How much pirated Amiga software did you have?

[stefcep2]

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.

[stefcep2]

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

[stefcep2]

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.

[stefcep2]

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.

[stefcep2]

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.

[stefcep2]

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.

[stefcep2]

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.

[stefcep2]

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.

[stefcep2]

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.

[stefcep2]

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?

[stefcep2]

BTW, Limewire was found guilty yesterday:

http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/limewire-induces-copyright-theft-20100513-uzc1.html

[stefcep2]

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?