Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: fishy_fiz on September 06, 2010, 11:18:00 AM
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I admit, I pirated my share of amiga software when I was a younger man, but people who sell other peoples hard work for a profit of thier own are in my opinion scum of the Earth, even if that software is old. Im sure there's many similar items all over the world, but I stumbled across this while browsing ebay.
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/Amiga-Emulator-Games-Collection-36GB-9-DVD-ROMS-/270629632672?pt=AU_Computers_Vintage&hash=item3f02c87aa0
What I find quite frustrating is that even though Ive reported it ebay have done nothing about it. Because of this Ive sent a message to the seller warning him that if he doesnt cease to sell these items I will contact companies like Virgin, Lucas Arts, Gremlin, and so on (the bigger name compaines who's software is being pirated and sold). I will actually do this if need be, but I was wondering/hoping that other people here may share my dislike of these sorts of people and also send reports to ebay. Hopefully they'll listen with a few more complaints (and being that my ebay name obviously implies my love for the amiga they may easily shrug my report off, thinking me a nutcase :))
Thanks for listening, and hopefully some of you will take the time to help me out here by sending a report to ebay.
Kind regards.
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Hi fishy_fiz, while I agree with your sentiments on piracy, the trouble is neither ebay or any of the companies you mention actually care about old Amiga software.
Simple reason the publishers don't care is they no longer make money from them, although I think they still can if they could be bothered to release some of their old back catalogue as budget releases or on a compilation cd. There not much chance of that though, not enough profit in it for them I reckon.
As for ebay, I've found here in the UK the quickest response you'll get from them when reporting pirated/dodgy/faulty goods is to threaten them with Trading Standards, they soon remove the offending items then.
The thing is and although most won't publicly admit it, these days things like that on ebay or from the numerous dodgy sites on the net, is for most folk the only way they can get hold of this old software.
Guess it's down to the morals of the individual as to just how strongly they agree or disagree with the use of such software.
Wish you luck in your quest, but to be honest I don't think you'll find the response your looking for if any, from ebay or any of those companies... :)
PS:I'd be willing to bet you've just created a few extra sales for that item, by simply posting the link here...
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I reported a guy in the UK for selling an identical DVD, but actually thinking about this...I hope you report Claonto as well for all the unlicensed games included on the Amiga Forever DVD for the rip-off price of £30 ;)
It's also worth noting that this entire 9 DVD set can be squeezed down to about 2 DVDs as well, I should know I've got it. And anyway the CD32 ISOs are pretty crap and not worth the extra 3 DVDs IMO.
edit: and ebay did actually remove the Amiga DVD auction.
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Selling DVD roms on EBAY is one thing. Full fledge commercial product is another.
I can assure you if you made say a TV game unit consisting of pirated games and tried to sell it to QVC or Walmart they would make sure you're legit and all the legal issues have been taken care of.
I hope the IP owners realize that there is a demand for these games. But with the Amigas reputation as an "oprphaned" platform and Amigas Inc's current reputation they don't want to touch the platform with a 10 foot pole. Too much hassle for not enough money.
It's really up to us to preserve this system, Amiga branding and games as it seems no commercial enterprise compitent or motivated enough to do so.
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To the sellers credit he has responded to my message fairly politely. He's either now playing ignorant due to my message in regards to what he's selling, or his claim of simply wanting to sell a compilation of retro amiga gear (he says he's an amiga fan and that was his motivation) is true. Originally I wanted to crucify him for his actions, but due to his response I now just want this particular auction to stop. Amiga fan or not I just cant get past the idea of people making money from others work (I've found some of my own work for sale without permission, which I guess is where this stems from).
@Crom00
I mostly agree with you here and in fact might try to use this as motivation to get permission to package some Amiga classics legally.... might take some time and effort, but could be a worthwhile, and interesting endevour.
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Until someone steps up there will be folks buying these on ebay. The question is how many of these units are actually sold. You can suspect that IP holders (if interested at all) will do completed listing searches to see how just many retro games are sold on EBAY. Generally whatever that amount is can be mulitplied it X4 or more. You THEN have your starting point for interest level on your potential sell though rate.
In specialty toys some manufacturers monitor ebay sales of discountinued toy lines. When they see aa particular item selling for ridiculous amounts on ebay or if said item attained a healthy resale value greater than the orignal price they re-issue that particular item number with new packaging or feature, diminishing aftermarket EBAY value.
I don't think there is enough interest in the AMIGA BRAND retro games market for anyone to care.
So you're then left with a few of choices...
A) download them... or
B) purchase them as a black market package.
C) Collect them as originals in original packaging.
Also the amount of legal wrangling to make such a product work is cost probitive. Lawyers don't work for free (unless they're looking to fill the pro bono quota) or on a high profile case. The Amiga is neither profitable enough or high profile enough.
Until an entity with enough realy business world sense, functionality and follow through skills comes along we're stuck in this rut.
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Fishy fiz.. your dedication is admirable but when the IP holders don't bother protecting their own IP I wouldn't waste your time doing it for them. When the legal pros don't bother to do their job it's becuase they see no $$$ in the game.
So in effect your dedication (perfectly admirable and honorable) simply puts cash in the pockets of IP holders too lazy or incompitent to do it themselves.
It's like feeding prime rib to lazy sharks
in this analogy prime rib= your valuable free time.
That being said EBAY should step up and should be liable for allowing this to be sold. Then
Will the said IP holder take on ebay? In the end it's not about if you're wrong or right but who has the most cash for a legal battle. There's just not enough cash being traded here to show up on any legal teams radar. At best it would be a side project for a legal intern... but even these days interns are "free legal slave labor" their time is better spent on paying clients. A lawyer told me that... so that gives you some insight to mindset of the players inlvolved in this game.
