FUCK ALL SOFTWARE PIRATORS
crazy dave
>>How about this one...is pirating microsoft products ok? ;-)
>Why would you want to?
What a silly question or am I misinterpreting Nat's question. Well there
is a very good reason to pirate microsoft products and that is to make
microsoft's profits to suffer incredibly; make them go down but on the other
hand Nat's question implies that Microsoft products are NOT WORTH copying
because they make such CRAP stuff anyway.
On the subject of pirating, let's look at an analogy.Let's look at school when
everyone copies someone else's assinments.I should say nearly everyone since
there are some people who just don't need to. Copying in this case is cheating
and cheating is wrong since people put in hours and hours of work only to
see someone else get their work in a few minutes. Is this fair? Piracy is just
the same except people sell their work at much lower price compared to the
SW company's price.
Krishna Kant
> Nat wrote:
> >>How about this one...is pirating microsoft products ok? ;-)
>
> >Why would you want to?
>
> What a silly question or am I misinterpreting Nat's question. Well there
> is a very good reason to pirate microsoft products and that is to make
> microsoft's profits to suffer incredibly; make them go down but on the other
> hand Nat's question implies that Microsoft products are NOT WORTH copying
> because they make such CRAP stuff anyway.
>
NO!!! Whether pirated or not, having MS products on your HD means that
you're _using_ them. MS is not going to suffer because you've pirated
their software. On the contrary, they're simply taking over another
helpless Mac and Mac user, forcing them to _get_used_to_ shitty, slow,
crash-prone products. Plus, who KNOWS what that installer does to your
System file/folder. That, in turn takes the Mac user one step closer to
becoming a Windoze user. Think about it. MS Office runs much better on
PC's than on Macs (although it's still a bloated product).
So, don't buy MS, and don't pirate MS either.
--
Krishna
kk...@ugcs.caltech.edu
P.N. Jones
>From: kk...@ugcs.caltech.edu (Krishna Kant)
>Subject: Re: FUCK ALL SOFTWARE PIRATORS
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
NO! The last thing we need is their offspring! Try castrating them instead.
Michael O'Keefe
: d0s...@teaching.cs.adelaide.edu.au (crazy dave) wrote:
Who gives a royal crap about any of this. I think this is a newsgroup for
Amiga game players not Mac or MS anything. Take this crap somewhere else.
I personally think that MS software is so crappy that it is offensive to
even read messages about it in a area devoted to both of the systems
Master. ;) Now if the discussion is about Amiga software pirating then it
may be a bit more palatable.
Jonas Henriksson
>Who gives a royal crap about any of this. I think this is a newsgroup for
>Amiga game players not Mac or MS anything. Take this crap somewhere else.
Actually, this goes out to a great number of newsgroups, some PC, some Mac,
and yes, some Amiga. Hence the confusion over type of H/W. Anyway, piracy
concerns ALL computer types, whether you're for or against it.
>I personally think that MS software is so crappy that it is offensive to
>even read messages about it in a area devoted to both of the systems
>Master. ;) Now if the discussion is about Amiga software pirating then it
>may be a bit more palatable.
Yes, MS products aren't very well designed, but I'm forced to use them
since everybody else does - I don't decide what my employer should buy.
Amiga machines are also plagued/blessed (pick your favourite) by piracy,
but fortunately not by MS products!
/H-son
*****************************************************
Programmers never die, they just GOSUB without RETURN
*****************************************************
Carl Chavez
crazy dave <d0s...@teaching.cs.adelaide.edu.au> wrote:
>Nat wrote:
>On the subject of pirating, let's look at an analogy.Let's look at school when
>everyone copies someone else's assinments.I should say nearly everyone since
>there are some people who just don't need to. Copying in this case is cheating
>and cheating is wrong since people put in hours and hours of work only to
>see someone else get their work in a few minutes. Is this fair? Piracy is just
>the same except people sell their work at much lower price compared to the
>SW company's price.
>
But it's not the *pirate's* work or the *software company's* work, it's
the *programmers'* work (unless the SW company contracted the programmers).
The programmers license the SW company to sell the work and are paid *by
the software company*, not by the pirates.
Heck, I'd approve of pirating if programmers were paid by pirates too,
because that would force software companies to lower prices because
they'd be in direct competition with the pirates for programmers' skills...
but that's not going to happen. And it wouldn't be pirating, either... it
would be competitive business practice and the pirates would be trying to
get distribution licenses.
--
+------------------------------------------+-------------------------------+
| Carl Chavez fore...@u.washington.edu | writer, Amigalink magazine |
| http://weber.u.washington.edu/~foregone/ | FAQ writer, NBA Jam TE & |
+------------------------------------------+ Bust-A-Move |
Cats
(Michael O'Keefe) wrote:
>
> Who gives a royal crap about any of this. I think this is a newsgroup for
> Amiga game players not Mac or MS anything. Take this crap somewhere else.
> I personally think that MS software is so crappy that it is offensive to
> even read messages about it in a area devoted to both of the systems
> Master. ;) Now if the discussion is about Amiga software pirating then it
> may be a bit more palatable.
Honey, it's called "cross-posting"...
Cats
Tony Mejia
>From: fore...@u.washington.edu (Carl Chavez)
>Subject: Re: FUCK ALL SOFTWARE PIRATORS
>But it's not the *pirate's* work or the *software company's* work, it's
>the *programmers'* work (unless the SW company contracted the programmers).
>The programmers license the SW company to sell the work and are paid *by
>the software company*, not by the pirates.
>Heck, I'd approve of pirating if programmers were paid by pirates too,
>because that would force software companies to lower prices because
>they'd be in direct competition with the pirates for programmers' skills...
>but that's not going to happen. And it wouldn't be pirating, either... it
>would be competitive business practice and the pirates would be trying to
>get distribution licenses.
Then they would not be pirates and the world would be a much better place to
live in.;)
Later
Tony
Reed Kennedy
(Krishna Kant) writes:
>
>d0s...@teaching.cs.adelaide.edu.au (crazy dave) wrote:
>
>> Nat wrote:
>> >>How about this one...is pirating microsoft products ok? ;-)
>>
>> >Why would you want to?
Pirating M$ programes actualy would help them, Because secratly all ms
progames are small scale viruses which take a pentium down to what a
386 can do under DOS and make the systems crash randomly. Some how
they manage to make billions of $ in the proscess and have millions
holding there breath for the latest virus win95!
--
E-mail me TheDruid
@@@@@@@@@
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@ @@@@@ @
\| /.\ _ /.\ |/
|| - / \ - ||
| __\_/__ |
____ | /VVVVVVV\ | ____
(~~~~~~~UUUU~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~UUUU~~~~~~~)
) Just for fun: Ask people how often their (
( computers crash due to viruses and how often )
( /@\they crash due to Windows!/@\ (
~~~~~~~~|_|~~~~~~~\/\/\/\/\/\/~~~~~~~|_|~~~~~~~~
\________/
Tom Picciani
>crazy dave <d0s...@teaching.cs.adelaide.edu.au> wrote:
>>Nat wrote:
>>On the subject of pirating, let's look at an analogy.Let's look at school when
>>everyone copies someone else's assinments.I should say nearly everyone since
>>there are some people who just don't need to. Copying in this case is cheating
>>and cheating is wrong since people put in hours and hours of work only to
>>see someone else get their work in a few minutes. Is this fair? Piracy is just
>>the same except people sell their work at much lower price compared to the
>>SW company's price.
>>
>
>the *programmers'* work (unless the SW company contracted the programmers).
>The programmers license the SW company to sell the work and are paid *by
>the software company*, not by the pirates.
>Heck, I'd approve of pirating if programmers were paid by pirates too,
>because that would force software companies to lower prices because
>they'd be in direct competition with the pirates for programmers' skills...
>but that's not going to happen. And it wouldn't be pirating, either... it
>would be competitive business practice and the pirates would be trying to
>get distribution licenses.
>
>+------------------------------------------+-------------------------------+
>| Carl Chavez fore...@u.washington.edu | writer, Amigalink magazine |
>| http://weber.u.washington.edu/~foregone/ | FAQ writer, NBA Jam TE & |
>+------------------------------------------+ Bust-A-Move |
without paying their share.
But over the years we've seen the development of cdrom technology that
can in fact circumvent the piracy as we see it now. Using audio tracks
on cdrom's (like sshock cdrom and 7th guest) can pretty much eliminate
the capability of pirating this software. You can't put the audio tracks
on the hard drive if it's not in a file based format. But I have a problem
here. Software companies have stated that the high prices they have charged
over time was due to software piracy and the 'lost profits' as they put it.
I'll buy that. But now we have virtually uncopyable software on cdrom.
Question then is why is the cdrom version of these games anywhere from
30 to 100% more money than the disk version? There's not going to be any
lost profits from pirating on these titles. So what is the excuse now????
Somebody is getting greedy, perhaps.
Tom P.
Planka de Nieve
- PuNk RoCk-
Reed Kennedy
cds costs $1 a peice. I just read that only %4 of cdroms make a
profit, maybe the manufactures stoped trying to make up the cost of
game creation in a smaller # of sales and sell them cheaper to make up
for to small price in large sales (descent) What are they worried that
their produt is so bad that only a few people will be dum enough to buy
it?
Reed Kennedy
Mika Olavi Elmeranta
: Who gives a royal crap about any of this. I think this is a newsgroup for
: Amiga game players not Mac or MS anything. Take this crap somewhere else.
: I personally think that MS software is so crappy that it is offensive to
: even read messages about it in a area devoted to both of the systems
: Master. ;) Now if the discussion is about Amiga software pirating then it
: may be a bit more palatable.
This has been cross-posted to six News groups, one of them is an Amiga
group. (Maybe that gives you an idea how alive it is?) No offence, I
still own an Amiga, but it seems the only things relesed on Amiga
anymore are Demos/Intros/Total bullshit...
(Nothing against Demos, though. VD et. all rule... ;) )
--
______________________________________________________________________
| These Views Are Mine, My Country's And It's Inhabitants. |
| If You Don't Agree, You _WILL_ Be Shot/Hanged/Burned_On_The_Stake. |
| And Not Necessarily In That Order... |
| -Mika Elmeranta - mik...@propus.tkk.utu.fi |
|______________________________________________________________________|
Joaquin
TPIC...@mu3.millersv.edu says...
>
>But over the years we've seen the development of cdrom technology that
>can in fact circumvent the piracy as we see it now. Using audio tracks
>on cdrom's (like sshock cdrom and 7th guest) can pretty much eliminate
>the capability of pirating this software. You can't put the audio tracks
>on the hard drive if it's not in a file based format. But I have a
problem
>here. Software companies have stated that the high prices they have
charged
>over time was due to software piracy and the 'lost profits' as they put
it.
>I'll buy that. But now we have virtually uncopyable software on cdrom.
