Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: ElPolloDiabl on May 11, 2010, 04:58:16 PM
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Hi, a poll for the old days, how many pirated games or productivity software did you have in your collection at it's peak. Don't count anything post 1997 seeing how it became hard to get a legal copy. If you replaced your pirated software with a legal copy in that time frame, don't count that either.
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Too much to count, I've never actually bought a single program in my entire life for any platform.
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I never downloaded pirated games myself from BBS boards or wherever and can't think of anyone that did. But I did end up trading a couple of baseball card sized boxes of games for a couple of SNES games back in the day. lol
Thing that also discouraged me from copying disks among the few friends that had Amigas, was that the copiers themselves were usually $50+. If I had that much money to spend on a game, I'd just as soon have the box, manual, etc. Guess I'm strange that way :)
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well its hard to know exactly how many pirated games I had, but who could afford to buy all games? well I for sure had about 1000 disks containing copied software of some sort, since I was a bit into the scene back them Ihad quite alot and was main distributer in the city where I lived. Im not prood but I had fun and I do not regret anything.
Tho I allways bought the great games that I loved and I thought was worth the money, so I had about 150 original games and still got about 50 of them even this day in my stoorage (a few prized games I loved is on display in my computer room)
But as said over 1000 disks and mabe near 2k its hard to keep track of. But nowdays I can afford all software I want on all consoles and PC, to justify it im a collector of many old consoles and I have alot of original games for most consoles ever made :) I even buy all RPG titles that releases for PS3 even if they are good or not :)
Edit: As many here knows we had some pretty nice BBSes in gothenburg at that time :)
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Having a modem in the old days and you were still in school was like having a Santa Claus machine. When I got my modem all the pirate BBS had closed.
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"15"?
How about times a hundred or so. Today, even more.
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If you replaced your pirated software with a legal copy in that time frame, don't count that either.
The try before you buy method. ;)
There may be some Toaster related apps and AsimCDFS on my system that were not legal distubution at the time.
World Construction Set. Very in-depth program that is tough to use without the printed manual.
Bootlegged a load of games through the Amiga club.
I'd have to say that all the titles that I had gotten as "back up" copies were eventually purchased new or used and the back-ups tossed into the product box.
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The problem is not if you had pirated games in the past, but why you had?
For example, in my country, even when Amiga was very popular, it was really rare to find an original game to buy, so the only option was a pirated copy.
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My games collection weren't monster huge, but propably 10 games bought and 40 or 50 pirated.
These days I buy my games, since I want to ensure that developers who do linux games continue to do so
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The problem is not if you had pirated games in the past, but why you had?
For example, in my country, even when Amiga was very popular, it was really rare to find an original game to buy, so the only option was a pirated copy.
For me it never was a money issue, it was more the scene and the way I lived back then, the comunity and the great scene parties and gatherings. Oh memories *a tear runs down my cheek*
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Alot!
I did buy the odd gem here and there but mostly i got copies. It was just to easy & readily available.
Back in the very early 90's, everyone local to me bought the Amiga not just because it was an Awesome machine, but also as they could get the games for nothing, minus the price of the blank floppies and postage costs.
While it may have played a small part in the Amiga's downfall, easy access to pirated software help shift quite a percentage of Amiga's to.
Going back further though, my C64 , well i bought every single game, i really cant remember any pirate software there. I also buy 90+ % of my PC games to, which is only a few a year though.
Looking back, i wish i did buy more games, but i was young, broke and it was just easy.
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I've never felt bad about pirating software, quite the opposite actually. I've saved a lot of money! I used to have box after box after box full of discs. Back in the day I used to get up with friends on weekends and have copy parties. Everybody would bring their machines and we'd hang out and drink beer play games and copy copy copy. Those were the days.
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Very little, to be honest. I tried a few games and applications that I invariably got from other people. Anything I liked I bought (after all, manuals etc are nice to have), anything I didn't I just formatted over and reused the disks.
I was also quite into PD stuff at the time. One of my local computer shops used to stock Fred Fish and many other good collections of free/shareware.
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15? Are you kidding? Sheesh, we would get 15 in a night!
79th Track, Only Amiga, Fear and Loathing...so many BBS sites combined with PC-Pursuit rocked!
I didn't know anybody who didn't do this. I'm sure it hurt the software market a great deal on the Amiga but with everybody coming from the Commodore 64 it was just the way things were... I mean the Commodore 64 sold so well because of piracy! I always heard that Commodore said "Piracy sells computers!"
It was the Golden Time of the scene...ESI, Bencor Brothers, Razor 1911, The Firm, boy times were much simpler...
79th Track had these awesome util disks that were just fantastic!
I know it wasn't right but at the time I was a 17 year old kid with no money. I'm going to buy WordPerfect or Aztec C for the Amiga? Yeah, right...
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I spent a lot of money on software back in the day (early 80's and 90's), and pirating software was not an option for me. Today, I take advantage of trial software and if I find it useful I purchase it. With older software that is no longer being sold or available I find myself procuring it from wherever I can.:)
The Dawg
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Hi, a poll for the old days, how many pirated games or productivity software did you have in your collection at it's peak. Don't count anything post 1997 seeing how it became hard to get a legal copy. If you replaced your pirated software with a legal copy in that time frame, don't count that either.
Hi,
Believe it or not I did not have one pirated game until Arctic Fox, I was buying all my Amiga Software, then when Commodore changed the OS from 1.0 to 1.1, my Arctic Fox would not play anymore on my Amiga 1000, I contacted the software company that produced it and received a smart butt answer. Well on that day my whole idea of buying software changed, I broke and busted every piece of software that was copy protected, but if the software wasn't copy protected I bought it, simple as that.
smerf
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Hi,
Believe it or not I did not have one pirated game until Arctic Fox, I was buying all my Amiga Software, then when Commodore changed the OS from 1.0 to 1.1, my Arctic Fox would not play anymore on my Amiga 1000, I contacted the software company that produced it and received a smart butt answer. Well on that day my whole idea of buying software changed, I broke and busted every piece of software that was copy protected, but if the software wasn't copy protected I bought it, simple as that.
smerf
Yeah, EA was not big on patching their software with new revisions of the OS. OS 1.0 and 1.1 was pretty horrible so when Kickstart 1.2 shipped with the new Amiga 500s there was a lot of software form them that just wouldn't work. I always got the impression that it wasn't so much their code as the copy protection would break with the updates to the OS. Way to go EA...
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0. Bought about 50, most abroad via mail order. But inherited about 100 cracks from leaving amigans, stuffed with 10 - 20 different virii...
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Back in the day, I had very few Amiga games, they were all original. In the year 2000 I started collecting Amiga software, mostly pirated warez kind of stuff.
But I have to say that nowadays the only software which I try to legally buy, is Amiga software. I have registered a few shareware Amiga packages lately, but then it is obvious, that some titles are only found as abbandonware/pirated no matter how you call them.
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This poll probably should have been ordered:
None
A few
A good bit
A lot
Truckloads
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I never had pirated software for my Amiga - I had no access to BBS and I was the only one of my friends who owned a computer - they all had Atari, NES, etc.
Speaking of Piracy - check out this article. http://blog.wolfire.com/2010/05/Another-view-of-game-piracy
I do believe Piracy doesn't hurt game sales nearly as much software vendors claim.
Everyone I know who won't pirate only buy 4-5 PC games a year and maybe a few more console games cause of the used prices they can get them at a Gamestop, etc.
My friends that do pirate - they have hundreds and eventually only end up really playing a few - and still buy 3-4 games a year cause they can't pirate on consoles easily or its a game in a series they always have bought. So we still spend about the same each year on games - they just monkey around with more than I do.
I write software for a living so I just choose not to pirate - plus installing hacks, mods, utilities, etc is the best way to hose a machine and some of my friends have gotten eat up with viruses!
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15 a year more like! Why? Simple, after seeing what a hash most coin-op conversions were and all the ST ports shoved in our faces for 5 bucks more than the ST version I was not impressed.
However, Cinemaware ALWAYS got my hard earned cash, as did some of the other original games programmers like Sword of Sodan and Hybris/Battlesquadron group (Discovery) and a few others like Lotus II/Kid Chaos by Magnetic Fields/Gremlin.
Another thing that really annoyed me was magazine reviews, they would wax lyrical about pathetic conversions like Gauntlet II when everyone here with an IQ in even double figures knows Amiga Gauntlet should have looked and played identically to the arcade. So....there were jiffy bags full of disks arriving weekly, and most got formatted or traded back to others.
What made me laugh was people like Ocean/US Gold claiming how bad piracy was but they never admitted just how horrible things like Chase HQ/Outrun really was. Had these companies made the effort to even use 75% of the potential of the Amiga chipset perhaps people would pirate less ;) I never changed my attitude, unless a demo disk showed me just how awesome a game was I played it first on pirate. Last full price game I gladly handed over a wedge of cash for was Super Stardust AGA, if everyone put that much technical effort into their productions I would have bought a lot more....simple as that.
On a side note, Microsoft NEVER deserve a penny of my money until the day the US courts grow a pair and smash them into tiny little companies a la IBM for all their dirty scummy tactics in keeping Windows on 95% market share! And it was the same with my ST also, Gauntlet 1 and Magnetic Scrolls beautiful adventures got my cash without regret.
The software companies have themselves to blame for piracy levels. there was no excuse for crap like Outrun/Chase HQ....especially when Lotus II Turbo Challenge showed the Amiga world just what they should have looked like.
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I had alot back in the day, but one thing no one mentioned is how incredibly annoying real bought games could be, even today.
I bought a crapload of boxed games for amiga when I got a new 1200.
I was so annoyed with finding manuals and typing in codes and all that nonsense, I quickly gave the boxed games away and got whdload versions.
If I pay for a game, I don't want to go hunting for a manual, which was the most common form of copy protection back then. Its like I paid for being annoyed like this?
Now I realize, they had to do something, but that shit just irked me, back in the day, and now even more.
Steven
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Back in the days I used to drag my Amiga's to clubs, and Xcopy ran more hours than any game I have played.
On the simple note that I couldn't afford games, they would cost anywhere between 50 and 100 guilders or more.
I paid 50 for my first Amiga 500 which was from my aunt.
I was in high school, dind't have a job or anything, so this was the only way, look nicely at my father, dump everything in his van and off we went.
Every 1st or 2nd saturday of the month I was running floppy's trough the drives and my father paid most of them, usually when I got some cash from my grand father and mom that went into new packs of DS DD disks.
Sure, I would love to have bought some, but it wasn't easy to get games anyway in the Netherlands, there was always far to little stock.
And even if stores had it, I always had to go to cities kilometres away, sending it by mail was almost 7/10 times a fail because the disks were bent or damaged.
On my pc most things are bought, only have a few trial versions of FTP programs and compression tools and all games are bought.
Cause now I have the money to buy games for my pc.
Windows 7 is a OEM paid for and also MS Office 2007.
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When I switched from the C64 to my first Amiga I made the choice to only go for purchased software. It meant I didn't have all the latest games, but it did mean that I really had time to play the ones I had. Back on the C64 when I had loads and loads of tapes with pirated games I really only loaded them up, played for a minute and said "Next!".
For productivity software I mostly relied on Amiga Format and CU Amiga cover disks. :)
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Having invested in application software development and distribution for the Amiga platform only to find it being copied between users I learned early on, make the money from the hardware, normal users cannot copy that.
Still it was true piracy helped to kill the Amiga application market but was not the only reason for its downfall, but it was the reason for software vendors moving to other platforms. As for games, well I never got involved in games.
So here is a question, if a company invested in bringing software back to the Amiga would people copy that. Do people believe software has a value or a developers hard work should be given away for free. All I can say is I hope that chefs out there will cook me dinner for free, and builders sort my roof out for free :-)
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This poll probably should have been ordered:
None
A few
A good bit
A lot
Truckloads
Indeed, and I would have answered truckloads! 15 disks in one night would have been a slow night.
I do believe Piracy doesn't hurt game sales nearly as much software vendors claim.
Everyone I know who won't pirate only buy 4-5 PC games a year and maybe a few more console games cause of the used prices they can get them at a Gamestop, etc.
My friends that do pirate - they have hundreds and eventually only end up really playing a few - and still buy 3-4 games a year cause they can't pirate on consoles easily or its a game in a series they always have bought. So we still spend about the same each year on games - they just monkey around with more than I do.
+1
Exactly. I had thousands of games and programs I copied. Of course, the few things that actually turned out to be good or useful I ended up purchasing, or purchasing the next version to. Most of the productivity software I used on a routine basis was all legally purchased, and I'd almost always end up buying a game if I really liked it and it was available in NTSC.
Most of the pirated stuff that wasn't replaced with legitimate versions was stuff I either tried and didn't like or tried and liked, but didn't have a real use for. It spent most of its time collecting dust. Still does, as a matter of fact. It's all stuff I never would have purchased had piracy not been available.
In fact, I'd go as far as to say piracy drove software sales. I'd probably never have purchased any of the Final Writer series had I not downloaded a copy of it and found out how much better it was than the free Textcraft that came with my A500. I probably wouldn't have bought Wings, either, as the box and reviews didn't come close to capturing how fun the game was. If I hadn't have pirated Worms, would I have jumped with glee at the chance to buy Worms: DC? Probably not....
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Arrgh, all the time and still today
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So here is a question, if a company invested in bringing software back to the Amiga would people copy that. Do people believe software has a value or a developers hard work should be given away for free. All I can say is I hope that chefs out there will cook me dinner for free, and builders sort my roof out for free :-)
Mostly depends on price. I like winzip, use it a lot and reinstall it every time it expires, but the $50 price tag is too high. $25 would be fairer. You could see it as $25 loss, but considering I'm not going to pay $50 anyway, it's a lost sale.
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I bought my first A500 from a girl who had WALL CABINETS 4 metres by 2.5 metres high with drawers full of pirated software. She threw in a box full of pirated software-mostly games for free. When I saw she had every piece of commercial software ever made for next to nothing I was hooked and ended up buying a 100 or so games from her. But what I found was that games didn't really interest me for long. I think many people pirated games simply beacsue they could, and probably never played most of them much, having it for the sake of having it.
My Amiga habit really kicked in when I got Real 3D version 1.4 off Amiga Format. I then realised that productivity software was what I wanted, and to make the most of it, I needed manuals (and the tutorials in CU Amiga, Amiga Format and ACAR). So I bought legitimate copies of Wordworth (3,5,6 and Office), DPaint 4 and 5, Brilliance 2, Scala 3, Cinema 4D v 4. And HEAPS of software on the magazine covers, some of which I upgraded, for the manuals eg Vista Pro, Image FX.
One app I never purchased was Lightwave, but I did use a pirated copy, but for its plaudits, I preferred Cinema 4D: Workbench look and feel, easier to learn, quality rendering engine, faster interface and faster rendering. So even if I could afford the $1299 asking price, I wouldn't have bought lightwave.
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Back in the day I had lots of originally owned software. Amiga software was cheap and of high quality. These days I have a mega collection of no longer available software that I ahve looked for but alas no support so I purchased some from a collector. Whenever somethign cool and commercial comes up I'll get it... Mostly CD32 games and floppy stuff, and of course Amiga Forever etc.
Funny though in the C-64 days we would have the Commodore 64 Swap Shop after school. We would all bring in equipment and blatantly copy software. We didn't realize how crazy that was. Even the school was cool with it. Imagine that today with the PC and MAC? The FBI would sieze your property, you'd have your picture in the papaer. You'd be slashdotted. Blacklisted.
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Mostly depends on price. I like winzip, use it a lot and reinstall it every time it expires, but the $50 price tag is too high. $25 would be fairer. You could see it as $25 loss, but considering I'm not going to pay $50 anyway, it's a lost sale.
I feel mostly the same regarding software. The most I am ever willing to spend on a specific software product is $25 dollars. Unless this software is going to cure cancer and HIV alltogether, I am not willing to spend a dime more. It is unreasonable from a home user perspective to pay more than that. It is absolutely different from a corporate perspective.
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Hmm...
I'd say 90% of the software I had was pirated.
I'm my time on the Amiga I bought about 4 original games and 1 piece of productivity software (the ADPro scanner-driver package).
Since 1992 I've never purchased any software at all... I've been lucky enough to have corporate editions of all the key packages I need (WinXP, Win7, Office, etc) and also use 70% of freeware stuff.
Mike.
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Fanscale is a time traveling piracy cop! He'll go back to the past and arrest you all using the information you provide here in the future! BEWARE!!!!
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The best things in life are free...
The user's group I belonged to had disk copying parties...
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well as a young 64 owner, I can say I only bought 3 games and had hundreds..man 300 baud went a long way back then..I can still hear my brother yelling to close the damn phone:roflmao:by the time I got an Amiga I was in my late teens and had a part time job while going to school so I bought most of the programs I had for the manuals and support
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Its obvious that software piracy on the Amiga was HUGE, probably as high as 90% of all software being used was not purchased.