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but I was wondering/hoping that other people here may share my dislike of these sorts of people and also send reports to ebay.
I hate it too, especially those internal compact flash cards with 4000+ games preloaded. Having said that I've done nothing about it because nobody else with the power to do stuff legally will give a rats. It annoys me since it reduces the value of those people trying to sell boxed games, because it encourages piracy to continue (people should be paid for their work), because the games these days are so cheap anyway and because it cheapens the tactile boxed product to just another file/adf/dms whatever.
I have a Nintendo DS development card, I specify "development" here because it is one of those R4DS (IIRC) and I don't pirate* - I genuinely use it to put all my games on one cartridge, play oggs, watch Family Guy (etc) and to develop with devkitpro. Prior to deciding I want a game I get a copy online test it (as the DS has no demos) then buy the game (deleting the copy if I didn't like it). Currently I have about 30 games and some homebrew and thats it. What irks me is that the pirates in the UK have just ruined it for people like me because they've just made the sale of these cards illegal grrrrrrr. Unfortunately it was bound to happen, but the judge should've considered fair use and VHS legal decision more IMHO. I have blank CDs, should I be branded a pirate - on the basis of the judge's decision as it can be used to infringe, then yes apparently.
* Pirate => not paying for the game
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I harbor a certain disdain for people who profit on the bits of a carcass as well. However, I am not sure that I can agree with the sentiment that the rights owners do not care as the software does not or cannot make them money.
This was the argument for a long time supporting the trading of Atari 2600 ROMs. Then about ten years ago, Hasbro started marketing of the old Atari titles and we saw the release of a series of consoles, including the Atari Flashback, Flashback 2, and the hand-held Atari joystick. As well, there were a few remade titles in glorious 3D which included an emulation of the original game. Hasbro clearly saw an existing market for this old stuff and decided to feed it. The same happened for Intellivision games, though meanwhile Nintendo allows its NES games to be ripped off for "100-in-1" console games found at just about any flea market and swap-shop.
And the same goes currently for many Amiga titles as some have been release through the Wii market and iTunes. While not all companies may see the value in releasing Amiga games for the iPad 3G Mini (poke) or in PC emulation format, I believe many will.
We have a gentleman here who is working very hard to contact old software producers to request their software be released into the public domain. I believe that we could equally contact current rights holders of old Amiga games with examples of "retro" software for various platforms which is being re-released and encourage them to do the same. Some might just bite, some may release the games PD, some may ignore us, and some may tell us to walk westward until our hat floats.
We have a guy here who makes games for the iPad 3G Mini; perhaps he could secure the rights to repackage classic Amiga titles for the device. With the Android SDK available, the same could be done there as well. (Of course, the pirating would probably begin anew in both cases -- there is no escaping the pie-rats. ;))
(A thought occurs on the iPhone idea. I think the processing of an ADF or emulation of a CPU would run afoul of Apple's agreement. At the same time, I do not believe that Google puts such restrictions on Android.)
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Being an avid collector of SNES R.P.G. Games, I pay on average around the £50 mark on ebay to buy the originals. I have even paid £110 for a factory sealed original of Chrono Trigger on ebay.
I always prefer to have the original box, manuals etc.. as it's something I enjoy collecting and using and I don't even mind paying over the top prices for such things.
But I also have the rom images download from various sites for the games that I own, simply because it's more convenient to run them from an HD and emulator on my iMac.
Reckon that makes me a pirate, but the thing is if you can't buy old software anymore whatever the platform, then what else are you supposed to do.
Even though as Crom00 says it's up to the IP holders and manufactures to take an interest in releasing old software, what are the chances of that happening when their view is quite simply all to do with making a big profit.
It would be great if all the companies that still hoard all this old software would put some of the vast profits that they have made over the years into re issuing a lot of this old stuff, instead of letting them gather dust.
I don't reckon it would actually cost them much to do so and they may in fact even make a profit from them. The trouble is the profit margin to such companies would not be significant enough for the greedy sods to sit up and take any notice.
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FYI the Flashback devies were made by the company now known as ATARI (who purchased the rights to the name and the ip for the games from Hasbro well before they made the flashback).
Hasbro did re-releases during their brief tenure as owner of the IP but got rid of the brand rather quickly. I spoke to one insider who revealed the process of getting the Flashbacks out was a big legal hassle and in the end the project wasn't a money maker for them when you considered the NRE costs. Jakks Pacific was able make the number work on their TV games becuase all the tooling and majority of dev work is done in China (as cheap as humanly possible) so NRE costs were much cheper than using USA counterparts. Also Jakks legendary ability to fill a mass market supply chain and secured retailer space certainly helped.
The best course of action is to release these to the public domain for sure. At this point it's more about historical preservation and educational purposes. Histroy is written by the victors but if you speak to the hardcore in the industry and they are well aware of the contributions the Amiga made to the industry. It's up to us "old timers" to school the "young bloods" on this history.
What I do see are companies publishing games on a case by case basis. Pinball Dreams, Super Stardust, etc. If you port the game to a different platform you avoid the whole Amiga rom issue. Emulation seems to leave a bad taste in the mouth of IP holders as they are not administering the sale of the games. At least with WII Iphone and XBlive you have a copy protection system in place.
A more constructive course of action could be to campaining XBlive, Apple or other publishers to re-relase these gems on modern hardware.
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@ Franko:
"Even though as Crom00 says it's up to the IP holders and manufactures to take an interest in releasing old software, what are the chances of that happening when their view is quite simply all to do with making a big profit."
