Oh SH|T!!!!! BUSTED BY Timewarner Cable!!!!

[AncientPC]

Lots of people have illegal programs, some don't.

If you have an illegal copy, don't distribute it. Nothing good comes of it.

When you can afford to pay for the software, do so if you're a loyal user (meaning you've used the program for a long time and found it useful). Think of it as an extended shareware period. If you don't like it, delete it.

 

[dexvx]

exactly. companies charge $500+ for software not because of piracy, but because THEY CAN. that won't ever change unless people actually stop paying that much for it. its insane that you need a $300 OS just to run the majority of the software out there. its like smoking dope - it isn't hurting anybody else! i'm not talking about the ones who sell pirated stuff - thats wrong....but i don't think theres a problem of getting stuff for free and learning from it. how much would it cost me to legally learn photoshop, premiere, sql server, visual studio, office, etc. you can't show up for a job where you'd be using one set of tools and say 'well, i've never used that, but i can do this and this and this with these freeware/shareware/open source things...'

Oh please... thats like saying... I cant be a pro Formula1 driver without a Ferrari, so therefore in order to be a Formula1 god I need to steal a Ferrari. All the companies have an Academic version of their software in which it is for students who learn. It is a HUGE markdown from retail. $300 OS? Try more like $100. Statistically, you DO hurt the companies by pirating. There's an argument saying if you cant pirate it than you wouldnt buy it so therefore it wouldnt hurt anyone. Its true for some poeple, but statistically, the vast majority of people would've bought it had they not been given the option to pirate it.

I think some people dont realize how much money it takes to develop software. Larger Software takes literally hundreds of people to write, debug, test, support, accountants, advertising, business, janitors, etc. Not to mention the cost of the building, taxes, the equipment, the various company benefits (health, dental, 401K, etc), and blah blah. The vast majority arent your blue collar everyday worker making an average paycheck. These are usually skilled professional programmers that on average, make an above average income. 50 employees at $60K/year, which is just a modest amount, costs $3 MILLION/year to run, for their salaries only. Factor in the material costs, and you have one heck of an expense. For games, at $50 a copy, you need at at least 60,000 copies to break even REVENUE wise.

Yea microsoft and adobe make big bucks. But development wise, you can imagine how much money it costs to make a piece of software and support for it. It is not totally unreasonable.

 

[Michael1897]

Originally posted by: AncientPC
Lots of people have illegal programs, some don't.

If you have an illegal copy, don't distribute it. Nothing good comes of it.

When you can afford to pay for the software, do so if you're a loyal user (meaning you've used the program for a long time and found it useful). Think of it as an extended shareware period. If you don't like it, delete it.

Hey Ting.
i say just don't share it. only share piddly stuff like mp3s or jpegs

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: dexvx

exactly. companies charge $500+ for software not because of piracy, but because THEY CAN. that won't ever change unless people actually stop paying that much for it. its insane that you need a $300 OS just to run the majority of the software out there. its like smoking dope - it isn't hurting anybody else! i'm not talking about the ones who sell pirated stuff - thats wrong....but i don't think theres a problem of getting stuff for free and learning from it. how much would it cost me to legally learn photoshop, premiere, sql server, visual studio, office, etc. you can't show up for a job where you'd be using one set of tools and say 'well, i've never used that, but i can do this and this and this with these freeware/shareware/open source things...'

Oh please... thats like saying... I cant be a pro Formula1 driver without a Ferrari, so therefore in order to be a Formula1 god I need to steal a Ferrari. All the companies have an Academic version of their software in which it is for students who learn. It is a HUGE markdown from retail. $300 OS? Try more like $100. Statistically, you DO hurt the companies by pirating. There's an argument saying if you cant pirate it than you wouldnt buy it so therefore it wouldnt hurt anyone. Its true for some poeple, but statistically, the vast majority of people would've bought it had they not been given the option to pirate it.

I think some people dont realize how much money it takes to develop software. Larger Software takes literally hundreds of people to write, debug, test, support, accountants, advertising, business, janitors, etc. Not to mention the cost of the building, taxes, the equipment, the various company benefits (health, dental, 401K, etc), and blah blah. The vast majority arent your blue collar everyday worker making an average paycheck. These are usually skilled professional programmers that on average, make an above average income. 50 employees at $60K/year, which is just a modest amount, costs $3 MILLION/year to run, for their salaries only. Factor in the material costs, and you have one heck of an expense. For games, at $50 a copy, you need at at least 60,000 copies to break even REVENUE wise.

Yea microsoft and adobe make big bucks. But development wise, you can imagine how much money it costs to make a piece of software and support for it. It is not totally unreasonable.

a few companies used to actually have that policy...

 

[Chipster]

I hope the people going on about ethics also practice what they preach. Which means there should be no mp3 files on your computer that don't come from a CD you own.[/Q

Very good point Dat.

