Azurael Posted December 18, 2007 Share Posted December 18, 2007 No. Most of the actual, low-level developers who actually do any work in big software houses (especially the game developers) are graduates, paid next-to-nothing (by computer industry standards) to work 10 hour days. All the money you pay for a CD goes into the higher ups' pockets, contract staff, absolutely useless, time wasting big-shot consultants and so on, who will be paid a fortune to decide what font the title on the CD case should be printed in. I'll buy shareware, but bugger paying people like Adobe and EA for their immoral wares. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GooBacks Posted December 18, 2007 Share Posted December 18, 2007 I'm not gonna post my views on this cause they really don't matter but i will say this. What happens when you steal let's say a cd from the store and you are caught? Do you go to prison? Do you face thousands of dollars in fines? No you don't, basically you are forced to give it back and you aren't allowed back. Now let's say you download that same cd off the interweb and you are caught. Do you go to prison? Do you face a hefty fine? Yes you do. The laws for these two incidents are different yet the same thing is going on just in different environments, one is in person, the other is electronic. This is complete {censored} how these laws are set up, you are doing the exact same thing, taking the cd...the punishment should be the exact same thing...there, my ranting about laws is done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Special-K Posted December 18, 2007 Share Posted December 18, 2007 Musicians and actors get too much money now days. But, i don't pirate software developers, cause they work their asses of just to make an application, and if i like it, I will give them the money they deserve. Giving actors the money deserve, thats what i do by ripping movies I agree with the movie thing, but I resent the musicians get too much money. Musicians on major labels get cheated out ALOT for money, Indies don't make much to begin with, and my fellow Unsigned artists definitely can't live off it. Just to clarify, by musicians, I mean actual musicians. Not pop or rap stars. And GooBacks, I agree with you about the crappy ways of the law. But we can't do much about it, unless we become part of the system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xplizid Posted December 19, 2007 Share Posted December 19, 2007 I'm not gonna post my views on this cause they really don't matter but i will say this. What happens when you steal let's say a cd from the store and you are caught? Do you go to prison? Do you face thousands of dollars in fines? No you don't, basically you are forced to give it back and you aren't allowed back. Now let's say you download that same cd off the interweb and you are caught. Do you go to prison? Do you face a hefty fine? Yes you do. The laws for these two incidents are different yet the same thing is going on just in different environments, one is in person, the other is electronic. This is complete {censored} how these laws are set up, you are doing the exact same thing, taking the cd...the punishment should be the exact same thing...there, my ranting about laws is done. uhh obviously you've never been caught stealing yes you do face fines you dont just give the product back that was the stupidest thing I ever read. In fact i got caught it was cd's and the fine all together was 300 i think and then you have to take classes which cost another 200. All together I've stolen more than 200 dollars worth of cd's not including dvds and clothing so the even the 500 dollar fine was still a steal of a deal haha. What I dont agree with is you paying for music thats online because it isn't near the quality of that of a cd, and further more you buy a cd and days later it gets stuck and scratched i hate it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
articquad Posted December 19, 2007 Share Posted December 19, 2007 I think, at the very least it makes us good people who just so happen to be doing a bad thing. Define bad, I know.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
apowerr Posted December 19, 2007 Share Posted December 19, 2007 All together I've stolen more than 200 dollars worth of cd's not including dvds and clothing so the even the 500 dollar fine was still a steal of a deal haha. MacBook Pro2.2Ghz - 128MB GeForce 8600M GT - 2GB DDR2 677Mhz - 120GB HD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Numberzz Posted December 19, 2007 Share Posted December 19, 2007 = Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GFree Posted December 19, 2007 Share Posted December 19, 2007 Mixed feelings myself. I don't like the idea of drowning oneself in pirated software, particularly for pracitcal reasons - so many cracks/keygens/bypassers required for so much pirated software would increase one's changes of being infected by viruses/trojans/whatever. It's actually too much work to keep on top of all this {censored}, which is why I prefer truly free or better yet, OSS software in its place. There are times when I HAVE to use pirated software in critical situations; morals be damned. Yesterday I ran into a problem where my widescreen monitor suffered corruption of its EDID (Extended Display Identification