>Question then is why is the cdrom version of these games anywhere from
>30 to 100% more money than the disk version? There's not going to be any
>lost profits from pirating on these titles. So what is the excuse
now????
>Somebody is getting greedy, perhaps.
>
>Tom P.
>
>
Two reasons spring into my mind: 1. Supply and Demand. People are simply
willing to pay the price for the CD-ROM. Ask the average whether games
are expensive, and you'll most likely get a, "Yeah, but I guess that's
just how much they cost." kind of answer. 2. cost of development. As
games get more complex, as the actors become actual actors and not the
programmers cousin/neice/girlfriend or what have you, real money has to be
paid to these people. I can't imagine that Mark Hamill came cheap. The
higher the cost of development, the higher the market price.
My family lives all over the USA, but we will all go in on a game, and as
one of us finishes it gets shipped to another. Not piracy in any form,
just sharing. Works really well, too, as most of the CD-ROM games that we
play are the Full Throttle, 7th Guest etc type where once you've played,
the challenge is gone. By the time it makes its way through 6 computers,
I figure we've gotten our money's worth and off to the cd rack it goes.
--
--->
Steve Zacher
joa...@u.washington.edu
"Mine is the last voice that you will ever hear. Do not be alarmed."
The views expressed are my fault, and should in no way be
construed as the official views of any entity, corporate or otherwise.
Willionto Tanura ( Willi )
post all over the newsgroups. If you ever want to FUCK again, don't do it in
the newsgroups. Try FUCKING yourself, and don't fill the newsgroups with you
shit!
Beaker
Ummm, have you read any of them? I bet not. This thread has actually been a
quite interesting and intellectual debate, despite the subject line. Granted,
it's posted on a couple of groups where it doesn't belong, but it is hardly
"stupid" or "disgusting". By calling it thus,you are showing your own
ignorance. If you just want to play your silly games, little boy, go right
ahead. But venture onto the net and you run the risk of being exposed to
intellectual content. If you want the cheats because you are so dim you can't
finish Full Trottle, you have to accept that some people can like games and
still think at the same time.
PS The possessive pronoun you wanted is "your", not "you."
PPS If you ever pull your head out of you machine long enough, you might want
to try fucking. It really is better than Descent. Don't knock it til you've
tried it.
Beaker
+------------------------------------------------------------------+
| James L. Baker Jr. \ "If I have not seen further, it is |
| Georgia Tech - CS \ because giants have been standing |
| gt4603a@ \ on my shoulders." |
| prism.gatech.edu \ -- apologies to Sir Issac |
| "Or is it all just a bunch of hooey?" -- Opus |
+------------------------------------------------------------------+
Martin Hay
> Totally agree that pirating is dead wrong. Too many just get the benefits
> without paying their share.
>
> can in fact circumvent the piracy as we see it now. Using audio tracks
> on cdrom's (like sshock cdrom and 7th guest) can pretty much eliminate
> the capability of pirating this software. You can't put the audio tracks
> on the hard drive if it's not in a file based format. But I have a problem
> here. Software companies have stated that the high prices they have charged
> over time was due to software piracy and the 'lost profits' as they put it.
> I'll buy that. But now we have virtually uncopyable software on cdrom.
> Question then is why is the cdrom version of these games anywhere from
> 30 to 100% more money than the disk version? There's not going to be any
> lost profits from pirating on these titles. So what is the excuse now????
> Somebody is getting greedy, perhaps.
[27 blank lines deleted]
Of course they're getting greedy. But it's still dead easy to pirate CDs.
I could quite easily get a hold of Discworld CD, on a gold CD. And I'm
sure I could get many more.
Since CD-R came out, it's been easy for pirates to distribute HUGE quantities
of software at ridiculously low prices. If the software companies lowered
their prices we would all copy less.
I doubt if there are many people on this group who could honestly say
"My Hard Disc has NO pirated software on it. At all.", because we've
all done it (don't mail me if you haven't).
It costs about 50 quid to buy the newest games in the UK. If this dropped to
about 40 quid, we'd see may more (> 20% more) sold. I read some figures
a while ago that stated that >60% of all PC software in use was pirated.
Now if Bioforge cost 40 quid, I'd probably buy it. As it stands, I'll
hang about, and if I see it in the bargain bin, I'll grab it then.
And don't moan at me for pirating games. In the last ~6 months, I've
bought:
WC3, Magic Carpet, Tornado, Falcon3, Descent, Stike Commander, First
Encounters, and Privateer. (Maybe a couple more - I forget.)
I think I've done my bit for the games industry.
Bye,
Martin.
Jonas Henriksson
>here. Software companies have stated that the high prices they have
charged
>over time was due to software piracy and the 'lost profits' as they put
it.
>I'll buy that.
I won't. Just a poor excuse. See my answer below.
>But now we have virtually uncopyable software on cdrom.
>Question then is why is the cdrom version of these games anywhere from
>30 to 100% more money than the disk version? There's not going to be any
>lost profits from pirating on these titles. So what is the excuse now????
>Somebody is getting greedy, perhaps.
Obviously, since a single CD is much cheaper to manufacture than three
floppies. I have only seen ONE games so far that was cheaper in the CD
version - I think the floppy version had 8 floppies or something.
>Tom P.
Robert Ruth
Ok, I promised myself that I would not get sucked into another idotic
pirating thread......but 8-)
The whole issue of it is cheaper to manufactor a CD versuses a 3 1/2 is
totaly bogus argument. The cost of the actual disk is peanuts compared to
the the costs of designing and producing a game, wholesaling and retailing
it. A 10,000 dollar automobile is nothing more than a few hundred dollars
of metal, glass, and plastic by your argument, so cars should be a lot
cheaper. It is the cost of the human labor (programers, admin, advert,
truck drivers, salesman, etc...) that make up the bulk of the cost of your
favorite game.
Of course this is a terrible concept for many pirates since part of their
fantasy is that they are ripping off only the big mythical company beast
and fat old guys who have millions of dollars. The truth is that companies
are made up of a lot of real people that are our friends, relatives, and
neighbors. Their paychecks and jobs depend on their companies making
a profit and their services being needed.
Whether pirating has a major impact on the industry is a debate that
has supporters on both sides and will go on forever.
But keep in mind that "if" it does effect the industry it is real people
that you are ripping off when you pirate not some mythical beast.
Bob Ruth
bob...@holly.colostate.edu
Nick Vargish
> But now we have virtually uncopyable software on cdrom.
Where have you been living? CD-ROM stampers are getting _cheap_, if
you shop around you can get one for under $2000. I know that's a lot
for your average home pirate who copies for personal use, but it's way
reasonable for people who pirate and resell software.
As for pirating Microsloth software to cause them to loose money, I
got news for you: it will only hurt them if you were planning to pay
money in the first place. And it won't hurt them much at all, unless
you were planning on buying a couple thousand copies. The key is
"deprivation of revenue" -- if you weren't gonna buy it, you don't
count as revenue deprived.
Nick
p.s. Tom, please edit your references if you're gonna quote someone...
--
+------------------------------------+
| Nick Vargish, BBN Planet (SURAnet) | Forgive him, Caesar, for he is a
| var...@sura.net 301/489-8134 | barbarian, and thinks the rules of
| http://www.sura.net/~vargish | his tribe are the laws of nature.
Cats
TPIC...@mu3.millersv.edu (Tom Picciani) wrote:
> But over the years we've seen the development of cdrom technology that
> can in fact circumvent the piracy as we see it now. Using audio tracks
> on cdrom's (like sshock cdrom and 7th guest) can pretty much eliminate
> the capability of pirating this software. You can't put the audio tracks
> on the hard drive if it's not in a file based format. But I have a problem
> here. Software companies have stated that the high prices they have charged
> over time was due to software piracy and the 'lost profits' as they put it.
> I'll buy that. But now we have virtually uncopyable software on cdrom.
> Question then is why is the cdrom version of these games anywhere from
> 30 to 100% more money than the disk version? There's not going to be any
> lost profits from pirating on these titles. So what is the excuse now????
> Somebody is getting greedy, perhaps.
>
> Tom P.
This is a bit off topic, but there IS a good reason for the price of
CD-ROMs at this point in time. A CD such as MYST, for instance, costs
more than $1,000,000 to make. And at this point, the audience for CD's
isn't as large as, say, home video games (which has seen a drop in prices
over the last year or so). Once the market for CD-ROMs increases, then
prices will theoreticly drop. Remember when audio CD players first came
out? The software (audio CD's) was limited, and expensive. And the
hardware was VERY expensive. Now, you can get a complete CD stereo for a
couple hundred dollars, where before, you might pay $1,000 for the CD
Player alone. :)
Cats
PS - This wasn't a flame but an explaination to a question I had asked
someone awhile back.
WILLI T.
> Ummm, have you read any of them? I bet not. This thread has actually been a
> quite interesting and intellectual debate, despite the subject line. Granted,
> it's posted on a couple of groups where it doesn't belong, but it is hardly
> "stupid" or "disgusting". By calling it thus,you are showing your own
> ignorance. If you just want to play your silly games, little boy, go right
> ahead. But venture onto the net and you run the risk of being exposed to
> intellectual content. If you want the cheats because you are so dim you can't
> finish Full Trottle, you have to accept that some people can like games and
> still think at the same time.
>
> PS The possessive pronoun you wanted is "your", not "you."
>
> PPS If you ever pull your head out of you machine long enough, you might want
> to try fucking. It really is better than Descent. Don't knock it til you've
> tried it.
>
> Beaker
>
> +------------------------------------------------------------------+
> | James L. Baker Jr. \ "If I have not seen further, it is |
> | Georgia Tech - CS \ because giants have been standing |
> | gt4603a@ \ on my shoulders." |
> | prism.gatech.edu \ -- apologies to Sir Issac |
> | "Or is it all just a bunch of hooey?" -- Opus |
> +------------------------------------------------------------------+
I think it's people like you who really get this kind of news going around in
the newsgroup for so long. Software piracy is not a simple problem with an easy
answer. So what if we flame the people who pirate softwares ! DO you think they
will stop pirating software by just reading all these postings ?! Wake up!!! By
the way, if you HAVE read the title of these newsgroups, you should realise
that they are for games discussion, instead of flaming. It's true when you
said "If you just want to play your silly games, little boy, go right ahead.
But venture onto the net and you run the risk of being exposed to intellectual
content." Let's see whose the one who is playing his "little silly games" and
try to get the other people to play with him.
PS: I have a life, and I don't care if there is a spelling mistake in my
posting. If you don't like it, then why bother reading it?
PPS: The content of this posting is by no mean a flame or any of that sort.
It's just to point out some misconception in some of the readers about the
purpose of the newsgroups.
-Wil
Tim R. Callahan
At least this thread is more interesting than the win95 thread.