 

[Hubris]

That reminds me of an incident at Cornell...I was downloading about 15 300MB files (movies) and uploading 15 300MB files, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week! :Q

So, after a few weeks of this, I get a call from Resnet saying that I'm using up a majority of the college's outgoing bandwidth, and that people were unable to access the internet because of me! :Q

I stopped uploading (but not downloading ) and never heard from them again. To this day I don't know if it was legit or not, but it sure suprised me!

They've instituted a new policy this past Spring; you can transfer (both up AND down) 27 gigs every three days. Any more than that and they put you on a throttled connection for three days. They do that three times, then write you up and shut off your connection. I got throttled once.

 

[olds]

Originally posted by: SpongeBob
You sure it wasn't just one of your buddies messing with you? That would be one hell of a prank!

That was the first thing I thought of.

 

[pulse8]

Originally posted by: dexvx
I think a more practical to piracy is not just checking Kazaa, but checking overall bandwidth consumption. You cannot stop people who pirate once in a while, but you can certainly crack down on the people who use their bandwidth to its max potential. It doesnt take a genius to realize and isolate someone that has been putting out GB's of transfers everyday. I mean, of all legality, wtf could you do that will result in GB's of transfers on a weekly basis legally? The only thing I can think of is file sharing (home made movies, some of your own ISOs).

And FYI, its not big business thats losing out (look at Microsoft/Adobe). Its the small businesses/individual programmers that lose out.

So the only way someone can transfer huge amounts of data is from piracy? There's a huge underground of LEGALLY traded music. Most of it is live shows in the SHN format which makes a GB of transfer easy as pie.

 

[Hubris]

Originally posted by: pulse8

Originally posted by: dexvx
I think a more practical to piracy is not just checking Kazaa, but checking overall bandwidth consumption. You cannot stop people who pirate once in a while, but you can certainly crack down on the people who use their bandwidth to its max potential. It doesnt take a genius to realize and isolate someone that has been putting out GB's of transfers everyday. I mean, of all legality, wtf could you do that will result in GB's of transfers on a weekly basis legally? The only thing I can think of is file sharing (home made movies, some of your own ISOs).

And FYI, its not big business thats losing out (look at Microsoft/Adobe). Its the small businesses/individual programmers that lose out.

So the only way someone can transfer huge amounts of data is from piracy? There's a huge underground of LEGALLY traded music. Most of it is live shows in the SHN format which makes a GB of transfer easy as pie.

That's why I don't agree with limiting bandwidth for piracy purposes. Limiting it for cost effectiveness is another story entirely, however. But as a deterrent for piracy it's like cutting down all the trees in the forest because you've got a squirrel problem.

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: Chipster

I hope the people going on about ethics also practice what they preach. Which means there should be no mp3 files on your computer that don't come from a CD you own.[/Q

Very good point Dat.

You know, this comes up every time.

Every program on all my computers is legal. I have no MP3s that were not distributed by the author or label freely.

So, I more than meet my own ethcal standards. Moreover, my standards do not change based on the wealth of a person, size of a company, or how offensive someone is to me.

 

[SuperCyrix]

KaZaa is for sharing illegal porn featuring Veronica Zemanova not for pirating programs

 

[edmicman]

Originally posted by: Hubris


Jeez, no kidding. It's like how en vogue it is to rag on people who get rich and famous. The so-called "American Dream" is to get rich and famous, but when people actually pull it off, they get nothing but grief for it.

And why the hell would you share apps like that on Kazaa? Yeesh. I don't share anything, and only grab a song here and there because I heard it somewhere (TV, radio, movie, etc.).

one guy in his garage didn't throw together most of the stuff out there. it was a team of programmers, and i actually doubt that they are getting the majority of the revenue from the software they make. agreed though, sharing that stuff on kazaa sucks. lets keep it on fpt and irc, and leech from kazaa!

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: edmicman

Originally posted by: Hubris


Jeez, no kidding. It's like how en vogue it is to rag on people who get rich and famous. The so-called "American Dream" is to get rich and famous, but when people actually pull it off, they get nothing but grief for it.

And why the hell would you share apps like that on Kazaa? Yeesh. I don't share anything, and only grab a song here and there because I heard it somewhere (TV, radio, movie, etc.).

one guy in his garage didn't throw together most of the stuff out there. it was a team of programmers, and i actually doubt that they are getting the majority of the revenue from the software they make. agreed though, sharing that stuff on kazaa sucks. lets keep it on fpt and irc, and leech from kazaa!

So because you don't agree upon MS's mutual employment agreements with their employees, it's OK to steal MS's product? Because it was a group, and not a single person who developed the product, it's OK to steal it?

Please, tell me where the cutoff point is where it goes from not OK, to OK to steal someone's intellectual property?

 

[edmicman]

So it's okay to steal a car to learn stickshift so you could get a job requiring you to learn stick? Yeah....okay.