I've always maintained that for all of Commodores mismanagement, software piracy played the decisive move in killing the Amiga eventually. Which programmer in his right mind would spend countless hours of his professional time and then not get paid, and then make MORE software? No software=dead platform eventually
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Although I chose 1-5, I had many more in the "eLiT3" :) area of my BBS.
( if anyone tells you their BBS didn't have an exclusive area don't believe them!, Every Sysop I knew had one)
The copies I did have were the ones I rarely played, not sure if I didn't play them because they were crap or because they were copies...
For me, I always ended up buying the commercial version of whatever it was I used (SAS/C, FinalWriter,DPaint, Photon Paint etc. ) I didn't like not having manuals & boxes for my software but I tend to be a little anal about these things.
Reflecting on it, I am sorry that I did have any cracked software on my BBS, perhaps vendors and publishers would have supported the Amiga longer if copied software hadn't been so readily available.
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Its obvious that software piracy on the Amiga was HUGE, probably as high as 90% of all software being used was not purchased.
I've always maintained that for all of Commodores mismanagement, software piracy played the decisive move in killing the Amiga eventually. Which programmer in his right mind would spend countless hours of his professional time and then not get paid, and then make MORE software? No software=dead platform eventually
I don't agree. Back then the software companies did everything to make their software look better than the competition. Amiga fell behind in price/performance. They also tolerated piracy because it was free advertising.
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and yet, some of the best amiga games came out in the 92-94 era, where commodore was going tits up.
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Its obvious that software piracy on the Amiga was HUGE, probably as high as 90% of all software being used was not purchased.
I've always maintained that for all of Commodores mismanagement, software piracy played the decisive move in killing the Amiga eventually. Which programmer in his right mind would spend countless hours of his professional time and then not get paid, and then make MORE software? No software=dead platform eventually
I don't agree. Back then the software companies did everything to make their software look better than the competition. Amiga fell behind in price/performance. They also tolerated piracy because it was free advertising.
Yes in a way piracy and the ease of locating any game from your local friendly market stall holder for next to nothing did certainly help the sales of A500s grow sure.
I don't buy that it killed the Amiga market though, because from the way the software companies were talking around the launch of the A1200 you would think there was no PC piracy at all and Amiga users were much more prolific in the art of parrot balancing on the shoulder. Well sorry to burst that bubble but even my university lecturer was cracking original PC games, he did Lemmings for one, and then trained it and copied me the disk! It was all just an excuse to save a tiny amount of money and any effort to port a game to Amiga after PC. Within the first week of owning my PC I had everything I wanted, hell I spent more on blank HD disk bulk purchases for PC games than on the Amiga....and some were actually competently coded like Super SF2 for PC with VGA and 16bit audio.
The PC games market growing beyond the pathetic boring gaudy coloured experience that it was in the 80s is entirely Commodore's fault. People were crying out for the type of games that needed more colours/better sound/faster CPU. People weren't stupid, they played various coin-ops and wanted the same quality at home. But Commodore sat on it's ass and let their golden egg laying goose that was the Amiga chipset go rotten through lack of development. Truth is AGA was two years too late and at least a 16mhz A500 should have been the norm for 1990 onwards.
So software companies only have themselves to blame after making PC games ALL hard disk installable and on standard format floppy disks AND for making such pathetic versions of technically sophisticated coin ops like Powerdrift and Turbo Outrun. Even Team 17 finally gave up on Commodore and put some resource into World Rally Fever, an excellent Powerdrift clone that ran as good as a Sega arcade even with the cheapest 486SX and ISA graphics card.
And Commodore also only have themselves to blame. 14 mhz and zero 3D/texture mapping hardware assistance in 1994 for 400 smackers? We all knew it was coming, bad conversions and mediocre hardware upgrade = gravy train derailed! 8bit sound and low density disk drives were just the cherry ontop of the $hit sundae let's face it. Hell even a lack of 512k of fast ram on A1200 meant 3D games were running 50% the potential speed of the already compromised CPU speed decision they made. It's laughable really....except I wasn't laughing being an devoted Amiga fan who desperately didn't want to have to find an alternative to an overpriced A4000/040.
But I still buy a game if it is worth it, simple as that. Unfortunately the last PC game I felt like owning was from 2005....Sony has consistently built PC killing consoles 3x in a row now. Killzone 2 just isn't possible even now on a £250 PC. Crazy world!
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Yes in a way piracy and the ease of locating any game from your local friendly market stall holder for next to nothing did certainly help the sales of A500s grow sure.
I don't buy that it killed the Amiga market though, because from the way the software companies were talking around the launch of the A1200 you would think there was no PC piracy at all and Amiga users were much more prolific in the art of parrot balancing on the shoulder. Well sorry to burst that bubble but even my university lecturer was cracking original PC games, he did Lemmings for one, and then trained it and copied me the disk! It was all just an excuse to save a tiny amount of money and any effort to port a game to Amiga after PC. Within the first week of owning my PC I had everything I wanted, hell I spent more on blank HD disk bulk purchases for PC games than on the Amiga....and some were actually competently coded like Super SF2 for PC with VGA and 16bit audio.
The PC games market growing beyond the pathetic boring gaudy coloured experience that it was in the 80s is entirely Commodore's fault. People were crying out for the type of games that needed more colours/better sound/faster CPU. People weren't stupid, they played various coin-ops and wanted the same quality at home. But Commodore sat on it's ass and let their golden egg laying goose that was the Amiga chipset go rotten through lack of development. Truth is AGA was two years too late and at least a 16mhz A500 should have been the norm for 1990 onwards.
So software companies only have themselves to blame after making PC games ALL hard disk installable and on standard format floppy disks AND for making such pathetic versions of technically sophisticated coin ops like Powerdrift and Turbo Outrun. Even Team 17 finally gave up on Commodore and put some resource into World Rally Fever, an excellent Powerdrift clone that ran as good as a Sega arcade even with the cheapest 486SX and ISA graphics card.
And Commodore also only have themselves to blame. 14 mhz and zero 3D/texture mapping hardware assistance in 1994 for 400 smackers? We all knew it was coming, bad conversions and mediocre hardware upgrade = gravy train derailed! 8bit sound and low density disk drives were just the cherry ontop of the $hit sundae let's face it. Hell even a lack of 512k of fast ram on A1200 meant 3D games were running 50% the potential speed of the already compromised CPU speed decision they made. It's laughable really....except I wasn't laughing being an devoted Amiga fan who desperately didn't want to have to find an alternative to an overpriced A4000/040.
But I still buy a game if it is worth it, simple as that. Unfortunately the last PC game I felt like owning was from 2005....Sony has consistently built PC killing consoles 3x in a row now. Killzone 2 just isn't possible even now on a £250 PC. Crazy world!
All good opinions, especially about the hardware not keeping up, but fact is software drives hardware.
A 50 mhz '030 will play Doom on an AGA machine just fine. But where was id's port of Doom for Amiga to push people to buy that '030? And the more people that bought one to play that 3D game, the cheaper it would be to upgrade the hardware further: next step an 060, and 3d cards for Zorro machines, and so on.
Instead pirated software consumers stuck with their stock 1 meg A500's beacsue they were too tight to upgrade, I mean hell their games were for free, they weren't gonna pay to upgrade, until developer after developer left.
At its height the Amiga was the most pirated platform there was. Make no mistake. I went to the Amiga user groups (AFTER C= went broke in 94) where we would get 250 plus people, all happily copying anything and everything, but no-one would say so in the open. You think losing 90% of their sales due to piracy would have no impact on a software developer's decision to look elsewhere? As software sales dwindle, less software is made, and software is a platform's lifeblood.
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I bought quite of bit of software and hardware. Lots of magazines, disk magazines, etc. but I also downloaded tons of stuff from bbs' and trading.
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'pirated' Amiga software, what is that?
no seriously, where I live you could *never* buy NEW Amiga 'originals', i believe.
we had sanctions and stuff. some guy did try opening a shop and selling C64 original games but that probably didnt go well.
i think it started with microsoft selling here original windows95 or something.
the only originals i have are workbench disks and used games from ami(e)bay. but one is still wraped up :)
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Probably at one point about 400 - 600 floppies
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When I bought my first A500, it came with a heap of un-original games, I eventually bought the original ones I liked, mainly for any of the maps or instruction that came with the games like Red Barron or Gunship. But even now I might download a game from Back2roots, mainly for Winuae.
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Coming from the C64 tradition where disk-swapping was a popular pastime, I went straight into this with the Amiga. Of course I was also a high school student with little money and no real appreciation of how much work it was to produce these games. So....yes, I had about 99% pirated software, which was probably a hundred titles.
After I hit twenty I started gradually buying software. It started by paying for Shareware licenses: Wzonkaland, ShapeShifter, SoundFX.
After Commodore died and in the late nineties I would sometimes buy full boxed copies of older software from vendors at computer shows. It's the classic case of "you don't know what you've got until it's gone". It was just so nice to see some Amiga software in a real, professional box - you wanted to buy it partly for that reason. Perhaps if we'd bought more boxed original software before Commodore went belly up things might have been different.
In the late nineties I started paying for full fledged application software like ImageFX, Aladdin 4d, PageStream. I had been fumbling with pirated versions of the software for a few years, not fully understanding it, but still getting a lot of use out of it. I realised that if it was really something I was using everyday I should PAY for it. Even if it did seem expensive, with the amount of use I was getting out of it the price would work out to pennies a day. Plus it was the right thing to do.
The benefit (especially for applications) was that it was much better to have the real manual and support from the official mailing lists or the author. With this I started using the software to its full potential. Plus it feels so much better to know you are supporting the author for his/her work and encouraging development of the title.
I've never regretted paying for this software.
So if any of you are using pirated versions of Aladdin 4d, ImageFX, PageStream, etc.....get out there a pay for legitimate copies. These three publishers are still in business and we NEED them. Some of them are porting their software to OS4 and they need the support.
All these titles are less than $100 and they are very much worth it for what they can do.
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27
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I feel mostly the same regarding software. The most I am ever willing to spend on a specific software product is $25 dollars. Unless this software is going to cure cancer and HIV alltogether, I am not willing to spend a dime more. It is unreasonable from a home user perspective to pay more than that. It is absolutely different from a corporate perspective.
I find this argument a bit weak because you are under no obligation to use the software if you don't like the price.
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I've always liked PD games and demos, if a game interested me enough to want to play it I figured the author deserved their money. If they wanted too much I just wouldn't get it.
People think of software differently than hardware and it is weird. They will pay thousands of dollars for computer hardware and upgrades but 50 bucks for a program they would use all the time? No way! that's too much!
I saw in Amiga Format once (think it was amiga format) a reviewer talking about piracy and he said something to the effect of "this isn't charity, if it's a good program pay the author what they are asking"
"That computer isn't worth $500 so instead of buying it I'll just swipe it." Why does that statement make any less sense than stealing software, from MS or Ubisoft, or Ocean, or an independant publisher.
I have discussions with my brothers all the time about this stuff, they pony up the dough for xbox 360's and ps3's but $50 for a game inconceivable!
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Hi Mr Rabbit!
I had enough to not be able to play many for long :)
That's the idea with demo versions which I could only get with (british) magazines, which themselves cost more than 25 times a single blank floppy, *and* you coudn't randomly pick any game but was limited to whatever the mag shipped with.
Therefore as you can see, pirated games (and a few apps) were effectively demo versions for me.
Fanscale is a time traveling piracy cop! He'll go back to the past and arrest you all using the information you provide here in the future! BEWARE!!!!
When he enters my apartment he will find a cassette player with a cassette inside which he will play. It starts with: "Hello Fanscale, I want to play a game...".
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Fanscale is a time traveling piracy cop! He'll go back to the past and arrest you all using the information you provide here in the future! BEWARE!!!!
When he enters my apartment he will find a cassette player with a cassette inside which he will play. It starts with: "Hello Fanscale, I want to play a game...".
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I think there should be a poll asking if people think that anyone should be able to make a living writing software. I use lots of freeware, open source and pd games and stuff but I see the value of commercial software; I just haven't bought a real lot of it.
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I bought a lot of originals, in fact when I sold my A500 I fished out all the boxed originals and was surprised to see just how much I had, stacked together they built about a 1m cube! Some games like; Frontier-Elite2 you had to have the manual for.
Of course I also had 100's of copies aquired from adverts in the paper. You'd go around to someones house and pick out a stack from his collection, pay about 50cents a disk. Irresistable towards the end of the Amigas life when retail outlets stopped stocking Amiga software.
People are right about actually playing the copies, at some point it stops being about enjoying the software and more like collecting for the sake of it, because you can.
I used to really savour my originals, a good game like Myth or Frontier could keep me going for weeks. On the flip side, paying $50 for a crap game stung so bad it'd almost justify getting copies to try b4 U buy.
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Arrrh me hearties..!
I see we all be wearing the bright Pirate colours.
tis a shame a real shame.
It was easier for me to count my originals. Less than 15.
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I had several hundred I suppose. That's why I, and most of my friends, got Amigas, because of the ease of getting, copying, and sharing pirated software. Otherwise I would have just kept my SNES.
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Ok, note to self.
DO NOT WRITE SOFTWARE FOR AMIGA PLATFORMS ;-)
Hardware supported software development only from me then, even Siamese system had a dongle which was the switcher.
This is why I cannot get people like Paul Nolan and others to come back.
Sigh.
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Not only were all my games and apps pirated, I also used to sell 'em.
I was about 11 when I first discovered the "demo scene", which lead me into direct contact with crackers and at about 13-14 years old, I got myself a modem and opened the door to the candy-store world of BBS's. THAT's about the time I began selling them to people at my school, neighbouring schools and loads of people in my residential area. I basically had my own little business, database of customers, customer snail-mailing lists (sending printouts with latest releases/prices, etc), deliveries, etc. I even "employed" a friend who I used to give every latest release to and who I used to call-up when I had an order. He would then copy the ordered item and deliver it.
It was actually unbelievable. The amount of money I was raking in at 13 years old.
Nowadays I purchase every single app/game I have. Mainly because secondhand console/PC games are dirt cheap and I like the support/updates for the professional applications I use. Plus, obviously, I have an income now. £30 for a 13 year-old in the 1990s was completely unreasonable - which is why I'm proud of the service I offered way back then...90% of my "customers" were kids my age and FAR from well-off financially speaking.
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That's the idea with demo versions which I could only get with (british) magazines, which themselves cost more than 25 times a single blank floppy, *and* you coudn't randomly pick any game but was limited to whatever the mag shipped with.
Therefore as you can see, pirated games (and a few apps) were effectively demo versions for me.
Again, a great point. Back then you were limited to cover disks for demos, and those were expensive and not always very representative of the final game. If you wanted to try out a game, you pretty much had to pirate it.
I could easily flash the DVD on my X360 to play copied disks. It's a trivial hack. I haven't bothered, though, because there is no need. They have a marketplace to freely download accurate game demos. If I want to check out a title, it's right there. It doesn't expire, vanish, cripple my system with goofy copy protection schemes, or any other nonsense. I download an evaluation, and it stays on my system until I either buy the game or decide I'd rather have the HD space to try out something else. That's fair.
I don't buy games at a greater rate when I don't pirate versus when I do, though. The number of games I buy doesn't decrease when I download more of them.
It's not a lost sale unless you have all of the following:
1) The ability to buy it.
2) The desire to buy it.
3) Then you didn't buy it after getting a pirate copy.
That's the only way it's a lost sale. Most of the "piracy == lost sales == platform killer" argument folks neglect the fact that nobody would have bought that crap game had it not been free. 9/10ths of the stuff I had probably wasn't worth the cost of the blank floppy it was on. The fact was, I was just to lazy to sort, reformat and relabel that floppy, so I just bought more. :lol:
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Dont get me wrong I bought a lot of original games and software also. Especially from 2000 on.
And now as consoles are my main gaming device all my software original.
Dito for my massive software collection for PC
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I don't buy games at a greater rate when I don't pirate versus when I do, though. The number of games I buy doesn't decrease when I download more of them.
It's not a lost sale unless you have all of the following:
1) The ability to buy it.
2) The desire to buy it.
3) Then you didn't buy it after getting a pirate copy.
That's the only way it's a lost sale. Most of the "piracy == lost sales == platform killer" argument folks neglect the fact that nobody would have bought that crap game had it not been free. 9/10ths of the stuff I had probably wasn't worth the cost of the blank floppy it was on. The fact was, I was just to lazy to sort, reformat and relabel that floppy, so I just bought more. :lol:
Precisely.
Later on (until christmas 94 when I sold my A1200) I was also too lazy to juggle with copying, but then I was too "poor" to buy either: needed the money for occasional new cloth, skating accessories (earlier on), gym/martial arts fees etc..
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I probably had 15+,all acquired as parts of "package deals" of Amiga computer and all accessories,programs,etc .I did not download or swap copies at club meetings or elsewhere;actually turned down one deal for an Amiga setup because ALL the 1000+? programs were copies (with photocopied manuals) and it just ticked me that the seller wanted money for stolen goods.I 've warned flea marketers about the hazarrds of selling bogus Microsoft CDs as well-one fellow no longer displays them.Too bad that my co-worker actually thinks I am stupid for not having stolen full copies of all the latest Microsoft and Adobe software on MY laptop as he does on his.
