How Can We Wipe Out Piracy?

If only.. However, with the mindset of “why buy, when I can download” that is in most of the world’s minds now, it will be really difficult to rid he world of piracy.

I mean so many people want to download a movie to watch instead of paying the eight dollar price to go to the theater. They dont want to pay another ten dollars to get a coke and a bag of popcorn. They want to eat their own snacks and drink cheaper drinks, and not put up with annoying crowds. Now, that is only when the movie is in theaters. When a movie comes to DVD, it’s about being real cheapskates. Instead of paying the fifteen to twenty dollar price to buy the movie and be able to watch it as many times as they want to, they would rather take the time to download it from the net, and then watch it on the computer screen, or burn it to disc and watch on their tv. However, if they want any of the special “bonus” material, well.. they are boned.

Games are the same way. People don’t want to buy a bad game. lord knows there are MANY out there (Deadliest Catch:Alaskan Storm for one) that just stink more than rotten eggs. People use the excuse of “wanting to test the game before buying it.” Now, that was a valid reason in the past, before the xbox 360 and PS3. However, now we can download game demos and test them out. Still, there is the gamefly service (netflix for games) that allow people to get games for a price each month and keep them all as long as they want. Still, there are those who are lazy people who just want to download and modify their systems to play downloaded games.

so, getting rod of piracy is a good ideal, but it only looks good on paper, or on a blogpost.

The whole idea of a business is to rip off the customer by charging too much for a product. I have no problem when somebody turns it around on them. Anybody who is spending there time snitching on somebody for getting apps “illegally” should be ashamed of themselves for being nothing more than a dirty rat.

Most software developed for apple is systematically expensive. In windows, there are applications that do the same task that are half the price, freeware or open source free.

I think mac developers are preying on the percieved expendable wealth of Mac users. I also feel the same about the app store and many, many others complain about the same thing.

Meanwhile, I broke the bank to buy my Mac and it takes serious sacrifice to afford any software lately. I believe that if developers charged fairly, and provided a fair value that piracy wouldn’t even be an issue.

It’s a 2 way street. Give it away for free/make it Open Source & ask nicely for donations, which will eliminate piracy, OR make it really, REALLY cheap, which will eliminate ~60% of piracy. Their choice.

Go **** your self Chris…

yours truly,

Jack

The link is dead… or so it seems to me.

A few months back, didn’t you have someone from England on your stream whose MacBook Pro caught fire and he knew the head of Apple UK’s email address? Maybe you could talk to him. Just a thought.

I download because of the price of items.
For example, Photoshop and Premiere are like 300 bucks each making 600 to buy both. 600 bucks is like a new computer. Maybe if they were like 100 each then I may actually buy them.

People forget that piracy is no different than you buying the program and you lend me the CD and serial to put on my PC or lending me a DVD or album. So that means the government need to crack down on borrowing.

I think that if our ISP’s weren’t so lazy, they would monitor our Port 80 and BitTorrent ports so that way they see us what were downloading. So if they catch us we get a Warning first with a suspension and if we get caught again we would get terminated!

Over Here In Canada Rogers Already Started implementing these features. Bittorrent was first! :O

~Steven9088

I have never pirates anything but all my friends do. I usually feel left out because they have all the “cool” apps and “cool” everything on their Macs or PCs. Even though I feel left out, I know that not pirating is the right way to go and is better to live life without having to worry about getting caught or virus’s. I never pirate my music, apps, software or anything because of this. Not only that, but it’s dishonest and doesn’t help anyone except the person pirating which in turn makes them foolishly selfish. I want to help as much as I can, if I can or am allowed to, to put an end once and for all to piraters.

“Together, we can work to combat piracy.”

No, you wont. People want free. People can get free. You can’t stop them…

As much as that could help it for a short time, I have to disagree with Alex. Software wasn’t always so expensive. There has to be a different way to go about it. Here’s why:

1. Software starts at decent price
2. People buy the software
3. People who are too lazy and greedy to pay any price at all find a way to pirate the software
4. Software company begins to lose money for their software because no action is taken for piracey - leaving them no choice but to raise prices so that the software we use can get better, and the companies can stay in business.

If they reduced the cost, we’d be back at step 1 again, and it would all just be a continous loop.

Besides that, why should the software companies compramise? They’re not pirating their own software, lazy and greedy people are. Rather than fighting the software companies, fight the lazy and greedy people to keep them from pirating software.

