day by selling substandard software. Bill Clinton got himself into trouble by screwing a few women on the side. Bill Gates screws millions of people every day and get to be the richest man in the world. regards ALHOLK P.S. I did see a pussy once that was a dead ringer for one I had seen earlier. Ofcourse I don't have any way to know if it was pirated or if she was paying license fees. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoiledCowboy Posted March 5, 2002 Report Share Posted March 5, 2002 I constantly see the word "illegal" regarding software piracy and related issues. It's all enough to keep several thousand lawyers in new Mercedes for several milleniums. Frankly, I don't believe that software authors should ever expect that their works will ever be able to be protected fully, in the digital medium in which it is used, and also, that total ripping-off by unauthorised duplication is wrong, yes there is such a valid thing as "intellectual property" that needs to be protected and is valuable, but really, to brand someone with the title of criminal when they are clearly at the small-end of the piracy scale, is too much - mass scale duplicators, certainly, but "illegal" ? "Unauthorised" yes. Note: in Australia and most Commonwealth countries, it is still on the statute books, hence "illegal" not to have a person wave a red flag in front of the path of any vehicle that exceeds 5 mph. Laws are not the solution to all our problems, and with software piracy that just may be the case, another solution must be found. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 5, 2002 Report Share Posted March 5, 2002 Post deleted by DoxyBlue Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 5, 2002 Report Share Posted March 5, 2002 Post deleted by DoxyBlue Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ALHOLK Posted March 5, 2002 Report Share Posted March 5, 2002 Hi! SoiledCowboy quote: I don't believe that software authors should ever expect that their works will ever be able to be protected fully, I think you are confusing facts here. The authors of software very rarely are the same people as the copyright holders. You don't seriously think that Bill Gates has ever written a piece of software worth mentioning do you? quote: The quality of the product sold or the man selling it has no bearing on IP protection. True, but MicroShaft aren't exactly known for their ethical business practices. Their attempt to corner the worlds software market is probably against US trust laws (I believe that case is ongoing). This does ofcourse not justify the crime but the fact that the pirates are stealing from other criminals might shift the moral angle. quote: I'm sure you've gotten the idea by now that I'm a law-and-order type Yes that is readilly evident but you do seem to be a mite selective in which laws should be obeyed. regards ALHOLK Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 5, 2002 Report Share Posted March 5, 2002 Post deleted by DoxyBlue Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adikgede Posted March 5, 2002 Report Share Posted March 5, 2002 Boy o boy this topic sure does arouse some passion. I am just here to remind folks to keep it civil, no spitting or slapping (well except for biotch slaps). Odd how often the word moral comes up, seems kind of oxymoronic in jurisprudence. As I said before I think productivity software should be free for non-commercial personal use, at the very least so that folks go to work being a little more productive on their workstations. Nonetheless the software companies sets the terms of sale. If people actually read some of the licenses they would probably being looking for alternatives. Pity the poor sod who has to manage licenses in a sizable concern. Regardless of my own views I am most concerned that no host could ever say that K.S. was operating a clearing house for warez, and I have taken a rather strict definition as to what actually constitutes "distribution" as the last clause in the board's service agreement is deliberately ambiguous. Anyway before I ramble on for too long I want to announce a 24 amnesty to copyright violators'. 24 hours to come clean, and to lighten up this thread. I myself regularly peruse the rows upon rows of stolen software available here. My interest is more in oddities than functional software. A collection of every Mac OS (including AIX) up to 7.55, does it really fit on one CD? The Adobe Graphics Suite (several thousand dollars at retail I reckon) so far all I have had a chance to verify was Acrobat Reader. The pirates have even begun branding themselves. My COPY of SuSE 7.2 is by: "CDR: Solution Provider for the Poor, CDR LTD 1996-2001. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, CDR is the Registered Trademark of CDR LTD." I also have a copy of RHL 6.1 for AXP by them, I'll be damned if I am going to download another 648Mb disk image over a modem-well actually I am downloading a 495Mb image of aXon1.0pr at the moment but GPRS is free this month. So again a 24hour amnesty, and to the most egregious a offender a sheet of gold-leaf to rub on the Buddha's toe. I'm sure we all have some bones in our closets. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ALHOLK Posted March 5, 2002 Report Share Posted March 5, 2002 Hi! Adik Gede I can give you an example from real life. A couple of years ago I purchased a piece of technical software at Panthip. This particular software has in reallity only on compeditor. Both from companies that are major US based software vendors. The software I bought would have cost in the excess of 150 000 baht in Sweden. The point is that I can use it at home to learn how it works. If a customer ever asks me to do a job with it I will ofcourse buy a legal copy (which the customer pays for ). Now if I had not had access to this software and a customer askes me which software I prefer I would answer - It makes no difference, I know about as much about both the systems. Today my answer is - I prefer software A (the one I bought) as I will become productive much faster with it. A valid question is: Have I actually deprived the sofware vendor of any money? I say no. There is no way I would fork out 150 000 baht just to learn some new software, neither would my company for educational use alone. Although I have clearly broken Swedish laws the software vendor has lost nothing. Rather they potentially benefitted from the fact that today I will prefer their software instead of their compeditors. Some companies have understood this and made some of their software available for free personal use, e.g. Sun and Borland. BTW Maybe it would be a good thing if they stomped out all pirated software in Thailand. As most Thais cannot afford to buy comercial software they would have to turn to free software like linux etc. After an initial learning period they would be using much better operating systems than anything that Micro$haft has imposed on the market. regards ALHOLK Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Hippie Posted March 5, 2002 Report Share Posted March 5, 2002 BD, What I was refering to to was people in the old days would buy a record, and let their friends tape it. same with people who rent movies or dvds and then copy them onto tape, or now people who buy cds and burn copies for their friends. The entertainment industry has been bitching about this for years, still probably are. Yet, many people said the hell with them, I bought this music, so I can do what I want with it, and the companies still make money, so do the musicians. Whether we agree or not, that was/is the attitude. I think the line to be crossed here is if money changes hands. A lot of times people will take a free copy of something if they weren't planning to buy it in the first place. The die hard fans would still go out and buy the album, cdetc... I am speaking of entertainment media here. I think with software, a lot of people view it as "ripping off the man." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 5, 2002 Report Share Posted March 5, 2002 does the owner of a piece of intellectual property lose anything if i copy it and use it assuming their exhorbitant asking price prevented me from forking out the dough? how can someone lose something they'll never get anyway? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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