I have to agree that just about everyone pirates software, but just
about everyone also buys some of their own software as well.
And if these companies would lower their prices a little, I don't
think we would pirate software as much. But the pirate will never
die, no matter how low the prices get. People want everything for
nothing. You gotta pay to play. (most the time).
Later,
Tim
Sean Kaye
> This is a bit off topic, but there IS a good reason for the price of
> CD-ROMs at this point in time. A CD such as MYST, for instance, costs
> more than $1,000,000 to make. And at this point, the audience for CD's
> isn't as large as, say, home video games (which has seen a drop in prices
> over the last year or so). Once the market for CD-ROMs increases, then
> prices will theoreticly drop. Remember when audio CD players first came
> out? The software (audio CD's) was limited, and expensive. And the
> hardware was VERY expensive. Now, you can get a complete CD stereo for a
> couple hundred dollars, where before, you might pay $1,000 for the CD
> Player alone. :)
That is completely false logic... And I shall explain why... And I'll
use your example of MYST to do it...
You said MYST cost $1 Million to make... That's a fair estimate and
we'll use that figure... Let's us entirely round figures... We'll say
that they sell it to retailers for $50 each copy (that's probably way
off, but for simplicity)... They need to sell 20,000 copies just to
break even... Let's just say they sell 25,000 copies... That means
they turn a $250,000 profit... Now, if they do another game, for
simplicity again, we'll call it MYST 2, again, they spend $1 Million
and sell it to retailers again at $50/copy... This time they sell
40,000 copies and their profit is $1 Million... If they do a third
game with the same budget, by the same programmers and designers, same
quality, they can estimate sales of at least 32,500 copies (splitting
the two previous games, this is just an example), their total gross on
sales would be $1.625 Million... Now if they wanted to make a profit
of at least $500,000 on their estimate of 32,500 sales, they could
according to your logic, lower their price to retailers to about
$46.15/copy... This saving would then be turned over to the consumers
by the retailers... This doesn't happen...
I'll give you my explanation as to why CD-Rom prices are so high...
The equipment overhead by the major software houses are huge...
Computers are not cheap and a software maker needs lots of them and is
constantly having to upgrade systems...
I don't think we'll ever see significantly lower prices for a few
reasons... One, inflation... Their prices raise, so they have to raise
our prices in a stagnant market... But, the CD-Rom market is growing,
so companies will be able to eat most of the inflation initially
because their sales projections will be low... Two, profit... If
companies (be it software houses or retailers) see that more and more
customers are willing to pay $75 for the newest titles, what
motivation is there to lower prices???
The only thing that will result in lower prices, maybe, is more
competition... But in such a creative market, that's difficult... Look
at the music industry... Companies sell their CD's all at the same
price to avoid competition and maximize potential profit...
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Sean Kaye
2nd Year Arts
Carleton University
Email address: sk...@chat.carleton.ca
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael M Eilers
> Hey,
> At least this thread is more interesting than the win95 thread.
>
> I have to agree that just about everyone pirates software, but just
> about everyone also buys some of their own software as well.
> And if these companies would lower their prices a little, I don't
> think we would pirate software as much.
I feel like a broken record, but I will repeat these known facts for the
benefit of the wilfully ignorant out there:
PIRACY DRIVES UP SOFTWARE PRICES
POVERTY IS NEVER AN EXCUSE FOR THEFT
If you can afford a computer, but not the software, perhaps you should go
back to an abacus. I heard there's a great DOOM port coming out for the
abacus...
But the pirate will never
> die, no matter how low the prices get. People want everything for
> nothing. You gotta pay to play. (most the time).
Piracy is the disease of the morally, intellectually and phisically
lazy--pirates are ignorant oafs who feel themselves above the law, but
are actually not worth the scum beneath society's feet. I know because I
used to be one, before I started programming multimedia: now I shoot them on
sight.
<-===---===---===---===---===---===---===---===---===---===---===---===---==->
The reason the word FUCK is in this .sig is twofold:it stands for Freedom
Under Constitutional Knowledge, and it sets off government imposed and
created "decency monitors" (censorship devices) intended to "clean up"
the internet, criminalizing free expression and endagering free speech.
Write your congressman and demand that James Exon's S 314 bill be removed
from the telcom deregulation act, or mail vtw-an...@vtw.org.
<-===---===---===---===---===---===---===---===---===---===---===---===---==->
cap...@us.net
>It's interesting to note that out of all the groups this is posted to the
>Amiga one is 1st on the list......
>
>Oh no using Windoze has warped your mind....
Coincidence? No. Just alphabetical order, that's all.
l8r
Marc
Davros
>This message is directed to the person who started this STUPID and
DISGUSTING
>post all over the newsgroups. If you ever want to FUCK again, don't do
it in
>the newsgroups. Try FUCKING yourself, and don't fill the newsgroups with
you
>shit!
Why not e-mail the dick next time?
--
Scott Penny
Department of Defence, Canberra Australia
(s...@diode.defcen.gov.au)
Davros
>Same could be said for you!
>
>Why not e-mail the dick next time?
>
>
>--
>Scott Penny
>
>
readers. I honestly intended to only e-mail the guy - not to post to
all these groups.
Oh well....SORRY!
Gerard McDermott
>
>Yeah, I remember when audio CD's came out. They were 14 bucks,
>discounted to 11-12 bucks at most places. Now, after all the
>economy of scales have kicked in, they're ... 14 bucks, discounted
>to 11-12 bucks at most places.
>
>Err, exactly *when* is this drop in price supposed to occur?
Whooooah, you're lucky you don't live here in Australia.
Audio CDs are $28, sometimes discounted to $25 (!!).
And the music industry cliams that if they are not that price
they'll lose money. Serious.
I think they lie.
Gerard. //
(\X/ Amiga by choice)
===============================================================================
Gerard McDermott e-mail: g...@tusc.com.AU
TUSC Computer Systems (disclaimers apply)
666 Doncaster Road phone: +61 3 8402222
Doncaster Australia 3108 fax: +61 3 8402277
===============================================================================
Keurentjes
>
> Totally agree that pirating is dead wrong. Too many just get the benefits
> without paying their share.
>
> can in fact circumvent the piracy as we see it now. Using audio tracks
> on cdrom's (like sshock cdrom and 7th guest) can pretty much eliminate
> the capability of pirating this software. You can't put the audio tracks
> on the hard drive if it's not in a file based format. But I have a problem
> here. Software companies have stated that the high prices they have charged
> over time was due to software piracy and the 'lost profits' as they put it.
> I'll buy that. But now we have virtually uncopyable software on cdrom.
> Question then is why is the cdrom version of these games anywhere from
> 30 to 100% more money than the disk version? There's not going to be any
> lost profits from pirating on these titles. So what is the excuse now????
> Somebody is getting greedy, perhaps.
>
> Tom P.
>
You still want more money. =:)
--
*+-----------------------------+*+------------------------------------+*
+ Marco & Niels Keurentjes + "...And the Answer, to the Ultimate +
| EMail: ma...@sandman.iaehv.nl | question of Life, the Universe and |
+ Coding/Musix/MIDI/Guitar + Everything, is, uuhhh.... 42!" +
*+-----------------------------+*+------------------------------------+*
Chairman Mao
One quick point:
Piracy does NOT drive up prices considerably PERIOD.
It does, however, give the software makers a good excuse to raise the price.
Simple economics, really. Games have hovered between 30 and 60 bucks for ALL,
each and every goddamned one, system (From Atari to IBM to Sega, etc. etc.)
for 15+ years. Give them an excuse, they'll jump on it.
Besides, it is extremely difficult to pirate CD-Rom software (not impossible,
necessarily, just hard). In general, it isn't widely done. So how do the
software makers justify charging as much OR MORE for a CD-Rom product that
costs MUCH less to make and is pirated much less frequently, if at all?
They cannot.
They have us paying 50 - 60 dollars for a 12 disk 3.5" game... because people
steal it and there are 12 disks (at what... 7 cents a piece?). FINE. Okay.
So along comes a 1 <one> (singular) CD game. Same price (although 1 CD costs
less to make than 1 disk). Fair, huh? BULLSHIT. Prices are high because of
GREED. You, the SHEEP, have been brainwashed by the software industry into
blaming pirate A for high prices instead of the price gougers themselves.
It is done in the oil trade... it is done in the diamond trade... even Super
Nintendo is trying to do it (pirated Snes games... ha! They lose 2 percent of
their gross, and go screaming to the public. Fuck them).
It is one thing to be opposed to stealing. Good for you.
It is another thing to blindly follow propoganda. This is what you are doing.
Do you REALLY believe that game costs would go down if EVERYBODY, en masse,
stopped pirating? What color is the sky in your world, my friend?
If they didn't have the piraters to blame (as in the SNES genesis <etc.>
markets) they blame high overhead (production, development, liscencing fees).
They do that, and they charge the same OR UP TO TWICE AS MUCH for an often
inferior product. And they get away with it. As are the computer software
makers.
Rebell by not paying such outrageous prices... or just steal their overpriced
garbage (which is what the preponderance is). If, by a strange coincidince,
they actually put out a game worth buying... then go ahead, put your cash
down. But don't whine about the price. It ain't my, nor is it pirate X's fault.
--
* Bill and Opus for President in '96 * Cuz we NEED a dead cat and a penguin *
*:::::::::::: Moloko Synthmesc Plus... It does a body good! ::::::::::::::::*
* Boycott Pizza Hut: Cuz ! Get real kind ! Go stick your *
* burned cardboard with ! and... ! Head in a *
* catsup tend to offfend ! =============> ! Pig *
Bennet Wong
>
>>
>> Totally agree that pirating is dead wrong. Too many just get the benefits
>> without paying their share.
>>
>> But over the years we've seen the development of cdrom technology that
>> can in fact circumvent the piracy as we see it now. Using audio tracks
>> on cdrom's (like sshock cdrom and 7th guest) can pretty much eliminate
>> the capability of pirating this software. You can't put the audio tracks
>> on the hard drive if it's not in a file based format.
NOPE! you can just copy a CDROM.
Scott Mason
>Obviously, since a single CD is much cheaper to manufacture than three
>floppies. I have only seen ONE games so far that was cheaper in the CD
>version - I think the floppy version had 8 floppies or something.
A CD is cheaper than 3 floppies? The cheapest retail floppy's I've
seen were $6.95 for 10. $.70 ea. retail. Assume .35 wholesale, you're
saying a CD cost's less than $1.05? I really have no idea, but I'd
like a reference if you have one.
Anybody know how much it costs to produce a piece of SW on CD? SAy
in lots of 1000?
Scott
--
The comments or opinions expressed here are not necessarily those
of NSWC, US Navy, Federal Government, or any agent thereof.