One may not be able to stop piracey completely, but one can reduce it.

Anyway, those are my just two cents.

Thanks, Chris, for this blog. I’m not so concerned about iPhone Apps as I am about software from companies like Adobe. I love to use their software, but I can’t afford it anymore - but I refuse to turn to piracey as a solution, as this is probably the cause for the high prices.

Thanks again, Chris :)
David

Here are several examples why piracy is tolerated by the masses…

Its hard to compete with free open source software (which is often better than commercial software).

So many phone apps are free downloads … why should you pay for one?

Phone apps that want to charge should be the same as mp3’s on Amazon .. 99 cents.

All software is over hyped and way over priced… and everyone knows it.

A movie cost 100 million to make and you can buy the DVD for 10 bucks … Photoshop costs $650. Huh?

Its OK to tivo a HBO movie and watch it when you want … but if you even though you can legally watch it or tivo it you can’t download it from the newsgroups and watch it when its convenient for you.? People don’t see the logic there … they just see greed.

I think the true villains are the gougers … ISP’s charging $55 for broadband … that’s piracy. Cable companies charging $75 for basic digital cable … that’s piracy.

$4 for a cup of coffee … shiver me timbers … that’s piracy!

You’ll never be able to stop us from downloading and sharing whatever we wish. Companies are wasting their time in the pursuit of that impossible goal. They might be able to cut down on downloading by the casual computer user, but a motivated savvy power user will always find out where they can get what they want.

In my opinion it’s a waste of time and money for companies to worry about this. Instead of devoting their time to their actual customers, they are worried about some kid downloading Photoshop. If downloading software was suddenly impossible, that kid still wouldn’t be an Adobe customer. Adobe CS3 costs $2400.00.

Businesses pirating software for commercial purposes is another matter. But, it’s something that largely takes care of itself. Sooner or later a disgruntled employee will turn their employer in.

As far as kids installing OS X on their PCs, that does nothing but create future Apple customers. It’s actually kind of stupid that Apple doesn’t provide some sort of way for PC owners to preview OS X. They expect people to make an OS switch, sight unseen and at great expense, based solely on hype. If they hook those kids while they’re young, they’ll buy Macs the second they are able to do so. The reason that PCs and Windows will always have the vast majority of the consumer computer market is because that’s what people are first introduce to.

Cigarette companies understand that. Apparently Apple doesn’t (never has actually… they could have easily been #1 since the 80s)

The answer is simple: you CAN’T wipe out piracy.

People do not want to spend money when they have a cheapper solution a click away.

Why should you pay 100€ for a dvd collection of a season of your favourite tv show when you can have it before its out in the market and virtualy for free?

Why should you buy an overpriced computer softwere when there’s an open sourced or a free competitor?

Companies and industries are the first to steel from each other instead of developing a product that would really apeal to the user and contribute with something new for society.

The solution is both easy to understand and hard to accomplish: give it away, free of charge.
I believe a musician could benifite from the publicity that would come if his/her album was released for free. More people would atend to a councert and the true fan would not mind to spend a phew (not many) bucks to have the real, official copy of the cd.

I have a moto: art is of no man. Art is for everyone and try to charge or sue someone for destributing it to the masses, THAT should be illegal.

Cheers :)

FREE is ALWAYS the preferred price! How stupid do you have to be not to know that?

You want to stop crime? Burn all the money. Otherwise, it’s business as usual.

Stealing is wrong any way it is done. Many of the big name products are terribly overpriced, but you can make do with Shareware programs at a fraction of the price. I have sent donations to those Freeware authors whose programs are really good.

Minimize piracy by eliminating copyrights and patents…or at least restrict them to reasonable timeframes. Patents should be for only inanimate, inorganic mechanisms and exist for a maximum of seven years. Copyrights for software, music, and other short-lived documentation should be no more than three years. Longer lived documentation, for example, novels, should be for no more than seven years. In no case should patents or copyrights be renewable. To be patentable or copyrightable a work should be required to provide at least 51% new functionality.

If you don’t like piracy, support Free open-source software.

INFORMATION WANTS TO BE FREE!

“Some hosts, like GoDaddy, won’t listen until Apple themselves sue these big forums.”

Well yea, if you read the DMCA only a official representative of a product has the authority to ask for something to be taken down. Besides their is no use in a lawsuit. You can only ask for it to be taken down, and if you sue them the most that can happen is it being taken down.