The cost of a TV game platform is too much. These entities want to do this with as little cost as possible. It's even crazier when you communicate with them see how they spend cash in their day to day operations yet kick and scream bloddy murder on all things related to IP and game development. Yet with the legal team every nanosecond is quoted as billable hours. One lawyer told me if he's on the bowl thinking about the case he bills for it. He laughs about it too while asking graphic designers to work for free or minumum wage on his website as "interns".
They like the iphone angle becuase they envision cheap labor, distribution costs and high return on investment.
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Hi,
@fishy_fiz,
Sorry but I don't have the same feelings as you do about this matter,
because
One of the things that killed the Amiga was games being put out on disk with copy protection which prohibited people who bought these games from installing them on their hard drive.
Also such companies as Electronic Arts, who put copy protection on their first produced games such as Arctic Fox, and Skyfox messed you up when they went from version 1.0 to 1.1 on the Amiga 1000. These games would not run on Ver 1.1 of Amiga OS. Today I support vendors which produce software without protection, and I won't buy any games that have protection on them (i.e. spores by electronic farts). Years ago though I would break these games and post them on the BBS boards across the country, I was so enraged.
Today the Amiga is kept alive by a handful of old relics like me, or some new kids that wanted to see what an old system could do. It really has no purpose because even setting up one of todays printers is a challenge on the old girl. I keep it around for my important data storage, picture base, and MP3 downloads. The old girl hasn't crashed yet and I think she is doing a fine job of keeping my important files handy. (Windows crashes to much to keep anything important on it without a backup plan). The Amiga's backup plan with Disk Master and LHARC (LHA) is one of the best backup plans I have ever used, and guess what, I use it but don't know why, since I have never lost any data on the Amiga.
For playing games I use Cloanto's Amiga Forever. This is were your so called pirated CD's come into play. Hey I bought just about every game the Amiga had that wasn't copy protected, and copied all the ones that were copy protected. Some of them will play and a lot won't. So as far as Pirated, in todays Amiga situation, I think every software producer abandoned ship (or computer) a long time ago.
smerf
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Being an avid collector of SNES R.P.G. Games, I pay on average around the £50 mark on ebay to buy the originals. I have even paid £110 for a factory sealed original of Chrono Trigger on ebay.
I always prefer to have the original box, manuals etc.. as it's something I enjoy collecting and using and I don't even mind paying over the top prices for such things.
But I also have the rom images download from various sites for the games that I own, simply because it's more convenient to run them from an HD and emulator on my iMac.
Reckon that makes me a pirate, but the thing is if you can't buy old software anymore whatever the platform, then what else are you supposed to do.
Even though as Crom00 says it's up to the IP holders and manufactures to take an interest in releasing old software, what are the chances of that happening when their view is quite simply all to do with making a big profit.
It would be great if all the companies that still hoard all this old software would put some of the vast profits that they have made over the years into re issuing a lot of this old stuff, instead of letting them gather dust.
I don't reckon it would actually cost them much to do so and they may in fact even make a profit from them. The trouble is the profit margin to such companies would not be significant enough for the greedy sods to sit up and take any notice.
Hi,
Right you are Franko,
Just because the Amiga isn't being made today, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. They should sell all their Amiga game rights to someone like Cloanto, or AmigaKit, so that these people could resell them to us Amiga Collectors, and hopefully they would make them copy protection free and downloadable from some site so that we could buy them on line. Hey if they done that they probably could still make a couple of bucks profit, say if they sold the image at say $10 offering AmigaKit $8 and taking $2 for every sale
smerf
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There is no point reporting it. eBay is full of pirated goods. They don't care. 95 to 99% of brand-name goods on eBay are fake. For example I've reported counterfeit Prada and Gucci items costing $1000+ and eBay have done nothing so I doubt they would act over a $30 CD of old games for an ancient computer. Every amiga.org member could spend 24 hours a day reporting pirated Amiga stuff and it would still be full of them. Until eBay is sued for allowing criminals to use their site nothing will change :-(
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FYI the Flashback devies were made by the company now known as ATARI (who purchased the rights to the name and the ip for the games from Hasbro well before they made the flashback).
Hasbro did re-releases during their brief tenure as owner of the IP but got rid of the brand rather quickly. I spoke to one insider who revealed the process of getting the Flashbacks out was a big legal hassle and in the end the project wasn't a money maker for them when you considered the NRE costs. Jakks Pacific was able make the number work on their TV games becuase all the tooling and majority of dev work is done in China (as cheap as humanly possible) so NRE costs were much cheper than using USA counterparts. Also Jakks legendary ability to fill a mass market supply chain and secured retailer space certainly helped.
Thank you. I was minutely aware of some sordid circumstances of this three-way adventure, but not to this detail. I own the original Flashback -- I actually had two, but gave one away after opening and trying out the abomination, keeping one unopened for future value. I never bought the Flashback 2, and I lament buying the joystick. In fact, Jakks Pacific has tromped on my good memories of the Atari 2600 with its horrible hardware renditions: the damned things do not appear to have a noise generator, which has ruined "Missile Command." However, if you do not have the original hardware, it is okay for nostalgic and educational purposes.
None the less, there was and obviously remains a market from which the producers can make a profit. I am perfectly fine with a $20 joystick with five or ten games in it, but I absolutely refuse to pay $20 for a DS cartridge with a single 25 year-old game in it. I have a bunch of Atari games on CD which were the 3D remakes -- quite good ones, actually -- and the companion emulation of the originals for $10 ea.
The best course of action is to release these to the public domain for sure. At this point it's more about historical preservation and educational purposes. Histroy is written by the victors but if you speak to the hardcore in the industry and they are well aware of the contributions the Amiga made to the industry. It's up to us "old timers" to school the "young bloods" on this history.