Stealing is just SO COOL,until you steal from the thief.
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i always bought my software on my Amiga. i had no sources for pirated games instead i played bbs games or downloaded pd games. this was until i bought my second a500. i never looked at what software came with it and didn't care till i got home. 99% of it was pirated. i tried a few but really didn't care for them. so i boxed them up in a plastic storage box(yes that many).
heck i even bought fury of the furries on floppy AND cd because i liked it so much. the floppy was for the a500 and the cd for the cd32.
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so if copying (piracy is when you steal shit on the high seas) killed the amiga, why didn't it kill the PC ?
I am still not buying it.
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Now that I've taken time to read all the comments,it sad really;a majority of Amiga users were/are comfortable with stealing someone's work.
How many here regularly shoplift food and clothing? Game consoles?Get government welfare checks because they'd rather not work, so they steal from everyone ?
I see abandoned property as different, just another way of passing into public domain.But stealing from existing entities hurts them.
Commodores computers were treated as toys because the users didn't want to pay for serious software.
I wonder..do people here think buying a car entitles one to steal gas and tires?Car won't run without them;computer won't run without programs.
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Now that I've taken time to read all the comments,it sad really;a majority of Amiga users were/are comfortable with stealing someone's work.
How many here regularly shoplift food and clothing? Game consoles?Get government welfare checks because they'd rather not work, so they steal from everyone ?
I see abandoned property as different, just another way of passing into public domain.But stealing from existing entities hurts them.
Commodores computers were treated as toys because the users didn't want to pay for serious software.
I wonder..do people here think buying a car entitles one to steal gas and tires?Car won't run without them;computer won't run without programs.
There is so much wrong with this I don't even know where to begin... As a University Professor in Computer Science, I teach Intellectual Property and Patent Law in my classes and you're all over the place here.
You are combining tangible and intangible property in your argument (I use that term lightly). They are entirely different in both their nature and how the law views them.
Patent Violations and Copyright infringement are not theft as defined by the law.
Lastly, "I see abandoned property as different" is an odd statement when you make such a big deal out of everything else.
If I have more time I can give you more information on the laws you are confusing...
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@pentad
You have the time right here and now, tell us what the legal position is. Was it ok to copy software and share it?
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I wonder..do people here think buying a car entitles one to steal gas and tires?Car won't run without them;computer won't run without programs.
So how does comparing a car to a computer fit in with copying software ?
If you can buy the car you already thought of if you can afford the gas and insurance and repairs/upgrades.
Besides the value of a new proper car can't be compared to a computer and software although some companies charge car prices for software.
And I'm talking about cars that cost around 20000-30000 euro's.
And on a side note, most cars are from the bank or lease, cause most people can't pay those amounts at once.
I can buy a computer and I can think of what software I want to use and I can find it online what the prices are.
Back in those days I had to call, and the answer most of the time was 'We don't know, you have to wait until we have it, if we get it at all'.
By the time most original software came available, I didn't run my Amiga anymore, I already had a PC which I had bought every piece of software.
Today I have a monster Core I7 975 here and every piece of software is paid for, but these days even some prices are just INSANE high!
I can understand the value for example of Adobe Photoshop, but a retail version costs about 1000 euro's, that's almost 9 times as much as my Windows 7 OEM version and almost 15 times as much as my retail version for Symantec Internet Security.
I'm going to buy Adobe Photoshop because I like it, and even though it costs that much, I can afford it now.
But there are probably millions of people who have downloaded it from a torrent, and if you see what people can get trough the net.
Even the most current TV series or newest album of whoever.
So what about that, TV series went on to tapes with VCR's back in the days and that is about the same as copying software.
But people nowadays TIVO it or record it to HDD recorders, so what's changed ?
Everyone does that too, and that is just as copyrighted as a piece of software, but no one dares to implement a strong copyright protection, because if that where the case, no one would buy a TIVO anymore or HDD recorder.
If you where charged 50 dollars every time you where to record your favorite episode, you would probably say too, hey I'll go to a shop and buy the DVD/Bluray pack or download it.
The market would get such a blow and digital progress would stop or get to a crawl.
Why do you think it goes so hard now adays with DVD/Bluray burners in computers ?
Because of copying or all the downloaded things, it's just that simple.
If it was only for data backup like photos and documents, the prices would have been skyhigh.
The solution ?
Simple, make it affordable, Microsoft finally saw it our way, and the 3pc 1 license Office 2007 home and student has an affordable price at around 99-120 euro's.
Windows 7 OEM Professional was included with the pc and cost around 136 euro's, that's a lot less than an retail version back in the days of XP.
Even an OEM version of XP was twice as high as Windows 7 OEM is now.
So if Microsoft can do it, why can't others, or my example, Adobe ?
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@pentad
You have the time right here and now, tell us what the legal position is. Was it ok to copy software and share it?
By all means, no. You can't copy software and share it. However, its not stealing either (in a legal sense of the term.) Dealing with intangible property is a mess.
Trivia:
Did you know that something could not be copyrighted if it wasn't readable by an average person (in the US)? Yep, even through the 1970s, binary code could not be copyrighted because of that. Player Piano music sheets were widely 'pirated' because they could not be copyrighted because they could not be read by an average person.
Here is something to think about:
I write a kooky-tree-hugging book called "The Little Unicorn that Shat Rainbows". Now I mean write in the basic sense. I wrote it for my kids. I don't publish it, I don't sell it, I don't market it in any way. I just read it to my kids. Well, I wrote it so I own the copyright to it.
Now, you 'hear' my story when I tell it to my kids at bedtime. You then repeat it to your kids. Well, that is copyright infringement. Its not theft or stealing, its infringement. I am the copyright holder and I want to hold it for just my kids at bedtime. You are infringing on my rights.
Now, Fair Use becomes involved here but this shows that copyright infringement isn't truly theft. I'm not missing anything, you are just telling my story to your kids.
Saying that copying software is the same and taking it home off the shelf at Wal-mart just isn't accurate.
Remember the biggest LIE in the RIAA and MPAA: Copies vs Purchases. If 500 million songs were copied last year (I'm just making up the number) then the RIAA lost 500 million sales. Thats not a valid argument because you are assuming that people would pay for all the songs they copied. Maybe they didn't like all the songs they downloaded? Maybe some were duplicates? Maybe they are poor and could never afford to buy all the music they copied. Again, I'm not saying its right -what they are doing- but its misleading to say it cost the RIAA X amount of dollars because I'm not sure all those songs would have been bought.
-P
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Exactly, the 15 Year old with the 60K songs isn't likely to buy or even listen to more than a small number of them. Not every copy would have been a sale. Back in the day most of the games were cr@p, and the copied disks got tossed into a storage box somewhere until time finally took it's toll on them.
I know people with hundreds of non-purchased apps on their iPhones and they really only use two or three of them. They just like the idea of them being there.
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When I was a teen, I remember going to the store any buying: madona cd, 2 garbage singles, a garbage album and something else. Cost: over 100 bucks. I plunked down the money and went home and listened to my stuff. Spent a whole two weeks earnings on that and had a few cd's. I felt like a chump after that. Swear to god, I never bought another song after that. I learned my lesson in 1996. Before CD players were affordabe, I used to just record songs off the radio on my dual casette boom box. I do the same thing today though it's satellite radio and instead of a boom box, it's a pc.
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Recidavist: how many years have you been on this planet? because your expectations are quite naive for a fully grown adult. I can tell you now, as a realist who's made an amature occupation of studying human behaviour, if it was possible to walk into a car showroom and "steal" a Mercedes Benz car with impunity, most people would. those who say they wouldn't are in one of three categories:
1. liars
2. the 1% of people with a misplaced sense of morals (ie: valuing the profits of huge corporations over their own interest) or
3. rich enough to buy it without a single financial consideration (and those people are few and far between, thanks to our system's unequal distribution of global wealth)
And, btw, the majority of those who do "pirate" software are young, students or the unemployed. in other words, people who couldn't afford to buy - or would greatly struggle to afford - the software in the first place. I think it's more immoral for people to not have access to overpriced (relative to said people's financial positions) software....just because they happen to be poor - personally.
the s/w theft that does occur is for the greater good and equality of mankind, imo. and there are plenty of people that can afford software to still make it very profitable for software companies to continue developing - that has always been the case and always will be - particularly as s/w firms continue to focus a lot more on valued added customer support.
please, grow up.
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Now that I've taken time to read all the comments,it sad really;a majority of Amiga users were/are comfortable with stealing someone's work.
If I had to pay for all the software I ever used, I'd be bankrupt today.
How many here regularly shoplift food and clothing?
Oh, never. But it's a big difference between copying and stealing: keep in mind that I'm not actually taking money away from someone, I'm just not giving them money. And if I couldn't copy it, I wouldn't buy it either. It's just a convenience issue for me.
Following your logic, my local pizza shop should sue me for making my own pizza at home?
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Following your logic, my local pizza shop should sue me for making my own pizza at home?
I don't think that's the right analogy to copying software. The analogy above applies to the example of creating your own software at home, rather than using a copy of software created by somebody else.
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At least these days, free software is sufficiently evolved that you can pretty much do anything you need to without spending a penny on software if for whatever reason you feel aggrieved in doing so. The only real exception to that is gaming, and frankly, I don't really mind paying for that. After all, it's a luxury rather than a necessity.
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What all this means is that an individual has no chance to make a living at software or music on their own. They need a large powerful company with tight controls to protect them and get the money. And large companies have to fight for everything they can in court and with their software and music controls.
Yeah that sounds great for all of us.
Artists and programmers have as much right to profit from their creation, as we have to use them. But the thing is there are probably 1000 consumers to every producer. And with digital copying a cd or movie or game can be leaked and out and around the world before the creator has any chance of making any money. We complain about large companies but we make them all the more necissary by what we are doing.
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"How much pirated Amiga software did you have?"
When it comes to games - almost 100% in my collection was pirated. (With a few exceptions)
When it comes to various creativity apps, the few I had back then, most of them were actually bought (at the "hefty" price they asked).
I'm not making excuses. Had no money back then, and nobody really lost any sales anyway, since I wouldn't have bought any of those games no matter what. So no, it wasn't "stealing", since nobody lost anything.
Today I'm still downloading various pirate copies (apps/games on the PC, music, movie's, etc). But these days I actually buy the stuff *I really want*. There are benefits in doing that. And the shit I download but don't want, that shit I wouldn't have bought anyway. So there is still no "stealing".
IMHO.
Of course.
:)
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http://movies.msn.com/movies/article.aspx?news=499114>1=28101
this is going to become commonplace...
Most copyright holders don't usually go after individuals, but there is no reason they can't. It's all a matter of incentive, and we are giving them lots of incentive. If they actually lost money or not, you enjoyed their creation without them benefitting. That is what they are in the business for after all, it's not like freeware or open source. These people are trying to make a living, not just enjoying a hobby.
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If they actually lost money or not, you enjoyed their creation without them benefitting. That is what they are in the business for after all, it's not like freeware or open source. These people are trying to make a living, not just enjoying a hobby.
You're right. BUT, if an individual downloads your application and uses it because they cannot afford to buy it then its probably a fair bet that suing them isn't going to get you anywhere either. It just runs up costs for lawyers and chokes the legal system.
The way to attack the problem is to go after those who distribute copies of software on a commercial scale; stop the supply of these products. Then make home use/educational/... versions of your applications available at a reasonable price. For games, go to an electronic distribution mechanism and lower your prices significantly - charging 10% less for downloadable versions when a significant chunk of the cost of software is in the box, delivery and artwork is offensive.
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While we're on this subject I wanted to share another item with you all that you don't hear about from the RIAA or the MPAA.
Stephen King was hit by a car (his neighbor if I recall correctly) and was in bed for a long time. Apple actually sent him a PowerBook so he could write, surf the 'net, whatever...
King, like any good author, wrote on his new computer. The finished product was called "The Plant". When his publisher asked what he wanted to do with the story he said he didn't want to go all out and sell it but he would like to release it to his fans. He felt it wasn't his best work so it didn't deserve the whole hoopla, hardback edition, press event, etc...kind of treatment.
The publisher suggested he sell it for $1 on some Internet sites (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc..) You know it went on to be his best selling book? I think it grossed more than any other book he wrote.
Why? Was it the best book people ever read? No, I think the price made people want to buy it. Even if they didn't like it, it was something they could afford to try.
Imagine if Microsoft took one day and told consumers (not businesses) but consumers that for that one day Office 2010 Professional would be $50.00. I bet Microsoft would make a great deal of money because people who would normally pirate it or use something else (OO for example) would buy it.
I think Microsoft would make more money in that one day than all the money they spend trying to stop piracy.
I sincerely mean this. I think price has everything to do with piracy. Office and Windows are the most pirated pieces of software for Microsoft. I think they would be embarrassed at the money they would gain by doing some type of 'Coupon Day'. Its the reason you will never see them do it and why they fight so hard that price has nothing to do with piracy.
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The Question here may be "Who not have Pîrated Amiga Software?, becouse you know unfortunately or happy the piracy in C = 64/128 / Amiga is part of the idiosyncrasy.. Do you remember the groups?, Swaps events?, Great Intros?..
I think in this days many Amigans are paying more by the Software than 80s and 90s..
I know many people bought WHDLoad, Ibrowse, and more soft..
Anyway, in this plattaforms C=64/128 and Amiga was and are very common the Software Piracy, maybe this situation help to kill the plattaform... but was the sreal situation ..
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If I had to pay for all the software I ever used, I'd be bankrupt today.
No you wouldn't: you just would not have had that software. Your quality of life may have not been the same. But thats life.
Oh, never. But it's a big difference between copying and stealing: keep in mind that I'm not actually taking money away from someone, I'm just not giving them money. And if I couldn't copy it, I wouldn't buy it either. It's just a convenience issue for me.
Ok so i go to my local white good store and I want to buy a washing machine. Its $1000. I say its too much, I'll pay $300, I might haggle a bit, but in the end if I can't afford it I walk out. I don't come back at 3.00 AM in the morning, back a truck through the front door, take the washing machine, and pay nothing.
Or like all those who have argued that IF the software was $25 they'd buy it, I don't leave $300 behind because thats what I want to pay for the washing machine.
Or all those "too poor" to pay wouldn't have bought anyway so its no loss: well I'm too poor to purchase a Mercedes Sports, I don't steal it and say well its no loss to Mercedes because I wouldn't have bought it anyway.. And no this is not different just because its tangible property, as there is a lot of intellectual property that goes into building that Mercedes to make it the car that it is , is in addition to the material costs, which are a minor part of the overall cost.
Ultimately, you are using something that someone has spent a great deal of time and talent firstly learning how to create, and then, actually create it, in the hope that they can earn a living.
I spent 5 years earning a professional degree during which I sacrificed earning a living and was supported by my parents. I now charge for my time when someone needs my expertise, and the service I offer lets that client have things and do things they otherwise couldn't. If my clinet doesn't pay, i don't do the work and they don't get what they want. I am not a programmer, but I don't see how they are different to me. Why should you not pay them?
Following your logic, my local pizza shop should sue me for making my own pizza at home?
If you can create from raw ingredients and tools ie an SDK and a PC, another version of Crysis or an Office suite or an OS, then no-one will deny you that right (as long a you don't COPY most of it). But thats not what you are doing: you are simple using something with commercial value that you haven't paid for.
this thread confirms what I've suspected: the vast majority of Amigans were pirates, and if you think that didn't play a major part in the platforming failing, you're kidding yourself.
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so if copying (piracy is when you steal shit on the high seas) killed the amiga, why didn't it kill the PC ?
I am still not buying it.
Simply scale.
Where is the PC gaming scene today?
In decline. Big time. The only growth are is those massive rpg's or whatever they're called, where. From being the dominant platform, its now shunned by developers, often resulting in cancelled projects or lower quality ports.
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The whole "make a living" thing may make sense for devs on subsistence, but for MS, the piracy is barely noticeable in Billy's wallet. I have probably $7k of software right now, all pirated but from the big companies. They aren't starving because of it, and most was no longer sold by the time I acquired it. Rule of thumb: If its no longer sold in any form, its probably safe. Would Nintendo sue me if I made a pirate donkey kong arcade cabinet set? Maybe, but they wouldn't have a case in America because I could argue its no longer sold.
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All good opinions, especially about the hardware not keeping up, but fact is software drives hardware.
A 50 mhz '030 will play Doom on an AGA machine just fine. But where was id's port of Doom for Amiga to push people to buy that '030? And the more people that bought one to play that 3D game, the cheaper it would be to upgrade the hardware further: next step an 060, and 3d cards for Zorro machines, and so on.