I'm not gonna pretend that ALL my software is legal, but jeez at least I don't try and make it sound like I'm the victim of the big, bad software business.

no. if i steal a car, a tv, whatever, i take the use of that item away from whomever i stole it from. if i copy software, an mp3, or anything digital, it is a copy. the original person can still use it, and so can i. whether its right or wrong or justified or whatever, copying is different than stealing

 

[BDawg]

Originally posted by: AmusedOne

So because you don't agree upon MS's mutual employment agreements with their employees, it's OK to steal MS's product? Because it was a group, and not a single person who developed the product, it's OK to steal it?

Please, tell me where the cutoff point is where it goes from not OK, to OK to steal someone's intellectual property?

You're a smart guy, Amused. Don't you get it? It's okay for him to steal when it's something he wants. duh.

 

[AncientPC]

Originally posted by: edmicman

So it's okay to steal a car to learn stickshift so you could get a job requiring you to learn stick? Yeah....okay.

I'm not gonna pretend that ALL my software is legal, but jeez at least I don't try and make it sound like I'm the victim of the big, bad software business.

no. if i steal a car, a tv, whatever, i take the use of that item away from whomever i stole it from. if i copy software, an mp3, or anything digital, it is a copy. the original person can still use it, and so can i. whether its right or wrong or justified or whatever, copying is different than stealing

You're stealing revenue, i.e. money.

 

[Shagger]

Quote

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by: dullard
Good for Time Warner. I'd love to see you and people like you pay large hefty fines so the price of software will be cut drastically for the rest of us.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



ROTFL . . . like that will ever happen . . .

Oh yeah, they'll be sure to cut prices after they catch those thievin' pirates!

Arrgh, me hearties, hoist the Jolly Roger!

 

[hoihtah]

Originally posted by: dexvx
I think a more practical to piracy is not just checking Kazaa, but checking overall bandwidth consumption. You cannot stop people who pirate once in a while, but you can certainly crack down on the people who use their bandwidth to its max potential. It doesnt take a genius to realize and isolate someone that has been putting out GB's of transfers everyday. I mean, of all legality, wtf could you do that will result in GB's of transfers on a weekly basis legally? The only thing I can think of is file sharing (home made movies, some of your own ISOs).

And FYI, its not big business thats losing out (look at Microsoft/Adobe). Its the small businesses/individual programmers that lose out.

as for your whole bandwidth argument... you're forgetting about seti.
seti could really lock up some bandwidth.

as for sharing licensed softwares is concerned...
don't try to justify it!

it's wrong.

nothing to argue here. it's a clear black and white.
just cause everyone does it, it doesn't make it right.

it's like speeding. most everyone speeds over the limit... at least once in their life time.
but that doesn't mean that you can use this to justify your excess of speed when you get pulled over.

the way i see it, these are laws that we break consciously.

if you can be proud of this before your kids,
then by all means, it's yours to break.
but let's at least come clean and say that it's an unlawful act.
let's just leave it at that.

 

[Hooobi]

Originally posted by: Yossarian451

Originally posted by: dullard
Good for Time Warner. I'd love to see you and people like you pay large hefty fines so the price of software will be cut drastically for the rest of us.

I am sorry to tell you but that will not bring down the price of software, in fact it will probably continue to rise regardless of piracy. They are going to continue to rise prices, and they will only continue to complain ( somewhat justly). Piracy has risen out of people getting really frustraterd over the already high prices of software. I understand that it take time, money, and talent to make software andmusic, but there is a certain point at which you draw the line, and most of the prices are ridiculus.

amen.

btw, great sig MoonBeam:

A dramaticaly overemphasized fool is the best illuminator of lesser foolishness.

 

[spanky]

well... just dont do anything stoopid

 

[dexvx]

I'm not saying you should have a ban on high bandwidth use. People have legitimate reasons. But high bandwidth by individual users, especially now, is a red flag for illegal usage.

 

[DanFungus]

interesting..
(burn to CDs, delete...that way it's off your HDD )
but they can only track it if you upload, correct? not download?

 

[bmacd]

Originally posted by: DanFungus
interesting..
(burn to CDs, delete...that way it's off your HDD )
but they can only track it if you upload, correct? not download?

incorrect. An ISP can run a packet sniffer and check ANY activity..incoming or outgoing. These 3rd party companies are following a similar scheme in gaining the IPs of the user bootlegging software: running a packet sniffer on top of a p2p proggie, then querying the IP and reporting it to the ISP.

-=bmacd=-

 

[Krk3561]

Why are mp3's "illegal." If you alter the song a little can you call it yours? Are the record companies claiming they own the sound waves that are made by the song when i play it or the 1's and 0's that make up the song on my computer? The whole mp3 controversy is because of GREED! I download mp3's off kazaa and if i like the songs i go out and buy the cd. Is there anything wrong with that? Why should i pay $16 for a cd if it has one good song and the rest is crap?

 

[GT1999]

You'd be surprised what can be done at your ISPs end. I work for a local one here in town (leased T1, colo, ISDN/dialup, and we resell ADSL/SDSL). I've had to call up a total of 2 users for sharing large movie files (copyrighted) via IRC, one of them was even selling them by advertising on a webpage and was 15 years old... Ironically though, I'm no angel when it comes to software