I partially agree with this. The horrendous extension of the "Mickey Mouse" copyright laws (what are they, 100 years now?) has been and will be a great detriment to us all. That having been said, I do not see any issue with a company making money on a product which has a market, irrespective of whether the original market is dead, such as the original 2600 consoles, or just aged and looking for regeneration, in emulation, for instance. At the same time, the source code for a number of Atari 2600 and 7800 titles have been released for public consumption.
As a corollary, I could support a requirement on companies exercising their rights after having let them languish for a period of time to produce a modern replacement for the original works. Licensing to Jakks Pacific for production, for instance, would satisfy this requirement.
I maintain preservation and education by way of owning a couple of the original consoles and scads of the original games. I keep them all working, and I also have abused the pirating world by "profiting" from the hard work of others to dump the ROMs so as to maintain a working digital copy should anything happen to the hardware. That way I can make a new cartridge if necessary. I also support making multi-carts using ROMs which you rightfully own. (Rightfully owning spawns a conversation itself, but suffice to say that, in my circumstances, I mean that I have possession of the physical cartridges and matching game consoles.)
What I do see are companies publishing games on a case by case basis. Pinball Dreams, Super Stardust, etc. If you port the game to a different platform you avoid the whole Amiga rom issue. Emulation seems to leave a bad taste in the mouth of IP holders as they are not administering the sale of the games. At least with WII Iphone and XBlive you have a copy protection system in place.
A more constructive course of action could be to campaining XBlive, Apple or other publishers to re-relase these gems on modern hardware.
Let the big boys deal with each other? Sounds interesting.
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I just got off the phone with eBay and they told me that the auction would be removed. Let's see if it happens and if it resurfaces again.
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"Let the big boys deal with each other? Sounds interesting."
Yes if say xblive wants to for example increase the casual gamer market and address the retro community they have the resources in place to handle licensing and development costs. This is the most appealing as it gets the IP holders a modern revnue stream. Once you start talking about hardware, roms and all that lawyers get headaches. When you pitch an Iphone game you see the cash register sound go off in their head.
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Hi,
Right you are Franko,
Just because the Amiga isn't being made today, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. They should sell all their Amiga game rights to someone like Cloanto, or AmigaKit, so that these people could resell them to us Amiga Collectors, and hopefully they would make them copy protection free and downloadable from some site so that we could buy them on line. Hey if they done that they probably could still make a couple of bucks profit, say if they sold the image at say $10 offering AmigaKit $8 and taking $2 for every sale
smerf
Smerf the problem here is that... again I keep going back to lawyers... Their very nature would prevent this from hapening. It's almost pennywise pound foolish. I know old toy and game guys that would walk up to an IP holder at a trade show, strike a deal for an entire game library on a handshake and release the product. Today so many hands are in the till it just makes it hard to excute such a deal.
At least back in the day old timers would say look, we have this "thing" lets just relases it and see what happens. Viola! it's a success! then they hire the fanboy to see what all the kids are into as a legal aid or gofer, once the gofer displays he can get coffee and answer phones they give him a job. Once that fanboy is in a position of power they then think they know everything and you have a situation similar to the music industry where content is released through a crazy closed system of "experts" who know what will sell and won't and very few folks take chance.
It's funny the Jakks pacific tv game was acquired from ToyMax and that was a brainchild of a man who very much thought "hey let's just try this... !" matter of fact some of the most innovative toys and games come from this genesis.
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I just got off the phone with eBay and they told me that the auction would be removed. Let's see if it happens and if it resurfaces again.
And if it's not removed, Plan B is to buy and then dispute the PayPal transaction due to receipt of copies, not originals, of copyrighted software -- along with very negative feedback to the seller, of course. I would do it, but the seller ships only to Australia and I'm in the US.
EDIT: Other identical auction by seller ship to Europe as well as Australia.
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"Have you already started looking for stocking fillers?" says the auction just after my kids have gone back to school following the summer break. Never mind the piracy, I make a point of never buying off assholes who advertise Christmass before october.
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If the copyrights owners can't be bothered at this point ,I say people who get all exercised about "pirating" of old,long abandoned software need to "get a life"!
Some no doubt are incensed by the "loss in value" of their"extemely rare,original NIB" software collections;tough!
All that high-priced software sitting in unopened boxes ,and who gets to enjoy it?You have to USE the item for full enjoyment.Are some Amigans like the secret collector who has works of art in a vault where no one can enjoy them?
Copyrights and patents should never have been extended to the current ridiculous span and even many software patents should never have been granted in the first place.If you can't market and profit from the work in the first 14 or 28 years (as in previous versions of the laws)then let society benefit by public domain.
No work was created in a vacuum ,everyone builds on that which came before him.
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If the copyrights owners can't be bothered at this point ,I say people who get all exercised about "pirating" of old,long abandoned software need to "get a life"!
Who's the bigger fool? The fool, or the fool who follows him?
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If the copyrights owners can't be bothered at this point ,I say people who get all exercised about "pirating" of old,long abandoned software need to "get a life"!
Some no doubt are incensed by the "loss in value" of their"extemely rare,original NIB" software collections;tough!
All that high-priced software sitting in unopened boxes ,and who gets to enjoy it?You have to USE the item for full enjoyment.Are some Amigans like the secret collector who has works of art in a vault where no one can enjoy them?
Copyrights and patents should never have been extended to the current ridiculous span and even many software patents should never have been granted in the first place.If you can't market and profit from the work in the first 14 or 28 years (as in previous versions of the laws)then let society benefit by public domain.
No work was created in a vacuum ,everyone builds on that which came before him.
Please let me know when you produce something useful with great effort so that I may steal it from you to sell for my own profit. Thanks. (Do all the copyright holders know that some eBay seller is making money by reproducing their stuff? Doubtful given the several thousand titles.)