Instead pirated software consumers stuck with their stock 1 meg A500's beacsue they were too tight to upgrade, I mean hell their games were for free, they weren't gonna pay to upgrade, until developer after developer left.
At its height the Amiga was the most pirated platform there was. Make no mistake. I went to the Amiga user groups (AFTER C= went broke in 94) where we would get 250 plus people, all happily copying anything and everything, but no-one would say so in the open. You think losing 90% of their sales due to piracy would have no impact on a software developer's decision to look elsewhere? As software sales dwindle, less software is made, and software is a platform's lifeblood.
Of course the other side of the coin is...
1. Launch price of stock A1200 + 50mhz 030 + extra RAM + slow slow 2.5" IDE drive = more than cost of Doom capable PC. Commodore should have shipped an A1200+ with 28mhz 020 (practically identical performance to a 28mhz 030 but a lot cheaper) and made sure it had 1mb of fast ram to ensure 100% speed of operation AND AGA should have had Akiko functionality in there already. This was required as a distinct machine out of the box on store shelves software companies at least could see official sales figures and put in an "A1200+" option. The problem was high street chains, the forerunners of places like PC World, had nothing to sell that would just work out of the box....mass market PC purchasers did not tinker with their machines, it's unreasonable to expect people to buy an A1200 in a regular well known shop, look in magazines for 030 accelerators and then make a mail order purchase and wait. Alarm bells should have been ringing. Instead we got the OTT A4000/030 which was too expensive and not suitable as a mass market replacement for the next generation of Amiga gamers(which in turn was due to the overpriced 4000/040).
Why did they need to do this? OK well imagine you bought a Ford Escort in 1992 (EU not USA type), a basic model that couldn't pull the skin off a custard, for erm £9,999. Now you spend £30,000 adding a turbo charger and 4 wheel drive and beefier gearbox and wild bodykit etc creating something as fast as a Group C rally car. Guess what? it's worth only 110% of the used price of a standard unmodified Escort and at best 20% of the value of the Escort Cosworth you just replicated with your £40,000. People knew full well that adding this and that was a waste of money when it came to selling gear later. It's all down to bad decisions at Commodore in just having the A1200 -/+ hard drive, there was no such thing as a machine for every regular person, clearly the A1200 set the bar too low (well they were trying to make huge profits again 1991 A500 style) and they paid the price because people looking in regular shop windows with PCs only saw this strange keyboard with no CD, only 2mb of RAM and only 14mhz. The hard drives were twice the price of PC 3.5" drives and half the speed for no good reason...why did we need 2.5" drives in a desktop machine? Stupid idea, and probably extreme penny pinching on the side of the power supply. I'm talking about sales to the general public in regular high street stores where PCs were also sold not the Amiga faithful.
2. Commodore could have quite easily offered ID or anyone else a sum of money to make sure Doom made it onto a suitable Amiga (14mhz A1200 with 2mb chip is not suitable). Doesn't have to be Doom, the outcome would have been things like Gloom and AB 3D would have had a suitable platform and not artificially dated the look of Amiga games to potential new 1st time purchasers. To add insult to injury Commodore added Akiko chunky<>planar converter to CD32 BUT made it impossible to add the required fast ram to a CD32 to get full CPU speed as opposed to 50%....how much would it have cost that idiot Medhi Ali to approve a single SIMM slot for 1/2mb capability? Exactly. Commodore were totally clueless at this time and the only good outcome we could have hoped for would have been the management buyout of Commodore UK (who were all making the same arguments as me and had similar plans). Why cripple the CD32 to chip ram only but spend 100,000s on Akiko development to fix a problem that AGA overlooked in the first place (stupid 8 bitplane 256 colour mode not byte/pixel). The whole point of Akiko was to help Doom type games...and those games need maximum CPU and nothing else (which the PC had in abundance)
I do not have any bad feeling about pirating stuff, for me it was a case of try before you buy. Because if you bought a turkey like Outrun or Chase HQ that was 25 bucks down the toilet as no shop would take it back no matter how bad it was, that was a stupid law. And when magazines said they were quite good/acceptable when I wouldn't even use them for a doorstop it meant your only choice was to check it out before investing a penny. 95% of the stuff I had was wiped within minutes because it was such a lame piece of coding.
If a game was good I did buy it, like I said for me Cinemaware ALWAYS got my money no questions asked...and look what happened to them...they invested in the wrong console and went bankrupt (CD Turbo-Grafx). In fact there is only one Cinemaware game produced that I don't own, TV Sports Boxing. I have all the others even to this day, and all are full priced editions bar Sinbad. That's a lot of investment for a pirate like me, so clearly the issue was crap output from 95% of software houses in the UK. Think of the poor Japanese companies who did flawless conversions of games on the Sharp x68000 and still had to deal with piracy.
Put it this way, if legally I could take back any rubbish game from Ocean/US Gold/Activision etc for a full refund AND the software company not the shop had to foot the bill then if nobody pirated I bet you a million bucks those companies selling pure dross like that would have made just as few sales and even more of a loss to dispose of returned stock. The impact on the industry in real terms is nothing like the Oceans/US Golds make out. We got screwed as Amiga users, we hardly ever got quality conversions anything like the Amiga was capable of, and even some games were never coded like Nemesis/Gradius or Lifeforce/Salamander etc. Why? Greed is why!
And why did we all have to have stupid disk formats meaning you couldn't run the games from a multitasking wonder computer like Amiga but all PC games came on a standard DOS format and all were hard disk installable (manual or otherwise). PC piracy was just as rife and all this did was annoy people by treating Amigans differently to the snotty PC users of the 80s/90s. It's the same argument today with the MPAA and RIAA mouthing off about theft and piracy, and they fail to notice it is they who are in the wrong and they who have caused the problem by treating their customers with ill-regard (MP3 DRM, overpriced Blu-Ray/DVD...forced zoning of movies....forced wait for people who don't wish to go to some twittering fool infested cinema for the 'ultimate experience' etc). Fact is they all got stung for incompetence and lack of value for money...hence all the scaremongering and laws to punish people.
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You're right. BUT, if an individual downloads your application and uses it because they cannot afford to buy it then its probably a fair bet that suing them isn't going to get you anywhere either. It just runs up costs for lawyers and chokes the legal system.
If you can afford the PC, modem and internet connection, you can afford to pay for your movie or music. If you can't, your parents can, and should be held responsible because if a responsible parent would say "Hey Jonnie, where did you get that new bike that I didn't buy for you" then the same parent can say "where did you get that game/move/music you're playing/watching/listening that I didn't buy for you"
Not a kid but no money? They might make you pay month by month from your dole check. Do it to enough people, publicise it and people think twice.
The way to attack the problem is to go after those who distribute copies of software on a commercial scale; stop the supply of these products.
Software pircay is not an addiction that the end user can't control, its a choice. Both the supplier and the end user are equally guilty, both should be pursued.
Then make home use/educational/... versions of your applications available at a reasonable price.
Most big application software has home/academic versions that are a tenth of the price of professional versions. But people want he Pro versions, for free.
For games, go to an electronic distribution mechanism and lower your prices significantly - charging 10% less for downloadable versions when a significant chunk of the cost of software is in the box, delivery and artwork is offensive.
The value is in the time, effort and talent that went into making the software. Have a look at the credits at the end of the game. Look at all the names credited with making that game: Programmers, texture artists, modellers, musicians, orchestras, directors, actors, engineers. Hundreds of them. All have spent years learning to do what they do, and doing it better than most. They all deserve to earn a living.
Most consumers STILL prefer bricks and mortar game stores, and to have a tangible product in their hands. It costs money (rent, staff, marketing, insurance, power, retirement money, taxes) to provide that. Games publishers have to support the retailer, because if they don't they know they will lose those retail sales.
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The whole "make a living" thing may make sense for devs on subsistence, but for MS, the piracy is barely noticeable in Billy's wallet. I have probably $7k of software right now, all pirated but from the big companies. They aren't starving because of it, and most was no longer sold by the time I acquired it. Rule of thumb: If its no longer sold in any form, its probably safe. Would Nintendo sue me if I made a pirate donkey kong arcade cabinet set? Maybe, but they wouldn't have a case in America because I could argue its no longer sold.
OPfcourse you could say if less people pirated Windows and Office, then they might need to charge what they do, which IMO is cheap nowdays.
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Stealing is just SO COOL,until you steal from the thief.
I gotta admit this is so true. It goes for software and music downloads. It's the cool thing to do, but if you could go to the pirates house and pick anything from it to just take, they'd have another thing to say.
I would bet that 90% of the people who think pirating is totally okay don't actually create anything like art, music, photography, writing, reports, programs. etc. They are consumers. If they actually created something intangible for which they based their livelihood on, or even placed value for their time upon, they might have another opinion.
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I gotta admit this is so true. It goes for software and music downloads. It's the cool thing to do, but if you could go to the pirates house and pick anything from it to just take, they'd have another thing to say.
Go to a house ? Take things ?! what are you speaking ?
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Go to a house ? Take things ?! what are you speaking ?
(http://28.media.tumblr.com/2DghMYNcTm9eseo8joBqRrCwo1_500.jpg)
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I think we all need to accept that piracy existed within the Amiga community as evidenced by the poll results.
If we are going to argue about whether it was wrong or not, the morality of software piracy is a no-brainer, stealing is stealing, the mitigating circumstances are our respective ages and level of immaturity when we did it anything else is just an excuse.
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I think we all need to accept that piracy existed within the Amiga community as evidenced by the poll results.
If we are going to argue about whether it was wrong or not, the morality of software piracy is a no-brainer, stealing is stealing, the mitigating circumstances are our respective ages and level of immaturity when we did it anything else is just an excuse.
I've heard all the "arguments" in favour of piracy. I've not found ONE to be justified.
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I'm not arguing for piracy, neither am I championing civil liberties infringing laws forced onto ISPs/Governments by OTT media moguls. Neither am I championing unfair non return policies on games. All three have to change, and using the stick/stick approach isn't going to solve anything. Quadrupling the price of petrol and pocketing the tax will not make an environmentally conscious person out of a muscle car driver, ditto with all the fuss and draconian nazi like laws introduced to try and prevent downloads.
Funny thing is when I owned a C64 I had 99% originals, and the copies I did have were Turbotape64 dumps of slow load games, maybe 5 or 6 and 100+ original games. So I don't think age has anything to do with it. It's all down to ease of access.
Legality aside, Microsoft doesn't deserve a penny of my money EVER and if you disagree you are in the wrong forum brother, Microsoft ruined home computing for everyone in the world with that pathetic OS and their less than legal tactics. Argue with me all you like about movies/games/music but M$ are not getting a penny of my money and it's a damn shame the whole world doesn't pirate their stuff so they will just die and GTFO of my face.
The fact is though that pirates have done more to put everything you love into the digital age and into digital formats than all the media and games companies combined for the last 10 years. If it weren't for people like AXXO and FXG and Secretmyth spending years perfecting the coding process we would probably still be on blocky first generation Mpeg2 transcodes of rubbish sources. Music industry still hasn't got a clue what the problem is, ie nobody wants all the fake talentless crap shoved in our faces via American Idol except a few gormless twats. Album is a dead concept, charging the same for 10 MP3s as a physical product that costs 3x as much to produce/distribute is also bordering on insanity. Most of these big companies are bastards and they have screwed you for decades, now that they lost control they want to fix it so they can screw you again. MKV is more impressive than Blu-Ray, that is a simple fact, you don't need Quadcore CPUs or 40gb discs to watch something at 1080p, but if the public realised what a con the entire industry is and all the non-essential 'upgrades' of tech forced onto you as 'essential purchases' they might see it differently.
Yes it is a stolen product, but it is not comparable to stealing a car or causing physical damage to break into a house and rob someone. Neither does it fund terrorism. Aren't you people bored of all the bullshit these governments throw at you, first knock off cigarettes funded human trafficking and terrorism, now it's little John using bittorrent to watch some movies for free who is going to cause the end of the world apparently. People really believe this crap too I bet.
That is all I really have to say on the subject. Judge as you will, but at the time it was right for the reasons I have given, and it is still right today especially when the US supreme court refuses to grow a pair and M$ are still unpunished for 20 years of their mafia tactics. Nor am I going to mend my ways until the media companies fix the problems they have created from their own ignorance and inability to embrace the digital age even now as I type this. Watching TV shows in super shitty Flash-blur-o-vision is a load of crap. Nobody wants it after half a decade of pristine AVI rips at ridiculously low CPU requirements and compact file sizes being the norm.
Enjoy the rest of your day everyone, and peace. Everyone has their own opinion, laws are only rules approved by government, none of which has the interests of the ordinary man at heart in a capitalist world. A law is just a thought written on a piece of paper, given the right amount of arm twisting anything can become law even if the majority of the voting public disagree with it 100%. Think on that issue for the rest of the day while your emails are being read without your consent. :)
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Whilst I have been caught on the side of losing money to pirates I will say this, not in support of them, but as a consequence. All of the wonderful software that was written by truly talented Amiga coders would have been lost if they had not be cracked and saved in a small number of archives.
However, what we are getting in the Amiga community is a number of ports of software from other platforms instead of original and exciting software development because it is less work.
In the near future all we will get is software that is supporting hardware gadgets, and software from people willing to work for free.
As usual this subject is not black or white.
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Originally Posted by recidivist
Stealing is just SO COOL,until you steal from the thief.
I gotta admit this is so true. It goes for software and music downloads. It's the cool thing to do, but if you could go to the pirates house and pick anything from it to just take, they'd have another thing to say.
Excuse me, but WTF are you saying here? Go to a house and take stuff?!? Oh, man...
1. When you download something, you aren't removing any objects. You don't even remove the digitalized information. It's all still there, you aren't taking away anything. No-one will wake up and say "hey, where is the TV?"
2. What may be lost is a sales opportunity, but only if you download it for free instead of buying it. OTOH, if you would never have bought it anyway, not even the sales opportunity is lost.
There are many reasons to *why we don't buy* stuff, like for example that we don't really want it, or we simply can't afford it.
Have you looked at what Adobe is asking for their Master Collection CS5? I'll tell you: US$2,599!
There is *no way* I could possibly pay that kind of money for some software even if I wanted to. I know that, they know that, I'm simply not in their target market (which probably is various media producing corporations).
Still I'm using Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Fireworks, Flash, Acrobat, etc (all from the Master Collection CS5) on an almost daily basis. And you know what? Adobe has lost exactly $0 on me. They haven't lost anything at all, since there is no chance in this world that I would have bought their product anyway. There never were any sales opportunity for them to lose!
If I OTOH would go to Adobes office, smash a window, and grab a monitor from a nearby desk, then they would obviously have lost something.
Do you see the difference?
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Hi, I actually have more than 3000 DD disks of pirated Amiga stuff (most of them totally unusable due to their age).
I belonged to a "Amiga pirate" club here in my city, this club worked in a "token ring"-basis. The "token" was about 50-70 diskettes per month. "Club" members only knew the existence of the previous and next member. The "club" consisted of an undetermined number of people who paid a quote to the previous member, and in exchange this member gave you "the token". Once you had copied "the token" you can pass it on to the next member.
One of the members (I did not know him personally) were the responsible of establishing business with the "pirate providers" who were totally unknown for the members of the "club".
So I've got a bunch of disks. I registered several software (Amiga E, Spot, MailManager, Trapdoor(?), MakeCD, etc.) Never bought a boxed Amiga program apart from Amithlon, PageStream and AmigaOS3.5, 3.9, 4.
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Well to be honest when I did nearly all of my disk copying I was teenager, and like most teeneagers didn't even think about it. Was not even aware it was piracy if you know what I mean. It was just something that everyone in school who had an Amiga did.
I remember that a shop near my school getting raided and prosecuted because they sold copied disks for 50p a disk and had thousands.
Its very easy to be moralistic and judgemental with hindsight. Piracy did not kill the Amiga. No one single thing did.
I suspect that you will find that most people who used to do this , in later life have spent thousands on hardware and software. I certainly do not pirate software anymore. Well very rarely anyway.
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All have spent years learning to do what they do, and doing it better than most. They all deserve to earn a living.
Selling more, make more money, more money to developers. I sell software, I've seen the fat that people put into software sales. Cut some of the fat and you'll get more sales.
But its very easy to blame "piracy" for poor sales. And its even easier to claim "suing people" will fix the problem. Like it has with music file-sharing. 8/ I suppose backwards, stupid ideas don't die easily.
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No you wouldn't: you just would not have had that software. Your quality of life may have not been the same. But thats life.
Yes I would: if I had to pay for them all, which is what I said.
Ok so i go to my local white good store and I want to buy a washing machine. Its $1000. I say its too much, I'll pay $300, I might haggle a bit, but in the end if I can't afford it I walk out. I don't come back at 3.00 AM in the morning, back a truck through the front door, take the washing machine, and pay nothing.
And neither do I. Did you read what I wrote at all?
Ultimately, you are using something that someone has spent a great deal of time and talent firstly learning how to create, and then, actually create it, in the hope that they can earn a living.