Mark Hillman
: This has been cross-posted to six News groups, one of them is an Amiga
: group. (Maybe that gives you an idea how alive it is?) No offence, I
: still own an Amiga, but it seems the only things relesed on Amiga
: anymore are Demos/Intros/Total bullshit...
It's interesting to note that out of all the groups this is posted to the
Amiga one is 1st on the list......
Oh no using Windoze has warped your mind....
Markus..........
Mika Olavi Elmeranta
: This is a bit off topic, but there IS a good reason for the price of
: CD-ROMs at this point in time. A CD such as MYST, for instance, costs
: more than $1,000,000 to make. And at this point, the audience for CD's
: isn't as large as, say, home video games (which has seen a drop in prices
: over the last year or so). Once the market for CD-ROMs increases, then
: prices will theoreticly drop. Remember when audio CD players first came
: out? The software (audio CD's) was limited, and expensive. And the
: hardware was VERY expensive. Now, you can get a complete CD stereo for a
: couple hundred dollars, where before, you might pay $1,000 for the CD
: Player alone. :)
In my mind the software companies use the piracy as an excuse to
keep prices up. Granted, the development costs of CD-ROM games are
higher, like WC III for example, but distribution media costs are
way lower and piracy is almost non-existential.
Console games cost a lot, and in my opinion, only because they
can't be copied. You argued about audio CD's? maybe the fact that
they can be copied keeps the prices down? They know people can copy
it if it's too expensive. You can't copy a console game (console
copiers aren't that cheap and many numbered), so the companies
CAN AND WILL keep the prices up. The only reason for dropping the
prices it the release of a new console.
It also drops the hardware prices dramatically.
Now, if CD-ROM will become the only release media on the PC and other
home computers, you can bet the next excuse after piracy is gone
is the "high developement" costs.
There isn't so much competition between different companies in terms
of "game A is better than game B, buy it" as there is in, for example,
the car industry. (You see a game you think is goos, you buy it. Simple?)
Origin puts out the Ultima XXXIV, you bet there's going to be a lot of
buyers. But when Toyota puts out a new car it will have stiffer
competiotion. What I'm after here is, that if a game is good, it
propably will sell a lot, and you'll propably still buy some of its
competitors. Which is not the case with many other businesses.
(You propably won't buy a Nissan, a Toyota, AND a Ford at the same time
because they're ALL good...)
But I'm straying from the subject...
I think a little piratism keeps the users and the companies moderately
happy, a lot of piratism kill the computer, and no piratism only
profits the companies. (And leads to the users to afford less games.)
Well that's just IMO.
Standard yellow-belly disclaimer:
Pirates are bad, filthy, and propably won't even wash their socks.
I'm not:
A) Pirate
B) Alien
C) Bill Clinton (Thank God!)
The above is a multiple choice question, with a multiple choice answer.
Knock, Knock!
"Yes?"
"We're from the F.B.I., could you come with us..."
den...@flowbee.interaccess.com
Michael M Eilers
> In <3q0s4l$m...@nntp.interaccess.com> den...@flowbee.interaccess.com ( ) writes:
> >
> Whooooah, you're lucky you don't live here in Australia.
>
> Audio CDs are $28, sometimes discounted to $25 (!!).
>
> And the music industry cliams that if they are not that price
> they'll lose money. Serious.
>
> I think they lie.
you are quite right. Production cost for a music CD is 35 cents apiece,
plus a dollar for the packaging. Throw in a few bucks for licencing and a
dime or two for advertising (most music cds are not advertised at all, so
the cost of the big campagins could be distributed) and you have a $5 CD
in a $15 package, very little of which actually goes to the retailer. I'm
no economics expert, but it seems that they will charge as much as the
market will bear, and a lot of rich yuppies out there have pretty fat CD
collections (probably Garth Brooks---yeechh! Egad!)
michael
Dave A. Hill
> : still own an Amiga, but it seems the only things relesed on Amiga
> : anymore are Demos/Intros/Total bullshit...
> It's interesting to note that out of all the groups this is posted to the
> Amiga one is 1st on the list......
Hmm... Have we ever heard of the ALPHABET? Do we realize that A (as in
Amiga) comes before not just one, but BOTH I (for IBM) and M (for Mac)?
Perhaps we should give this a little thought, yes? Of sourse, while I'm
writing a message I might as well state my opinion...
I know people who have never bought software for their IBM compatibles,
and I also know Amiga users who have likewise never bought software. All
have respectable software collections. Piracy is fact, and until prices
drop to reflect actual game values, it will remain a dominant force, for
publishers of software for _ANY_ platform.
> Oh no using Windoze has warped your mind....
Uh-huh. Can't stand GUI's.
All Flames to bga...@microsoft.com
The D-Mon.
*****************************************************************************
"Killing isn't always the answer... but it's usually a good guess"
-Jack Deth
*****************************************************************************
"Life is like a mule. Never goes where you want, push it too hard and it
kicks you in the head..." - dah...@freenet.calgary.ab.ca
John Stelly
>In comp.sys.ibm.pc.demos, jh9...@lu.erisoft.se (Jonas Henriksson) writes:
>>Obviously, since a single CD is much cheaper to manufacture than three
>>floppies. I have only seen ONE games so far that was cheaper in the CD
>>version - I think the floppy version had 8 floppies or something.
>
> A CD is cheaper than 3 floppies? The cheapest retail floppy's I've
>seen were $6.95 for 10. $.70 ea. retail. Assume .35 wholesale, you're
>saying a CD cost's less than $1.05? I really have no idea, but I'd
>like a reference if you have one.
For most PC games, the CD cost is somewhere near $1. That includes the
CD, the disc art (and sometimes a jewel case).
>Anybody know how much it costs to produce a piece of SW on CD? SAy
>in lots of 1000?
Most companies produce in lots of at least 5000 (at least for games), at
only 1000 copies your CDs would be a bit more expensive because of the
one-time fee for a "glass master" copy (used to manufacture the CDs).
The masters can cost $1000 or so. But after that pressing discs is
pretty cheap.
--
Jay Stelly "My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father
yu...@netcom.com prepare to die!"
Dave A. Hill
> > A CD is cheaper than 3 floppies? The cheapest retail floppy's I've
> >seen were $6.95 for 10. $.70 ea. retail. Assume .35 wholesale, you're
> >saying a CD cost's less than $1.05? I really have no idea, but I'd
> >like a reference if you have one.
>
> For most PC games, the CD cost is somewhere near $1. That includes the
> CD, the disc art (and sometimes a jewel case).
independants. Curious.
> >Anybody know how much it costs to produce a piece of SW on CD? SAy
> >in lots of 1000?
>
> Most companies produce in lots of at least 5000 (at least for games), at
> only 1000 copies your CDs would be a bit more expensive because of the
> one-time fee for a "glass master" copy (used to manufacture the CDs).
> The masters can cost $1000 or so. But after that pressing discs is
> pretty cheap.
One advantage indies have - no need for masters if you're only going to
burn 25 CD's :)
Of course, the other thing you have to consider is the fact that if
you're going to make a CD game, the general philosophy is to make it
worth the buyer's while - remember, most people have either a 2x or no
CD, so there's got to be an incentive to make the jump to CD... And this
means they have to either a) pay actors for video/sound clips, b)pay
animators for video and actors for sound, or c) get blackballed by We The
Public for not doing an adequate job. As one who has seen some of the
latest games "au naturel," without sound or video clips, there IS an
incentive to pay for the full experience.
> --
> Jay Stelly "My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father
> yu...@netcom.com prepare to die!"
Good quote. I approve.
r. n. dominick
: you are quite right. Production cost for a music CD is 35 cents apiece,
: dime or two for advertising (most music cds are not advertised at all, so
: the cost of the big campagins could be distributed) and you have a $5 CD
: in a $15 package, very little of which actually goes to the retailer. I'm
: no economics expert, but it seems that they will charge as much as the
: market will bear, and a lot of rich yuppies out there have pretty fat CD
: collections (probably Garth Brooks---yeechh! Egad!)
Recording, mixing and mastering costs are not 35 cents. You need to pay
everyone who plays on the album, and those who sing, too. The recording
engineers, attendants, and everyone else around the recouding studio must
get paid. The people who work in the CD pressing plant must get paid. The
plant itself must be paid for, with constant repairs to and upgrades to
the hardware used to actually make the CDs themselves. The executives of
the companies, music scouts, agents, and all related pond
sc^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hpeople must be paid. And the recpetionists and
secretairies too. Tours must be funded, advertising paid for...
...all in all, for the amount of time I spen dlistening to the CD sI buy,
it's WELL worth the $10-$15 I pay for it... and worth more from the
little companies. Don't mind a bit.
Don't get all self-righteous about manufacturing costs unless you
manufacture something yourself.
Paradox
> This is a bit off topic, but there IS a good reason for the price of
> CD-ROMs at this point in time. A CD such as MYST, for instance, costs
> more than $1,000,000 to make.
As I understand it (and from my sources), MYST cost $100,000 in
development not 1 million.
They did (according to the latest Broderbund annual report) sell over 1
million units of the game.
The price for MYST hasn't really dropped in the 2 years it's been out. And
they don't make $50 off each copy, it's more like $20.
Still, $20 x 1,000,000 for a $100,000 investment is pretty appealing and
will no doubt push tons of people dreaming of making this much cash to
fill the shelves with sub-standard quality products.
By the way, Broderbund made over 120 million dollars last year.
Enjoy
Peter
Paradox
--
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| The paradox about paradoxes is that |
| "They themselves are not paradoxical." - John Berndt |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
MARC EDWARD FORRESTER
>>> But over the years we've seen the development of cdrom technology that
>>> can in fact circumvent the piracy as we see it now. Using audio tracks
>>> on cdrom's (like sshock cdrom and 7th guest) can pretty much eliminate
>>> the capability of pirating this software. You can't put the audio tracks
>>> on the hard drive if it's not in a file based format.
>
>NOPE! you can just copy a CDROM.
Still, not many people have that equipment, you know.
Just the cracking pirates, who don't buy anything anyway.
So you'd think the loss of sales on CD through piracy would be lower.
I'm guessing this means prices will either stay the same, or rise.
WILLI T.
> Same could be said for you!
>
> Why not e-mail the dick next time?
>
>
> --
> Scott Penny
I have lost count for the number of people who have mailed me about this
matter. Let me clarify myself. My posting is to be directed to the person who
started off this trend. If I have known the e-mail address of the DICK, I would
have mailed him, and not post to the newsgroup. If I have offended any of you,
I apologize. If you don't like the contend, you can always stop reading any
further. But if you don't like the subject, what are you suppose to do? Stop
reading the newsgroup?
I hope any people who read my previous posting got everything nice and clear.
And this will be my last posting under this subject.
-Wil
Beaker
>further. But if you don't like the subject, what are you suppose to do? Stop
>reading the newsgroup?
Nope. Make a killfile. Or just toggle all articles with this subject.