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I can see both sides of this argument, but to be honest, AUD31 for 9 DVDs!!! all the production, packaging, creating the advert, taking the time to put it up on ebay etc. Just how much profit is this guy making? I'd say pretty much nothing.
I tend to think his reply is honest and that he is merely getting these out to the community.
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I can see both sides of this argument, but to be honest, AUD31 for 9 DVDs!!! all the production, packaging, creating the advert, taking the time to put it up on ebay etc. Just how much profit is this guy making? I'd say pretty much nothing.
I tend to think his reply is honest and that he is merely getting these out to the community.
DVDs are dirt cheap. So are labels and plastic envelopes for them.
How much profit is he making? I'd estimate about $29 minus eBay fees.
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DVDs are dirt cheap. So are labels and plastic envelopes for them.
How much profit is he making? I'd estimate about $29 minus eBay fees.
Wow, I wish you worked in procurement for the UK Treasury. Our tax would be a lot lower.
AUD2 is about GBP1.20. You can really get 9 blank DVDs and labels etc for £1.20?
I guess he could divide this $29 4000 ways for each game and send off 3/4 cents to the publishers.
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Lol, well maybe a slight exaggeration, but it's not that far off considering you can buy printable DVD-Rs in bulk for just under 14p a disc. That's £1.25 for 9. Maybe he prints them and their labels in work, maybe even ships them from there using work-supplied jiffy bags... I've seen people do it for other stuff :)
So let's be generous and guess he's making $25 per sale...
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Fishy fiz.. your dedication is admirable but when the IP holders don't bother protecting their own IP I wouldn't waste your time doing it for them. When the legal pros don't bother to do their job it's becuase they see no $$$ in the game.
So in effect your dedication (perfectly admirable and honorable) simply puts cash in the pockets of IP holders too lazy or incompitent to do it themselves.
It's like feeding prime rib to lazy sharks
in this analogy prime rib= your valuable free time.
That being said EBAY should step up and should be liable for allowing this to be sold. Then
Will the said IP holder take on ebay? In the end it's not about if you're wrong or right but who has the most cash for a legal battle. There's just not enough cash being traded here to show up on any legal teams radar. At best it would be a side project for a legal intern... but even these days interns are "free legal slave labor" their time is better spent on paying clients. A lawyer told me that... so that gives you some insight to mindset of the players inlvolved in this game.
ebay is a one way communication machine due to their monopolistic hold of the online auction business. If they mark it as illegal at trust and safety you have 2 choices.......
1. Don't ever relist
2. Relist and get banned
Trust and safety do not enter into discussion even if they are legally in the wrong FACT.
As for the seller, that 19gb's of ADFs in the TOSEC 7zip down to 3.5gb and that leaves 2.5 CDs for CD32.....and DVD-Rs cost 15p so he makes $28 per set in profit.......bit of a scam really......be my guest ;)
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Considering there's plenty of people selling bootleg dvd's, cd's and copies of games currently being sold, I doubt ebay is getting too fussed about someone selling a bootleg copy of Turrican or whatever.
Im somewhat amused.. some guy keeps offering up A1200's with compact flash hard drives and, according to the auctions, 1000's of games installed with whdload.
Somehow doubt he bought all of those..
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"Due to unforseen circumstances this listing will not be relisted." WTF?? Have any of you contacted the seller and threatened his family or something? Or is this the seller's way of trying to get a mad rush of buyers?
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Considering there's plenty of people selling bootleg dvd's, cd's and copies of games currently being sold, I doubt ebay is getting too fussed about someone selling a bootleg copy of Turrican or whatever.
Wrong is wrong is wrong. It is immaterial whether the issue at hand is an illegitimate copy of "Portal" or "Turrican."
Im somewhat amused.. some guy keeps offering up A1200's with compact flash hard drives and, according to the auctions, 1000's of games installed with whdload.
Somehow doubt he bought all of those..
Probably not. And it is just as much of an issue as a copy of "Portal" on a modded PS3. Wrong is still wrong.
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Wrong is wrong is wrong. It is immaterial whether the issue at hand is an illegitimate copy of "Portal" or "Turrican."
Probably not. And it is just as much of an issue as a copy of "Portal" on a modded PS3. Wrong is still wrong.
Thats not what I meant though. The odds of ebay really getting up in arms are pretty remote.
Heck, the odds of the actual rights holders if they still exist are probably remote. How many ROM sites are out there for old console games ?
Unless there's a big company breathing down their neck, like you see with youtube, nobody is going to bother.
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"Due to unforseen circumstances this listing will not be relisted." WTF?? Have any of you contacted the seller and threatened his family or something? Or is this the seller's way of trying to get a mad rush of buyers?
It may be because of my message to him, in which I simply suggested he remove the item due to it's illegal nature, and that if he didnt I'd be informing the copyright holders (well, words to that effect). It was all fairly diplomatic from both ends though. To be honest I actually feel a bit bad about it, from my limited contact he seemed a decent enough guy, but at the end of the day these sort of sales still irk me.... life holds no exceptions just because someone may not be an asshole.
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Thats not what I meant though. The odds of ebay really getting up in arms are pretty remote.
I knew what you meant. My point was (supposedly) from eBay's perspective, that copyright infringement is copyright infringement, irrespective of the color.
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Ebays system is kind of a joke. I sold a PS1 to a guy who decided he didn't want it when I refused a refund he told ebay the auction contained several pirated games (all games were commercial) so ebay refunded the money and he kept the PS1.
Another time I totally won an auction then 2 seconds later I went to hit the the pay now button someone else had won. I hit the back button on my browser and took a screen grab of my winning page. When I presented the evidence they came out of left field and chastised me for having illegal software on my machine. You see I was doing graphics in a gfx department at the time and had every legitamate copy of gfx software out there in my dock. These application icons were clarly visible in the dock. Ebay of course didn't answer my emails after that... Pretty pathetic actually.