Let's say you wrote a killer app/game/whatever, and charge $1000 for it. I'm certainly not buying it, but if I come across it on piratebay or something, I might download it.
I spent 5 years earning a professional degree during which I sacrificed earning a living and was supported by my parents. I now charge for my time when someone needs my expertise, and the service I offer lets that client have things and do things they otherwise couldn't. If my clinet doesn't pay, i don't do the work and they don't get what they want. I am not a programmer, but I don't see how they are different to me. Why should you not pay them?
First of all, it depends on the price. If you charged $1000 an hour, I wouldn't request your services in the first place.
I don't know where you got the picture that I don't pay for anything, but maybe I gave the wrong impression at first, because I do.
this thread confirms what I've suspected: the vast majority of Amigans were pirates, and if you think that didn't play a major part in the platforming failing, you're kidding yourself.
Then how come the PC platform isn't failing? Do you have any idea how much piracy is going on there?
And I know the pizza analogy was bad, since you provide the ingredients yourself. But how about this one:
Let's say I need a tool for photo manipulation, and I find Photoshop. Looks great, but is too expensive. So I download Gimp instead, which is a free alternative.
Adobe doesn't get my money, and I get the job done. If Gimp didn't exist I would either have to buy Photoshop, or download it illegally.
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While I dont think wholesale piracy is a "good" thing, ( based on nothing more than the flimsy moral premis that if someone is getting something for nothing. then someone else must be missing out).
Comparing digital duplication to vehicle (or whatever physical object you choose) theft is just dumb.
I see it more like taking a photograph of a painting rather than getting the ladder out a ripping the painting of the wall.
The original is still there, piracy is an act of duplication not removal.
To all those on their moral high horse, who of you have never taped a TV program for later viewing or borrowed books from the library?
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Man, I bet I'll regret replying to this thread... I had a great deal of pirated software. But, way back when, if I found original games for sale, I usually bought them. (Turrican, The Plague, Killing Game Show....SOTB 3... I even ordered Theatre of Death by phone directly from Psygnosis, 'cause I couldn't find it anywhere else....:) )
So, why pirate? Well, I bought Worms CD32, it wouldn't work on any of my Amiga's. Darkseed only worked on my A1200T, and poorly at that.... Years ago, there was an Amiga game rental store, I rented Turrican3, enjoyed it.... sent it back, and found that I couldn't buy it anywhere... I tried calling the rental place, they were gone.... So, yeah, I pirated the game....
I really loathe the idea of spending $$$ on software that may or may not work. If it works, and I like it, I'll buy it... If I don't, I'll delete it from my HD (and yes, I really do delete it, I need the space :) )
sigh.....
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@Amiganut
The problem is that when one sets out to hurt MS by pirating their software, MS passes the loss on down the line by reducing its costs to retain a profit margin, so rather than waking up to their corporate and community responsibilities they just have a round of redundancies and its Johnny programmer that gets it in the neck. That's how corporations work.
(I applaud your passion though)
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I remember that a shop near my school getting raided and prosecuted because they sold copied disks for 50p a disk and had thousands.
I also remember when I was visiting Glasgow in Aug, 1995 a flea market called The Barras at which there was a lot of people selling Amiga pirated software. I bought there WordWorth 5, Directory Opus 5, and several more software.
I liked Glasgow a lot in an Amigan way: It was very nice to find such as beautiful scene (flea market full of A500's running X-Copy ;) ) as well as a Virgin Store with Amigas running Scala IC and selling Amiga mice!
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The only pirate copy I owned was Giana Sisters. From day 1 on I've bought my games in original...spending all my available pocket money for it. I even worked as 14 year old boy to earn money for original Amiga games :afro: And I still own them btw :)
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With music artists you should look at the percentage they actually get, it's almost :angryfire: what they get, it's like 1-10%, the rest is all going to organisers, retailers, copyrighters and a little bit to the record company e.t.c.
I do not say that copying isn't stealing, because it is, but if they were really honest and didn't make price agreements then some software would be a lot less cheaper.
They are all going for the big $$$$ and the easy money, the more profit they make of it, the better, again I think the actual percentage that goes to the developer is less than 10%, unless it's a big company / they are completely in control themselves.
It's the same as products in a store, go for big margins and sell less / nothing or make it as low as possible and sell a lot, it's up to them.
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You see the pirating "debate" everywhere these days! Im getting a little sick of it! One thing for sure it does spark strong opinions. I figured I'd put my two cents (or pennys) in.
When I had my Amiga the first time round in the early ninetys I had alot of games! Well I had two to three hundred which compared to some in this thread isnt many. Like alot of people here I was young and didnt even think about it! If I had known it was wrong I still would have done it.
Ive been building PC's, for at least 11 years and I have never paid for a full copy of Windows, I have "owned" almost evey version that has been released. I know this is wrong I still did and do it to this day. I was however tempted to pay for Windows 7, its the best of a bad bunch but as it turns out I didnt and Im currently running Windows 7 Ultimate.
Lastly I have a harddrive full of Music, and Video. In fact I havent payed for music for years.
I make no excuses, I know what im doing is wrong even if other people can justify it in very creative and convincing ways. I will still continue to pirate(but not on the amiga market which needs support.)
That being said if a policeman smashed down my door and grabbed my computer I would accept what ever punichment they gave me.
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When I think back, I copied hundred of disks over the years, but played/used most of them no more than once - then used the disks for the next 'round' of copies. A lot of the stuff was nowhere near as good as some of teh reviews made out...
If I'd paid good money for them I'd not only be p*ssed off, but skint as well!
Mike.
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You're right. BUT, if an individual downloads your application and uses it because they cannot afford to buy it then its probably a fair bet that suing them isn't going to get you anywhere either. It just runs up costs for lawyers and chokes the legal system.
The way to attack the problem is to go after those who distribute copies of software on a commercial scale; stop the supply of these products. Then make home use/educational/... versions of your applications available at a reasonable price. For games, go to an electronic distribution mechanism and lower your prices significantly - charging 10% less for downloadable versions when a significant chunk of the cost of software is in the box, delivery and artwork is offensive.
This is a recurring argument, we don't have much money so we wouldn't have ought it anyway. Or they are charging too much, or sueing us wouldn't help since you wouldn't get much...or whatever...
And I see that, I grew up in a middle class family, and I have been a student. My only question is this: Is it ok then for poor people to do whatever they want? A pirated copy of Windows, MS office, thousands of songs, dozens of movies, dozens of games, etc... Is that ok? Would the courts see that as ok? If you put a significant amount of time and money into producing a product only for it to be copied and distrubuted without you so you can't make any money keeping you in a stupid low paying job. Is that ok?
All so that a group of people, who If they really put their mind to it could pay, can say arrrrrrgh!!!! I'm a pirate.
It's not about the money, you could pay if you wanted, you don't really make any distinction between a large company, and a starving artist, or MS and a lone wolf programmer. You want the content and you don't care about who produced it. You think it is cool to be a pirate.
pay hundreds for hardware but think its a crime to pay 50 for a game....The hardware is worthless without the software, so which is really more important?
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I buy loads of cds and dvds. I love to own original cds. I will admit to downloading some music. But if I really like an album an honestly buy it
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I have 4 shelves of DVDs I happily bought and maybe half a shelf of copied or pirate DVDs. I go over to my uncle or cousins house and both have about 5 DVDs each. Is some movie industry guy going to start foaming at the mouth because in his opinion he's lost sales because of me.
A good pirate is probably spending their money on their education or donating to charity.
A bad pirate has a collection of sports cars and a holiday home, but still pirates.
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I had a large stack of copied games, probably a few hundred, from local BBS's and Amiga parties. Of those games i bought the ones i liked, Civilization, Rocket Ranger, Bubble Bobble, etc... Bought about 25, which was more then i could afford. I recall slipping a few bucks from my mom/dad's wallets on a few occasions to put towards buying games.
For several games; Bubble Bobble, Prince of Persia, Hybris, etc, although i bought an original i played the pirated version because there trainers made it so much more fun.
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This is a recurring argument, we don't have much money so we wouldn't have ought it anyway. Or they are charging too much, or sueing us wouldn't help since you wouldn't get much...or whatever...
And I see that, I grew up in a middle class family, and I have been a student. My only question is this: Is it ok then for poor people to do whatever they want? A pirated copy of Windows, MS office, thousands of songs, dozens of movies, dozens of games, etc... Is that ok? Would the courts see that as ok? If you put a significant amount of time and money into producing a product only for it to be copied and distrubuted without you so you can't make any money keeping you in a stupid low paying job. Is that ok?
All so that a group of people, who If they really put their mind to it could pay, can say arrrrrrgh!!!! I'm a pirate.
It's not about the money, you could pay if you wanted, you don't really make any distinction between a large company, and a starving artist, or MS and a lone wolf programmer. You want the content and you don't care about who produced it. You think it is cool to be a pirate.
pay hundreds for hardware but think its a crime to pay 50 for a game....The hardware is worthless without the software, so which is really more important?
First of all I could make the again "often used" arguement that being of a middle class background what right have you got to comment about so called "poor people".
Secondly, I really don't think a mature person thinks its cool to be software pirate or even a real life one. A Pirates of the Carribean fictional romantic stlyle one maybe, but not a real one. :)
They will never go after people who pirate software because A) They would be fighting a losing battle, and B) It would cost the world. So the go after the facilitators like Pirate Bay, and all the others all the way back to Napster.
The fact is people do it because they can, plain and simple. People will continue to do it as long as they are able. Some try to justify it, some don't. Some hide behind slogans like "information is free" others don't. At the end of the day its a morale decision.
The internet is the wild west and as they crack down on the internet and begin to police it more and more, which they will, there will alway be clever people fighting the good (or bad) fight. I dont know about you guys but that makes me warm inside.
End scene
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The fact is people do it because they can, plain and simple. People will continue to do it as long as they are able. Some try to justify it, some don't. Some hide behind slogans like "information is free" others don't. At the end of the day its a morale decision.
Just not true. As I've said in a previous post, as a kid all of my software was pirated. This was because I came from a pretty poor background (to say the least), had no income and in the 90s couldn't afford £35+ per title. I agree, games are a luxury and my not being able to afford them is no moral argument - i should have just "done without".
But the point is, I certainly could not have afforded to buy those games anyway, and more importantly I would NEEEEEEEVER have been able to afford my copy of Real3D (which, iirc cost around £300) or 3D Studio Max which cost thousands. I honed my graphic skills on pirated applications as a kid and that enabled me become employed as an adult in an industry I love. Now that's a more moral based argument. Games you can do without, but productivity applications open doors to careers, careers that would be exclusive to only those children that came from families who could afford to buy them certain software titles. :/
Nowadays, EVERY item of software I own is legal. Not because I "can't" crack these software titles (I most certainly easily can) but because I can afford them thanks to my sort after skills (honed, largely, thanks to pirated softwrae)
Nobody lost ANYTHING through my piracy because, as has been pointed out by many in this thread, "our types" would not have been able to afford most of the software we pirated. But society HAS gain a skilled software user and a guy who can now afford to PAY for all the games and software that he and his family (children included) uses.
see, it's magic and just afterall.
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When I think back, I copied hundred of disks over the years, but played/used most of them no more than once - then used the disks for the next 'round' of copies. A lot of the stuff was nowhere near as good as some of teh reviews made out...
If I'd paid good money for them I'd not only be p*ssed off, but skint as well!
Mike.
Mingle! New Bubby ?
Congratulations..!
(Sorry for the detour)
Looks like the new Amiga logo should have the Jolly Roger in there somewhere.
Gertsy
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Back in the good old days getting software used to be a great social occasion, you'd have these huge users group meetings where you just copied disks and while all that was going on they're be this party going on and you really got to meet your fellow users. Nowadays it's just torrent this, torrent that and you never get to meet others. Maybe it's time for a facebook group...
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Just not true. As I've said in a previous post, as a kid all of my software was pirated. This was because I came from a pretty poor background (to say the least), had no income and in the 90s couldn't afford £35+ per title. I agree, games are a luxury and my not being able to afford them is no moral argument - i should have just "done without".
But the point is, I certainly could not have afforded to buy those games anyway, and more importantly I would NEEEEEEEVER have been able to afford my copy of Real3D (which, iirc cost around £300) or 3D Studio Max which cost thousands. I honed my graphic skills on pirated applications as a kid and that enabled me become employed as an adult in an industry I love. Now that's a more moral based argument. Games you can do without, but productivity applications open doors to careers, careers that would be exclusive to only those children that came from families who could afford to buy them certain software titles. :/
Nowadays, EVERY item of software I own is legal. Not because I "can't" crack these software titles (I most certainly easily can) but because I can afford them thanks to my sort after skills (honed, largely, thanks to pirated softwrae)
Nobody lost ANYTHING through my piracy because, as has been pointed out by many in this thread, "our types" would not have been able to afford most of the software we pirated. But society HAS gain a skilled software user and a guy who can now afford to PAY for all the games and software that he and his family (children included) uses.
see, it's magic and just afterall.
I think this is a very nice point that amiga4ever has made.
I also learnt my skills on machines that had mostly copied software, today I'm a designer who spends several thousands on software each year, and much more on hardware. Without that early start I might be working the land like my father and grandfather.
Those who would say "if you cant afford it you cant use it" are suffering from the typical small minded elitism that aims to maintain a (perceived) superior position over others. Fortunately these "superior" people seem to be a minority in this thread.
I think people just have to accept that one of digital media's great flaws and benefits is its infinite duplicatablity. Personally I'd like to see software become available in a free library, which is sort of what the internet is software developers like it or not.
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Just not true. As I've said in a previous post, as a kid all of my software was pirated. This was because I came from a pretty poor background (to say the least), had no income and in the 90s couldn't afford £35+ per title. I agree, games are a luxury and my not being able to afford them is no moral argument - i should have just "done without".
But the point is, I certainly could not have afforded to buy those games anyway, and more importantly I would NEEEEEEEVER have been able to afford my copy of Real3D (which, iirc cost around £300) or 3D Studio Max which cost thousands. I honed my graphic skills on pirated applications as a kid and that enabled me become employed as an adult in an industry I love. Now that's a more moral based argument. Games you can do without, but productivity applications open doors to careers, careers that would be exclusive to only those children that came from families who could afford to buy them certain software titles. :/
Nowadays, EVERY item of software I own is legal. Not because I "can't" crack these software titles (I most certainly easily can) but because I can afford them thanks to my sort after skills (honed, largely, thanks to pirated softwrae)
Nobody lost ANYTHING through my piracy because, as has been pointed out by many in this thread, "our types" would not have been able to afford most of the software we pirated. But society HAS gain a skilled software user and a guy who can now afford to PAY for all the games and software that he and his family (children included) uses.
see, it's magic and just afterall.
Like I mentioned before people can justify it in many convincing ways. It doesnt change the key facts does it? A software developer makes a piece of software a price is decided and that software is sold. It is illegal (for want of a better word) to pirate that software! That is the way it works. I agree with what you say but that doesnt change that fact does it? Thats why I don't justify it! I do what I do and that is that! I to could use the same arguements as you but I dont.
When I said "The fact is people do it because they can, plain and simple." I ment in general, obviously every individual has their own story, point of view.
As for allowing you a future career thats awsome but software developers dont owe the youth of today anything, and surely you could have gained the same skills in say college/university. Please dont see that as a attack im just saying its never going to be right to pirate because there are laws in place against it and trying to justify it is pointless becasue it will never be "ok".
If you dont agree with a law you campain to change it, you dont just break it surely?
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Well some laws will not change no matter how silly. Like the ban on certain ccontrolled substances and the ones they keep adding in the uk like its going to solve issues, when in fact its just makes things a millions times worse.
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Like I mentioned before people can justify it in many convincing ways. It doesnt change the key facts does it? A software developer makes a piece of software a price is decided and that software is sold. It is illegal (for want of a better word) to pirate that software! That is the way it works. I agree with what you say but that doesnt change that fact does it? Thats why I don't justify it! I do what I do and that is that! I to could use the same arguements as you but I dont.
When I said "The fact is people do it because they can, plain and simple." I ment in general, obviously every individual has their own story, point of view.
As for allowing you a future career thats awsome but software developers dont owe the youth of today anything, and surely you could have gained the same skills in say college/university. Please dont see that as a attack im just saying its never going to be right to pirate because there are laws in place against it and trying to justify it is pointless becasue it will never be "ok".
If you dont agree with a law you campain to change it, you dont just break it surely?
Oh really, I could have gone to university and learnt to use software which, at the time, was only taught on MSc engineering degrees requiring not only a previous undergraduate degree but also a solid Mathematical background? Don't worry, I went to my university and local college open days on many occasions, looking and hoping (dreaming?) for "a way in". But that route would have been pretty difficult, considering the fact that I left home and school at the age of 16 and had to work full-time on a minimum wage, just to afford my rent and food. I spent every hour of my free time (after work) practising my trade, on a pirated copy of 3D Studio Max - THAT was my university and pretty much my only option for learning what I needed to learn to enable me to develop a portfolio which I was able to show to employers as a substitute for my lack of formal education. Again, maybe the middle class folk could afford to do things the "proper" way - but for many of us in life "the proper way" is not realistic and why should we just give-up without a fight (even if it does mean breaking a few copyright rules).