+------------------------------------------------------------------+
| James L. Baker Jr. \ |
| Georgia Tech - CS \ Cobol programmers understand why |
| gt4603a@ \ women hate periods. |
| prism.gatech.edu \ |
John Stelly
>On Fri, 26 May 1995, John Stelly wrote:
>> For most PC games, the CD cost is somewhere near $1. That includes the
>> CD, the disc art (and sometimes a jewel case).
>Although the same disk costs $15 Canadian, even in lots of 100, for
>independants. Curious.
Nope, it's not the same disk, see below.
>> The masters can cost $1000 or so. But after that pressing discs is
>> pretty cheap.
>One advantage indies have - no need for masters if you're only going to
>burn 25 CD's :)
Well, if you don't produce a master, you can use the normal CD medium.
You are forced to produce discs with a CD-R which are much more
expensive. These go for around $10 US (or less depending on capacity - I
think 63 minute discs can be found for $8). We use these extensively in
development, but the final manufacturing is always done via CD
mastering. The two disks are physically different, the more expensive
one is gold in color (and sort of green on the bottom). The cheaper
discs look like normal audio CDs. In fact, the cheaper discs are better
because the can be more easily read by CD-ROM drives and are less
susceptible to changes in temperature (at least in my experience).
Stuart Tomlinson
:
: Besides, it is extremely difficult to pirate CD-Rom software (not impossible,
: software makers justify charging as much OR MORE for a CD-Rom product that
: costs MUCH less to make and is pirated much less frequently, if at all?
:
: They cannot.
They can.
They can say that 650MB+ of data/music costs more to produce than
a couple of 880k DD disks.
Stu. :)
Kevin Tieskoetter
Stuart Tomlinson <stu...@tomonet.demon.co.uk> writes:
> : Besides, it is extremely difficult to pirate CD-Rom software (not impossible,
> : necessarily, just hard). In general, it isn't widely done. So how do the
> : software makers justify charging as much OR MORE for a CD-Rom product that
> : costs MUCH less to make and is pirated much less frequently, if at all?
> :
> : They cannot.
>
> They can.
>
> They can say that 650MB+ of data/music costs more to produce than
> a couple of 880k DD disks.
They can. Don't forget that the software market is driven by the same
basic principles that drive any other unregulated industry - if enough
customers will pay it, they will charge it. And that's the way it
should be - my paycheck comes from unpirated software, and I'm not
about to give it up.
The more people pirate, the more software companies will be driven to
use CD-ROMs. Sure, you can copy one, but how many pirated CD-ROMs do
you have sitting on your hard drive? And with CD-ROM technology, it's
simple to start using key-disk protection again, a trend that ended in
the mid '80s. People won't complain about it much, since a CD is much
less suceptible to damage than a floppy is, and users expect to run a
CD-ROM title off of the original disk anyway. World of Xeen is a good
example of this.
If you can't afford to buy the software, why did you buy a computer in
the first place? You don't buy a car and then expect to get the gas for
free...
-kevin
//----------------------------------------------------------------------
Kevin Tieskoetter / Software Engineer, Specular International
//----------------------------------------------------------------------
Dave A. Hill
Hmm... I stand corrected. Or sit, rather... It's not much fun to stand
in front of a monitor for hours :) I was under the impression that, once
"burned", there was no substantive difference between a store-bought CD
and an individually burned CD. I s'pose I should have looked closer eh?
Of course, the cost gives the lie to full CD piracy - Wing Commander 3,
for instance, at 4 disks costs more to pirate (~$60 Cdn for 4 disks, $55
for the program _and_ extras) than to buy! Now, if the game prices drop
to echo drops in CD-Technology prices, piracy should be reduced, yes?
(seeing as how the average pirate won't invest several hundred thou just
to sell pirate CD's)
wknezevi
Mark Knezevic
You really are crazy, Dave
MARC EDWARD FORRESTER
>My family lives all over the USA, but we will all go in on a game, and as
>one of us finishes it gets shipped to another. Not piracy in any form,
And yet if you -did- all pirate this one legitimate copy, you'd be giving
the same returns to the producers, and getting the same amount of playing
time from the game. No real difference at all to anyone.
But, that would be frowned on, whereas what you're up to at the moment
probably isn't. Odd, really.
Michael M Eilers
> Joaquin <joa...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
> >My family lives all over the USA, but we will all go in on a game, and as
> >one of us finishes it gets shipped to another. Not piracy in any form,
>
> And yet if you -did- all pirate this one legitimate copy, you'd be giving
> the same returns to the producers, and getting the same amount of playing
> time from the game. No real difference at all to anyone.
where the hell did you get that logic? if he distributes the copy he
bought, that costs the original developer money--*period*--and so does
this ridiculous practice of handing the software around (if he retains
any part of the software for himself.)
>
> But, that would be frowned on, whereas what you're up to at the moment
> probably isn't. Odd, really.
odd? THEFT. Yer outta yer skull with this one. "Same returns" vs. 3 or 4
purchased copies? I think that makes a "real difference" to developers,
or anyone in sales....
Andrew Krupowicz
> Whooooah, you're lucky you don't live here in Australia.
> Audio CDs are $28, sometimes discounted to $25 (!!).
> And the music industry cliams that if they are not that price
Blank CDs, though, are VERY cheap.
--
| Fidonet: Andrew Krupowicz 1:229/125
| Internet: Andrew.K...@pconline.gryn.org
Chairman Mao
: seen were $6.95 for 10. $.70 ea. retail. Assume .35 wholesale, you're
: saying a CD cost's less than $1.05? I really have no idea, but I'd
: like a reference if you have one.
Of course CDs are cheaper. There is no debate there. They both cost under a
dime to make, regardless.
Michael O'Keefe
: In comp.sys.ibm.pc.demos, jh9...@lu.erisoft.se (Jonas Henriksson) writes:
: >Obviously, since a single CD is much cheaper to manufacture than three
: >floppies. I have only seen ONE games so far that was cheaper in the CD
: >version - I think the floppy version had 8 floppies or something.
: A CD is cheaper than 3 floppies? The cheapest retail floppy's I've
: seen were $6.95 for 10. $.70 ea. retail. Assume .35 wholesale, you're
: saying a CD cost's less than $1.05? I really have no idea, but I'd
: like a reference if you have one.
: Anybody know how much it costs to produce a piece of SW on CD? SAy
: in lots of 1000?
: Scott
: --
: The comments or opinions expressed here are not necessarily those
: of NSWC, US Navy, Federal Government, or any agent thereof.
Yup, in lots of 1000, if you do the premastering work and have the
master, duplicates, jewel cases, labeling, and shrink wrap done by
Technidisc Inc. it will cost you $450 for the master disk, $950 for 1000
2 color disks, $300 for the jewel cases with shrink wrap, and about $150
for the case labels (inserted of course). Total for 1000 disks runs
$1850. This means each disk would run $1.85. This doesn't include
programmer costs. If you increase your run to 2000+ disks then the master
fee is dropped and the price/disk drops according to the number of dupes
being run. 2000/.90 2500/.85 5000/.75 10000/.70 Jewel cases and product
labeling remains constant/disk. All in all, big companies who turn out
500,000 to a million disks at a pop are only out probably about .50/disk
Of course, you would have to include labor, shipping, and other costs
associated with sales and distribution. Bottom line, they are making a
killing with CD's.
danielei
->
->The only thing that will result in lower prices, maybe, is more
->competition... But in such a creative market, that's difficult... Look
->at the music industry... Companies sell their CD's all at the same
->price to avoid competition and maximize potential profit...
->
A company will charge what the market will bear. I'm a middle-aged adult;
there are kids and teenagers out there with more expendable cash in the
pockets than I'm able to afford carrying around, and they are dropping it
on CD-ROMS like they were so much candy. Stop buying this crap based on
over-zealous reviews (MYST in my opinion is greatly over-rated with a very
anti-climatic ending; many of it's "puzzles" are dependent simply on
finding the right places to click) and prices will drop. Of course, you'll
ALWAYS pay more for a mac product than you will a PC product (who's ever
seen a bargain bin at Best Buy for Mac games?), but that's another story.
--
dani...@netins.net
dani...@worf.netins.net
http://www.infonet.net/showcase/fotolink
---------------------------------------------------------------
Don't trust your eyes; if you hear the light, take the picture.
Michael M Eilers
>
> Read the _rules_. Read the licen(c/s)e agreement.
>
> In all licen(c/s)e agreements I've seen so far, they all state the
> program can be used on a single machine (some even have "if there is no
> possibility of it being used on two machines at the same time").
>
> Now, it does NOT mean if you buy a copy of windows for your 8086 and
> realize that your 486 sitting next to it is perfect for it (YEAH RIGHT),
> then you have to waste the copy of windows on the 8086 and buy another
> for the 486.
Well, you misunderstood my post, and you are terribly mistaken in nearly
every thing that you said. allow me to provide some answers.
No it is NOT legal to simply install the software on another computer, no
matter WHAT its apparent proximity to the first one is. You have to buy
one for the office, one for home, one for the portable, etc... I know
that sounds harribly unfair, but (to use your analogy of books) if you
want to read a book at work, at home, and on a plane, without making
copies of it, you BUY THREE COPIES. period. Read the licence... did you?
>
> Same thing here. More licen(c/s)e agreements specifically state to treat
> the (S/s)oftware as a BOOK.
>
> Then maybe they should CHANGE the licen(c/s)e agreements to say something
> along the lines of "THE MACHINE YOU ORIGINALLY INSTALL THIS SOFTWARE ON
> IS THE ONLY MACHINE YOU ARE LICENSED TO RUN THE SOFTWARE ON". And isn't
> that really gonna p*ss off a LOT of people.
No, it's common sense. Software is licenced to a single user at a single
site, the same way a book that is bought can only be in one place at a
time (unless someone has illegal copied it, or found a way to use those
nifty star trek TNG replicators...)
>
> Simply put, it takes a bit of common sense.
which you obviously have cornered the market on :)
You don't hear authors whine
> about lost sales when libraries buy their books, or game console
> companies whine when video-rental outlets rent their games.
>
Both of these situations, libraries and rental companies, involve a
special licencing agreement entered into by the original purchaser, in
which they promise not to resell the product. No, authors and video game
creatos don't whine about rentals, because they know that if the user
likes the product enough, they will buy a copy for themselves. However,
"loaned" (pirated) software is an exact, fully functioning duplicate with
no strings (rental fees) attched--so the licence is broken, and revenue
is lost, and the "loanee" doesn't have any incentive at all to buy a full
copy (unles there is some form of copy protection, such as manual
look-up) that prevents multiple copies.
Piracy is not borrowing, lending, renting, or "trying out"--it is THEFT
OF SERVICES, a federal crime that has been prosecuted in a court of law.
Read that licence again, I don't think you got it the first time...