Data) through the DVI connection - in short, you couldn't connect using the DVI connection as anything higher than about 640x480 would result in a "No Signal" message. I could connect with VGA fine since it used a different EDID, but the DVI was shot. Now, after quite a bit of investigating I found the correct EDID for my particular monitor, but the only way I could find to upload the corrected information was by using a Windows tool called "PowerStrip", and unfortunately, the "Upload EDID" function requires the registered version of the software. I didn't have much choice. There was no other way to upload the EDID myself, and the program was only about 1.5 MB. I was under so much stress from the situation that I thought, screw paying US$29.95 just for one measly little function I probably won't use again, so I did a search and found a version with a reg key. Got the full version running, uploaded the corrected EDID, and here I am posting this post due to my success. My choice to use a pirated program to save my hardware - I can justify in this case. I made sure to uninstall/delete PowerStrip immediately after though, to limit I suppose the moral impact of my pirating choice. I do not feel like a bad person, because like most things in life, piracy is not a black/white issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Numberzz Posted December 19, 2007 Share Posted December 19, 2007 When Pigs Fly: The Death of Oink, the Birth of Dissent, and a Brief History of Record Industry Suicide. All I got to say is wow. That was an amazing article. It's a bit long, but it's worth the read. There are good reasons to pirate now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xplizid Posted December 19, 2007 Share Posted December 19, 2007 I don't understand numberz why you singled me out on that one for no reason :S Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
apowerr Posted December 19, 2007 Share Posted December 19, 2007 I don't understand numberz why you singled me out on that one for no reason :S It wasn't numberzz it was me. Why did I single you out: You're what spoiled looks like. I'm not trying to be a jerk, just having a bit of fun. I'll stop now. I have no ill feelings towards you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dermatea Posted January 12, 2008 Share Posted January 12, 2008 "Does piracy make us bad people?" Doing a bad thing doesn't necessarily make you a totally bad person. A sin is a sin, and we all sin. However, pirating goods, software or not, definitely doesn't make you a very good person. Pirating is bad I'm sure you know. Illegally downloading software is, well, illegal, and yes, it is stealing. Stealing doesn't mean whether or not no one gets hurt or no one loses money, stealing is the act of taking what is not rightfully yours, and thou shalt not steal, period. The thing with software is, it is so easy to just copy it, alter it and share it that people take it for granted. Then they try to say that "it's just a bunch of ones and zeros", that "it's not real". Well, when you're using all that media for your entertainment, or software for your work, and when you're passing all that around to your friends, you're certainly using something very real. When it resides on your hard disks, it does physically take up space, gigabytes of it. Calling it a bunch of zeros and ones is taking away from what it really is; the hard work of the people who put their time and effort into making those ones and zeros into something people enjoy using. It is the difference between Photoshop and 200 MB notepad file blindly filled with ones and zeros. Even if you download something and use it without paying, but then pay later, you are still doing something wrong, but you correct your wrong by doing something right in the end, and that, is what makes us good people, sort of. That aside, getting software for free is just dope. You just can't get enough really. hehe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Proteo Posted January 12, 2008 Share Posted January 12, 2008 "Does piracy make us bad people?" This question is plain stupid. Killing other people makes you bad people. Dropping bombs over civilians makes you a bad people. Getting rich with public money makes you bad people. And we all know lot of people that do that, and some of them are among the most powerful and "respected" persons in the establishment. Of course, it doesn't make you any better either. Keep things in perspective. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
superstition Posted January 12, 2008 Share Posted January 12, 2008 One way to think about "piracy" is to think about things like government subsidies and regressive taxation. Everyone who pays taxes in the USA is paying corporate welfare due to lobbying and crooked politics, and the rich with their corporate shells are paying less. That's a form of piracy in my book. It's not as if any of us has the power to replace all government corruption simply by voting, particularly when the machines themselves and the way the results are handled are suspect. The huge amount of money that's been thrown away in Iraq certainly dwarfs any "piracy" I'm guilty of, and the amount in taxes and quality of life reduction due to government corruption is something I've paid more for than the total of products I've tried without