Sure you can try to scare people, but the fact still remains that as long as the sites servers are in the U.S. you HAVE to be a representative of the material in question. Also, you have to submit an electronic signature, or a written signature and mail it to the person who owns the site. That is just how the law is written.

The only thing standing in your way of stopping piracy is the law, and numerous court case precedents. If you are not a representative or owner of whatever is in question are completely powerless. The most you can do is try to inform the companies or people that own the file or represent it. Also, layout what they can do to get it taken down.

You could try to lobby representatives in congress, but that is going to have privacy rights activists going crazy. This is an age old question. In reality unless you make something the physically impossible to pirate some one is going to come up with a way around it.

I don’t agree with people saying Photoshop is over priced. Because it is not a consumer piece of software. It is a business tool. Who cares what a company charges for something, the market ultimately decides the price at the end of the day anyways.

Well a pirate copy is just like an orignal copy which you buy, at the end of the day the companies charge too much for programs, one day in pc world norton is £20 the next it’s £50 it’s just a rip off.

Same goes for i tunes mp3’s now you are downloading a copy which is of a substandard quality as a p2p download from the orignal cd, yet one’s free and ones also most as dear as the cd, i tunes are making millions and millions for what the pirate users give away?

So who are the criminals? at the end of the day for a copy to be given away an orignal one must have been brought.

Something like operating systems should be brought new, and the same goes for anti virus programs but for them they shouldnt charge as much as they do.

As for films the mpaa said p2p users have crippled the film industry, oh well if that was the case how come batman and the rest of the new films have taken record amounts at the box office then?

The way to stop pirating is to release films at the same time, make them cheap £8 for new releases.

At the end of the day it’s THEIR own fault for ripping folk off,
i say help those who help you and screw those who rip you off.

Chris if the software companies didn’t charge a bizillion bucks for their stuff then people wouldn’t pirate so much…and the movie theaters I have to agree…8 bucks isn’t bad to watch a movie but the concessions are outrageous…and people are getting so they like being in crowds less and less …I don’t think piracy will ever go away but the software companies could help it by making their stuff more affordable…Then there are those countries that have no laws against piracy so how do you stop them?

I don’t think that there is much that I can add to these comments that hasn’t already been said. But I think that it would be a good chance to give an example of a situation that pushed me to download a pirated copy of a work.

One day I was browsing YouTube and came across some clips of a Japanese anime. The clips were fansubbed (subtitled by fans of the anime) and the series seemed to be rather interesting. Rather than go to the trouble of trying to watch the whole thing on YouTube, which would have required lots of searching and putting up with sub-par video and audio quality, I decided to buy an official copy of the DVD.

The DVD I bought had no English audio track but at least it had English subtitles. When I switched on the English subtitles to watch it with the Japanese audio I was mortified! It seemed as if no care was taken in translating the dialogue into English. There were errors everywhere and they even got some of the character’s names wrong! I don’t know how they could have released it with so many errors! They could’ve at least gotten a native English speaker to proof read it first.

Anyway, I was so peeved about the DVD I bought being such a disappointment, the next day I downloaded the entire high quality fansub version from an anime fan site. At least the fans took care to make the subtitles as correct and natural as possible. Not easy when translating from a language that is so fundamentally different than English. IMO a much better product than the official release.

In this case I felt justified to download after buying the DVD, but it’s going to make it much harder in the future to resist the temptation to just download the next series I’m interested in. Especially if the quality of the subtitles in the official releases continue to be abysmal and if I can easily get a better product for free.

Since most software is sold on terms that once opened, it can only be exchanged for same if at all, the vendors need to be providing free / time limited fully functional try before you buy versions of their software.

Otherwise how are we to know if the software will really do what we require it to do? In many cases the forces people to go for the cracked version to see if it really works as needed or not.

Then you have stupid copy protections / DRM’s that either nag you to have the CD loaded, or somehow causes other problems, like needing an internet connection available while the software is in use. The customer gets so frustrated with the vendor seemingly caring so little about customer satisfaction, it is not a huge jump for the customer to just opt for the cracked versions.

Anymore, I don’t even mess with the commercial software, It is very rare that I cannot find a free open source equivalent.

