What happens if you buy pirated software...

[Rhys]

The problem is that people say they know it's a crime to steal software. They then go ahead and do it anyway. I suspect the difference is that if nobody knows, they can get away with it too often. It does not take much moral fiber to stand up and say "henceforth I shall not pirate software" yet few will do that. It's like driving - there are one-way streets and in the dark when nobody's around is it wrong to drive the wrong way?

Essentially, like photocopying sheet music, books, maps etc this part of law is much more dependent on people being able to police themselves; dependent upon their sense of fair play. Sadly - as we too often see in sporting competitions, the players aren't universally all that sporting.

I have no problem reporting thieves.

 

[gendarmee]

Murder, and Rape, are ghastly and gruesome crimes. It's seems ludicrous to me for anyone to try and draw direct comparisons between stomach-turning violence and software piracy.

I understand why advertisers and advocacy groups do it....they're paid to say silly things. I just don't know why a real person would buy into it in real life.

It's more like stealing some ones work or a job rather.

I stick to free ware as much as i can.
I have a version of PS that came with the camera or use PS CS3 on friends comp for trying out stuff.

Buying CS3 is **** expensive though.phenominal cost.
Here,I can get 2 Extreme config Desktop computers with DDR3 RAM instead, or a Nikon D300!
Wish it were a little fairly priced, depending on how much one is going to profit from it.
I still like the idea of freeware, IMO they can go about it this way in the future, they can have a free version with a decent amount of functions and the professional functions should come as updates only after buying the s/w.
This would curb piracy too a great extent, the user id and code can be verified while the updates are downloaded....some thing like kaspersky antivirus..

 

[Mesoam]

i'm sorry but if you are paying for pirated software you clearly aren't doing something right...

 

[eravedesigns]

blah

 

[mrodgers]

A bit of a different look at piracy. Let's look at Microsoft Windows (hypothetically here). This all assumes buying off-the-shelf systems that do NOT give you a Windows CD, but gives you a "recovery" CD.

You purchase a computer in 1995. With that purchase price you received a paid and registered version of Windows 95. A while goes by and something happens to the computer. You have no idea what could be wrong and figure it's time to buy a new one. Not understanding that components can be reused that aren't bad, you throw that computer away and purchase another computer, again with Windows 95 on it. Guess what you just did? You just paid a 2nd time for a product that you had already paid for.

Now, the next computer you buy has the new Windows 98 on it. You have paid with the purchase price of the computer, a registered version of Win98. Again, this computer goes bad, but you know now that you can save components out of it. So, you save the hard drive, CD burner, ect, and you buy another computer, but you don't get the CD drive, maybe you skimp on RAM because you can add your old ram, etc. But, since you are scared to death about actually building from the ground up, you are buying off-the-shelf again. You pull the cd drive and replace with your cd burner, add the hard drive as a 2nd hard drive. Your buddy is needing a plain CD drive, so you just give him the one you remove.

A while goes by and you have a problem. It's not a hardware problem, it just needs Windows reinstalled. No problem, right? You stick the recovery CD in that has Windows 98 that you've paid twice for in the drive and....... "The hardware does not match the original configuration, you can not reinstall Windows." Huh? Now what? You ask your buddy to borrow the CD drive because your burner is what is giving you the error. Nope, that drive broke so you buddy just tossed it in the trash. What's your option now? I guess the option is to go out and pay a 3RD TIME for the SAME SOFTWARE!

This has happened to me. I've been through 2 computers and have paid twice for Windows 95. I received an old computer with Windows 98 on it. The person I got the Win98 PC from bought a new one that had XP. I swapped the cd drive out for my burner that I had from my old computer and now I can not reinstall Windows on it because the hardware does not match. What did I do? Of course, I have a pirated copy of Win98 for that old machine.

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The second part of some thoughts. The software companies, music companies, and movie companies love to spout how they are loosing money from piracy. Actually, the majority of those who do pirate copies of these products never have the intention of purchasing in the first place. How can they be loosing money on something they would not be making a sale on in the first place?

 

[Rhys]

I never had that problem. My first machine came with an plain Windows 95 CD. My next machine I built from scratch and bought an XP CD.

 

[MACollum]

When my motherboard went out we thought that I was going to have to buy another copy of Windows because all I had was a recovery CD. Luckily all I had to do was call Microsoft (when it wanted an activation number due to hardware incompatibility) and they gave me an activation number.

I'd have been been ticked off if I'd had to buy another copy of Windows.

 

[Stranger]

I do not have a problem with pirated software for personal use. I know a guy who pirated Flash in order to learn it and make sure it was something he wanted to pursuit. After scoring a few webdesign jobs off of flash, he used the income to buy a copy.

I started using photoshop back with PS 6.. I was in grade school at this time and talked my mom into buying me PSP 7 (i want to say). I didnt like the program at all. But of course it was $100 so its not like i would say something. I then got a copy of PS6 and jumped boat and never looked back. At that age, starting off it graphic design was near impossible without friends to get software.

 

[usayit]

You purchase a computer in 1995. With that purchase price you received a paid and registered version of Windows 95. A while goes by and something happens to the computer. You have no idea what could be wrong and figure it's time to buy a new one. Not understanding that components can be reused that aren't bad, you throw that computer away and purchase another computer, again with Windows 95 on it. Guess what you just did? You just paid a 2nd time for a product that you had already paid for.

