Pirates work around Vista's activation feature

[w1z4rd]

Right...

So a company (Not necessarilly Microsoft) spends bucketloads full of money developing an application. Much (Most?) of those bucketloads are spent on putting food in the developers' mouths. HUMAN BEINGS, people!
So this company releases said software with high hopes, having spent said bucketloads of money. 6 months later, a million copies are in circulation - only one paid for! Company doesn't have a hope in hell of recouping it's capital (Raising the price of the software to cater for the legal:illegal users ratio would seem to be the only way, but obviously this increases the number is illegal users). Company either goes under or lays off developers. HUMAN BEINGS, people!

Really. If I can afford it, I'll buy it. If I can't afford it, I'll do without it. But if less people pirated it, I'd probably be able to afford it.

That's just fabrication. LOL. RIAA and MPAA did a study in regards to this. They hated the results. The results confirmed that people who pirate stuff are more likely to purchase the original than people who do not pirate the data.

Kinda blows wind into your argument there does it not?

Piracy does NOT increase the price of merchandise. The publishers profits cause the high profits. Do you know EA Games developers are some of the unhappy developers out there? Yes EA Games has found out they can exploit people and pay their programmers as little as possible (exceptionally if they are from a 3rd world country)

Lastly to think that ONE human/company owns any one idea or name is honestly pathetic. That person would not be alive if it was not for all the trillions of ancestors that died before it, and the community that currently substantiates it.

Its going to come down to whom ever has the most money owns that idea/name. We have sold that land (that belongs to everyone), and created invisible lines in the ground we call "borders". Countries have sold the air space to large corporate airlines, dividing it up into "blocks" and selling them off, we have also sold our oceans to more large corporations, making it impossible for the little guy to make an honest buck for his family.

Vista could help hundreds of kids get a better education... have a better life through that education and have more opportunities. Who the heck are you to say that profits should come ahead of that?

 

[Nocturne]

License agreements came first.

Sure, but they were much less restrictive than they are today. My suspicion is that they were originally a way to try and "legalise" common sense, and got more and more wordy and restrictive in response to the growing problem of people finding "loopholes" to get away with using the software without paying. Most laws started out that way.

Whether you can make backups depends on your local law.

Sure, but these days, license agreements try and stipulate what you can and can't do, irrespective of your local law. And then disclaim it at the end with the old "If any portion of this agreement disagrees with your local law, that portion shall not apply" clause.

Name one such company?

I don't need to. There are potentially thousands of them. Software companies exist on revenue from the sale of their software. No sales = no revenue = no existance. Unless they go the Linux route and only charge for support. I'm a developer, not a support tech!

The point is, when you copy a piece of software illegally, it's not a huge leap to accept that you're stealing food out of some developer's mouth (Or his/her wife's mouth, or kids' mouths - which is somehow worse, depending on your moral outlook).
Making something immoral and unethical legal does not make it either moral or ethical. Of course, the converse is also true, but so is "Two wrongs never make a right."

 

[w1z4rd]

So your personal greed is more important than the development of other people? Ok got it. Please dont invent anything important!

 

[Nocturne]

That's just fabrication. LOL. RIAA and MPAA did a study in regards to this. They hated the results. The results confirmed that people who pirate stuff are more likely to purchase the original than people who do not pirate the data.

That may well be true (I happen to agree with it), but that doesn't mean that everyone who piratesa piece of software is likely to buy it.
I'm more likely to buy something if I've played around with it and know what it can and can't do, than if I just sat through a presentation and had to make a risky decision. I'll give you that - that's what "Trial Versions" and "Shareware" and whatnot are for. Problem is, companies are getting more and more reluctant to go that route, because people just crack them anyway.

Kinda blows wind into your argument there does it not?

Not really. Your argument and mine can quite happily co-exist. Your argument does not prove that piracy should be acceptable, or that people should go around stealing other people's property.