On the Patent issues raised; I develop software for a living, I focus of developing the functionality requested, if my employer is stupid enough to waste time and money on trying to turn that into a patent, more power to them, But short of some stupid patent lawyer no knowing where to search for prior art, every technique I use in my programming can most likely be traced back to something I learned from Data Structures class and it’s origins in one volume or another of: “The Art of Computer Programming”. Everything else can be traced to a computerized rendering of some process or procedure that most likely has a non-computer related patent someplace. In my opinion, it is very rare to actually find something new, that is unique enough to deserve it’s own patent.

Exo

this is a response to a comment posted by David Crandall:

“One may not be able to stop piracey completely, but one can reduce it.”

Actually, no you can’t…when you try to reduce you make it explode.

Before 1999, piracy was a hard thing to do because you had to find someone who could make copies of stuff like movies and music as late 90s the cd recorder was incredibly expensive so most piracy was done through vhs tape trading making piracy small and localized.

June 1999 was the launch of Napster…it was very small and very few people used it in fact just college students mostly.

December 1999, RIAA files suit against Napster…Napster explodes into the first ever global piracy medium. Piracy hits a level never before seen and due to the lawsuit and the publicity the lawsuit caused Napster became a giant phenomenon.

1999-2001, Napster continues to grow to a massive scale so much so that they were forced to close the program in order to stop the copyrighted material sharing that the courts told them to do because that was the ONLY way to stop it due to the incredible size it grew into.

July 2001, Napster turns off it servers.

Also July 2001, the BitTorrent protocol is launched continuing the global piracy phenomenon that was created due to the wasteful lawsuit that made Napster explode in the first place.

November 2003, The Pirate Bay begins and piracy gets bigger and bigger thanks to the stupid raids and lawsuits regarding the Pirate Bay. In fact, the Pirate Bay has a section of their site devoted to mocking people who try to shut them down.

Now tape traders are obsolete as practically anyone can get a Pirate Bay account and download any of the many free bittorrent clients.

Of all the efforts of organizations like the RIAA, MPAA, ASCAP, BMI and the BSA…they have done nothing to reduce piracy they have only fueled the fire causing the explosion that it is today.

They make a big deal of it because they want to make 300 Million dollars instead of 299 Million so piraters get irritated and appalled thus causing it to escalate more and more.

But remember “Don’t Copy That Floppy”!

I am posting this here, as blogger Tuxedojericho, not only is against pirating, he seems to also be into censorship! Shame on you Jericho! I actually knew he would not allow my comment to go through, so I copied it into notepad.

First off, if you do not find it necessary to pirate, then you obviously make enough money you do not need to. Secondly, the majority of stolen material is stolen from the corporations, who steal and enslave the American people with incredibly low wages, while they prosper and live like kings.
The majority of Americans, and the numbers are growing, can barely afford to pay rent, eat, and cover the absolute basics of survival. If you honestly think that entertainment, programs, etc., are only meant to be in the hands that can afford them, you are seriously sick in the head and quite ignorant.
Basically those who are working the low paying jobs in America, are the ones supporting the very base of the economic system, and providing the services everyone is depending upon to function. Did you know that services such as education, human services, old age homes, crop and field work, etc., are all low paying jobs?
Those who are touting ‘don’t steal from the corporations’ are only supporting the enslavement of the American people. We would get better jobs if we could….they are NOT OUT THERE. Go ahead and go to college….there are a TON of people with degrees that cannot get jobs!
I personally think that all of reality should be open source, and that this capitalistic **** needs to come to an end because it just reduces us all to the haves and the have nots..
There is no reason that people who work 40 hours a week doing one thing should get paid so much less than people who work 40 hours week doing something else. It seems that jobs requiring brains get paid a hella lot more than jobs doing hard core physical labor. So, if you do many of the labor jobs in America, which NEED to be done, you die earlier, have more medical issues, etc., because you have broken your body down in your occupation…and will get paid sh*t for doing it.
You people out there who really buy into the brainwashing idea that piracy is wrong….STOP BEING BRAINWASHED. Think about supporting your fellow citizens, not your corporate masters.

LOL the funny thing is that its a crime, it needs to hold jail time. Im not saying that I dont do it, in fact im sure I helped create it back in AOL warez private rooms.

What im saying is im used to ending up in jail every few years, most these computer nerds (im sure i am one, I just dont look it or act it a lot) downloading things would lose their pudding cup (and their manhood) fast.

Piracy has made it so musicians (as seen in the crummy street bums that record label execs give rock and roll outifts and instruments to), software designers and game designers (as seen in the lack of PC games) dont really wanna do their work anymore.

