Answer Truthfully Now...

[stefcep2]

All my Amiga OS's are legal:  OS 3.1, 3.5,3.9; Amiga productivity software I use frequently is legal: Cinema 4D, MakeCD, Wordworth 7 Office, Scala DPaint Brilliance PPaint, Ibrowse 2.4, Clarissa

I still have a tonne of other pirated amiga stuff but I hardly use it:  Photogenics, ImageFx, MiamiDX

I have NO legal amiga games, but TBH I hardly play them, except for Deluxe Pacman and Deluxe Galaga.

Win XP, Win 7,  Office 2003 all legal, but a MS employee gave them to me with licence keys for free.  

A copy of Cinema 4d 5 for PC i got off a magazine and I use it a lot more than a pirated copy of C4D v 10.  Tons of emulators with pirated roms, but I have the originals (SNES, N64, PSone) as well which I prefer, mostly.

My net and email stuff is on Ubuntu exclusively, and thats all free.

My rule is if i use it regularly I'll buy it.

[stefcep2]

"If you want a "free" game, your best bet is to shoplift. Worst case, you'll pay a small fine and have a misdemeanor on your record. If you copy the game, however, you could end up paying $150,000 per copy, spend a few years in jail, get gang raped, and lose your right to vote."

Really?  Is there any case where someone copied a single time and had to pay any legal penalty?  On the other hand, shoplifting a single time can result in legal action.  I think a better comparison would be: the individual copying thousands of items compared with the individual that shoplifted thousands of times.  In both cases, the penalties could be quite steep.

What about the kid that copied Super MArio Galaxy and go fined half a mill

[stefcep2]

Yeah, this one kills me too.  "Oh man do you want Adobe CS (whatever the current revision # is)?!  This costs like $1500 and I just snagged a copy from bittorrent..."  So you can what?  Put a lens flare on your webpage logo?  Maybe do a color gradient?  

Again, GIMP is free, and between it and paint.net I'd say 99% of folks don't need much more.

Its why i still use Cinema 4D v 5 on PC even though I have Cinema 4D v10.  I took one look at the interface and realised i could do what I wanted quicker with V5.  Sure v10 has a gazillion more features, but unless you're a professional animator working with James Cameron how many of those will you use and how long will it take to learn to use them well?

[stefcep2]

But you're about to imply that there is absolutely no way that we could be running legally clean systems. That we're lying.

It's called open source software, you might want to look into it.

You might be now, but I seriously doubt you NEVER did.  And I'm not talking about Ubuntu shipit.

Its not unheard of for games developers to use pirated graphics software to create their games and then bitch about their games being pirated.

I'm with Franko.  I refuse to believe that  someone has purchased all their software/media new, or paid all their shareware reg fees, in their entire computing history.

[stefcep2]

IMO the biggest copyright issue is that of copyrighting human genes.  Hospitals have to pay licensing fees for diagnostic tests that have the potential to identify the risk of cancer in an individual, but if the patient won't pay upto $4000 in fees, they won't be told of their risk, and that could adversally effect their health outcome.  In Aus there is a major gov't enquiry on if its possibly to copyright genes, most of which have been patentetd by US companies and licensed to local labs.

[stefcep2]

Interesting topic, but surely no one else could claim copyright on an individuals genes as you would be the owner and anyone using your genes would be infringing on your copyrights... could be a whole new thread that one...

Well AFAIK, the genes that code for most (like >99%) of  human proteins are identical from person to person.  Certain mutations on certain genes cause certain diseases.  There are companies that know the presence of which genes cause cancers like breast cancers and bowel cancer, but you have to pay a licensing fee to be told if you have that particular gene sequence.  For breast cancer, if a patient wants to know if they have the genetic sequence that has a high probability of causing cancer, the patient has to pay a "licensing fee" of $4000.

In Aus the Court case to make gene patents illegal, centres on the fact that human genes are not "innovations", but rather "discoveries" and therefore not patentable.

[stefcep2]

Whatever, but this is not what the question in the poll is asking:

So what does it mean if you have it but don't use it?

[stefcep2]

If you don't use it, then, logically you can't currently be using it, so the answer would seem to be "no".

logically.

But the arguments have taken on an emotive track.

Leander felt he was being treated with "contempt" for not being believed.  He expressed some strong emotions, calling Franko a "muppet", (something he regularly resorts to whenever someone doesn't agree with his POV, but never seems to be moderated for.)

Along the same lines was this @LoadWB:

What I find interesting in this thread is the apparent contempt for anyone who would purport to not use any pirated (unpaid-for copyrighted) software. The label of "Mother Teresa" and the claim of a "mundane life" stinks of elitism in the face of a full lack of holier-than-thou from anyone else, which has existed to a large extent in other threads.

The problem I have with this is that unless you've NEVER used unpaid/pirated software then it lacks credibility to be so precious ie "Oh yes I USED to have pirated software, but I don't anymore, so now I take deep personal offense that you dare question that I no longer do".

[stefcep2]

I think a person that has sincerely reformed themselves has every right to be offended at having their sincerity questioned on the basis of their previous behaviour.

Would you think it fair to exhibit the same brand of cynicism towards someone claiming to be teetotal and "never touching a drop" on the basis of their previous alcoholism?

"Oh come on, you must have a wee tipple every now and again! You used to sink bottles of the stuff!"

No but if it were me I wouldn't be incredulous about it and would understand why someone might have their doubts.

[stefcep2]

Oh lookit, the goalposts are being moved!



Mmmm, what delicious butthurt you have there.

You use "butthurt" a lot in your posts. Is there something that you want to bring out into the open?  C'mon your secret will be safe here amongst friend..you might even feel better letting it out in the open.

[stefcep2]

Subjective, really. Muppet is pretty innocuous. If somebody called me a muppet, I'd be pretty unfazed. Personal insults are a rum do, but you have to keep a sense of scale.

OK. so the standard is YOUR subjective opinion? And its not a one off.

If one takes offence at being called a muppet by a complete stranger for suggesting it is unbelievable that someone actually uses a "clean" system, then they should also realise that it is equally (if not a lot more) insulting to have your honesty questioned by a complete stranger.

if that person has NEVER used pirated software EVER, yeah thats understandable.  But not if they say "I've used software illegally, but as eg of a few months ago", I don't.  But then to start jumping up and down and throwing insults when some reasonable doubt is expressed is simply over the top.  Maybe a case of "me thinks he doth protest too much"