Piracy does NOT increase the price of merchandise. The publishers profits cause the high profits. Do you know EA Games developers are some of the unhappy developers out there? Yes EA Games has found out they can exploit people and pay their programmers as little as possible (exceptionally if they are from a 3rd world country)

People and companies like that do exist. It happens accross the board, from software to labour relations to *shudder* telecommunications. An unscrupulous and (dare I say it?) "evil" person will continue to be an unscrupulous and (dare I say it?) "evil" person regardless of what laws are in place to prevent that.

It doesn't change my point (Which was meant to imply "In general"). If I run a sweet shop, I make a living selling my sweets. If the neighbourhood kids keep steaing my sweets, I can't survive. So I have one of three options. I could increase the price of sweets, so I can make more money off the sweets I DO sell. This probably wouldn't work, as the kids would (rightly or not) steal more, under the rationale that if they could afford my sweets, they would buy them. I could lower the price on my sweets, in the hope that people who held the above rationale would buy more of my sweets. This might work, if I had the capital/balls/inclination to take such a risk, but I'm probably not that forward thinking, and/or not that much of a gambler. The first solution is much more traditional and "inside the box". But even if I did do that, it might not solve the problem because once people have a taste of "free stuff", any amount of money is "too expensive", and the same rationale would apply. Rinse and repeat.
Of course, there's a third option, which is to cut my losses and try some other business. Again, rinse and repeat - the problem of theft is a problem that transcends industries.

Lastly to think that ONE human/company owns any one idea or name is honestly pathetic. That person would not be alive if it was not for all the trillions of ancestors that died before it, and the community that currently substantiates it.

Well, first of all, I have to say it - that's capitalism, deal with it. I honestly wouldn't mind living in a Star Trek Federation-esque style economy, and if you can get that right, go for it! But not since Biblical times (And it's debatable, even then) has a system of communism actually worked in the real world.

People need to eat, other people control food sources, and demand things (Be it little slips of paper with numbers on them, chickens, sheep, tree leaves, grains of sand...) in exchange for access to the resources they control. It's the same thing with software - it's just the "resource" we're talking about isn't food, it's protons and electrons.

Second of all, if I have the balls/capital/inclination/pure adventuring spirit to take someone else's idea, massage it and turn it into something people can actually *gasp* use, why in all the hells should I not make money off it?! It was me, after all, who took all the risk, faced people's sniggering and ridicule, sweated blood and damn near lost everything that was dear to me. What did the other guy do? He had a dream... Well, personally, I have loads of dreams. I just don't have the guts to see anything through. I should expect nothing until such time as I bite the bullet and do something to make the damn thing work.

Vista could help hundreds of kids get a better education... have a better life through that education and have more opportunities. Who the heck are you to say that profits should come ahead of that?

Firstly, such things cost money. But OK, companies have social responsibilities, and it's a worthy cause. Make software free to schools/churches/hospitals... I seriously think that's what should happen. But hmm... How to make sure the employees of those schools/churches/hospitals aren't going to pirate the software and give copies to all their friends in the private sector?

 

[nthdimension]

Sure, but they were much less restrictive than they are today. My suspicion is that they were originally a way to try and "legalise" common sense, and got more and more wordy and restrictive in response to the growing problem of people finding "loopholes" to get away with using the software without paying. Most laws started out that way.

Doubtful.

And just because they may have become more wordy, and that has not been demonstrated, does not mean the essential content has been changed.

I don't need to. There are potentially thousands of them. Software companies exist on revenue from the sale of their software. No sales = no revenue = no existance. Unless they go the Linux route and only charge for support.

You most definitely do. We always hear about these industries collapsing, programmers living in cardboard boxes, managers forced to work for a living, all because someone copied something. Let's see some examples. I'd like to see a real analysis that shows why my caring that other people copy software is of any benefit to me or even society at large.

Sure, but these days, license agreements try and stipulate what you can and can't do, irrespective of your local law. And then disclaim it at the end with the old "If any portion of this agreement disagrees with your local law, that portion shall not apply" clause.

And I think they've always been like that. If they are more verbose it could just be a glut of lawyers trying to justify their existence.