So I have no sympathy if they got sued for selling copied items... well you know what ?maybe they have... they make so much money with the monopoly they have on auctions perhaps they can absorb the legal costs associated with copyright violations.
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Just been thinking... why do we all get so worked up about copyright infringement, Amiga Vs PC etc... etc...
I mean does any of the views or opinions we all express here really matter or have an effect on anything that goes on in the world...
Were Born, We Live, We Die... :)
Everything we do in life for 99% of us is really nothing more than passing the time until the day comes when we kick the bucket. All the things we've said and done soon gets lost forever with the passage of time. :(
Having said that and if nothing really matters, then I say sod the moral majority and the Amiga Copyright Mafia, lets all start flouting the copyright laws, lets all overload ebay with pirated software and argue the toss about which machines the best, at least it passes the time until we all meet the inevitable... :D
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If you can't buy the software NEW then the copyright owner can never receive payment. The only time they copyright owner gets paid is when they do a wholesale sell to the retailer. Or if they sell it to you directly.
If the copyright owner can never receive payment, they can't ever have "lost money" for their hard work.
Its why software distributers don't like second hand traders like EB. Copyright owners would love it if software was tied to a single machine forever, and not by licence agreements but by some physical means (even better if it was tied to the same person on the same machine). That way no second hand sales would be possible.
Maybe its morally wrong.
Reality is I'd wager 90% of people on this forum and anyone who owns a computer has at least ONE piece of software the copyright hasn't been paid for. And probably a lot more.
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Just been thinking... why do we all get so worked up about copyright infringement, Amiga Vs PC etc... etc...
I mean does any of the views or opinions we all express here really matter or have an effect on anything that goes on in the world...
Were Born, We Live, We Die... :)
Everything we do in life for 99% of us is really nothing more than passing the time until the day comes when we kick the bucket. All the things we've said and done soon gets lost forever with the passage of time. :(
Having said that and if nothing really matters, then I say sod the moral majority and the Amiga Copyright Mafia, lets all start flouting the copyright laws, lets all overload ebay with pirated software and argue the toss about which machines the best, at least it passes the time until we all meet the inevitable... :D
You know i sometimes think about the (probable) years of my life that I have spent on forums like this engaing in debates like this certain in the knowledge it will amount to naught.
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You know i sometimes think about the (probable) years of my life that I have spent on forums like this engaing in debates like this certain in the knowledge it will amount to naught.
Given that attitude, might as well just put a gun to your head, mate, and sod ever coming to a different perspective or maybe swaying others to see yours. Seriously, discussion and debate in any forum or venue is valuable. With the exception of trolls and trolling, which qualify as neither discussion nor debate.
Personally, I am not here to while away my time before I become worm food. I am here to participate, exchange information, exchange interpretations and perspectives with others, maybe even learn something.
Anyone who cannot get into the swing thereof, or has some despotic stance against, really should just delete his or her account and head off elsewhere. Or just lurk more and wag your head back and forth about the morons wasting time talking to each other. I mean, sheesh, stupid humans.
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There is another large batch of Amiga CDs been listed on Ebay UK which all come on CDRs. That has been sold on ebay for many years by an ex Epic Marketing employee.
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What I find intriguing about all of this - is that the selling of pirated software on ebay is playing into the hands of the politicans who want to start increasing control over sites like ebay. There is a politcal push to require proof of original purchase before posting an item on ebay. Also, some states have actively looked into how to charge SALES TAX on any auctioned item - even thought the sales tax was paid when it was originally purchased. All of these examples of illegal software sales will just add fuel to the fire.
Unfortunately, for 90% of the stuff I sold on ebay over the years - I did not have the original receipt. I have a Commodore 64 my parents bought me for Christmas and never even saw the receipt.
Also, software is going to digital licensing to your account. Soon we will only be able to get it via Steam for PC or PSN/Xbox Live distro. The days of buying software at the store is going away. The days of buying used console games will come to an end within 5-10 years too.
Oh well, just get ready to have to spend a lot more than ever before to obtain media (games, music, books) etc in the future.
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I'll just reinforce my use it or lose it stance. If something copyright is not available for sale, then after a couple of years they should lose the rights to it.
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Hmm... so you think you know about copyright, there's a 7 Question quiz on the UK Governments Official Intellectual Property Office site. :)
Strange thing is I've just scored 7 out of 7 on it mainly due to the fact that the questions really only require some common sense answers. :)
But when you actually read through all the laws on copyright there, common sense seems to go straight out the window... :(
Why not give it a go, and see how you fare... ;)
http://www.ipo.gov.uk/types/copy/c-quiz.htm
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Seems that people have too much spare time... How many of the whiners about that auction have never pirated anything?. For fucks sake, these are games that no longer sells.
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Seems that people have too much spare time... How many of the whiners about that auction have never pirated anything?. For fucks sake, these are games that no longer sells.
From an ethical standpoint, it's wrong. Realistically though, who cares.
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From an ethical standpoint, it's wrong. Realistically though, who cares.
Apparently eBay cares enough to remove the auction from their website.
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Apparently eBay cares enough to remove the auction from their website.
Apparently ebay doesn't & neither do all the other folk selling original Amiga software right now...
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Ultimate-Amiga-Games-PC-DVD-ROMS-A500-A600-A1200-/160477775935?pt=UK_VintageComputing_RL&hash=item255d38883f#ht_5256wt_1115
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/SEGA-MEGADRIVE-C64-ZX-SPECTRUM-AMIGA-PC-ENGINE-M-S-/230522205865?pt=UK_VideoGames_VideoGameConsoles_VideoGameConsoles&hash=item35ac31b6a9#ht_1481wt_1115
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Seems that people have too much spare time... How many of the whiners about that auction have never pirated anything?. For fucks sake, these are games that no longer sells.