Michael M Eilers
>
> in other words, I can sell it, trade it, or give it to anybody I like,
> so long as I keep no copy of it.
> In <3qb7jv$a...@news.rain.org> sa...@rain.org () writes:
Hmm.... that's funny, that *exactly* what I said in the first place (see
below.)
> does
> >: this ridiculous practice of handing the software around (if he
> retains
> >: any part of the software for himself.)
> >
>
<-===---===---===---===---===---===---===---===---===---===---===---===---==->
Michael M Eilers
> This doesn't make sense to me. There is nothing illegal or immoral
> about buying a book or a piece of furniture and then reselling it.
> What is wrong with doing the same with a computer program ? Copying
> the book or software is of course illegal and presumably immoral.
> Why do I have to care about the developers or salespeople when I
> pays my money and takes their product. It's their job to sell me
> another if they can.
read my original post a little more clearly next time--I expressly said
that lending/selling of software was illegal if the person doing the
lending/selling retained any part of the software. If I give the whole
thing up at once, it is perfectly legal to sell, trade, barter, or give
it away--just zap that copy on your hard drive first...
michael
sa...@rain.org
Organization: RAIN Public Access Internet (805) 967-RAIN
Distribution:
Michael M Eilers (eil...@aruba.ccit.arizona.edu) wrote:
: On 27 May 1995, MARC EDWARD FORRESTER wrote:
: > Joaquin <joa...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
: > >My family lives all over the USA, but we will all go in on a game, and
: > >one of us finishes it gets shipped to another. Not piracy in any form,
: >
: > And yet if you -did- all pirate this one legitimate copy, you'd be giving
: > the same returns to the producers, and getting the same amount of playing
: > time from the game. No real difference at all to anyone.
: where the hell did you get that logic? if he distributes the copy he
: bought, that costs the original developer money--*period*--and so does
: this ridiculous practice of handing the software around (if he retains
: any part of the software for himself.)
: >
: > But, that would be frowned on, whereas what you're up to at the moment
: > probably isn't. Odd, really.
: odd? THEFT. Yer outta yer skull with this one. "Same returns" vs. 3 or 4
: purchased copies? I think that makes a "real difference" to developers,
: or anyone in sales....
: michael
This doesn't make sense to me. There is nothing illegal or immoral
about buying a book or a piece of furniture and then reselling it.
What is wrong with doing the same with a computer program ? Copying
the book or software is of course illegal and presumably immoral.
Why do I have to care about the developers or salespeople when I
pays my money and takes their product. It's their job to sell me
another if they can.
Colin
S Colacino
Distribution:
Michael M Eilers (eil...@aruba.ccit.arizona.edu) wrote:
: > Joaquin <joa...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
: > >one of us finishes it gets shipped to another. Not piracy in any form,
: > And yet if you -did- all pirate this one legitimate copy, you'd be giving
: > the same returns to the producers, and getting the same amount of playing
: > time from the game. No real difference at all to anyone.
: where the hell did you get that logic? if he distributes the copy he
: bought, that costs the original developer money--*period*--and so does
: this ridiculous practice of handing the software around (if he retains
: any part of the software for himself.)
Read the _rules_. Read the licen(c/s)e agreement.
In all licen(c/s)e agreements I've seen so far, they all state the
program can be used on a single machine (some even have "if there is no
possibility of it being used on two machines at the same time").
Now, it does NOT mean if you buy a copy of windows for your 8086 and
realize that your 486 sitting next to it is perfect for it (YEAH RIGHT),
then you have to waste the copy of windows on the 8086 and buy another
for the 486.
Same thing here. More licen(c/s)e agreements specifically state to treat
the (S/s)oftware as a BOOK.
: > But, that would be frowned on, whereas what you're up to at the moment
: > probably isn't. Odd, really.
: odd? THEFT. Yer outta yer skull with this one. "Same returns" vs. 3 or 4
: purchased copies? I think that makes a "real difference" to developers,
: or anyone in sales....
Then maybe they should CHANGE the licen(c/s)e agreements to say something
along the lines of "THE MACHINE YOU ORIGINALLY INSTALL THIS SOFTWARE ON
IS THE ONLY MACHINE YOU ARE LICENSED TO RUN THE SOFTWARE ON". And isn't
that really gonna p*ss off a LOT of people.
Simply put, it takes a bit of common sense. You don't hear authors whine
about lost sales when libraries buy their books, or game console
companies whine when video-rental outlets rent their games.
Or movie companies whine when video-rental outlets rent out their movies
on video.
Sean Kennedy
From the "MICROPROSE SOFTWARE LICENSE" in the back of the Xcom I
Technical Supplement.
Clause #2
"2. The enclosed software program and all written materials are owned
by microprose or its suppliers and are protected by U.S. copyright laws
and international treaty provisions. You may not copy any written
materials. You may sell or transfer the software and accompanying
written materials on a permanent basis provided you retain no copies
and the recipient agrees to the terms of this license."
in other words, I can sell it, trade it, or give it to anybody I like,
so long as I keep no copy of it.
In <3qb7jv$a...@news.rain.org> sa...@rain.org () writes:
>
>
>: > Joaquin <joa...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
>: > >My family lives all over the USA, but we will all go in on a
game, and
form,
>: >
>: > And yet if you -did- all pirate this one legitimate copy, you'd be
giving
>: > the same returns to the producers, and getting the same amount of
playing
>: > time from the game. No real difference at all to anyone.
>
>: where the hell did you get that logic? if he distributes the copy he
>: bought, that costs the original developer money--*period*--and so
does
>: this ridiculous practice of handing the software around (if he
retains
>: any part of the software for himself.)
>
>
>: >
>: > But, that would be frowned on, whereas what you're up to at the
moment
>: > probably isn't. Odd, really.
>
>: odd? THEFT. Yer outta yer skull with this one. "Same returns" vs. 3
or 4
>: purchased copies? I think that makes a "real difference" to
developers,
>: or anyone in sales....
>
>: michael
Robert L. Van Buren
: > about everyone also buys some of their own software as well.
: > And if these companies would lower their prices a little, I don't
: > think we would pirate software as much.
: I feel like a broken record, but I will repeat these known facts for the
: benefit of the wilfully ignorant out there:
: PIRACY DRIVES UP SOFTWARE PRICES
Well, I'll not defend piracy, but that is bullshit. With or without
piracy, software prices will remain the same. Look at the consoles (or
CD ROM, for that matter). Yes, I know consoles have piracy, but it has
in no way effected the pricing as it has been fairly stabile before and
after the influx of console copiers.
Years ago, I downloaded a text file with a good idea to counter some of
the piracy problems. Sell ads in front of games (like videos seem to be
doing), then the prices will lower on the software, making it more
feasible to buy than to pirate (considering you get originals, box,
manual, clear conscious, etc.) -- so what happens? Ocean sells ads on
some of their games (like Pushover and sequel) and the likes of Zool and
Robocod find themselves endorsing various commercial entities as well.
Any price change? HELL, no! Proving that the pricing will stay locked
at the current market rate.
Marcus Dyson
mok...@clover.cleaf.com (Michael O'Keefe) wrote:
>All in all, big companies who turn out
>500,000 to a million disks at a pop are only out probably about .50/disk
>
>Of course, you would have to include labor, shipping, and other costs
>associated with sales and distribution. Bottom line, they are making a
>killing with CD's.
>
Wait a minute, what news group is this? Ah, it IS comp.sys.amiga.games.
Tell me Michael, or anyone else out there, which "big company" ever shipped
(never mind sold) 500,000 to a million Amiga CD-ROMs?
Wasn't us, wasn't anybody I know. Amiga CD games sell fewer than 6,000
copies a time! If we did extra music (which we almost always did) and extra
graphics (see Tower Assault) the price had to go up. Nowadays, we make
CD32/CD-ROM versions just to support users with CD drives/CD32s not as an
extra profit making method.
Bottom line - no one in the Amiga market is making a killing from CD-ROM.
Kleine
I suppose these are US$ bucks...or am I wrong??
If true, than consider that We (dutch) are paying 25+ bucks for
a audio CD...
SO STOP WHINING... I'M A PIRATE... ALL DUTCH ARE!!!
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
BTW, just checked out JA-cd prize... will cost me 100 BUCKS!!
OK! and as a poor student, waiting to get my degree and
earn some REAL money, I enjoy the games for a while, Just
to see what is possible to-day. And I'm not reselling the
stuff, just using it.
After my degree, I WILL buy the games if I want to play them.
But 4 now... NO WAY!!
greetz
marcel
Gary J. Robinson
: I feel like a broken record, but I will repeat these known facts for
: the benefit of the wilfully ignorant out there:
You are simplifying a complex issue. Because you are considering this
issue in a vacuum you are apparently unaware that this issue is considered
a major issue in the information world right now, and it is not just black
and white. Replace "software" with "information" and perhaps things will
become clearer for you.
: PIRACY DRIVES UP SOFTWARE PRICES
This is like saying "libraries drive up book prices."
: POVERTY IS NEVER AN EXCUSE FOR THEFT
This is equivalent to "no free public libraries; if you're too poor to
afford the book you want to read, tough, because reading a book you didn't
pay for is theft. And friends don't let friends borrow books."
: If you can afford a computer, but not the software, perhaps you should go
: back to an abacus. I heard there's a great DOOM port coming out for the
: abacus...
Equivalent to "if you can afford eyeglasses and an education, but not the
books you want to read, perhaps you should read billboards; they're open
to the public."
: Piracy is the disease of the morally, intellectually and phisically
: lazy--pirates are ignorant oafs who feel themselves above the law, but
: are actually not worth the scum beneath society's feet. I know because I
: used to be one, before I started programming multimedia: now I shoot them on
: sight.
A little judgmental aren't we? They say converts sing loudest in church. I
sure hope you don't ever borrow books from libraries, because the authors
of those books certainly aren't getting compensated when you and other
borrowers read their books. Think of all the lost book sales and
royalties! Or are you saying that programmers are somehow entitled to
greater protection for their creations than book authors are?
The issue of free/cheap access to information for those who can't afford
to buy it - and I include recreational access too (most books borrowed are
novels) - versus author's rights is a major issue as the world moves into
the information age and more resources are being put on-line. This is not
the simple moral issue you make it appear, but a difficult one with valid
viewpoints on both sides. Please get off your high horse.
This question is not a new one, and has never been satisfactorily dealt
with. For example, it is illegal for you to photocopy a novel, but it is
legal for you to borrow it from a friend or a library and read it, which
for all practical purposes (i.e. from the author's point of view) is the
same as you stealing it. Yet libraries are - and always have been -
revered as sacred public institutions with a noble purposes: making
information available free to those who cannot afford it. As I mentioned
earlier, this includes information whose purpose is entertainment (such as
trashy novels).