 

[nthdimension]

If the neighbourhood kids keep steaing my sweets, I can't survive.

What if it is just children who would not have bought your sweets anyway making copies with their friends' sweet scanner? What if trying out those copies gets them wanting to own original sweets?

 

[Nocturne]

Doubtful.

And just because they may have become more wordy, and that has not been demonstrated, does not mean the essential content has been changed.

Hmm, you may well be right. I guess lawyers have to make a living too. And if a lawyer can say something 3 words when 5 will do... You think they get paid by the word?

You most definitely do. We always hear about these industries collapsing, programmers living in cardboard boxes, managers forced to work for a living, all because someone copied something. Let's see some examples. I'd like to see a real analysis that shows why my caring that other people copy software is of any benefit to me or even society at large.

OK, well, this company I used to work for. We developed software that was sold (And the company is still selling that software) internationally as a fleet management solution. In my 3 years there, we retrenched at least 6 developers because we just couldn't afford to pay their salaries anymore. Even in the last few months I was there, I found myself spending more of my time supporting distributors than actually coding - and I can't tell you how many of them turned out to not have legal copies of our software when I checked their license keys. Of course, other than recording fuel consumption, and some rudimentary time and attendance, there wasn't very much that could be done with the software if you didn't buy the black box that actually went into your vehicle. Somehow, people tended to pirate it anyway. *shrug* Maybe the thrill of "free stuff", I don't know.
I always found the managers' attitudes there very hyppocrital - we need to work harder and think harder to come up with all these new and improved ways of securing our software against unauthorised copying, but they wouldn't buy us WinZip.

I gather the company is out of that rut now, and doing very well these days! But I think that's got more to do with expanding their market and selling to a broader audience, than reducing the number of illegal copies out there. Doesn't mean they couldn't (Or wouldn't deserve to) make more money if they somehow could reduce the number of illegal copies. It still hurts!

 

[w1z4rd]

That may well be true (I happen to agree with it), but that doesn't mean that everyone who piratesa piece of software is likely to buy it.

This much is true. The majority of people who pirate and who do not purchase the item its most likely because they can not afford it. Because they can not afford it they are now...as you put it, "evil".

People and companies like that do exist. It happens accross the board, from software to labour relations to *shudder* telecommunications. An unscrupulous and (dare I say it?) "evil" person will continue to be an unscrupulous and (dare I say it?) "evil" person regardless of what laws are in place to prevent that.

Concentration camps also exist. Does that make it right?

It doesn't change my point (Which was meant to imply "In general"). If I run a sweet shop, I make a living selling my sweets. If the neighbourhood kids keep steaing my sweets, I can't survive. So I have one of three options. I could increase the price of sweets, so I can make more money off the sweets I DO sell. This probably wouldn't work, as the kids would (rightly or not) steal more, under the rationale that if they could afford my sweets, they would buy them. I could lower the price on my sweets, in the hope that people who held the above rationale would buy more of my sweets. This might work, if I had the capital/balls/inclination to take such a risk, but I'm probably not that forward thinking, and/or not that much of a gambler. The first solution is much more traditional and "inside the box". But even if I did do that, it might not solve the problem because once people have a taste of "free stuff", any amount of money is "too expensive", and the same rationale would apply. Rinse and repeat.
Of course, there's a third option, which is to cut my losses and try some other business. Again, rinse and repeat - the problem of theft is a problem that transcends industries.

Your analogy is extremely unfair. First you use the example of a sweet. Knowledge is infinite. To use YOUR analogy more fairly. If you created a sweet say for R10, and were able to copy it infinitely at say R1, but refused to sell it at R1, you deserve to have the kids swipe it off you because your greed would not allow you to resell at a better price.

Now if a kid comes along an finds a way to COPY your sweet and sell it for R1 should he not be able to?

There's a definite line between walking into your local sweet shop and stealing a sweet, and walking into a shop, reading the ingredients off the back and making your own sweet. The fact that you are trying to blur these lines worries me.