In general, the licenses that are delivered with a pre-built computer is a license for the O/S on that PARTICULAR machine. Dell, emachines, and the like usually end up putting these license stickers on the machines themselves. This package deal is provided to the consumer by a pre-established agreement between the software vendor and the vendor of the PC hardware. Usually the cost of the license is at a reduced cost to both the hardware vendor and consumer.... but the idea is that the license is for that O/S on THAT machine. This is different from a license of windows which is purchased in a box from a store. You are purchasing a license to use that software (on a single machine of your choosing).

It is a marketing plan to help drive both hardware and software sales.. together. For example, more consumers DO NOT purchase the latest release of Windows from a store. Instead, consumers usually obtain the latest release of Windows via the purchase of a new computer.

So no.. you are completely wrong about purchasing the 2nd license each time you purchase a new computer. COMPLETELY WRONG. What you are purchasing is the right to use Windows license A with computer A.. then at a later time Windows license B with computer B. Only a license that was purchased fully from a store (boxed) is a license to run on machine A, B, C, ... Z.

Read your license agreement... Box license != packaged license. Pretty much the rest of your post is moot.

The second part of some thoughts. The software companies, music companies, and movie companies love to spout how they are loosing money from piracy. Actually, the majority of those who do pirate copies of these products never have the intention of purchasing in the first place. How can they be loosing money on something they would not be making a sale on in the first place?

Stupid B.S. logic always thrown in whenever this topic comes up.... If this is your intention stick to shareware.... That statement has never been proven... In fact, the most pirated software in the industry is entertainment (gaming software). Most if not all are for the most part affordable... just too damn cheap to buy them. Most are played and shelved.... thus never intended to purchase. Still count too? Guess game programming, which involves team of 10s sometimes 100s, of rather difficult topics (game design, 3d mathematical engines, graphics designers, high end real time programming) don't deserve their share.

If I point a loaded gun at your noggin even though I have no intention not to pull the trigger.. would you care?

 

[Rhys]

The cost of producing games and O/Ss is astronomical. It takes years and there are teams of many people. When you get many people you need managers, administrators plus offices and other overheads. Then particularly when you're looking at games you have a very limited shelf life before the game becomes so yesterday. People that pirate never look at the whole picture.

For economy I always recommend buying a new O/S with your new computer but I recommend buying the two separately. Let me give an example of a problem caused by a computer sold with an OS installed...

My Sister-in-law had a computer. It came with XP installed. Somehow that copy got corrupted then somebody trying to fix it loaded Windows 98 on top. I tried my best to recover the original OS but it was impossible. The recovery CD would not work with the system. In the end my sister-in-law had to buy a new OS. Thus I always recommend scrubbing pre-installed O/Ss and installing them yourself. My Compaq laptop came with the whole OS on a CD which is great because I needed to reformat and reinstall as soon as I bought it due to some wierd corruption with the wifi that nobody could resolve. As I have an OS CD I'm unlikely to need to buy an OS CD but I could be unlucky at some point.

Meanwhile, anybody noticed how long Vista took to develop? Or XP? It took years and hundreds of programmers. Don't they deserve to eat?

OK. Let's look at Bill Gates - he is the father of the modern computer and indeed of modern business. Without him it is unlikely that you would be sitting, using a PC. His team brought you Windows. His buddy brought you OSX. Linux would never have existed had Linus Torvalds not had an MSDOS based PC in front of him. The PC exists because of Bill Gates. Before that everybody used things like the Commodore PET or linked up to a mainframe.

Bill Gates has had to fight thieves all his life - this is why Windows is so expensive. Every copy purchased has to pay for every copy pirated. Putting Windows on computers pre-sale is just about the only way he can make sure that people don't just buy a PC and then put a pirated OS. Yes it is anticompetitive but what other choice has he?

Piracy drove us to product keys then to online product key activation and the battle has not been won yet. It's rather like the war on terror. We all need to pull our weight in order that as a civilisation we can all move forward.

Every act of piracy reduces the income of the software house. That has a knock on for software R&D. You want Photoshop 21 so you must pay for Photoshop 9 rather than get one from a dodgy guy on a street corner with a bunch of them tucked under his dirty raincoat. It's fine to use a legitimately obtained Photoshop 2 until the end of time - if that's all you want.

All I'm calling for is fair play. Fair pay for a fair day's work. Would you like people to take your images and use them commercially without paying, claiming that you sell so many you won't notice one missed sale? Then a lot of people saying the same thing?

 

[Rhys]

I really don't know how to make my message any clearer.

 

[Chris of Arabia]

Gents,

Not too sure that posting a picture of others members without their consent is such a good idea. Report it to the Mods and leave it at that if you have a concern.

 

[patrickt]

Here's an example that might be closer to home. Suppose you take a great photo and sell it to someone for $100. A month later you learn that your customer had prints made and had given them to 23 friends and was selling them at a flea market. Any problem with pirated photos?

 

[AlexParlett]

On the windows front, i was very lucky, work gave me and Xp Pro disk, with unlimited license use, so ive never had a problem with OS, weve always had full copies (supplied with a new pc or via work) of 95, 98, 2000 and XP, unfortunately, my latest only came with a recovery disk of vista, but wiped it for Xp anyway, i dont think vista is ready.

However, on the student from, i think that it is limited on software, i agree that yes you have the software supplied at your place of study, however, you dont do all your work there, you are set work that you may need to do on your own time and cant get at the supplied PCs. A good work around would be a license that lasts the duration of your course and then runs out.

On pirated front, i dont agree with it, but i also dont agree with the high prices, however everything is supplied with full licenses to me by work so ive never come to the problem of having to decide about it.

 

[easily_amused]

People who steal software can't be too bright in the first place.

Ever hear if Trojan horses? Viruses? other nasties that can be packaged along with that wonderful 'free' software?

People will eventually get what they deserve.