Btw, I remember a comment made in an interview with some guy from the marketing department of Alias Wavefront (developers of Maya 3D, which at the time cost around 14k) published in an old copy of 3D World magazine. He was basically asked his opinion on piracy and how it affected sales of Maya. He pretty much openly admitted that Alias purposely made it EASY for Maya to be cracked and hinted that it should even be a policy of Alias to secretly release unlocked versions for those who could not afford it. His basic reasoning was that companies largely do not pirate the software they use and employees and their familiarity with certain software is what dictates which software companies purchase. More pirate users = larger userbase = more company licences. (with respect to productivity s/w, at least)
I don't see your comments as an attack, I just see you as quite narrow minded and myopic in your steadfast adherence to "laws" which, in many cases, make no sense or reason to those of us living in the real world.
here's just a few of the world's most ridiculous laws which I expect you to abide by without question or independent reasoning:
- Topless saleswomen are legal in Liverpool, England, but only in tropical fish stores. (Of course!)
- The penalty for masturbation in Indonesia is capitation. (Wonder how they enforce that one?)
- In Hong Kong, a betrayed wife is legally allowed to kill her adulterous husband, but may only do so with her bare hands. (The husband’s lover, on the other hand, may be killed in any manner desired. COOL)
- In Cali, Colombia, a woman may only have sex with her husband, and the first time this happens her mother must be in the room to witness the act. (I shudder at the thought. How many of us would be virgins today?)
- not long, here in the UK, it was "illegal" to be homosexual and you could be hung for the crime.
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Well some laws will not change no matter how silly. Like the ban on certain ccontrolled substances and the ones they keep adding in the uk like its going to solve issues, when in fact its just makes things a millions times worse.
Precisely.
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Oh really, I could have gone to university and learnt to use software which, at the time, was only taught on MSc engineering degrees requiring not only a previous undergraduate degree but also a solid Mathematical background? Don't worry, I went to my university and local college open days on many occasions, looking and hoping (dreaming?) for "a way in". But that route would have been pretty difficult, considering the fact that I left home and school at the age of 16 and had to work full-time on a minimum wage, just to afford my rent and food. I spent every hour of my free time (after work) practising my trade, on a pirated copy of 3D Studio Max - THAT was my university and pretty much my only option for learning what I needed to learn to enable me to develop a portfolio which I was able to show to employers as a substitute for my lack of formal education. Again, maybe the middle class folk could afford to do things the "proper" way - but for many of us in life "the proper way" is not realistic and why should we just give-up without a fight (even if it does mean breaking a few copyright rules).
Btw, I remember a comment made in an interview with some guy from the marketing department of Alias Wavefront (developers of Maya 3D, which at the time cost around 14k) published in an old copy of 3D World magazine. He was basically asked his opinion on piracy and how it affected sales of Maya. He pretty much openly admitted that Alias purposely made it EASY for Maya to be cracked and hinted that it should even be a policy of Alias to secretly release unlocked versions for those who could not afford it. His basic reasoning was that companies largely do not pirate the software they use and employees and their familiarity with certain software is what dictates which software companies purchase. More pirate users = larger userbase = more company licences. (with respect to productivity s/w, at least)
I don't see your comments as an attack, I just see you as quite narrow minded and myopic in your steadfast adherence to "laws" which, in many cases, make no sense or reason to those of us living in the real world.
here's just a few of the world's most ridiculous laws which I expect you to abide by without question or independent reasoning:
- Topless saleswomen are legal in Liverpool, England, but only in tropical fish stores. (Of course!)
- The penalty for masturbation in Indonesia is capitation. (Wonder how they enforce that one?)
- In Hong Kong, a betrayed wife is legally allowed to kill her adulterous husband, but may only do so with her bare hands. (The husband’s lover, on the other hand, may be killed in any manner desired. COOL)
- In Cali, Colombia, a woman may only have sex with her husband, and the first time this happens her mother must be in the room to witness the act. (I shudder at the thought. How many of us would be virgins today?)
- not long, here in the UK, it was "illegal" to be homosexual and you could be hung for the crime.
Not to get into the whole piracy thing, but as a bonus stupid law, if you live in the US, breaking or circumventing copy protection is a felony.
I'd go easy on that trained version of Turrican 2 ;)
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"I don't see your comments as an attack, I just see you as quite narrow minded and myopic in your steadfast adherence to "laws" which, in many cases, make no sense or reason to those of us living in the real world."
As Ive said more than once I do pirate and I don't agree with the law, well more with the way things are handled than the letter of the law, and quoting the stupidity of some old laws is meaningless to me it doesnt make your case.
Do you think yours is the only idustry with a barrier to entry?
Have you taken a look at the new conservative cabinet? Im not asking you to like the way things are, I dont. I just dont understand the need to justify what you did? You cant because it always comes back to that bottem line doesnt it?
I aggree with your point and think its great what you have achieved. Also storys like yours need to be heard because it shows people just how much change is needed.
You still made a decision to break the law people may think you are morally right (I do) but it was still against the law and just as many people will call you a crimanal and say you made a morally wrong disision.
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... many people will call you a crimanal
Prrrrpft! An entirely different sort of "bum rap", eh?
:lol:
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I can offer two real-world factual data points made without judgment:
1. Concerning the argument about people not being able to afford software as a reason for piracy:
In Profound Effects piracy from Russia and China was so rampant that I publicized an offer of "If you are purchasing from any email address from .cn or .ru you can have the product for $1."
Not a single sale was made.
2. Concerning the argument about piracy not having a real effect on companies.
Profound Effects is no longer in business.
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So "takemehomegranma,and others",did you PAY to register MorphOS? Or just use a cracked version? And why would stealing Piru's work be different from stealing Jim Sachs' work?
DO any of you perform a service job that doesn't produce physical objects? Should not your service (time, and knowledge ) be compensated?
And the law professor justifying IP theft is kind of scary.
The way the free market is SUPPOSED to work is people either buy or not based on if they can afford the product or service and if the buyer perceives it has value.People who produce crap or price products too high go out of business.
As for people taking Mercedes if they could,I think Mercedes production would quickly end-hmmm,maybe a parallel here?
Why didn't everyone who wanted an Amigo 3000 back in the days of $3299 units just take one?After all it was only a few pounds of cheap metal and plastic.
Philosophers and prophets and governments and I recognize many people will take anything they can get away with,and ONE of the signs of civilized people is they don't steal .I'd like to think more than 1% have an innate sense of morality called "conscience" .I have also found in my half-century that many people will do what is consistently expected of them ,whether that be good or bad.
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NOt that I've heard of the law being used,but back in the George Bush I days,our Congress passed a law making it a very big deal to have more than 10 pirated pieces of software.Think the stated punishment was something like 10 years imprisonment and $250,000 fine!.Reall way over the top.However,s a disgruntled employee can tell the SPA about his boss'(company) use of unlicensed software and the company can find itself looking at million $ penalties to become legal.I know of a couple local computer resellers no longer in business because they placed pirated OS and office suites on their goods.(just for the record I had absolutely nothing to do with those legal actions,had even bought one of my computers there ,and never thought it might be running unlicensed OS).
I will agree most software seems priced way too high.
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I had more software than I knew what to do with, all legal. I was a Newsletter Editor for our local Commodore user group. I ended up writing reviews about the software I used (C-64, C-128, and Amiga), and that snowballed into loads of publishers sending copies of their programs.
I never wrote a review white washing a product. I tore some a new butt for bad stuff - but they kept sending the stuff until the group went belly up.
These were some good times back then. There was a lot going on in the greater Washington D.C., Baltimore area than.
Our Group was very anti Piracy - so I had follow that line.
I should add that Amiga software was usually very fairly priced, compared to other platforms. Of course games were pretty much the same price.
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Nobody lost ANYTHING through my piracy because, as has been pointed out by many in this thread, "our types" would not have been able to afford most of the software we pirated. But society HAS gain a skilled software user and a guy who can now afford to PAY for all the games and software that he and his family (children included) uses.
see, it's magic and just afterall.
Okay, since that's what you believe, how would you feel if you were working on nice graphics project for client, and a poor young struggling graphics artist somehow got ahold of your graphics files and put them in his portfolio for prospective clients, claiming they were his own work?
Same situation, but with the positions reversed. Now that you are successful, should someone in a less fortunate position be able to freely benefit from your hard work?
How would you feel?
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NOt that I've heard of the law being used,but back in the George Bush I days,our Congress passed a law making it a very big deal to have more than 10 pirated pieces of software.Think the stated punishment was something like 10 years imprisonment and $250,000 fine!.Reall way over the top.....
What law is that? I live in the States, and I have never heard of this one.
For the record, I am against "piracy", just because is theft - pure and simple. BUT, lord these arguments get anal....
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Excuse me, but WTF are you saying here? Go to a house and take stuff?!? Oh, man...
1. When you download something, you aren't removing any objects. You don't even remove the digitalized information. It's all still there, you aren't taking away anything. No-one will wake up and say "hey, where is the TV?"
This old BS again. Behind the digital data there are many man hours of learning, many man hours of work by a real human being who is not getting paid for the product he has created and you are profiting from, either in terms of making money or personally enjoying. The physical medium costs next to nothing, just like it costs hundreds or billions of dollars in man hours to develop a single new model of car, but maybe a few thousand dollars in materials.
2. What may be lost is a sales opportunity, but only if you download it for free instead of buying it. OTOH, if you would never have bought it anyway, not even the sales opportunity is lost.
More BS. None of this entitles you to profit either monetarily or in terms of personal enjoyment from the time and effort another person has put in in the hope they earn a living.
There are many reasons to *why we don't buy* stuff, like for example that we don't really want it, or we simply can't afford it.
And the BS continues.
If you don't want it, why do you have it?
If you can't afford it then you can't have it. See my whitegoods analogy: you don't break into the store and steal your washing machine just because you couldn't afford it.
Have you looked at what Adobe is asking for their Master Collection CS5? I'll tell you: US$2,599!
There is *no way* I could possibly pay that kind of money for some software even if I wanted to. I know that, they know that, I'm simply not in their target market (which probably is various media producing corporations).
Thats right you're not. They'll sell to you for a tenth of the price the versions that are targeted at your market. Still can't afford it? Get a job.
Still I'm using Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Fireworks, Flash, Acrobat, etc (all from the Master Collection CS5) on an almost daily basis. And you know what? Adobe has lost exactly $0 on me. They haven't lost anything at all, since there is no chance in this world that I would have bought their product anyway. There never were any sales opportunity for them to lose!
What are you doing with these professional tools? Why do you need them? Whether you use them in a professional capacity and made money from using these tools, or they provide you personal enjoyment, you have profited from the hard work of others that you haven't paid them for. If you are using these tools in a professional capacity, then you shouldn't charge as well.
If I OTOH would go to Adobes office, smash a window, and grab a monitor from a nearby desk, then they would obviously have lost something.
Do you see the difference?
No, not in the slightest.
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Just not true. As I've said in a previous post, as a kid all of my software was pirated. This was because I came from a pretty poor background (to say the least), had no income and in the 90s couldn't afford £35+ per title. I agree, games are a luxury and my not being able to afford them is no moral argument - i should have just "done without".
But the point is, I certainly could not have afforded to buy those games anyway, and more importantly I would NEEEEEEEVER have been able to afford my copy of Real3D (which, iirc cost around £300) or 3D Studio Max which cost thousands. I honed my graphic skills on pirated applications as a kid and that enabled me become employed as an adult in an industry I love. Now that's a more moral based argument. Games you can do without, but productivity applications open doors to careers, careers that would be exclusive to only those children that came from families who could afford to buy them certain software titles. :/
Nowadays, EVERY item of software I own is legal. Not because I "can't" crack these software titles (I most certainly easily can) but because I can afford them thanks to my sort after skills (honed, largely, thanks to pirated softwrae)
Nobody lost ANYTHING through my piracy because, as has been pointed out by many in this thread, "our types" would not have been able to afford most of the software we pirated. But society HAS gain a skilled software user and a guy who can now afford to PAY for all the games and software that he and his family (children included) uses.
see, it's magic and just afterall.
So I take it you donate your time and creations for free to the needy poor kids to give them a leg up in to your industry?
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BTW, Limewire was found guilty yesterday:
http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/limewire-induces-copyright-theft-20100513-uzc1.html
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When I switched from the C64 to my first Amiga I made the choice to only go for purchased software. It meant I didn't have all the latest games, but it did mean that I really had time to play the ones I had. Back on the C64 when I had loads and loads of tapes with pirated games I really only loaded them up, played for a minute and said "Next!".
For productivity software I mostly relied on Amiga Format and CU Amiga cover disks. :)
I only snagged one or two copies on the Amiga after making a similar decision. I purchased PageStream after having used it a while and my little sisters didn't get much enjoyment out of Mixed-Up Mother Goose anyway.
In those days I lived off of what was uploaded to the Aminet and played unregistered shareware quite a bit. I didn't miss the Warez as much as I missed watching the cracktros at the beginning of the C64 pirate software I used to use. My internet provider limited my access to a half-hour a day on the freebie rate so time-outs on the Voyager web browser and Miami didn't bother me much even after my hard drive crashed with the AmiTCP shareware version that took so long to set up went with it.
Eventually all of the software I had wanted to register went freeware anyway: Deluxe Galaga AGA was briefly before the author reinstated a nominal fee due to the emulator users' freeloading. AmosPro is still freeware.
The only software that I didn't get because I couldn't afford it was the GameSmith developer system that came bundled with special versions of the DevPak assembler and the DICE C compiler. It took me a while to learn C and Assembly so I'm not sure if it would have helped me anyway. I am not much of a pixel-artist either.
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December 1, 1990 Computer Software Rental Admendments Act (President Bush)
October 1998 Digital Millenium Copyright Act President Clinton)
I couldn't find exactly what I remembered but the current copyright lengths and punishments are extreme ,beyond draconian.Depending on which statute is invoked it seems you could be sentenced to a maximum of either 5 or 10 years and fines up to $100,00 or $250,000.
I think it is a crime to steal new software or work ,but copyrights of 70 to 120 years are just ridiculous!
Ultimately,laws are part of the social contract and I expect the laws will change again.
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Interviewer: Hi Ms Bit. How would you describe yourself ?
Bit: I'm a cheap prost{bleep}!
Interviewer: Don't you think about how this affects your parents ?
Bit: I love them, but this is *my* life!
:sealed:
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Hi,
@Stefcep2
"this thread confirms what I've suspected: the vast majority of Amigans were pirates, and if you think that didn't play a major part in the platforming failing, you're kidding yourself."
What killed Amiga was the copy protection that was put on these disks, a little thing called a hard drive came out, and people couldn't put the software that was copy protected on the hard drive. This led to boxes upon boxes of games that you had to root through to play the game. Once again I will say it "if the software was copy protected I broke it, or copied it with cracking software, if the software was copy protection free then I bought it and installed it on my hard drive. If you look at my collection copy protected software was pirated, bascally it was fun on my part to break it and put it out on the BBS boards. Another thing you will notice is that most people who broke software were software developers themselves.
Sorry copy protection and not piracy condemned the Amiga to failure (plus the way that Commode sold it).
smerf
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I can offer two real-world factual data points made without judgment:
1. Concerning the argument about people not being able to afford software as a reason for piracy:
In Profound Effects piracy from Russia and China was so rampant that I publicized an offer of "If you are purchasing from any email address from .cn or .ru you can have the product for $1."
Not a single sale was made.
2. Concerning the argument about piracy not having a real effect on companies.
Profound Effects is no longer in business.
were the product one that was marketed extensively in the chinese and russian markets and relying on those sources?
Its obvious that piracy has an effect on sales, whether software, movies or music. However, its not all that obvious what this effect is.
If people stealing it are guilty of bringing down businesses, how can things survive that are given away on a donation basis?
There's more than a few webcomics f.x. that create art on a daily basis.. and had enough donations come in to make it a living, despite not selling a single thing.
The humble indie bundle of games has made 1.2 million so far, and still counting.
Radioheads "pay what you want" album reached 3 million sales despite being basically given away for whatever people wanted to pay.
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were the product one that was marketed extensively in the chinese and russian markets and relying on those sources?
Marketing was not necessary. The value of the products was well established and the tens of thousands of downloads from .ru and .cn were each accompanied by the offer to sell the software for a dollar.
Its obvious that piracy has an effect on sales, whether software, movies or music. However, its not all that obvious what this effect is.
If people stealing it are guilty of bringing down businesses, how can things survive that are given away on a donation basis?
No comparison can be made and no knowledge gained from such a comparison if made can be worthwhile.
There's more than a few webcomics f.x. that create art on a daily basis.. and had enough donations come in to make it a living, despite not selling a single thing.