Listen folks musicians and game designers are 1000 times more talented than youll ever be, and people like musicians dont work for like 10 years and live without the finer things in life,,, like food!!! as do a lot of college students not being supported by mommy. Either of those reason are why you pay money to partake in their designs. Or just the simple fact they r way smarter than you cause you decided to be a bum in life.

While I don’t have any Apple products, I’m strongly opposed to pirating media. While, on occasion, I’ve watched a movie online not totally legally, it’s always something I wasn’t planning watching. If I like it I go and buy the DVD. While it’s sounds like I’m lying, I swear I’m not. I resisted to watch Diary of the Dead for weeks online until I bought it on DVD.
I do use some of the film sights, but it may be better if they were taken down.
Pirating will all but ruin the software industry!

Well, a good example is the iphone app “NetShare”. If Apple or the providers think they can limit my “flatrate” they get what they deserve. Every freakin smartphone can be used as a modem with your laptop. I am not going to be limited in that way. Yes I would have been willing to pay 10$. But if it gets banned I am going to get this feature elsewhere.

I always wondered why there were people out there who seemingly didn’t like you very much, Chris. Now I know why. But you know what, you sniveling little cry babies? You don’t post illegal material to the web and then cry when it gets taken down. In the words of John Wayne from Cahill U.S. Marshall: “You call the tune, you pay the piper…meanin’ you don’t like the treatment, don’t [pirate the software]“. Of course he actually said “don’t rob the banks”. You get the idea. And don’t cry like a little girl when you get caught. ;) Take it like a man.

I dont pirate but i know why people do.
Tetris… $9.99…

You can’t. Simple.

Besides its not going to make any difference or little difference to the bottom line.

Why? because those that pirate either can’t afford it or do it because of the challenge of initially releasing the code. So the hackers are still going to hack through your protection schemes and those that can’t afford it WONT buy your software anyway.

The only problem is companies that use pirate software to make money but never buy the software they use. And those are already sought after.

So there is no need to TRY to do anything. As a software developer you MUST accept there’ll be some people using software that didn’t pay for it but they weren’t going to buy it anyway. BUT at least you have them hooked on your software so when they can, they will.

There’ll always be those that will hack through your protection schemes.

And only ones who you must really guard yourselve against are those that would be willing to use your software to make hordes of money but not willing to pay you for it.

so overall more focus should be brought to mass thieving which is what companies with pirated software are doing not stopping some 10 year old from thieving a copy of “oops I did it again” by britney spears.

Chris,

I like what you do, but why don’t you stick to helpful tips and tutorials rather than go on some crusade to rid the world of piracy. You know these companies are out to make 10x the profit off of some customer instead of a reasonable price. You know that your money goes straight to the top executives who make major bank while cutting their employees healthcare benefits. Fine, pay for the software and music but stop the crusade and do something constructive with your time,

Sincerely,

Bill

I used to pirate software. I only pirated the big things, like Photoshop and MS Office. The reason I did it, however, was because I felt I needed more than a 30 day trial to get a good feel for the program. I decided I didn’t need them, and so I deleted them, never used them again.

I’ve recently taken an interest in programming, and it is hard work, which has put me off piracy in a big way.

As for wiping out piracy? Good luck with that.

Its Simple..
Make Software More Affordable For The Average Person..

In A World Where Everything Costs More People Have Less
Available Free Cash To Spend,,
More People Cant Afford To Buy Things So..
By Making Software A More Affordable Cost For The Average Person
This Will Help Eliminate Piracy..

Example..
If You Go On Site A And See Software For $100
And Go On Site B And See It For $30
Your More Likely Going To PURCHASE GENUINE Software
Because Its Affordable..

If You See Software For $500
And Thats The Lowest You See It For [even on ebay]
Then Your More Likely To Turn To Piracy As It Isnt Affordable!!

wow
It’s amazing to see how many people don’t see the problem with piracey.
If piracey of any sort is ok, then why not walk into any store and just take what you want and walk out? Why not ripoff a gas station because prices are so high? Because it’s stealing, and it’s wrong.

The point is this: piracey is stealing, and stealing is stealing, be it physically in the store, or over the internet - it’s wrong and illegal.

I hope they find a way to STOP p2p filesharing companies that allow people to download software, movies, etc. illegally. God forbid you have to pay for something you want then degrade it to something of no value.