Mr. Eilers' reasoning, carried to its logical conclusion, results in an
argument to shut down all libraries. This reasoning is out of step with
the cultural values of Western civilization, and certainly is not so
powerful as to make everyone else "willfully ignorant."
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Gary J. Robinson | Yzor waited. He felt the blow - saw Krait |
| | collapse - saw through his illusion's eyes |
| grob...@mailer.fsu.edu | as it bit....and knew it was over. |
|---------------------------|-----------------------------------------------|
| Your torch goes out. You trip in the dark and break your neck. The chow. |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
trash
Chairman Mao (m...@ripco.com) wrote:
: : PIRACY DRIVES UP SOFTWARE PRICES
: Besides, it is extremely difficult to pirate CD-Rom software (not impossi
: ble, necessarily, just hard). In general, it isn't widely done. So how do
: software makers justify charging as much OR MORE for a CD-Rom product that
: costs MUCH less to make and is pirated much less frequently, if at all?
I agree with almost every point your posting made, except for the one
above. CD-Rom software is VERY easy to pirate and distribute, and it is
done by alot of pirate groups these days. I would say that the biggest
problem, when dealing with CD-Rom software, was to distribute it,
something the Internet and the ISDN-lines have solved. CD-Rom software is
today just as pirated, as the disk-releases we all grew up with.
: If they didn't have the piraters to blame (as in the SNES genesis <etc.>
: markets) they blame high overhead (production, development, liscencing fees).
: They do that, and they charge the same OR UP TO TWICE AS MUCH for an often
: inferior product. And they get away with it. As are the computer software
: makers.
I like people who see the world as it really is, too bad there as so few
of us .. ;)
Kim Kristensen,
Managing Director for Keine Cyber Multimedia.
Mark Hillman
: On 25 May 1995, Mark Hillman wrote:
: > It's interesting to note that out of all the groups this is posted to the
: > Amiga one is 1st on the list......
: Hmm... Have we ever heard of the ALPHABET? Do we realize that A (as in
: Amiga) comes before not just one, but BOTH I (for IBM) and M (for Mac)?
Of course I know there's an alphabet !! I just thought it was an interesting
observation that the alphabet lists systems in order of excellence as
well...
A - Amiga..... A - Apple Macintosh P pc & clones...
Draw your own conclusions....
Markus...
Michael M Eilers
>
>
> : PIRACY DRIVES UP SOFTWARE PRICES
>
>
>
author, multimedia creator, and graphic designer, I am well versed in the
many different aspects of copyright law--I need it to survive.
There is not now, nor will ever be, a paralell, comparison, or similarity
in any way between libraries and software piracy. period. end of story.
They are fundamentally different. Materials in a library are *licenced*
form their original creator by an agreement where the buyer agrees not to
sell the product theyhave licenced. When you are *loaned* a book you are
legally bound by the precepts of that licence, meaning you *must* return
the book in its original condition within a certain period of time, and
without illegally re-publishing any of the contents of that book. If you
wanted to, you could retain a copy by spending a few hours with a xerox
machine, but the copying costs would be mych higher than purchasing the
book itself, which prevents such activity.
Software piracy (and the piracy of any copyrighted information, but
especially electronic) differes from this immensely, in that simply
obtaining a copy is already a violation of a licence; even if you
*intend* to get rid of it after a while, a licence has been broken by two
individuals. Mst software (with the exeption of the notorius
manual-lookup method) is extremely simple to copy, with media being
incredibly cheap and easy to use--far different than copying a book, not
to mention that you get an exact dupicate of the original, not a shoddy,
blurry xerox. Also, on a more fundamental level, it is impossible for one
book to be in more than one place at a time, while software can be copied
endlesly from a single original with no decay--thus the manufacturer
loses control over the number of copies produced, which in turn drives
market forces.
An article about software piracy published in the Electronic Media
Journal (an e-zine on the Web) said that publishers often cite piracy as
a determining factor in how they decide on software prices/publishing
media. A few companies refuse to ship their products overseas, because
Asian piracy is such a problem. Don't worry, piracy has no real affect on
the market...
Libraries do not affect book prices because they form a base of free
advertising: if someone likes the book, they may go out and buy a copy
for themselves later, and they might spread word of mouth about the great
book--publishers know that not enough people go to libraries (have you
ever seen one crowded?) to really threaten their book sales. People who
try to justify piracy as somehow boosting software sales by "advertising"
good software are making an extremely unlikely leap of faith--what is
someone's motivation to buy the "real" disks if the exact duplicate is
already functioning on their drive, and they have a copy of the little
code wheel?
Piracy is not loaning--that is clear and plain, and has been proven in
court decisions. The efficacy of software, CD, CD-ROM and videotape
licences and copyright agreements have all ben proven in a court of law.
until someone decides to challenge/amend/imrpove those laws, the
precedents have been set. These laws wil continue to evolve and change
with an evolving industry, but they are not in any way in doubt: piracy
is a crime, no matter what the medium. This is not a simplistic approach
it is a holistic approach, and the way (IMHO) these laws should
evolve--by treating all published media (electronically or otherwise) as
intellectual property of the creator, prhibited from public domain, and
avaiable only by licence.
michael
Gary J. Robinson
: There is not now, nor will ever be, a paralell, comparison, or similarity
: in any way between libraries and software piracy. period. end of story.
There is such a comparison because I just made it. There is no difference
intellectually between borrowing a library book and reading it, and
copying a game and playing it. Most entertainment books/software are sold
with idea that they will only generate a limited amount of entertainment for
the consumer, after which point its utility to the consumer drops off
dramatically. We are not talking about reference works here. In both cases
(assuming we are talking about entertainment products) you are
extracting the entertainment value from the intellectual property (be it
book or software) without the author getting any royalties or sales from
the process. If you do not acknowledge this obvious similarity, you
discredit yourself as a serious participant to the discussion.
Of course people who buy books tend to keep them rather than throw them
away to some extent (although voracious paperback readers often trade them
back at paperback exchanges to get more, used books) because unlike
software books do not become "obsolete." But the concept is EXACTLY the
same: the author creates the intellectual property, and its entertainment
value is exhausted after a short time by the consumer. If you allow
people to borrow books from a library, you are allowing them to consume
this entertainment value without paying for it in the exact same way that
software entertainment value is consumed by the pirate.
Now, Mr. Eilers abandoned his moral position and fell back to a reliance
on technicalities in the law - and I am not so sure he is even correct
regarding those, for he calls a breach of a license "illegal" where such a
breach in reality may merely lead to a civil suit for breach of contract,
and not be a criminal violation. In that sense this conversation is
making progress. I do not deny there is a difference in law between
software copying and library book loaning, but legal differences are, as
we all know, often not based on morals at all, and thus are subject to
instant and dramatic change.
But the bottom line is that there is no philosophical difference between
someone borrowing a library book and consuming its entertainment value
without paying for it, and the same person copying software and consuming
its value without paying for it. In both cases nothing permanent is kept
(the software is erased from the hard drive once it becomes boring, the
book is returned to the library once read) and the only loss to the
author is loss of a potential sale. Surely Mr. Eilers does not think that
a fifteen year old with no money to spare who pirates a game is really
costing the software author a sale? If not, it is truly a case of "no
harm no foul." Mr. Eilers most likely is offended by those who can pay
for software but choose not to. Yet libraries allow even the wealthiest
patrons to borrow books free of charge the same as everyone else.
It sounds as though Mr. Eilers, in his desire to tighten up the laws on
intellectual property, does indeed want to crack down on that horrible
institution, the free public library. Libraries contribute to literacy
and this public good is seen as more important than the public good of
intellectual property protection. There are competing interests here that
Mr. Eilers fails to ackowledge, and BOTH interests are valid. In the case
of software, the public interest is a computer literate youth in this age
of modern, competitive national economies. How many programmers would be
where they are had they not obtained free software in their youth,
entertaining software that drew them into the world of computers? If the
anti-pirates have their way the social cost in the future may be enormous.
It would be like book manufacturers cracking down on libraries, depriving
children of free books to read, and in so doing damaging their own future
customer base (and author base).
There is nothing moral here, just legal. And laws can be changed.
The above remarks do not pertain to professional piracy (reselling the
copied work of others), which is a different issue altogether, and is
treated as such under the law.
Matt Schmill
In article <Pine.A32.3.91.950527...@aruba.ccit.arizona.edu>, Michael M Eilers <eil...@aruba.ccit.arizona.edu> writes:
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From: Michael M Eilers <eil...@aruba.ccit.arizona.edu>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.games,comp.sys.ibm.pc.demos,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.adventure,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.misc,comp.sys.mac.games
Subject: Re: ---- all software pirates. Apparently.
Date: Sat, 27 May 1995 23:58:20 -0700
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>> But, that would be frowned on, whereas what you're up to at the moment
>> probably isn't. Odd, really.
>
>odd? THEFT. Yer outta yer skull with this one. "Same returns" vs. 3 or 4
>purchased copies? I think that makes a "real difference" to developers,
>or anyone in sales....
By the same logic, anyone who buys used software is STEALING. Of course it
makes a difference whether someone goes out and buys a new copy or doesn't.
The fact is, somewhere along the line someone draws a line stating what it
means to buy and own something. In this world, if you buy and own something,
including a piece of software, you can give it away. It's not unreasonable,
and you can't expect it to work any other way. Otherwise, you'd better not
throw any disks away, lest someone find them in the trash, thus stealing from
the developers.
The difference between "going in on a game" and piracy is that there's a limit
to who will use the purchased software: your brother, maybe a sister or an uncle.
A pirate will give software to anyone.
Tim Bednall
>
>Tim R. Callahan <Trcal...@dmacc.cc.ia.us> wrote:
>>I have to agree that just about everyone pirates software, but just
>>about everyone also buys some of their own software as well.
>>And if these companies would lower their prices a little, I don't
>>think we would pirate software as much.
>
>If charging less would reduce piracy enough for it to make them
>more money.. They'd be charging less. No?
Has anybody here actually considered the fact that pirating is probably
the best form of advertising a software company can have? I'll freely
admit I pirated one of the Ultimas for example, but that got me into the
whole series, and I now own just about every other one.
I will, in my life only spend a certain amount of cash on computer
software, relatively unaffected by how much I pirate. There are games
that I like, that I would just prefer to own my own copy of it. Now, say
for example pirating suddenly became impossible. I would spend the same
amount of money, and I doubt that the prices would be terribly
influenced; in fact they might be higher, companies knowing that that's
the best deal we'll ever get. And my choice of purchases might be
extremely prejudiced towards one company (like I was to Sierra a couple
of years back) because I wouldn't have been able to sample other
companies' works.
Just my opinion. Looking forward to your flames, but please don't E-mail
me directly.
The Bishop of Battle
>From: sch...@earhart.cs.umass.edu (Matt Schmill)
>Subject: Re: ---- all software pirates. Apparently.