The humble indie bundle of games has made 1.2 million so far, and still counting.
Radioheads "pay what you want" album reached 3 million sales despite being basically given away for whatever people wanted to pay.
See above. All of these examples are independent and non-comparable.
Success or failure of one has no value as an indicator of success of another. Different products. Different markets. Different value propositions. In the details, none of these are alike.
All I can factually say is:
- Profound's products are well regarded and well reviewed.
- We know a large number of professionals around the world made their living using Profound's products which they did not pay for.
- Profound did not earn enough income to be viable.
I acknowledge that the causality cannot be conclusively drawn.
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When I had an A500 I was still at school, none of my pear group had money, but Xcopy was the Number 1 App. in fact probably the only App some had. having come from the C64 where a double tape deck was the number 1 App.
hence we had no original games. But when I got a 4000 I actually payed for MakeCD. i think my 2x CDwriter died from over use.
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Hi,
Sorry copy protection and not piracy condemned the Amiga to failure (plus the way that Commode sold it).
Yep, how annoying was that, plus the endless look in the manual games, like Frontier.
That's the only original game I have on the Amiga, and than that cop comes again and again line this word that, letter whatever :uzi:
So annoying for the game play!
The delight of just pressing a specific key was just a whole lot better, makes you wanna get another :drink:and play on :)
The PC did it for a while too in the early days, I remember a lot of games having a No-CD hack.
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Like I mentioned before people can justify it in many convincing ways. It doesnt change the key facts does it? A software developer makes a piece of software a price is decided and that software is sold. It is illegal (for want of a better word) to pirate that software! That is the way it works. I agree with what you say but that doesnt change that fact does it? Thats why I don't justify it! I do what I do and that is that! I to could use the same arguements as you but I dont.
When I said "The fact is people do it because they can, plain and simple." I ment in general, obviously every individual has their own story, point of view.
As for allowing you a future career thats awsome but software developers dont owe the youth of today anything, and surely you could have gained the same skills in say college/university. Please dont see that as a attack im just saying its never going to be right to pirate because there are laws in place against it and trying to justify it is pointless becasue it will never be "ok".
If you dont agree with a law you campain to change it, you dont just break it surely?
Agree Amigan. There's no need to try to justify copying product. It's wrong and we were all (and some still are) stealing. Having your own reason for it does't change the fact or dilute the crime. If it were food and you were dieing maybe. But software ? Accept that you stole something and deal with it. .. (o:
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with the internet nowadays, there's not really much of an excuse either. There's a wealth of great open source software out there, whether OS, games or apps. as well as "closed but free" stuff
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@ral-clan (http://www.amiga.org/forums/member.php?u=3801)
Thanks for the positive mention of Aladdin 4D, we appreciate your support.
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So bringing into the argument, because I think its waning a bit, what about downloading roms for no longer available cartridges. Or so called abadonware.
Technically unless the copyright holder has given his permission, there is no such thing as abadonware.
However most people who are agaianst piracy don't think downloading software that is no longer available is wrong.
Going back to oter peoples comments. Wouldn't that be the same as stealing parts for your car that are no longer manufactured.
I do not condone piracy. But I am willing to bet the most moralistic people in this discussion have pirated at least 1 thing. Ex-pirates , they are like ex-smokers and born again christians :)
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It's all illegal, and so was recording music onto audio tapes from radio or video tape from TV in the 80s. Technically it is the same downloading a TV show as it was recording it on video tape and lending it to your friend who missed that show, doesn't have that channel. The difference is technology now enables larger scale piracy AND draconian civil liberties infringing laws.
Downloading any ROM or disk/tape image on any emulator, even for a TI99/4A, is illegal unless the copyright holder has specifically released it into the public domain. Abandonware is not recognised as a legal term, it's a made up term from all the rom sites.
The point is if you take something like Hollywood's output, if a film was crap and I bought it then it goes straight back to the shop for a refund under the "duplicate gift" policy. I don't suffer full price drivel gladly. But the key here is no sale either through torrent or shop refund, and rightly so as crap is crap. Personally the biggest moaner especially, the music industry, produces 99.99999999% crap from talentless me-too puppets, so the figures about billions lost in sales are for clueless idiots lapping up their vitriol and is far from the truth. The reality is for some movies/albums the sales are pretty much all they would get in reality. There is a lot of rubbish in the mainstream that can't support a full price release fact.
It's sour grapes on both sides. What's illegal here is legal in another country, and in the 80s when cassette games for 8bit micros were 10 bucks, in Spain they were sold legally for 3 bucks. So why was it not 3 bucks here in the UK?
Piracy moans are like politics, when some media mogul is up on the stand ranting and raving remember to engage brain and common sense for maximum benefit. At the same time, The Pirate Bay are not your soulmates, they do it for the money....and the site creators have plenty of money from advertising revenue.
For very small companies however piracy would be crippling I agree, but small companies generally don't make crap, that's the difference. I bought Super Stardust AGA, I checked out Turbo Outrun on pirate (and wiped it within 2 minutes of play for pathetic coding)
And where do you draw the line? I own some TV shows on DVD but also have the same shows I own as downloaded DVD/TV rips. This is purely for convenience....I could legally rip every DVD I own that is my right, but why would I spend months doing that when someone else has done this already for me anyway? Seems like a dumb thing not to have my legally owned DVDs stored on my 2TB hard drive to cure boredom and is far more convenient than hunting for a disc in the bookshelves.
Never mind all the horseshit about 'would you download a car' if you paid a painter to paint your walls and he did a terrible job would you let him keep the money or demand a refund? Same thing with a film, if it is not entertaining it goes back to the shop for refund. Torrents just cut out the refund from shop and burning of petrol stage of the same outcome 9/10. And I've not heard a single musical production in the last 3 years I would want to own, so clearly the record industry needs to sort their stock out before complaining about thieves in the wharehouse. It's a bit like leaving the keys in a rubbish car hopping it will get stolen with some of the albums being pimped for 10 bucks in the shops these days,
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It's a bit like leaving the keys in a rubbish car hopping it will get stolen with some of the albums being pimped for 10 bucks in the shops these days,
haha lol
Make a crappy album. Wait till people download it and then sue them for huge profits.
You can get 2 disc best of's for 10 bucks that beats any download price and what's the deal with mp3 downloads that are only available to some countries?
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My view has consistently been that the U.S. Congress and others in the pay of major studios ,extended the length of copyright protection in excess of the original intents and well in excess of custom or logic.
The U.S. laws used to recognize the right of an individual to copy many inventions,etc. as long as only one copy was made for the person's own private,non-commercial use. use,none sold or even given away.Here is where computer piracy in the workplace and at club swaps violates even the long-accepted previous understanding.Copyright and patent protection also depended on the inventor or holder pursuing action against persons or companies making unlicensed products.
Warning!!!
Long post follows ,but I couldn't think how to cover the points shorter.
I still believe 14 or so years is long enough for a person to profit from exclusitivity,and then ideas should become public domain.However that is not the current law.
Personally I think if a person or company no longer makes the product available ,it should automatically become public domain.
I have electronic hardware for which the company exists but cannot provide repair or operation info,yet current law says no one can sell or copy .
Piracy in the form of copying products currently available for purchase surely hurts companies and the people who work for them;but copying products that are abandoned,while illegal,seems to me not so big a deal morally.
I would draw a parallel with items discarded into the trash by the previous owner in that if someone else can make use of those items that is not otherwise criminal in itself,then it is no wrong.
Traditional public or private libraries lending of material meant that only one person could use the item at any given time,so one copy of a book might be read by a hundred people in a few years,only a few of which might have bought the book .But if the library had made copies of that one book so that all users got a permanent copy free,then that would have meant no one else need purchase a copy.
IF computer club libraries had been able to function on that model,more software would have been purchased.Without all software being absolutely locked down into requiring the master disk present in a drive or other physical key present,software copying is common.Some business software today still requires secure keys in USB or port "dongle" form( of course a big chunk of program code is devoted to key or licenses verification and itself hidden ).I wonder how many lines of Windows code is used to monitor the license status?
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And the industry is adapting. Soon all software will be hosted and for a sliding fee per month it will grant you access to use productivity software remotely. Google Docs proves this. Steam is not far off from this model either. Ownership of software locally stored will be gone. As for amigas...Back in the late 80's, I can't think of a single game played on my friends 500 that wasn't a fairlight or whatever production, and he wasn't the one calling the BB. we used xcopy a lot to make backups of our games because of the abuse the floppies would take sometimes. This issue always falls into the same camps-sanctimonious goody-two shoes with the "Law is Law! WHARRGARBL!" argument, and then various shades of "well if I didn't download roms I woudln't even be able to enjoy my ancient miggy/intellivision/etc". Meh. Don't pirate the latest teeny bopper bullshit music or the latest and greatest software. For mostly everything in the original Amiga catalog, it's a moot stupid argument, because I guarantee that the rights of the software are most likely not held by the individual who created it anymore. Do I think EA needs some money for my DPaint copy?! Hell no. Piracy did not kill the amiga- if that were the case the PC would be Loooong dead by now. The sad reality is that all of us amiga people are really bastions of quickly evaporating knowledge about early computing. Its less about revenus and profit stream as it is about archival preservation.
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Long post follows ,but I couldn't think how to cover the points shorter.
I still believe 14 or so years is long enough for a person to profit from exclusitivity,and then ideas should become public domain.However that is not the current law.
Personally I think if a person or company no longer makes the product available ,it should automatically become public domain.
I have electronic hardware for which the company exists but cannot provide repair or operation info,yet current law says no one can sell or copy .
What happens if that product/technology or parts thereof are then used in some hitherto unknown technology that ends making billions?
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What happens if that product/technology or parts thereof are then used in some hitherto unknown technology that ends making billions?
That's basically what Disney has done. They've taken stories from the public domain, and made animated films out of them, creating bazillions in revenue by scavenging others' work and adapting it to a new medium.
So, traditionally, that was quite acceptable. The intent and purpose of copyright is to encourage development, not ensure perpetual profit. This point has been completely perverted by the big media companies that enjoy making perpetual profits.
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Its complicated
On one hand you have reasonable requests:
Backing up software. Putting a song you bought on your MP3 player, watching a DVD on your computer, downloading a 20 year old game etc
On the other hand, you have pretty much every PC game developer hauling ass from the burning ship, unto consoles, because PC gamers plain can't be bothered to pay for games.
So nyeh. No easy answers.
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Well you see things like downloading a game onto a hard drive is not a solution.
1. You don't actually own anything physical and there are issues with storage/data corruption.
2. Cost is too similar, companies again are trying to INCREASE profits on products which are overpriced already (hence mass piracy)
3. You have to purchase enough secondary storage to host it all. So on an Xbox360...get the KY Jelly ready before looking for a half terrabyte 360 hard drive ;)
First point is the biggest problem though, because if I buy a game on disc for 360/PS3 and I complete it fast (like 1 day for Colin McRea Dirt 2) then it goes straight onto ebay as a mint used once copy and I get back most of my 50 bucks. Secondly as crappy Microcock Winblows is the default majority OS and fails frequently who is going to foot the bills for re-downloading what you own? Is it more difficult than the life of a pirate and his bittorrent client just re-downloading it again? Probably.
If they want to sell me a digital copy of the same game it can not cost more than my loss from buying and selling it a week later second hand. So about 10 to 15 bucks. Also it needs to be installable on multiple machines for a single purchase for PC games and a VERY helpful and friendly service to help you out when a problem with your digital purchase's source files are shafted thanks to Winblows.
Another reason why people pirated Amiga games was the ability to back up their collection. Spend £35 on Shadow of the Beast in 1989 and you have no way to back it up to protect your sizeable investment unless you get a cracked copy you can copy at will via X-Copy.
Media companies created a need for Napster/WinMX/Shareazza/Bittorrent, the way piracy is fought in countries where they have no bent politicians to pass civil liberty infringing laws is via a very attractive sale price. Clearly then if a company can sell an album for 3 bucks or a game for 10 bucks abroad they can do it here, screw the suits....they brought this all on themselves from the day the first rubbish Amiga 'ST ports' were being sold for more than the ST version.
Ditto did CDs ever come down in price in the 80s? Nope. Despite the fact vinyl records cost much more to mass produce they just kept the price of CDs at 10 bucks and increased the price of vinyl to distract you. Ditto with VHS tapes and DVDs. DVD still costs pence to produce, most titles are around 12 bucks with some useless extra crap on a 2nd DVD. Fantastic. We have a choice now, it is called "I will decide for myself for free via bittorrent thanks" :)
And their answer is to introduce Nazi-like laws to impinge on your freedoms and civil liberties, good move to win public support. There will always be a way to pirate things easily, it's the digital age. The media companies need to address the reasons people do it rather than just assuming everyone is a cheapskate who wouldn't buy it anyway. Mass downloaders of MP3s statistically spend more money on actual purchases of MP3s anyway.....maybe the dumb dumbs need a good smack on the head with an ACME mallet to see common sense! Pass draconian laws and they will not bother doing stage two "I like this tune, I will buy it on iTunes because the artist deserves it" just to spite the media companies cock measuring with the lawyers and politicians at the expense of the free world.
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on a related note, some cracked games actually worked better. A recent thread on here mentioned how Jaguar XJ220 required relokick to run on a 1200, whereas the cracked version ran just fine.
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And the industry is adapting. Soon all software will be hosted and for a sliding fee per month it will grant you access to use productivity software remotely. Google Docs proves this. Steam is not far off from this model either. Ownership of software locally stored will be gone. As for amigas...Back in the late 80's, I can't think of a single game played on my friends 500 that wasn't a fairlight or whatever production, and he wasn't the one calling the BB. we used xcopy a lot to make backups of our games because of the abuse the floppies would take sometimes. This issue always falls into the same camps-sanctimonious goody-two shoes with the "Law is Law! WHARRGARBL!" argument, and then various shades of "well if I didn't download roms I woudln't even be able to enjoy my ancient miggy/intellivision/etc". Meh. Don't pirate the latest teeny bopper bullshit music or the latest and greatest software. For mostly everything in the original Amiga catalog, it's a moot stupid argument, because I guarantee that the rights of the software are most likely not held by the individual who created it anymore. Do I think EA needs some money for my DPaint copy?! Hell no. Piracy did not kill the amiga- if that were the case the PC would be Loooong dead by now. The sad reality is that all of us amiga people are really bastions of quickly evaporating knowledge about early computing. Its less about revenus and profit stream as it is about archival preservation.
Steam is, indeed, the model of the future. It is still possible to get your Steam game written to a real CD/DVD - but it can be a fight, and I have no doubt they will circumvent that too.
The average user can not play the game unless they are connected to Steam.
Here in the U.S., we still have the right to make archival backup coppies, if we can...
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I'm drunk now: Devpac, cedpro, dpaint, real3d, photogenics. Digi Booster and I paid for Protracker:) and audio master.
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most of the software I consider "pirate" was the software I bought that had known bugs but you only learned about them when you complained to the software/hardware vendor.
Off the top of my head;
Amiga OS 3.5 didn't work with a warp 040 processor
Delpnia Lite needed an 060 to do what they claimed, then later found out ver 3.1 was just junk
Imagemaster R/T won't be retargable until the Amiga OS can do it
ImageFX designed for Cybergraphix software, manageble with Picasso 96, good thing Amiga can handle a lot of windows
Imagine 2.0, couldn't render the darn cow, then they had the balls to ask for a $100 a year continous upgrade fee to finance their conversion to Windows
All of the printer/DTP software, none of them kern due to the OS but somehow Pagestream figured it out.
The browsers all died, too bad you paid for them, with poison pills included.
I paid a lot of good hard earned cash for a lot of software and the shareware I bought still works.
Hats off to the companies that made great software and to those that sold crap I have kept track of you and I refuse to buy your Windows PC software
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I skimmed through many of the posts here and I see people are all over the place when it comes to this topic. Some people are correct when it comes to the law and others 'think' they know the law.
The problem here -and I'm being very serious- is the bigger picture when it comes to the future. There are some really deep questions about the handling of IP and its effect on our grand-children and great grand-children. The laws we put into motion today are going to cause ripples for the next century. I'm serious.
Intangible property is a mess to deal with and its only going to get worse. The law seems horrible outdated and I believe it will be our future generations that will have to deal with it.
Let me throw out some issues that I see:
People should be paid for their work. I think everyone can agree on that. Yet, for how long? How long should they be compensated before the good of the many out weigh the good of the few (or the one). Forgive the Spock quote but its the truth.
If you write a book (I only teach US Copyright/Patent Law so YMMV) the copyright is good for 70 years after you die. That is a long time for you and your family to profit off of this (as well you should).
Now, Disney wants to make this forever. The copyright would never expire. This seems bad to me. What about high schools that want to do plays from Tennessee Williams 200 years from now? I think it should be free.
Patents are another disaster here in America. You can not patent a word or fact for obvious reasons. Imagine owning the word THE.
