How much pirated Amiga software did you have?

[Pentad]

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...

[Pentad]

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...

[Pentad]

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...

[Pentad]

@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

[Pentad]

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.

-P

[Pentad]

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