Sorry to bring this up again, folks, but I consider the topic to be very therapeutic, and everyone's catharsis is quite healthy ...

For one, I only have legit sw, but then again, who am I to you ? You don't know me, I am only asking you to believe me ... please do ...

Not a winged saint here, some warez has eventually travelled through my disk, but none managed to stay, and if it did it would get a register cleansing ... it's almost as using a demo version that you just *don't* like, so you scratch it ...

What puzzles me in a thread like this, is the so-called "Statistics Paradox". Say, 40 percent of world software is warez, but then this thread comes up and *none* of the participants uses warez. But *everybody* knows someone who does ...
Go figure ...

But pedagogic, anyway. The poor chary1 would never have guessed ...

copying is a creative process, not a destructive one. most information can be easily duplicated these days. that's what we like to do. the more we like something, the more copies we make. the more copies that exist, the more people get exposed. it's exponential. it's interesting to imagine what this process does in the case of software, legal or otherwise. but I can't seem to fit the Rolls Royce analogy into that model.

I think it's more interesting to discuss this without all the judging. acceptance does not mean 'approval'.

I am sorry, but I do not have any tolerance for it. That means no acceptance either. I will not shoot the guy who fires up a cracked app to try it for 24 hours and then deletes it even if it liked it, but use of a cracked app is unacceptable.

The exposure theory does not hold water. I wrote shareware for years. I know how folks feel about it and what they will and will not do.

It not about what you can do. It is about what you will do. Theft/piraicy is said example of that person's ethics and sense of right and wrong. That is cetianly someone I would never enter into a contract with. If I walked into a studio and found cracked apps, I would walk with my work right then. You can not trust that studio to do the right thing.

I think SPOT says all of this much better.

K

kkolbo:
I think SPOT says all of this much better

More enthusiastically perhaps, but not better. Your line about not trusting that studio (or someone) to do the right thing is the most pin-pointingly precise thing anyone has said on this thread.

Tor

Someone stated something to the effect that a cracked version of Vegas saved them on a weekend when, due to having rebuilt their system, their legit version of Vegas would not work because they could not register it during a weekend.

From personal experience, I can tell you that SF is most generous in allowing new installations of Vegas to function fully without registration (I think the period is 15 days, perhaps 30). Their registration process works without human intervention 24/7. The only problems I've experienced were when, early on, in an attempt to rid my setup of glitches (early versions of vidcap did not function dependably on my system, and print to tape also presented problems - these were in versions 2.x of VV), I would install VV, then, wipe my system totally clean, re-install, etc a number of times until the auto register function would report that I could not register again without contacting SF as I had already registered too many times.

Even in those extremem instances, my current installation of Vegas continued to function fully. Proper registration involved nothing more than contacting SF during business hours to explain my problem and obtain a proper registration number.

At no time was the completion of any post-haste project threatened, because any installation of the program will function fully during a trial period until you have a chance to contact SF . . . so, weighing in on this subject, I join others in stating that stealing is wrong, and using cracked versions of software, at any point in ones career, is also wrong.

The "student" who so generously righted his/her wrong by purchasing the software when he/she got a real job not only cheated the software company, but, also obtained an unfair advantage over all his/her non-cheating classmates. By virtue of that stolen property, his/her class work was illegally enhanced over that of his classmates. In my view, it's no different than obtaining an illegal copy of a test before the fact. It's cheating, pure and simple.

I do oppose the notion that, having purchased a legal copy of a program, I should have to purchase additional copies in order to use that program on any of the several computers that I own if I am the only one using those computers, and none of them run simultaneously. Some software publishers agree with me, some disagree, so, I win some, I lose some, but, I always choose to play by the rules . . . because, breaking rules is wrong . . . even breaking wrong rules is wrong. If the rule is wrong, work to change it.

Caruso

Now I have heard it all---"copying is creative" So is robbing a bank, holding up an armed car, setting up an senior to steal his or her life long savings. Every grifter that I have ever read about was extremely creative. Again, the rationalizing of this felonious activity is more disturbing then the activity itself. Why not focus your creative efforts on turning out great video and paying for the software you need to produce it.

If I follow the misguided logic of those on this thread that support software piracy, I would conclude that it’s OK to steal something if you can’t afford it. That would mean that it’s OK for a drug addict to break into your home and steal your possessions because they are going to use the money to buy things they can’t afford (i.e. drugs). Where is the logic in that? How can you justify that stealing is OK if you can’t afford it?

So you rationalize it by saying that stealing a physical thing like breaking into your house, or a Rolls Royce, is not the same as stealing a copy of software because the copy didn’t cost the company who sells it anything. Well that’s not true. The copy of a $499 retail piece of software contains the same contents that sell for $499. So if the physical copy costs the company $2 to press the CD, and you download a pirated version of the program, you’ve contributed $2 off their cost. You still owe $497 before its NOT stealing. The company that invented the software invests money in research and development that’s proportionate to the money they think they can make by selling copies. So every copy you make is robbing them of a return on their research and development dollars. It’s not about the physical software copy, it’s about using intellectual property that you did not pay to use. I design software for a living and trust me; my salary is partly based on profits from sales of the software I design and adversely affected by piracy because it brings no profits. I hold patents so that people cannot steal my ideas. It is no more right to steal my software, which is the physical embodiment of my ideas, than to steal a Rolls Royce.

So lets forget about software and follow SPOT’s logic. The people that played on his recording expect to get mechanical royalties. This is a royalty that a musician expects to receive for the performance they give on the recording. That’s how they earn a living. As the writer of the music, SPOT gets writers royalties as well. By copying his music and not paying for the performance, you are robbing him and his performers of their paycheck. They do not produce things you can touch, only things that you can feel. You are expected to pay for that feeling just like you pay to go to a comedy club to laugh. You should not be enjoying that music unless you pay those who created it for you. They created it with the intent that you would support them in their art. I’m also a musician and I would not want the songs that I write or the performances that I make, taken without remuneration.

It’s no different with software. You cannot use a program that someone designed and worked hard to create with the intent of paying their rent with the money produced by its sales without paying for it. To benefit from their labor without compensating them is called stealing. It can be nothing else. You cannot rationalize it as anything else.

You can argue that you wanted a copy to see if you would like it. We understand that and no one would think wrong of that. Plenty of people borrow all sorts of things from friends to see if they’d like it with the intention of buying it if they do. The problem with software is once you make a copy; your friend is not waiting for their copy back. You now have your own copy. And so buying it is a matter of respect for those who produced it. And respect seems to be in short supply in today’s world.

So lets not insult those of us who know that copying any work of art is stealing, by trying to rationalize it. It is theft. You are thieves. Just be man enough to admit it. Respectable people pay others for their work. Try and be respectable for a change.

~jr