If I copy something you tell me that I am stealing. Yet you did not loose the original item... so how could it be theft if you still own it? Ever seen a hungry Microsoft executive? I have seen lots of hungry kids that the price of one copy of Windows Vista could feed for a real long time.

Well, first of all, I have to say it - that's capitalism, deal with it.

So what? I must be like you and allow greed to dictate action instead of justness? I do not think sooo.

I honestly wouldn't mind living in a Star Trek Federation-esque style economy, and if you can get that right, go for it! But not since Biblical times (And it's debatable, even then) has a system of communism actually worked in the real world.

It does work, that's not debatable. Look at your family unit. That's a communist society (or should be). Its getting it to work on a larger scale that it becomes more difficult.

People need to eat, other people control food sources, and demand things (Be it little slips of paper with numbers on them, chickens, sheep, tree leaves, grains of sand...) in exchange for access to the resources they control. It's the same thing with software - it's just the "resource" we're talking about isn't food, it's protons and electrons.

Wow... and here I thought all along that food was made up of atoms that had protons and electrons. What was I thinking?!

What you forget to mention here is knowledge allows people to get better food sources, farm more sheep, feed their families better. Look after themselves better and make more informed choices.

Second of all, if I have the balls/capital/inclination/pure adventuring spirit to take someone else's idea, massage it and turn it into something people can actually *gasp* use, why in all the hells should I not make money off it?! It was me, after all, who took all the risk, faced people's sniggering and ridicule, sweated blood and damn near lost everything that was dear to me. What did the other guy do? He had a dream... Well, personally, I have loads of dreams. I just don't have the guts to see anything through. I should expect nothing until such time as I bite the bullet and do something to make the damn thing work.

Yes, I agree with you. Grab that money money money money money! Its your driving force in life apparently. Now you made that program, and you fed your family, now someone else comes along, gets your programs, and makes it better.

Now he is now allowed to feed his family as well? The world is not allowed a better application because of your own wants?

Make money off your application. Empower yourself. Look after your family... that's all correct. However, do not exploit others while doing it, try empower people to achieve what you achieved... in fact try help them achieve more than what you did. Is that not the idea behind life?

Firstly, such things cost money. But OK, companies have social responsibilities, and it's a worthy cause. Make software free to schools/churches/hospitals... I seriously think that's what should happen. But hmm... How to make sure the employees of those schools/churches/hospitals aren't going to pirate the software and give copies to all their friends in the private sector?

The same people who could not afford your prices to start off with. Gosh. Heres a question.. ever made a program just to help people without expecting a reward?

 

[nthdimension]

Well, first of all, I have to say it - that's capitalism, deal with it.

Capitalism does not specify the details of exploitation of an idea. The problem is not getting something back for your idea and investment. Without question software, music and movie companies are well-compensated for their efforts. The problem is that the period of time that someone is allowed to exclusively benefit is totally out of control. Why should copyright be longer than a patent? Why should it seriously be considered that someone should be allowed to make money for a hundred years off a single effort? Why should there be deliberately created loopholes that allow pharmaceutical companies to effectively endlessly extend a patent?

I encourage people to treat copyright as being de facto 10 years. If it is older than that you should refuse to pay for anything more than the physical materials.

 

[w1z4rd]

I encourage people to treat copyright as being de facto 10 years. If it is older than that you should refuse to pay for anything more than the physical materials.

I work on 5 when working on software. I take into consideration the price of bandwidth it will cost me for all future updates on that program.

 

[nthdimension]

Of course, other than recording fuel consumption, and some rudimentary time and attendance, there wasn't very much that could be done with the software if you didn't buy the black box that actually went into your vehicle.

Doesn't really sound like they were copying the product. If all they wanted was those basic features, then they were probably just using it because it was there and would have used a spreadsheet or even a text file if that was what was necessary to record the basic information.

 

[Nocturne]

What if it is just children who would not have bought your sweets anyway making copies with their friends' sweet scanner? What if trying out those copies gets them wanting to own original sweets?