Anyways, that’s just 2 more cents of mine :)

David

I agree with this article, but you’re never going to be able to stop piracy, especially when companies like Adobe charge hundreds of dollars for photo editing software when there are free alternatives such as GIMP that have very similar functionality.

The best policy for reducing piracy is for the software manufacturers to try and keep the cost of their software as low as possible. Sometimes keeping software simple and functional is ideal.

Many times when I buy software I am buying it to do something specific. I don’t care if it does my laundry and has voice recognition as well :P.

Microsoft has fed the mentality that software companies have by continuing to increase the prices of it’s OS’s and it’s Office Suites.

Most people just want a word processor that is compatible with what everyone uses, and when OpenOffice offers an Office Suite for free, it is rediculous to pay over $300 for a full version of Microsoft Office.

Nice job Chris. Props to you.

Seriously, most of the stuff people pirate are things they don’t even really need.

Photoshop is probably the most pirated software ever. “But it costs too much…. Waaaah!” Like someone else said, it’s meant for professional use, and most people don’t even use it to a quarter of its extent.

Ever heard of GIMP? I find it much more preferable than Photoshop myself. Those used to Photoshop’s layout can even get the version who mimics its layout. And it’s totally free!!!!! Reason to pirate Photoshop: none.

And for the things that have no legally free alternatives, it’s called “saving” people. Ever heard of it? If you can’t do that, or you want it right now, too bad for you. Software isn’t required for one to live like food, so quit treating it like it is. You don’t need it, you just want it. All I get to eat is microwaved stuff, so don’t think I’m some rich person either.

Programmers work hard to make these programs, and they wouldn’t be so expensive if it was a simple thing, or if people didn’t pirate so much. So quit playing like you’re “sticking it to the man,” because you’re not. You’re just a thief, and one who can’t do the stealing themself if you get it off some site or shareware. And that hacker that cracked it for you probably loaded it with spyware, trojans, and viruses. So have fun with that.

First off i would be lying if i said i have never participated in software piracy. In fact almost all the software I used while going to collage was pirated. I tried to justify it by thinking I was a student and just learning the software anyway, someday I would purchase it… besides I wasn’t stealing anything tangible anyway, right? Well after entering the work force i realized how valuable intellectual property is after having some stolen from me. Needless to say I have quit, and although I don’t have loads of apps at my disposal anymore, the ones I do have i own and use.

I do not think it is, or ever will be possible to stop piracy because it is theft at its most basic form, and theft has been around since time began. However that should not deter the struggle to reduce it by any means. The problem right now I think is a solid way to enforce the laws because of the ease that piracy can be conducted. It is much easier to do the crime than enforce it in this case. I hope the tables turn on that sometime in the near future.

Chris Pirillo Would You Like to Win Mac Software? Optimus Maximus Keyboard Software Optimus Maximus Keyboard Control Fun Optimus Maximus OLED Keyboard UnboxingHow Can We Wipe Out Piracy?

Here’s how to wipe out piracy;

http://tinyurl.com/6owuce

I think piracy would stop if the price of the legitimate product becomes cheaper, here where I live Microsoft product cost more than a month salary of a minimum wage earner, no wonder a lot of people is pirating it, its even cheaper than downloading Linux and burning it.

I notice couple of weeks ago a local mall here did a sale on original DVD they were able to sell it at 70% less than the original price and people buys the original DVD instead of buying the pirated ones, i just think if piracy is to stop the companies have to stop ripping people off.

“I think that if our ISP’s weren’t so lazy, they would monitor our Port 80 and BitTorrent ports so that way they see us what were downloading. So if they catch us we get a Warning first with a suspension and if we get caught again we would get terminated!”

BUZZ!!! It is illegal for the ISP’s to watch what comes in/out of the citizen computer in the US without a warrant.

This is just like stopping “Terrorism”. You can’t “stop” or “wipe out” a mentality. This is a heavily discussed topic, and you’ve seen the somewhat poor implementations to prevent piracy, that have up and failed altogether.

i think most people would feel bad about pirating except the people they are pirating from have been ripping them off their whole lives.This includes software,video,music etc.Look what Verizon has done with newsgroups-Comcast after you sign up for UNIMITED access.

i admit, i have quite a bit of pirated software, but i only have it because i cant afford most of it. although i just got my first job a few weeks ago, so i plan on deleting a lot of that stuff and buying licenses. take acronis for example. i felt really bad about it, because acronis is so great and they dont deserve to be pirated, but i REALLY needed it, and didnt have any money, so i torrent-ed it.

