Does it ever cease?

[Cyberus]

Apologies to moderators if you'd rather it wasn't brought up again...but I'm gonna do it anyway! ;-)  But there was a thread, for all of twenty minutes, started by a guy asking if there was anywhere on the net he could downloand OS3.9..and wait for it....OS4!

Of course, I didn' t bother with the moral high ground, and instead childishly replied with:

Har har har! Arrrrrgh!

 

He didn't get the message however, and even PM'd me asking where he could find Amiga warez!!

But it really does make me sick - IMO piracy helped wipe out the Amiga (for all intents and purposes), and yet people want to pirate a piece of software that might have sold, what (and this really IS a guess) 10000 copies?

While purists would argue that wrong is wrong, no matter what the circumstances, piracy of an Amiga OS is a hundred times more damaging than a dodgy copy of XP - and which one has the most protection....

An analogy I always like to use:
If you steal from a small shop, you probably won't get caught, even if you do, the family that runs it doesn't have the money or the time to prosecute you.
If you steal from a supermarket chain, there'll be CCTV, store security, and they certainly WILL prosecute.

Now in the first case, this is how I see it. You are essentially stealing from that guy's table - that's the money he uses to feed his family, and keep a roof over their heads.
In the second case, you just make up a tiny proportion of the company's expected losses (theft, breakages, stock out of date etc).

Who's it worse to steal from?

[Lo]

your right, IMHO

[meerschaum]

most of the software we consider 'pirated' the outside world considers abandonware or 'so old nobody cares' ... for example someone looking for Speedball 1 to play on UAE... why do people care if someone pirates it?... their not gonna find a place to buy it even if they try... in cases like that... I understand piracy...or if a company is charging 40.00 for a game made in 1988... its not right...

The people interested in classic games who download UAE and start collecting them are not hurting the Amiga market, because they either A:couldnt buy even if they wanted to or B:where never gonna pay.

I can sympathise with people who view Amiga as dead and figure their not hurting anyone by playing with some old games, if you consider them pirates how far do ya take it?... all the way back to Tandy's ? or Colecovisions? or what... I mean... if the company who made the game is outta business, whos it hurt?

Do you think Id software cares if people pirate Commander Keen? or Electronic Arts cares about 'star wars' roms for SNES? ...no...and those are more modern games then Amiga games even.

[that_punk_guy]

@meerschaum

I agree with you regarding ancient software, but this guy was asking for OS3.9/4.0, hardly "abandonware."

[meerschaum]

Maybe I should have replied about that first, I do think its very wrong to pirate AOS/etc...as it does hurt our community somewhat...or least a portion of it.

[smerf]

Hi,

@that_punk_guy,

I like your little dancing guiena pig, has real class, every time I look at it, it reminds me of my pet Jenny, who happens to be a gueinna pig of that type.

I agree with you about OS 3.9 and 4.0 on giving that away, but all that software back when Amiga was going like every one says who cares. The only thing I can buy in software houses today are PC, Playstation, Xbox etc. software.

Now can you make your id icon squeak? :-P

smerf :-D

[redrumloa]

Wow it looks like I missed the fun :-o

Anyhow I figured I'd chime in here and just mention the official site policy concerning piracy for anyone who may have missed it.

Amiga.org does not allow requests for or the trading of commercial software in any way shape or form. Even software that is considered abandonware is covered in our policy.

The policy has nothing to do with right or wrong, it has to do with a strictly legal stand point. I personally think abandonware should be released to the public domain.

[Cyberus]

@ meerschaum

As has already been mentioned by others, it was the fact that he wanted a copy of OS3.9/OS4. If he had asked for Lemmings, or Shadow of the Beast or whatever, I wouldn't have been so indignant.

Cheers

[Cymric]

@redrumloa:

Is the official policy written down somewhere? I tried to find it, but couldn't seem to locate any such document. I have no intention of starting a discussion about the policy, by the way: I am just curious as to what the official policy is, exactly.

[Kees]

 You can find them here

[mikeymike]

I think it is dangerous to rationalise how stealing can be worse in some cases than others.  There are all kinds of ways of getting past the moral ground with logic that isn't necessarily moral.

Having said that I do agree with Cyberus's first post to a certain extent.

[Cyberus]

I think it is dangerous to rationalise how stealing can be worse in some cases than others.

Oh I agree, but I personally think situations should often be looked at on merit, applying law or judgement blindly can be just as dangerous.
Despite the fact that theft is theft is theft, I still find it difficult to say that stealing a pear from an orchard as you walk along the road is as 'wrong' as some #### breaking into an old lady's house and stealing the last gift given to her by her late husband.

edit: Perhaps that example is a bit crap, perhaps two items of similar monetary value would be a better example! Hey, we could get into a full-blown discussion about ethics here if we ain't careful!

[Cymric]

Cyberus wrote:
Despite the fact that theft is theft is theft, I still find it difficult to say that stealing a pear from an orchard as you walk along the road is as 'wrong' as some #### breaking into an old lady's house and stealing the last gift given to her by her late husband.

Interesting. Now we extend the pear orchard example a little bit. Of course the farmer won't mind if it's just me who takes away a single pear during the time the fruit is hanging on the trees. But now everyone in a moderate sized town decides 'Ack, it's just a single pear...'. Betcha the farmer will put up fences, and call the cops when he sees someone taking 'just a single pear'... You can apply the same principle to, for example, warez or music swapping. Mind, I'm not saying who is wrong or right (especially in the last two cases); it's just to make you think about the ethics of grand scale theft, even when everyone thinks the little thing they steal doesn't do any harm ;-).

[alx]

@ Cymric

But now everyone in a moderate sized town decides 'Ack, it's just a single pear...'. Betcha the farmer will put up fences, and call the cops when he sees someone taking 'just a single pear'.

Of course, the major difference between that and "abandonware" is that with a lot of the really old games, the owners will never make any money out of them, whilst a pear will be sold (for however little).  Of course, that doesn't make it morally correct (and certainly not legal), but just adds another factor.

BTW I didn't see the original thread - I trust that the poster has been removed and IP banned?

[Tomas]

most of the software we consider 'pirated' the outside world considers abandonware or 'so old nobody cares'

Yes true, and i actually agree that its ok to download games you cannot buy anymore. But downloading new software that they still sell, that is VERY WRONG.

Atleast with wrong abandonware, the company does not loose anything, since they do not sell orginal copys anymore, and also in the end the game would dissapear and die if there wasnt for that you could download the game somewhere.

Nice to have back2theroots btw... they do a good job with sharing legal abandonware  :-)