Software patents have been granted and Microsoft has a shed load of them. Well, how many different ways can you write a program to draw a window on the screen? Connect to the Internet? Move data around?
You see, they will have so many patents that any kid in high school that wants to start their own company will get sued out of existence for any number of patents that Microsoft et al are sitting on.
Let's move beyond our time. Lets go 150 years into the future. With the path of patents, the knowledge that is gained by many of these companies do not go back into society. The building blocks of our language are not holdable but one person or group yet the building block of software are. Imagine a person holding the way a paragraph can be written. Imagine a person holding the way a report, term paper, review, outline, or some other document can be written.
If you read Michael Crichton's book Next you will see they are trying to patent genes. Did you know a company holds the patent rights for your body's ability to heal itself? Enforceable? No. Insane? Yes. It sets precedence.
What happens when somebody like Microsoft or Google own all the ways to move data a certain way in technology?
The patent office is so far behind that they grant patents that should not be allowed. Once they are granted its a mess to undo it.
Did you know the Welch's company (Jelly and Jam) were trying to patent the Peanut butter and Jelly Sandwich. No joke.
Did Amazon really deserve a patent for the 'click to buy' button? Really? Really?? Is that what the patent is really for? No, if you read what the patent is for, this does not count. Yet, here we are...
I can't imagine being a future programmer in say 100 years and wanting to write software and change the world. Microsoft may or may not be here but the patents will be.
Did you know that Kodak (the camera people) were the only camera folks to bet against digital cameras in the beginning. They lost their shirt and almost went 'Commodore' but they saved themselves at the last minute. Anybody here know why?
They bought a tiny company that had a patent for how data can be moved around in memory. I believe the company had folded but I don't remember. Anyway, Kodak went looking for people to sue with this patent. Who did they find?? Sun. They sued Sun for like a billion dollars (no, really). They settled for 900 million or something...
The question here is: Did Sun really intend to infringe on this patent? How the hell do you search for something as obscure as this? What happens when they come after you?
More did you know:
When Deluxe Paint was released they stated that any work derived from the use of Deluxe Paint would be owned by EA. People had a stroke and sued. EA lost.
George Lucas has fought for the perpetual rights of copyright holders to the extent that no photographs should be taken of anything without permission of the copyright holder. Like the Golden Gate Bridge? Take a picture of it? Well, now you go to jail because you didn't ask permission of the architect.
I create a series of vases that get sold at Pottery Barn. You come along and buy one. You live thousands of miles away from me. You want to paint it green for your room. You must ask me for permission to paint it.
Disney wants to end Fair Use (well, heavily reduce its worth) while making copyright law never ending.
These all seem like short sighted decisions to me. I don't want high schools to do Hamlet forever because they don't have any money and 300 years from now "Glass Menagerie" is still too expensive for them...
I guess I feel that at some reasonable time, IP must go back into the society or the society doesn't grow and expand. I don't believe a 7th grade kid in the future who wants to know how some bit of software controls technology should be denied that information because of a patent.
Even if Microsoft would allow access to that information, that kid would be considered tainted and any blooming software house would be crazy to even talk to him because of what he has seen. Remember, see the code once and you are tainted for life. Microsoft would say that they used prior patent knowledge for any work they do.
Sorry for the long rant..
:-)
-P
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While I've pirated my share of software over the years (mostly back as a teenager on the amiga) I have no delusions that its not stealing. It's quite amusing to see some of the warped justification some people convince themselves of when it comes to piracy. "It's too expensive, its too crap, my mum was mean to me, etc, etc.". Too expensive, buy something else or save for it,... too crap, what the hell do you want it for ? There's also the amusing claim that sales arent lost because people wouldnt have paid for it anyway. Sure, not everyone would have bought what they easily stole, but some would. Marketting is effective and despite the products sometimes being crappy sales are still lost. If even 2 out of 10 people who pirated a copy of software bought it that still all adds up, possibly to a point where a company isnt losing money. It makes a difference. Having said all this though reason and logic will fall on deaf ears anyway. Those who delude themselves about piracy will always find a way to justify that its ok to themselves.
All this aside though pirating for yourself is one thing, but I absolutely despise anyone who sells other peoples work for gain (pirates who sell copied software). Kids are maybe an exception here as theyre not aware of what theyre doing exactly. Still wrong, but Im not going to hold it against them. One of the most amusing things I saw in recent times was a friends reaction at a local computer swap meet (I think called computer fairs in some parts) when we encountered one such person who was selling copied xbox360 and ps3 games. After asking what the heck the guy was doing selling copied games he was told "its ok, theyre just demos" (they werent, and its illegal to sell demos anyway) my friend decided the best plan of attack was to grab a box of this pirates "stock". The fellow then (obviously) started to protest at which point my friend went to hand the guy his mobile phone and said, "here you go, call the police then,... or should I?". The fellow then just put his head down and started packing up his stall.
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While I've pirated my share of software over the years (mostly back as a teenager on the amiga) I have no delusions that its not stealing. It's quite amusing to see some of the warped justification some people convince themselves of when it comes to piracy. "It's too expensive, its too crap, my mum was mean to me, etc, etc.". Too expensive, buy something else or save for it,... too crap, what the hell do you want it for ? There's also the amusing claim that sales arent lost because people wouldnt have paid for it anyway. Sure, not everyone would have bought what they easily stole, but some would. Marketting is effective and despite the products sometimes being crappy sales are still lost. If even 2 out of 10 people who pirated a copy of software bought it that still all adds up, possibly to a point where a company isnt losing money. It makes a difference. Having said all this though reason and logic will fall on deaf ears anyway. Those who delude themselves about piracy will always find a way to justify that its ok to themselves.
All this aside though pirating for yourself is one thing, but I absolutely despise anyone who sells other peoples work for gain (pirates who sell copied software). Kids are maybe an exception here as theyre not aware of what theyre doing exactly. Still wrong, but Im not going to hold it against them. One of the most amusing things I saw in recent times was a friends reaction at a local computer swap meet (I think called computer fairs in some parts) when we encountered one such person who was selling copied xbox360 and ps3 games. After asking what the heck the guy was doing selling copied games he was told "its ok, theyre just demos" (they werent, and its illegal to sell demos anyway) my friend decided the best plan of attack was to grab a box of this pirates "stock". The fellow then (obviously) started to protest at which point my friend went to hand the guy his mobile phone and said, "here you go, call the police then,... or should I?". The fellow then just put his head down and started packing up his stall.
So your friend did the right thing after stealing from the thief and turned in all those pirateed games to the police, right?
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Nope. We got as far as the exit/entrance and it dawned on him that he had box of stuff he didnt want. Handed a few out to kids as they approached the entrance but got bored of it pretty quickly and ended up putting the box behind some bushes at the school the swap meet was held at. Chances are some lucky kid(s) hit the jackpot when they got to school the following week (either that or cleaners found them). Ive not seen the same pirate at the swap meets since, so some good come from it at least.
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Nope. We got as far as the exit/entrance and it dawned on him that he had box of stuff he didnt want. Handed a few out to kids as they approached the entrance but got bored of it pretty quickly and ended up putting the box behind some bushes at the school the swap meet was held at. Chances are some lucky kid(s) hit the jackpot when they got to school the following week (either that or cleaners found them). Ive not seen the same pirate at the swap meets since, so some good come from it at least.
So some lucky kids were set upon a course of theft by stumbling upon illicit goods and keeping property that didn't belong to them. Your friend contributed to the delinquency of minors by handing out said illicit good, free or no. The obvious thing to do was call the authorities right away and report the violation of copyright law.
Sorry for busting your chops, but the righteous road is a very hard one to walk sometimes. Human beings operate in various shades of grey while all the while yelling that some are too dark and some are too light. Thus the obvious problem with Law in general and enforcement in particular. In America, it wouldn't have been unheard of for that law violator to have called the cops later and said that you had threatened him with bodily harm. I guarantee the cops would have cared less about the pirated software at that point as much as your perceived violence towards another individual, right after they busted your chops for vigilanteism. The older I get, the more I realize that most things we perceive as important or lawful are neither.
EDIT: I am playing devils advocate here, and assuming you aren't from the US, so apologies if the first feels like an attack and the second if I am assuming wrong =).
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Who's being righteous? Im just happy that the scum trying to make money from other peoples work has now vanished. The look on his face amused me no end. Just curious, but how did you manage to fit violence into the equation? My friend even offered the scumbag his phone to call the police. And no, Im not from the U.S, but again how does this fit into the equation? A lowlife is a lowlife, nationality plays no part. You're welcome to play devils advocate all you like, it doesnt stop the look on the guys face when he realised there was nothing he could do amusing me.
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Who's being righteous? Im just happy that the scum trying to make money from other peoples work has now vanished. The look on his face amused me no end. Just curious, but how did you manage to fit violence into the equation? My friend even offered the scumbag his phone to call the police. And no, Im not from the U.S, but again how does this fit into the equation? A lowlife is a lowlife, nationality plays no part. You're welcome to play devils advocate all you like, it doesnt stop the look on the guys face when he realised there was nothing he could do amusing me.
No, I agree. That had to have been good :)
I bring the nationality part up only as it pertains to law. Many courts in Europe are better at seeing through obvious BS such as an accusation of violence when there was none. Here, all the scumbag would have had to say is he "felt" in imminent danger. Maybe you looked at him funny, or had a rough tone to your voice. Later on it would have probably got thrown out, but not after the (in)justice system had its way with you. I mention it merely because here in the US I would never open myself up to possible litigation however spurious its nature over intellectual or minor property crime. If I really had felt strongly about what he was doing I would have informed the police and left it at that.
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Sure, the "right" thing to do wouldve been to call the police, and had it been me that was aggressively pro-active it's probably what Id have done (although to be honest I'd more likely have spoken to the organisers of the event and have them deal with it (they'd probably let things go until someone spoke up about getting the police involved)). Still though, it was quite entertaining and still makes me chuckle when I think about it.
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Well since the statute of limitations has long expired since the halcyon days of 1987-89..
I had a few hundred, obtained from a circle of friends who would get together and copy stuff. I didn't get any via downloading.
Most Amiga people seemed to come from the C64 scene where piracy was rampant and mass copy parties were common. There was a big one in one of the town parks.
There were some whose collections dwarfed mine, they had thousands of disks.
Do I pirate now? Nope.
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Funny... Manx Aztec C and WordPerfect were 2 out of the only 3 packages that I ever bought as a lad.. the other was OS 1.3 ! :roflmao:
15? Are you kidding? Sheesh, we would get 15 in a night!
79th Track, Only Amiga, Fear and Loathing...so many BBS sites combined with PC-Pursuit rocked!
I didn't know anybody who didn't do this. I'm sure it hurt the software market a great deal on the Amiga but with everybody coming from the Commodore 64 it was just the way things were... I mean the Commodore 64 sold so well because of piracy! I always heard that Commodore said "Piracy sells computers!"
It was the Golden Time of the scene...ESI, Bencor Brothers, Razor 1911, The Firm, boy times were much simpler...
79th Track had these awesome util disks that were just fantastic!
I know it wasn't right but at the time I was a 17 year old kid with no money. I'm going to buy WordPerfect or Aztec C for the Amiga? Yeah, right...
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Pentad
I disagree that ANYONE should have copyright benefits for 70 years;I firmly believe the old laws from several decades ago provided a much better balance of originator's rights versus society's rights.
14 years plus ONE renewal of another 14 should be plenty of time.
I am reminded of Tolkien whining about not receiving money for his LOTR books decades after the original publishing.If the copyright laws of today had been in effect for the past few hundred years,perhaps Shakespeare,Milton, and others would not be classics;actually I believe excessive copyrights retard the progress of a society.
Nothing was created in a vacumn,all build on knowledge and work of those before.
The U.S. Congress is much too easily swayed by lobbyists and cash donations;plus simply feel the "need" to pass laws to show they are "earning" their legislator's pay.
The change in copyright laws to benefit Disney which made billions customizing old fairy tales,and also protecting companies like Microsoft and Apple which have demonstrably violated the patent or copyright laws themselves(and the blue-box background of Apple founders) just shows that money can have the rules of the game changed to benefit money.
FInally,I contend that most people do have an innate sense of right and wrong and most want to do the right thing most of the time;and when their sense of rightness conflicts with any society's laws the people will do what they feel should be right weighed against the likelihood of being caught and punished.
This is a reason I oppose red-light cameras since the camera doesn't know or care that you went through the intersection after being able to see that there is no other traffic at 3 a.m. Tuesday morning,just a suspicious person loitering across the street(possible carjacker?).
The minimum number of laws and justice based on real,not imagined , injury strikes me as better for a free society.Many,of course, do not like the idea of freedom for everyone,so they insist on restrictive laws rigidly enforced except in cases of the elite.
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My new band
http://soundcloud.com/noel-johnson/acid-dads-legends-noel-johnson-pep-c-1
are useing mp3 and the fact that it's being copyed to
get pep's to support us for live gigs and vinyl sale's.
reasons are at least pep's are hearing our music
we have no record deal but however we are playing
gig's and cuting small runs of 12" vinyl on our own.
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My new band
http://soundcloud.com/noel-johnson/acid-dads-legends-noel-johnson-pep-c-1
are useing mp3 and the fact that it's being copyed to get pep's to support us for live gigs and vinyl sale's.
Now that's smart. Give the people a taste of what it's all about, but let them purchase a superior experience either live or in full fidelity on vinyl. It's finally (again) becoming well known that electronic music fares especially well on that medium. Forget mp3's, even 16-bit CD's can't come close to vinyl when it comes to bass extension and the general rounding out of the electronic instruments. Kudos and best of luck in your endeavors!
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Now that's smart. Give the people a taste of what it's all about, but let them purchase a superior experience either live or in full fidelity on vinyl. It's finally (again) becoming well known that electronic music fares especially well on that medium. Forget mp3's, even 16-bit CD's can't come close to vinyl when it comes to bass extension and the general rounding out of the electronic instruments. Kudos and best of luck in your endeavors!
That and its rally really hard to pirate vinyl now that minidisc is dead :D
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I know the digital engineers claim we can't tell the difference but I believe we,or at least many of us ,CAN tell the difference between digitized music and analog,perhaps only subconsciously.My theory is that our brains detect the digital steps and the brain then processes the signal to sound "normal",i.e. analog.
The human brain can do amazing tricks.I happen to require glasses ,and of course having worn glasses for years was used to seeing things normally with one particular lens style. A switch to a special no- line lens whilst retaining the strength needed resulted in a weird hourglass view TEMPORARILY;for the first week or so wearing the new lenses ,the walls of hallways or anything not pretty much directly ahead seemed to "bow" in shape.Then one day I realized I was no longer noticing the distortion and all looked normal shapes and angles again.A quick switch to the original brought a very momentary blurriness and then ok.
I theorize my brain had somehow learned a new "program" for seeing and also a "sub-routine" for deciding which seeing program to use based on which glasses were being worn!
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I know the digital engineers claim we can't tell the difference but I believe we,or at least many of us ,CAN tell the difference between digitized music and analog,perhaps only subconsciously.My theory is that our brains detect the digital steps and the brain then processes the signal to sound "normal",i.e. analog.
The human brain can do amazing tricks.I happen to require glasses ,and of course having worn glasses for years was used to seeing things normally with one particular lens style. A switch to a special no- line lens whilst retaining the strength needed resulted in a weird hourglass view TEMPORARILY;for the first week or so wearing the new lenses ,the walls of hallways or anything not pretty much directly ahead seemed to "bow" in shape.Then one day I realized I was no longer noticing the distortion and all looked normal shapes and angles again.A quick switch to the original brought a very momentary blurriness and then ok.
I theorize my brain had somehow learned a new "program" for seeing and also a "sub-routine" for deciding which seeing program to use based on which glasses were being worn!
Some of it has to do with this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war
And that the way records have to be mastered disallows such dynamic compression. There are people who argue that digital can sound as good (even better) than a record, and they are right, but for both mediums to sound stellar requires investment in quality gear, and the market shows that convenience (Icrap, etc) and shoddy sound will win over bulky fidelity solutions. I still use minidisc, which is incredibly good sounding even to this day as a compromise...that and the fact I can actually record the way I used to do when casettes were in.
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Funny you should mention MiniDisk-there are six new in the wrapper beside my keyboard.Found them at a little secondhand junque store very cheap!
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Re: the wiki article on loudness war.
That explains my feeling of wrongness about some of the music the last few years;music should have a wide dynamic range if the listener is to get the full experience.Anyone can make loud noises.
This is similar to the over-application or processing in the CB,ham radio and even commercial services to the point of rendering voices unidentifiable although the gross message is delivered;that is the listener understands that "backup needed at Last National Bank" but the cues that let one recognize the other party's voice are missing and you must rely on the stated identity.Perhaps this is why cellphone calls so often sound so bad.
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Funny you should mention MiniDisk-there are six new in the wrapper beside my keyboard.Found them at a little secondhand junque store very cheap!
so not fair! Yet another thing the states ignored and so they are like hen's teeth here :)