I do not support randomly pirating software for no reason, (tho i do like osx86…) and i in no way at all support keygens. my only “pirated” software is usually borrowed stuff from friends and things like that.

You will never stop piracy.

The community is far too large and enthusiastic to let 2 internet bloggers take it down.

The Malaysian government got Brokenstones pulled.
2 days later Vortex goes up.
1 week later Savethecoratee goes up.
1 week after that Brokenstones goes back up.

So we now have 3 incredibly well run Mac bittorrent trackers - as a result of just one getting pulled.

*PS - Chris, do you really think Apple care?
Why do you think they took away donglr protection from Logic Studio?
It increases the user base. It helps create the brand. Apple can afford piracy - they make their money from harware.

LET ME FOLLOW THE LOGIC OF YOU PRO-PIRACY IDIOTS…
1) I only pirate BECAUSE the price is too high
2) I only stole those pair of shoes BECAUSE I couldn’t afford them
3) I only mugged a guy BECAUSE he wouldn’t give me his wallet

The BECAUSE statements are not valid arguments but the dim witted excuse of common petty theives, bogus on every plausible level and as completely irrational as my own duubious speling.

No one forces you to watch a movie or play a video game. If you don’t like it, don’t buy it. My God. You pirating morons act like you’re some starving orphan grabbing a loaf of bread from a store window to save the life of his ailing grandmother. Trust me. You can live without the newest edition of War Craft (yeah, I’m talking to you, Freakboy and a Half). So don’t act like you”re being forced at the point of a gun to either pay high prices or steal. Please put down the anime DVD and bottle of lotion and pick up an Ecomomics 101 book. Services take the same investment, capital, and labor as hard goods do, so pirating is no different than stealing anything else. I wish you were REAL pirates so I could body slam you off the plank into shark infested water. How to stop pirating? Pretty much impossible. How to reduce it? With the stick. Companies should flood every file sharing site with maliscious, kick-*** viruses so that people are afraid to steal for fear of their computer being ruined like their face and their mom already is. Bye now. I love you all. But really I hate you.

hey guys,
mr. gates is actually owning around 50.000.000.000.00$ after around 20 years of microsoft-business. somehow i do not believe that he gonna get hurt. if you look deeper in the businessworld, you gone find out, that software-companies make the most of ther money with sales on licences for they’r products in wholesales (buy pc with windows together, ect…) and not with sales on software to guys like you and me.
this is the reason for (hopefully) neverending downloads over port 80.

best,

thomas

information shall be free! always and forever, knowledge of how to do something better, faster or in a way that provides more pleasure and enhances our lives is always going to make the rounds.

if there’s the opportunity to get all these benefits for free, then opportunists will thrive. and while it is morally “wrong”, it’s also natural.

instead of protecting the information so that only the few who can afford it are to use it, we need to protect developers in a different way. instead of using my tax dollars to bomb people, i’m willing to have some of that money go to the talented people that make my life better so that they can geek out at their leisure for the betterment of humanity.

these apps for work and pleasure should belong to all. information should be democratic. also, creators should be not “protected” from “evil pirates” (who really love and admire the developer’s work, they’re not against each other) but instead should be celebrated and allowed to blossom with financial support from a different source, like donations, patronage, or even grants like we used to have for the fine arts in more civilized times.

i really admire the ideals behind donationware and open source because they respect the ideals that everyone have a fair chance to use the tools that exist while also trusting that people will in turn support them.

until we realize that the arts and information and knowledge and advancement should belong to the entire human race we will be stuck in this cat and mouse chase pointing fingers and being hostile to each other.

depending on the capitalist system to control the flow of knowledge and tools is not only wrong in a deeper way that “piracy”, but it upholds the digital divide and ultimately promotes a cultural elitism that is unfair. think of this. how many kick *** nigerian 17 year old graphic designers are going to afford a copy of adobe master suite?

chris, i commend you for your solidarity with developers. but i also ask you to remember that these “pirates” you’re talking about are your peers and generally good people. it’s not a matter of punishing, but an opportunity to change the structure of cultural exchange to make things more equitable.

if you want to stop a great deal of piracy… don’t sell it as down loadable software… sell it in stores… where people have to go and pay real money for it…. people who pay real money don’t want to give their stuff away. the publishers who are cheap try to get as much money for themselves by cutting out the middle man are also greedy. they don’t care if someone looses a job because of low sales in stores. they want their money. so by allowing downloads you’re going get cracks and hacks. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.