Then that may well make them go out and buy original sweets, but in most cases, I think it wouldn't. They'd just perpetually lie to themselves by saying something like
"Gee, I'd love to own those sweets legally, but they're just too damned expensive [and would continue to be "too expensive" whether they cost R100 a sweet or 1c a sweet]. *sigh* I guess I'll just have to go on stealing them, won't I? As long as that greedy bastard keeps charging such a high price for his sweets [again, whether the "high price" is R100 per sweet, or 1c per sweet is irrelevant], he deserves everything he gets!"

Doesn't really sound like they were copying the product. If all they wanted was those basic features, then they were probably just using it because it was there and would have used a spreadsheet or even a text file if that was what was necessary to record the basic information.

That's not the point. The point is it's something we sweated over, and it was our bread and butter. If I go out and build a spreadsheet to record all those data, and make it free for people's use, then it's free. If I decide it's not free, and I want R10 (Or whatever I decide to charge) a piece from everyone who uses it, then it's not free, and is wrong to copy it. End of story.

 

[lilDeath]

That's just fabrication. LOL. RIAA and MPAA did a study in regards to this. They hated the results. The results confirmed that people who pirate stuff are more likely to purchase the original than people who do not pirate the data.

I would very much like to see this study, as a matter of interest.

 

[w1z4rd]

Then that may well make them go out and buy original sweets, but in most cases, I think it wouldn't. They'd just perpetually lie to themselves by saying something like
"Gee, I'd love to own those sweets legally, but they're just too damned expensive [and would continue to be "too expensive" whether they cost R100 a sweet or 1c a sweet]. *sigh* I guess I'll just have to go on stealing them, won't I? As long as that greedy bastard keeps charging such a high price for his sweets [again, whether the "high price" is R100 per sweet, or 1c per sweet is irrelevant], he deserves everything he gets!"

Ummm...no. I really cant think of someone who would own a pirated version of something if they could easly afford the original.

That's not the point. The point is it's something we sweated over, and it was our bread and butter. If I go out and build a spreadsheet to record all those data, and make it free for people's use, then it's free. If I decide it's not free, and I want R10 (Or whatever I decide to charge) a piece from everyone who uses it, then it's not free, and is wrong to copy it. End of story.

You are the perfect capitalist! I am sure you think, "Who cares about anyone else as long as I am fine!"

 

[jabulani]

That's not the point. The point is it's something we sweated over, and it was our bread and butter. If I go out and build a spreadsheet to record all those data, and make it free for people's use, then it's free. If I decide it's not free, and I want R10 (Or whatever I decide to charge) a piece from everyone who uses it, then it's not free, and is wrong to copy it. End of story.

Well, if you did actually go and write and sell a spreadsheet, I would advise a more pragmatic business-oriented approach. Having sold shareware via the net for some years, I do have some experience, and one of the most obvious things was that the more my software was "pirated", the more sales I made. Whenever a new version's cracked serial number appeared on the serial number lists doing the rounds, my sales tended to soar. So you can jump on a moralistic high horse, or you can enjoy the proceeds.

 

[w1z4rd]

I would very much like to see this study, as a matter of interest.

- http://michaelgeist.ca/component/option,com_content/task,view/id,1168/comment_write,/comment_view,1/
- http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/4256.cfm
- http://p2pnet.net/story/4856

 

[Nocturne]

There's a very good theory that I am a firm proponent of, that seems to support the notion that (On the large scale) any kind of "equal sharing, anti-capitalist" system isn't going to work on this planet anytime soon:

Suppose you could magically "reset" everything, and divide all the wealth in the world equally between all the billions of people on the planet. Suddenly, everyone has exactly what everyone else has, nobody goes hungry, and nobody is any more or less important than anybody else. Now leave it for 100 years (I personally think 50 is closer to the mark, but the version I heard said 100). In 100 years' time, you'd have the exact same situation as you do today. There'd be a few people at the top who have most of the world's wealth, many people at the bottom who had nothing, and a multitude of people in between.

Left to their own devices, some people would always be entrepreneurs, some people would always be there to work for them, and some people would always allow themselves to be taken advantage of. It's an extremely sad fact of the way the world works.

I actually don't like the idea. I have often said that, on paper, communism (Or perhaps more specifically, Marxism) is the best form of government there is. I've just been convinced that it's not going to work in practice. And the reason that is, as I see it, is because of the above theory. There will always be people who want more money/power/whatever than the next guy. Some people will just sit back and dream of "one day" for the rest of their lives, others will fight for that power. And those that get power will eventually want more power, and become more corrupt.
No, it's not right, not by a long shot! But it's what the entire economy of planet earth is based on. If I have to work to survive, why should someone else get it for free? That leads to jealousy, which leads to greed, which leads to corruption, which leads to more jealousy.

And yes, I am saying stealing a sweet has the same effect as stealing software. If you steal my software, I still have the software, but it's suddenly worth less because it's that much easier for the next person to steal it (By copying it from the first guy). That very quickly spirals, and my software is worth nothing.
In my above analogy, if some kid figured out a way to copy my sweets, that would be very bad for me indeed! He's either going to sell the idea and make a lot of money, (and I would eventually go out of business because I couldn't sell sweets anymore), or I'm going to buy it from him. It would cost me a helluva lot of money, but at least I could continue to survive by selling sweets.
Of course, whoever buys the idea will eventually use it to sell copies of sweets at a much higher profit than he could make by selling the original sweets, and the spiral would continue. No matter how well intentioned you start out, the taste of power always corrupts. Always.

On a small scale, you give what you can to the poor, you help the beggar on the side of the road (Until that beggar hijacks your car). On a large scale... It's cynical, but it's the way it works. You'd need to re-write centuries of economical evolution to change it, and even then, you've still got human nature, which would probably change it back to the way it was without too much effort.

 

[w1z4rd]

Communism is not the right idea. Sorry if I came off that way. Its not better than capitalism otherwise it would be the dominant economic way of doing things.

If you had read Karl Marx and Engels ..like you claim to have then you will also have read that not one single communist society has acted like they said it should. Both of them said that communism can not happen by force. It has to be a world wide movement of choice.

I do not think the answer lies in either communism or capitalism, but rather in an amalgamation of communism, socialism, liberalism and capitalism all mixed together with the healthy "one man, one vote" of democracy.

On a small scale, you give what you can to the poor, you help the beggar on the side of the road (Until that beggar hijacks your car).

Now why did the beggar steal the car? In fact why was there a beggar in the fist place? Are you to worried about the new sound system for your new car than the hungry man on the side of the road?

And yes, I am saying stealing a sweet has the same effect as stealing software. If you steal my software, I still have the software, but it's suddenly worth less because it's that much easier for the next person to steal it (By copying it from the first guy).

Well, if what you said actually was true, then I am sure your perspective would be correct.

 

[AntiThesis]

See though you hit problems with the thing again. You can't say that someone has stolen something from you when they've copied it. You might argue that they have reduced your product's value by making it more available to other people who would also copy it.

Stealing a sweet means physically depriving the rightful owner of said sweet of the sweet.

Seems like semantics I suppose but there it is.

 

[Nocturne]

Absolutely, w1z4rd!

It's never been implemented the way it was supposed to be implemented, because it never can be implemented the way it was supposed to be implemented, because human beings will always hunger for more power.

I know exactly why the begger stole the car - because he had no transport. I know exactly why he was there - because he had no food. He had no transport, and he had no food, because he could afford neither transport, nor food. He could afford neither transport nor food because of the economical system we live in today, and there's nothing you or I or anyone else can do to change that system!

All I know is, I am not going to be that beggar (human pride again), so I am going to work to support myself and my family. The current economical system prescribes that the only way I do that is by earning money - and somewhere along the line, me earning money is going to deprive someone else of something (Probably someone I don't even know).