Continuing the Fight Against Piracy.

severedsolo · 15 Jan 2010

i am going to hold my hands up here and say i have actually recently downloaded a pirated game, but for a (good?) reason,

basically, my girlfriend bought a very old game, with some very dodgy copy protection on it, and it borked windows, not majorly, nothing a sys restore couldnt fix, so i went and downloaded her a pirated copy to get around the copy protection so she could play it, now to me, thats actually fair enough, i mean she did pay for it, i just got a less than legit copy for her actually to play, although i know this is kind of a grey area

jfar · 15 Jan 2010

Might be a good time to introduce some music to the discussion,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tqxzWdKKu8

patio · 15 Jan 2010

seekermeister said:

Lens Pirate,

I do not consider "try before you buy" to be stealing, as long as it ends up in a purchase or removal of the software. One might term it borrowing, not stealing. Without an actual trial, acquiring software is a grab bag, once paid for there are usually no refunds. As far as I'm concerned, any software that doesn't permit a trial period should be illegal.

Think i'll "borrow" that new Mustang convertible for a few months and see if i want to buy one...

jfar · 15 Jan 2010

patio said:

seekermeister said:

Lens Pirate,

I do not consider "try before you buy" to be stealing, as long as it ends up in a purchase or removal of the software. One might term it borrowing, not stealing. Without an actual trial, acquiring software is a grab bag, once paid for there are usually no refunds. As far as I'm concerned, any software that doesn't permit a trial period should be illegal.

Think i'll "borrow" that new Mustang convertible for a few months and see if i want to buy one...

Play that music from the post above you, in that beautiful Mustang car and
let us know what you think of it,

seekermeister · 15 Jan 2010

patio said:

Think i'll "borrow" that new Mustang convertible for a few months and see if i want to buy one...

Wrong brand...buy a Chevy and you get a free 60 day trial. Even with Mustang, a person can at least get a trial drive before buying, and it is backed up with a guarantee. That guarantee doesn't include a long list of known issues, nor does one have to buy a new one each year, just to keep it running. After the warranty has expired, one can still get plenty of mechanics that can repair it, which can't be said about most software, because of it's source code being kept secret.

valtonray · 16 Jan 2010

seekermeister said:

patio said:

Think i'll "borrow" that new Mustang convertible for a few months and see if i want to buy one...

Wrong brand...buy a Chevy and you get a free 60 day trial. Even with Mustang, a person can at least get a trial drive before buying, and it is backed up with a guarantee. That guarantee doesn't include a long list of known issues, nor does one have to buy a new one each year, just to keep it running. After the warranty has expired, one can still get plenty of mechanics that can repair it, which can't be said about most software, because of it's source code being kept secret.

agreed i dont know of a single auto manufacturer that doesn't offer at least a 72 hour test drive, i usually know within 2-3 rather i want to make a software purchase based on testing it out. and ford let my sister keep an explorer to test drive for about 9 months after one of their dealerships sold her car while she was on the original test drive period. they never even asked for her to return it but she took it back one day and bought a different one without the mileage, not to mention they gave her more for her car then they actually sold it for.

Tews · 16 Jan 2010

This sounds like pure sophistry ... apples and oranges ... while I agree it would be a nice idea in principle, the fact remains that it is not going to happen... what ever happened to the concept of personal integrity and doing the right thing because its the right thing to do?

severedsolo · 16 Jan 2010

people always bring up cars when discussing piracy, the difference is, if a car is made badly, you can get a refund/replacement, if you buy buggy software, your stuck with it.

slightly off tangent here, but i think that the EULA for software should be on the outside of the box, you try taking your software back because you dont agree to the EULA, good luck with that, possibly the only "for" argument i can think of for the "try before you buy" idea, at least you get to read the EULA without parting wit your cash

brayway · 16 Jan 2010

pparks1 said:

Indiana Jones said:

It's interesting how many people(in this forum, for example) actually paid for their OS.:)

Well, with respects to my OS...I simply don't trust a pirated version of the OS running on my machine. To me, it's like buying a really crappy off-brand mobo and then plugging all state of the art components into it...a bad base just isn't going to lead to good results.

For many people, their OS's are legit because it came with the computer they purchased. While many of us here like to build our own machines...there are probably quite a large number of people who just bought an off the shelf prebuilt machine which of course came with a properly licensed and paid for operating system.

As jimbo mentioned, many around these parts have invested in a Technet subscription. For $250-$350..you get handfuls of licenses for all of the Windows desktop OS's, server OS's and Office products. For many, paying that sum of money to have legit copies and licenses for that many products is simply worth it.

For me, it's a matter or principle. I'm a fan of Linux and open source. But I also feel that Windows and commercial software has it's place. However, I don't believe that I can praise the benefits of running Microsoft Windows without having to be subject to the cost and licensing restrictions. So, for me, I have to pay the $200 or so for the OS and then find the value of doing so in order to tell others that it's a good OS. If I don't feel it's worth the $200...then I should just run something that doesn't cost $200...and there are tons of options available.

The reason i do what i said i do is because it is now quite rare to find a trial of games

so that is a way of having a trial, u try it for like an hr, if i like it i buy it, if i dont like it i will uninstall it then delete the downloaded files. But if there is a trial for it i will just use that.

valtonray · 16 Jan 2010

agreed, not every product we consider purchasing has an available demo, and since i don't know a single place that will refund a software purchase because im unhappy with it or because it doesn't run i my computer it would be easy for a user to acquire hundreds or even thousands of dollars in software they can't use. some of the or sometimes you may find a demo but it has features locked on it, sometimes these feature can be the most appealing part of the program. say for instance ms released a demo of 7 but it didn't have the superbar functions, or all the window snap and shake features included, whats the point of testing a gimped version? now lets say i have a random task that im not likely to have to repeat on a regular basis, i'm naturally not going to buy an expensive product i may only use 1 time, but im not going to pirate that program either, i'll simply find an open source alternative or trial program that allows me to accomplish the task at hand, notice i had no intention to buy a product, so in my instance i wouldn't use a pirated copy to test it. everytime i've pirated a software i've either bought that program or found an alternative better suited to my needs, i don't really feel like thats wrong.