In response to RottNKorpse’s comment directed toward me:

I understand your point, but all your giving me is how piracy has grown. All it shows me is less, or at least no further action is being done to stop it.

I also understand how millions, if not billions of people download pirated content every day, and it would be impossible to stop every one of them.

The truth is this: the action itself is against INTERNATIONAL copyright law. Any respectable person would abide and respect a fair and just law as such.

I n response to To h’s comment: “it’s not a matter of punishing, but an opportunity to change the structure of cultural exchange to make things more equitable.”

In other words, piracy is equitable - or FAIR - because it’s an opportunity to change the structure of cultural exchange.

Wrong - that’s what open source is. There are free open source alternatives to nearly ANY piece of software.

That statement is also wrong simply because of this: it is wrong to steal the fruit of someone’s labor. Developing software, recording music, and making movies takes months, if not YEARS of work and can cost thousands, even MILLIONS of dollars to complete one project. Is it right to just steal from hard working people just because no one wants to sacrifice for what they want?

Isn’t that a basic rule we ALL learn growing up - you sacrifice to get something. You sacrifice your time to complete school, you sacrifice your time and money to complete college, you sacrifice your hard earned money to pay your electric bill so you can have lights at night time.

You work hard for your possessions - you sacrifice. Software developers, musicians, and movie makers have sacrificed a LOT of time and energy into making their product…to take away from that is disgusting.

It’s ridiculous to me to see how many people are willing to justify this thievery with nothing but “I want I want I want!” Are people really that childish and greedy and lazy?

If you want something - sacrifice for it, otherwise back off.

Yes, free is always lovely, but if you want free - open source is the way to go, but be sure you support the developers by donating. They bend over backwards to give a quality product, and it’s sad when no one contributes.

Simply put - if people weren’t GREEDY and LAZY and got JOBS and SAVED UP for what they wanted, the demand would be so high up, companies like Adobe could afford to lower their prices.

But when you look at alllll the people who buy their software as apposed to those who download pirated copies…it’s night and day.

People may not be able to permanently STOP piracy, but it CAN be decreased over time.

This is my honest opinion, and I think it’s fair. It is simply wrong to take away from those who work hard to make a quality product for the consumer.

Build yourself a house by hand and have someone knock it down…not very nice ;)

My 2 more cents…I believe I now have 6 cents? =D

I have quite a different take on how software should be handled, but it might not work as nicely as it would sound.

I have a personal dilemma right now. I purchased Adobe Web Premium CS3 (Student Edition) for my Windows PC almost 2 years ago — and I love it. I feel very good about paying for it, rather than have pirated it by downloading it. But, I just bought a MacBook Pro. I obviously cannot install CS3 on my Mac because I have a Windows copy, but I reeaally want it on my Mac without having to boot into my Bootcamp Windows partition or use VM to run it. As far as I know, my CS3 license states that I can install it on as many computers that I want (of which I own), and only use one copy at a time. If not, I believe it’s up to three computers, I can’t remember.

This really frustrates me because, should I really have to purchase another entire copy of CS3/CS4 just so I can use it on my Mac? I certainly don’t think so, especially since I’ve installed CS3 on 2 out of 3 computers, if there is a limit.

My first inclination is to seek it out online and download a Mac copy — only justifying my download based on my license. I feel like I have/should have the right to interchangeably use my software (like Adobe’s) on either my Mac or PC if I already own it, that is if there are two separate versions. I mean, I already own it, why buy TWO copies for ONE person when you would only need one with 2 Windows PCs, rather than having a Mac.

This leads me to think that the way software licensing should work is through hybrid licenses. I’ll give you an example: Do you need multiple fishing licenses for each fishing pole you own and use (you, personally)? I thought not. Each fishing pole is a computer, in this case. You can use as many poles as you want to fish with, as long as you have one fishing license, correct?

Why not have hybrid licenses for all operating systems (if the company supports each OS)? Or perhaps category licenses where you “own” each category of software of your choosing. Why should you have to pay separately for IconPackager on Windows and CandyBar on Mac? That’s almost double the cost for software, which is pretty ridiculous.

And to Adobe: Why can’t you offer student upgrade discounts? It costs more for a commercial upgrade of CS4 than for the full student edition of CS4, yet to buy the full install of CS4 to upgrade from CS3 would be outrageous… it all doesn’t make much sense.