Haha... and yet you took the time to respond in the most complaining tone of anyone yet. For the most part it's been a pretty reasonable conversation/thread thus far until you came along. Additionally the very 1st post started with me saying Ive pirated material before. Also some of the games have recently been re-released (Monkey Island games for example), so I suspect the copyright holders might be interested.
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Ebay is run by the Church of Satan, the "E" in Ebay stands for the "Evil Eye."
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How many of the whiners about that auction have never pirated anything?.
I stole a pack of gum from the IGA when I was five. Does that mean I have no place to speak against theft?
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I haven't read all pages of the thread but let me tell you my opinion.
We live in a world that is dominated by market of free will.In that sense i don't think that pirating such old games is bad.
If you hunt down and chase the guys that sell a cf with 4gigas of old games,then you should also chase the guys that sells a cyberstorm ppc for over a grand with the accusation that they sell it so much while it costed less.
If (and i mean this if) these games were on the budget market or the companies would want to care about them and make profit then absolutely they have the right to go to the court and chase down those that do it.
But loggin on your ebay account and chasing people that do this is not good for me for the following reasons.
Let's not hide.Rapidshare and torrents are everywhere,those who seek shall find.But there are people that are retro enthusiasts that have the greed inside them and want to buy tons of game at once to enjoy their emulated machines.
I suspect less than 2% of you will be people that dont have tons and gigabytes of games on their hard drives.I am not accusing you but i am saying that not all people have the option of finding them on rapidshare or torrent.
And it is not good to log into torrent trackers and rapidshare -download the games,no one knows that you do-,but if you see a game sold pirated on ebay you hit the report button.
Many people DON'T know where to find the games and frankly since they are old games,i dont think the companies care too.
Since i can find anything i want on the internet with google and torrents and rapidshare i would advice them no to give money to someone that sells it unless they can't find what they are looking for.
Of course i WOULD NEVER EVER share or download products that are still on sale and hurt the few remainng software houses or programmers or producers that are still with us.
But frankly selling pirated copies of a lemmings game on a disk or a cf mean nothing to me since the original company stopped caring for amiga ages ago.
2)i will say this again,not all people have the money to buy every original game that existed on 90 or 80 like all the collectors do.Many people want to have emulation running a software ready with hundreds of titles available on one mouse click.And you know what ?from my knowledge many people do so.
3)People that deserve to be punished are people that are pirating cloanto's amiga emulation software for example,or providing torrents of amiga os 4.x,or are selling amiga software that is being made now for amiga.
Please leave all the other guys alone.Everyone deserves to buy what he/she wants,except if you are the guy who owns shares on the electronic arts or psygnosis.
Really there is no point trying to be the cyber-cop.Isn't there another more useful meaning in life?Instead of accusing guys that sell pirated stuff why don't you go and help the police arrest people that are freeloaders or that abuse children?I believe this would make some sense.
I would never go and hurt an ebay seller unless the software that is being sold is something that is on market now and companies make money out of it.I am with you,if someone sold pirated copies of amiga os 4.x on ebay ok sue him.He deserves it.But for games from 80 or 90????
What is ethical and not is a very interesting conversation i guess.
Do not take those comments as attack or something.I wanted to express briefly my disagreement towards such behavior.
Kind regards
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I stole a pack of gum from the IGA when I was five. Does that mean I have no place to speak against theft?
Have you ever sang or been sung the Happy Birthday song in a restaurant? How about taking a picture of Mickey Mouse? Are you sure that you didn't get anything under copyright in any of those family photos you took?
I don't know a single adult that doesn't violate some law (usually copyright and speeding). I highly suspect that neither you nor anyone else on this board is the exception.
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Incidently the packages also appear to contain kickstart images and Workbench3.x. As for the analogy that people who sell ppc cards for more than thier initial value, that's a completely offbase suggestion. A truer analogy would be people who steal ppc cards and sell them. The qualm isnt with pirating (although personally I get more enjoyment these days out of owning the physical product/box/manuals/etc.), its to do with people making money from other peoples work, and to a smaller extent the fact that ebay allow this practice. Anyone who disagrees is free to send me thier wage.
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Haha... and yet you took the time to respond in the most complaining tone of anyone yet. For the most part it's been a pretty reasonable conversation/thread thus far until you came along. Additionally the very 1st post started with me saying Ive pirated material before. Also some of the games have recently been re-released (Monkey Island games for example), so I suspect the copyright holders might be interested.
I cannot case no stone in this thread or at any pirate. It has always been a battle for the acquisition of our non-discretionary income. That is why most companies will not send their old products/software into public domain because they simple want you to spend money on their "NEW" products. If a company felt that they were losing substantial amounts of money due to an "OLD" product of theirs being exploited in retro-products or file sharing they would go after those who are committing the violation of their copyrights. It is simple economics that there is not enough money in it to pursue these people and the cost would out weight the effort. But, we are talking about some very old software and most of this companies are gone and the programmers have moved on to bigger and more lucrative ventures:). Still, we should be sensitive to what is not ours.
The Dawg
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I don't know a single adult that doesn't violate some law (usually copyright and speeding). I highly suspect that neither you nor anyone else on this board is the exception.
Now, is that really the point? Sure, there are plenty of accidental violations in our lives, so should we just deliberately perpetrate or condone violations because it is so easy to transiently transgress?
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Apparently ebay doesn't & neither do all the other folk selling original Amiga software right now...
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Ultimate-Amiga-Games-PC-DVD-ROMS-A500-A600-A1200-/160477775935?pt=UK_VintageComputing_RL&hash=item255d38883f#ht_5256wt_1115
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/SEGA-MEGADRIVE-C64-ZX-SPECTRUM-AMIGA-PC-ENGINE-M-S-/230522205865?pt=UK_VideoGames_VideoGameConsoles_VideoGameConsoles&hash=item35ac31b6a9#ht_1481wt_1115
eBay relies on their users to report violations. They don't waste valuable employee hours scouring millions of auctions for possible cases of copyright infringement. LOL!
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In the words of the immortal Floyd... :)
:crazy: I CAN FEEL ONE OF MY TURNS COMING ON :sealed:
[youtube]kpsb6MNjJw8&feature=more_related[/youtube]
Now where's me favorite axe.... ;)
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3)People that deserve to be punished are people that are pirating cloanto's amiga emulation software for example
Yes, for example this evil site (http://www.winuae.net/) - who the heck does this Toni guy think he is, giving away Cloanto's amiga emulation software for free on the Internet?! :hammer:
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As long as it ain't copies of MorphOS and other currently support Amiga software, I hardly see the harm.
In regards to selling the Kickstart ROMS...
I wish they were free as it were. I don't understand the point of keeping them licensed.
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I stole a pack of gum from the IGA when I was five. Does that mean I have no place to speak against theft?
Pretty much in my book, yes.
If you'd said you stole some bread because you were poor and hungry, then that's a different matter.
I jest of course, but just wanted to point out that some theft is excusable in my book.
@thread
I stand corrected re the profits being made by this individual. However, maybe he has lost his job. Maybe he's trying to get some money together to pay the rent. It's never ethically right, but so long as it contains ancient games that are no longer supported or developed/sold, then I'm not sure I can get that bothered about it.
If it contained the likes of BOH then I think we could all be rightly incensed.
Having said that I doubt piracy does any harm whatsoever when it comes to the developers/publishers. These people would never have bought the games anyway.
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Now, is that really the point? Sure, there are plenty of accidental violations in our lives, so should we just deliberately perpetrate or condone violations because it is so easy to transiently transgress?
Yes, it is the point. I was not talking about accidental violations, and trying to pretend like your speeding and copyright violations are 'accidental' is laughable. When you do 40 in a 35 zone in your car, you full well know that you are breaking the law. Plugging your ears and pretending like you didn't notice that you were breaking the law doesn't change the fact that you were.
Either you are a letter of the law type person, or you recognize that some laws are just don't matter that much. Playing absolutist concerning copyright is simply ridiculous and hypocritical.
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When you do 40 in a 35 zone in your car, you full well know that you are breaking the law.
Most analogue speedos are accurate to within around 10% (+/- 5%) of actual, which can be further made even less accurate depending on the angle you look at it (for instance if you're exceptionally tall or if you have your seat laid right back.
So in practice, you really can do 40 in a 35 and not know it.
hypocritical.
You keep using this word, I do not think it means what you think it means.
I note you've still not provided evidence for the 99% figure you used earlier along with this repeated claim of hypocrisy. .
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Given that attitude, might as well just put a gun to your head, mate, and sod ever coming to a different perspective or maybe swaying others to see yours. Seriously, discussion and debate in any forum or venue is valuable. With the exception of trolls and trolling, which qualify as neither discussion nor debate.
Personally, I am not here to while away my time before I become worm food. I am here to participate, exchange information, exchange interpretations and perspectives with others, maybe even learn something.
Anyone who cannot get into the swing thereof, or has some despotic stance against, really should just delete his or her account and head off elsewhere. Or just lurk more and wag your head back and forth about the morons wasting time talking to each other. I mean, sheesh, stupid humans.
Look, the fact is that in most cases you're unlikely to change anyone's opinion by engaging in an internet debate. It happens sometimes but usually it doesn't. The vast majority of posters just want to have their opinion seen and heard.
Take this thread: who has changed their stance on pirating old software because of the views presented by anyone else?
OTOH Help forums/threads are different.
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Most analogue speedos are accurate to within around 10% (+/- 5%) of actual, which can be further made even less accurate depending on the angle you look at it (for instance if you're exceptionally tall or if you have your seat laid right back.
So in practice, you really can do 40 in a 35 and not know it.
Try telling the magistrate that and see how far you get.
Anyway, it only really matters if you get caught. In which case, the police's measurements allow a margin for error anyway.
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Try telling the magistrate that and see how far you get.
Depending on how much over you were, coupled with the road quality etc, potentially you could get away with it.
Anyway, it only really matters if you get caught. In which case, the police's measurements allow a margin for error anyway.
They used to in the UK, however recently they implemented a zero tolerance policy, which thanks to the accuracy of speed cameras meant that in some areas (notably Avon and Somerset) people were being hit for points and fines for going .5 of a mile an hour over the limit.
Due to the outcry and the fact that it was physically impossible for the average motorist to get readings accurate enough not to get slapped, leeway was re-introduced very quietly.
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I 'pirate' stuff all the time because the companies don't preserve these games to stop them being lost forever, so screw them.
That DVD contains Kickstart and Workbench files so he is selling Cloanto's stuff in a way......not that I give a crap. Cloanpoo didn't write a single line of UAE code so they can drop dead with their unlicensed games on DVD for 30 Euros too.
My issue is with cost and lack of intelligence of these sellers selling 9 DVDs, for a start the whole lot fits on 5 DVDs max, and not many people want all CD32 ISOs, so the whole thing can be shrunk down to 1 DVD with 23,000 ADFs and CD32 games worth having ;)
Which btw you can get for 7.99 direct from a genius on the internet already.