How much pirated Amiga software did you have?

[motrucker]

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.

[motrucker]

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....

[motrucker]

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...