a license. I buy the things that are worth buying, too. Downloading software saves me from wasting money on {censored}, and the same is true of music. If it's worth buying, I buy it when I have the funds, which isn't often anymore since wages keep stagnating, health care is going through the roof, the dollar is falling, gasoline is at a record, etc. Those who point fingers at the little guy need to start holding the government accountable, by at least the same standard. There's a lot of piracy in this world, and the vast majority is called social stratification and government is what facilitates it. There's also the extreme wastefulness of our consumption/disposable-based economic model. That's global piracy. The Earth is being raped and who will suffer...future generations. Apple is just one example of many. It dumped thousands of Lisa computers in a landfill instead of giving them to schools, libraries, or the poor. Why? Because the company got a tax reduction from the government for doing so. That's piracy. The company orphaned flat panel iMacs that run at 700 and 800 MHz. Instead of bothering to fix the sleep problem in Leopard, the company simply orphaned them. That's piracy, too. Those machines not only are perfectly useable and shouldn't be orphaned, there should be a way to replace their innards with a modern core duo system instead of throwing away a perfectly good monitor, steel arm, etc. The waste is increasing. In the old days, Apple sold motherboard upgrades. Processor companies keep changing sockets in order to sell new motherboards. Companies shouldn't benefit from harming the planet and everyone living on it and government shouldn't facilitate it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
(MoC) Posted January 12, 2008 Author Share Posted January 12, 2008 I strongly agree, superstition. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wrenbird Posted January 16, 2008 Share Posted January 16, 2008 If I find the software to be worth the money it costs I buy it. I can tell you I'll never buy windows I bought an OS X license, I've purchased quite a bit of others after downloading. Piracy doesn't make us bad people though. Oh and my $.02 on photoshop: If Adobe wants us to buy it, maybe they should think about making the price reasonable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonTheSavage Posted January 17, 2008 Share Posted January 17, 2008 I think we have to identify the question. Who said copying software was 'bad' in the first place? Or is it just someone trying to protect profits with faux property? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hecker Posted January 17, 2008 Share Posted January 17, 2008 Well, if it does then I guess I'll meet ya'll in hell! Hahahaha, great. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thespottedelf Posted January 17, 2008 Share Posted January 17, 2008 I like what was said about indie bands vs mr million doller mansion. Really the only things i've pirated i wanted to try before i buy. Cause really i don't have much money because i'm a freshman in Highschool, and getting a job is out of the question. The music i've pirated, my brother owns so that doesn't really bother me. And lets face it, even all of our parents copied a tape lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonTheSavage Posted January 18, 2008 Share Posted January 18, 2008 I like what was said about indie bands vs mr million doller mansion. Really the only things i've pirated i wanted to try before i buy. Cause really i don't have much money because i'm a freshman in Highschool, and getting a job is out of the question. The music i've pirated, my brother owns so that doesn't really bother me. And lets face it, even all of our parents copied a tape lol Exactly. The music industrialists' propaganda has been around since they started in the 1930s with the "Big Band" music. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CompCrasher86 Posted January 28, 2008 Share Posted January 28, 2008 I think that if we feel the need to pirate something than the company is not doing a good enough job of making their product available to everybody. If somebody is pirating the software it is because they either can not afford it or they are too lazy to go to the store, and in almost everybodies case it is the first one. It is pretty natural for humans to desire what they can't have so if they put a high price tag on their software then there will always be that guy who doesn't think he should pay that much. The reason people try to get Leopard working on PC is one of many reasons. A. They do not want to pay an outrageous price for a mac when they have a PC that can run OSX just as well. B. They are adventurous and get thrills out of beating the system and outsmarting the apple developers. C. because they just love tweaking and messing around with computers and D. to sum it all up, just because we love OSX in all of its power and simplicity The reason I want it is this: 1. For my desktop to use garageband and logic for my future podcast 2. For my laptop as an OS that looks sleek, boots up fast, and as a wow factor to show my friends I could put mac on a pc Besides Mac can run windows and Microsoft doesn't give a {censored}. Why can't our PC's run OSX Steve Jobs? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts