Answer Truthfully Now...

[motrucker]

The way you worded the poll I had to answer yes. BUT, even though I did'nt pay for a couple of Windows programs I use, they are perfectly legal. They were given to me by some one with enough clout to give away the odd program if they see fit. Chalked off as promotional gift from the publisher.

[B00tDisk]

That is something I get tired of myself.  There seems to be a social esteem in a statement like, I have the entire $1200 Adobe Creative Suite without paying a dime!  As if that is supposed to be impressive.  I find the mentality akin to haggling with a prostitute.  (Oh, God, I hope that does not start up a whole new discussion:roflmao:)  As opposed to to opposite end of the spectrum, using the statement, I use a software suite which cost $1000 to do my work, for esteem bolstering.

Yeah, this one kills me too.  "Oh man do you want Adobe CS (whatever the current revision # is)?!  This costs like $1500 and I just snagged a copy from bittorrent..."  So you can what?  Put a lens flare on your webpage logo?  Maybe do a color gradient?  

Again, GIMP is free, and between it and paint.net I'd say 99% of folks don't need much more.

[Nlandas]

Well, that is a different situation, really.  I mean, just emulating the platform probably isn't exactly legal in the US.  Let alone negotiating licenses for stuff that has no clear owner, anymore.

I was going more by the spirit of "Current software versions on a current primary work system."  

If you were to go through my entire collection of software and data dating back almost 30 years during which time I was various levels of student and/or starving, it would be a very different story.  :lol:

Ah, well - that's different at one point when I was a starving student and college student I couldn't afford to buy all the games I wanted to play. However, now I buy all my software.

I'm sure almost everyone will rarely try a pirate version to make sure the product will do what they want if there is no demo. Everyone? I mean do you spend $600 to find out the product doesn't do what you want?

Yeah, that is a sticky one, isn't it?  The one or two copies over license for convenience of having it in two places not to be concurrently used.  BSA would call it a problem.  Me, probably not so much.

It is sticky. As I said it's rare though but if I really don't use them both at once, I really don't worry about buying two copies. If it's really a big problem then it must be illegal for anyone to use GotoMyPC or Teamviewer, etc and remote control their computers. I mean you are accessing only one copy of the software but in another location. ;^)

[Nlandas]

I tend to wait outside the stores mugging people as they leave with their newly bought software, this way the vendors still get paid.

LOL! I about fell outta my chair with that one. They might even get paid twice. ;^)

[orb85750]

"If you want a "free" game, your best bet is to shoplift. Worst case, you'll pay a small fine and have a misdemeanor on your record. If you copy the game, however, you could end up paying $150,000 per copy, spend a few years in jail, get gang raped, and lose your right to vote."

Really?  Is there any case where someone copied a single time and had to pay any legal penalty?  On the other hand, shoplifting a single time can result in legal action.  I think a better comparison would be: the individual copying thousands of items compared with the individual that shoplifted thousands of times.  In both cases, the penalties could be quite steep.

[Trev]

Is there any case where someone copied a single time and had to pay any legal penalty?

Yes, but it's usually done in the form of extortion payments, er, out-of-court settlements. There are thousands of John Doe cases out there where the infringement is limited to a single copy. Most cases are settled out of court.

Let's pretend someone shoplifted 1,000 copies of a $60 Xbox 360 game, and the average fine for shoplifting is $350 (I pulled that out of my ass, but it's a realistic number). Then, let's compare that to seeding a copy to 1,000 leechers:

1,000 * ($60 + $350) = $410,000

1,000 * ($150,000) = $150,000,000

So, it's still a win for shoplifting. (Anyone caught shoplifting 1,000 times is more likely to receive psychiatric counseling than jail time.)

If you happened to steal 1,000 copies in one go, it's not shoplifting. The actual crime depends on the act itself, whether breaking and entering was involved, whether there was the threat of harm, whether weapons were used, whether the target was a protected class, whether it could be considered a hate crime, etc.

The law is complicated, obviously, and any comparison between theft and copyright infringement is both silly and insulting.

[whabang]

I'm typing this through Opera, which is free of charge, but copyrighted. Does that count?

[Fats]

I did answer yes as I did install WinXP and MS Office with illegal keys in VirtualBox. I bought this computer with Windows and MS Office installed from my employer and I should have a license via my employer. Don't know if it is allowed to run in virtualisation though.

Have lot's of cracked and copied 880K amiga disks, don't use it anymore though, My amiga OSes (3.0, 3.1, 3.5, 3.9, Intent based AmigaOS SDK and 4.0) and software I use is fully licensed.

greets,
Staf.

[Trev]

I did answer yes as I did install WinXP and MS Office with illegal keys in VirtualBox. I bought this computer with Windows and MS Office installed from my employer and I should have a license via my employer. Don't know if it is allowed to run in virtualisation though.

If they're OEM licenses, they're tied to the hardware and must be transferred. If they're retail licenses, they can optionally be transferred. If they're volume licenses, they cannot be transferred.

Re: virtualization, it depends on the license. The text of all of Microsoft's licenses is available on their web site.

[Amiga_Nut]

If the software is old, and no longer made available, like Amiga software then what are you supposed to do? Forget about it, delete ALL ADFs on your machine and never ever play again?

If people didn't pirate on a massive scale then the pirate bay founders wouldn't be multimillionaires

[stefcep2]

"If you want a "free" game, your best bet is to shoplift. Worst case, you'll pay a small fine and have a misdemeanor on your record. If you copy the game, however, you could end up paying $150,000 per copy, spend a few years in jail, get gang raped, and lose your right to vote."

Really?  Is there any case where someone copied a single time and had to pay any legal penalty?  On the other hand, shoplifting a single time can result in legal action.  I think a better comparison would be: the individual copying thousands of items compared with the individual that shoplifted thousands of times.  In both cases, the penalties could be quite steep.

What about the kid that copied Super MArio Galaxy and go fined half a mill

[stefcep2]

Yeah, this one kills me too.  "Oh man do you want Adobe CS (whatever the current revision # is)?!  This costs like $1500 and I just snagged a copy from bittorrent..."  So you can what?  Put a lens flare on your webpage logo?  Maybe do a color gradient?  

Again, GIMP is free, and between it and paint.net I'd say 99% of folks don't need much more.

Its why i still use Cinema 4D v 5 on PC even though I have Cinema 4D v10.  I took one look at the interface and realised i could do what I wanted quicker with V5.  Sure v10 has a gazillion more features, but unless you're a professional animator working with James Cameron how many of those will you use and how long will it take to learn to use them well?

[huronking]

I could walk into Best Buy, grab a game from the game aisle, batter clerks on my way out the door, and face less punishment than if I were to download a game.  Truly off-balanced, IMHO.

The DMCA was the best legislation money could buy.

[djrikki]

Fats said:

I bought this computer with Windows and MS Office installed from my employer and I should have a license via my employer.

--------

Nah, if you bought a computer and it happened to have some software on its not down to you transfer the license.  After all its still licensed and paid for, just in someone else's name.  Its down to the person whose name it is licensed to - to report the license code/key as expired to the software vendor so the vendor can de-activate the software.  And then if the new computer owner wants to continue using the software they then can buy a new license.

(In an ideal world)

Just like if I sold a car to someone else in the UK, I wouldn't just give them the car and the plate, I would tell the licensing authority (in this case the DVLA) that I no longer own (licensed to drive) this car.

[jsixis]

I clicked NO.
 I may have some really old software that came with machines I bought but 99% of the software I use I paid for. I would also like to add that 90% of the software I bought was defective if you compared the marketing hype to what it actually did and 5% of the remaining 10% became unuseable as the market died.

 I even learned the hardway that some software agreements were ignored by the vendors themselves.

[jsixis]

And for those who pirate software that is still available "through legal channels" .....Do you have any reservations about shoplifting (other than getting caught)?

What is still available and where would one buy it?