>By the same logic, anyone who buys used software is STEALING. Of course it
>makes a difference whether someone goes out and buys a new copy or doesn't.
>The fact is, somewhere along the line someone draws a line stating what it
>means to buy and own something. In this world, if you buy and own something,
>including a piece of software, you can give it away. It's not unreasonable,
>and you can't expect it to work any other way. Otherwise, you'd better not
>throw any disks away, lest someone find them in the trash, thus stealing from
>the developers.
>The difference between "going in on a game" and piracy is that there's a limit
>to who will use the purchased software: your brother, maybe a sister or an uncle.
>A pirate will give software to anyone.
This may be a bit off topic, since it is not exactly software piracy but, I
would like to bring up a great idea. If you don't like a software company or
feel that you have been ripped off by a software company...you should just
buy _USED_ copies of their software. Software companies make _NO_ profit
from the secondary sales market. You can purchase a new game and Fuck the
faceless mega corporations at the same time.
You may be asking yourself, "Why would I want to do this?" Well, I'll tell
ya. This isn't just about software companies putting out one quality product,
this is about software companies putting out _ALL_ quality products. If you
feel that you have spent good money on a game only to be ripped off by a
software company here is your chance to get back at them.
I purchased Sierra's Outpost like lots of people based on the strength of the
demo and the media information available at the time I picked up the demo.
When Outpost was released, I rushed out to buy it. It is the most unplayable
piece of crap I own and what's worse...it doesn't even have all the features
that they promiced at the time I purchased the demo. Now, Sierra is getting
ready to release Phantasmagoria (a seven CD mega game) only this time,
I'm going to wait and purchase it used. That way I get to play the game and
they get _NONE_ of my money. It is the perfect solution.
Take the recent LucasArts release of Full Throttle. Sure, the game has great
sound, great graphics, great animations, ect. But, the puzzles wouldn't
challenge a 3 year old and it takes about 6 hours to solve. Not exactly worth
the $39.95 price tag. So, I'm gonna purchase it used or wait till it gets
passed around amoung my buddies. That way, I still get to see the cool
graphics, and hear the cool sounds, without being ripped off by LucasArts.
Maybe next time they'll know better.
You have to admit this is a fantastic solution. I hope that there is a good
source of used games in your area.
Oh, of course, Flames will be ignored...intelligent replies will be promptly
answered.
The Bishop of Battle
bis...@primenet.com
Dave A. Hill
Hmm... So what you're saying is, the makers of inferior systems use an A
to start their products' names, so as that as people leaf through an
index, they won't be overlooked? :)
Frankly, it's not so much the fact (yes, fact) that PC's are more
versatile and suited to a wider variety of tasks that made me choose the
way I did (nor what letter it started with) I chose for two reasons: 1)
Clones of PC's are plentiful and inexpensive for cutting-edge tech, and
2) there is one HELL of a lot more support for PC/Clones than for any
other system. To be honest, the Coco had a lot more promise, but was
never adequately supported...
>
> Markus...
Maxwell Daymon
: Michael M Eilers (eil...@aruba.ccit.arizona.edu) wrote:
: : There is not now, nor will ever be, a paralell, comparison, or similarity
: : in any way between libraries and software piracy. period. end of story.
: There is such a comparison because I just made it. There is no difference
: intellectually between borrowing a library book and reading it, and
: copying a game and playing it. Most entertainment books/software are sold
Of course there is! In one case you are making another copy of the work,
in the other, you aren't. You are perfectly welcome to have Joe Blow come
to your house and use Word Perfect for his report. You are perfectly
welcome to lend him your machine and let him use it for two weeks. You
are NOT welcome to copy him the software, just as you are NOT welcome to
copy a book from the library and take it home for keeps.
The difference is blatently obvious. A library cannot loan a book out
more than once per copy. Piracy, by definition, is DUPLICATING the work
(remember, we're talking about COPY rights) - Borrowing a book is JUST
that. No *COPY*ing involved.
: value is exhausted after a short time by the consumer. If you allow
: people to borrow books from a library, you are allowing them to consume
: this entertainment value without paying for it in the exact same way that
: software entertainment value is consumed by the pirate.
And how many times can "My Summer Vacation" be borrowed from the library?
As many as the library PURCHASED. What do people who don't have it do?
They WAIT or they BUY it.
With software, what happens? Another COPY is made - THIS is the illegal
actions and this is why. Natural deterrents keep libraries from causing
much damage (such as only a few copies of the book are available at a
time). This does NOT EFFECT piracy and that's the key difference. In one
case you are respecting the single user license, in the other you aren't.
: But the bottom line is that there is no philosophical difference between
: someone borrowing a library book and consuming its entertainment value
: without paying for it, and the same person copying software and consuming
: its value without paying for it. In both cases nothing permanent is kept
I pointed it out. If you cannot understand, that's too bad for you.
: (the software is erased from the hard drive once it becomes boring, the
: book is returned to the library once read) and the only loss to the
: author is loss of a potential sale. Surely Mr. Eilers does not think that
: a fifteen year old with no money to spare who pirates a game is really
: costing the software author a sale? If not, it is truly a case of "no
It's been shown that the fifteen year old "finds" a way to purchase what
he cannot steal.
: harm no foul." Mr. Eilers most likely is offended by those who can pay
: for software but choose not to. Yet libraries allow even the wealthiest
: patrons to borrow books free of charge the same as everyone else.
You have a pathetic ananlogy that simply does not fit. By definition,
analogies are different. How MUCH different is what makes an analogy
useful to support a logical proposition. You analogy of course has a
similarity, but it holds "no water" when put in the perspective of
difference.
: It sounds as though Mr. Eilers, in his desire to tighten up the laws on
: intellectual property, does indeed want to crack down on that horrible
: institution, the free public library. Libraries contribute to literacy
Straw man, too? Get those people aligned against something based on a
conclusion YOU made based on FLAWED data that was NEVER argued or
supported by the opposition. You'd make a great politician.
: and this public good is seen as more important than the public good of
: intellectual property protection. There are competing interests here that
: Mr. Eilers fails to ackowledge, and BOTH interests are valid. In the case
: of software, the public interest is a computer literate youth in this age
: of modern, competitive national economies. How many programmers would be
: where they are had they not obtained free software in their youth,
: entertaining software that drew them into the world of computers? If the
: anti-pirates have their way the social cost in the future may be enormous.
And, if piracy were as rampant in the developmental stages of the
computer, would we even be here? Yes, the social cost can be enormous.
: It would be like book manufacturers cracking down on libraries, depriving
: children of free books to read, and in so doing damaging their own future
: customer base (and author base).
Here we go, the "innocent children" part. (Again, STRONGLY using the
pathetic and incorrect assertion that libraries and piracy are identical).
"My car is blue, my chair is blue. They are the same."
Quite simply, when companies cannot make enough money to publish
software, and when authors cannot make enough money to write software, it
will cease to exist.
--
+- Maxwell Daymon -+- mda...@rmii.com -+
Tom A. Van Sinden
mok...@clover.cleaf.com writes:
>This means each disk would run $1.85. This doesn't include
>programmer costs.
Well, heck, programmers work for free, right? I mean, don't they spend
hours in front of the screen anyway? They probably do it just because
they want us all to have lots of fun, at little or no cost to ourselves!
:)
>Of course, you would have to include labor, shipping, and other costs
>associated with sales and distribution. Bottom line, they are making a
>killing with CD's.
All those people work for free, too. :)
If you don't want to pay a certain price for a game, don't buy it. If
you copy it, you're stealing.
Tom Van Sinden
Agust Arni Jonsson
>I would have to say I think you are exaggerating. I think we all realize
>that CD roms are capable of being copied but I would propose that this
>copying is one done by major pirating organizations that copy to resell.
One point of interest is that, there are a lot of cdrom hacks floating
around, both on the net & on bbs's. I've even heard of as ridiculous
things as 100+ disk cdrom hacks. Then tell me cd's can't be copied :)
Another point of notice, tape drives are becoming increasingly more
popular, and they are just the perfect way of storing large cdrom hacks,
after all, if you're willing to do this, you probably have a large hard
disk, and dump on cdrom hack on it at a time, playing them to death and
then nuking them (yes, some people DO that)
>I personally have never BOUGHT pirated sofeware and have never known
>anyone to. Owning a computer for most of my life, the type of piracy that
>I see most common is one guy( or group) buying a game (etc) and giving
>out copies to all of his friends.
>This sort of pirating seems the most common to me, however I am sure the
>professional pirates hurt the company more.
Spreading copies to friends is bad, but SELLING copies is a death
sentence :)
>But my point is that CD's do STOP this casual form of pirating. I do not
>see any valid argument for your statement that CDs are just as easy to
>pirate. Simply untrue.
See my point above, then try repeating this comment ;) I know that a
friend of mine borrowed the super strike commander (?) from another
friend of mine and copied it on his hd. Took only 300 megs (he had 1
gig). This meant 2 things: 1) he could play the game without using the
original, and 2) the game was hell of a lot faster, since the hd has a
transfer rate of over 1.4megs instead of 450k (3x speed cdrom) ;)
--
Agust "Nemesis1" a...@rhi.hi.is http://www.rhi.hi.is/~aaj
Agust Arni Jonsson
>Does recording a song off a radio falls into the piracy category?
Yes.
Michael O'Keefe
: In article <3q9t7u$a...@clover.cleaf.com> Michael O'Keefe,
: mok...@clover.cleaf.com writes:
: Tom Van Sinden
no arguement here! However, the prices charged are still reflective of a
greedy nature whether market pays it or not. Seems to me that the real
issue at the heart of this entire debate is moral in nature. Religion has
attempted to deal with the moral problems of society for millenia. Folks
just don't seems to be getting the message in following generations so
the work starts all over again. Bottom line, you shouldn't steal someone
elses work and corporate America (whoever owns it) shouldn't be gouging
the consumer. One justifies his/her behavior by the offenses of the
other. The solution to the problem begins with self. Look in the mirror
and say, "I WILL adhere to honesty, truth, morality, and integrity in all
my ways". Oops they say there is no fun in that.
You can't get rid of the stink until you clean all the shit out. Not just
some of it. To cleanse one aspect of one's character and neglect the rest
doesn't get rid of the stench.
My apologies for the harsh words but I felt the illustration most aptly
applied to the situation.
Marcus Dyson
sa...@rain.org () wrote:
>This doesn't make sense to me. There is nothing illegal or immoral
>about buying a book or a piece of furniture and then reselling it.
>What is wrong with doing the same with a computer program ? Copying
>the book or software is of course illegal and presumably immoral.
>Why do I have to care about the developers or salespeople when I
>pays my money and takes their product. It's their job to sell me
>another if they can.
>
>Colin
When you pass on a piece of furniture, you cease to get use from it. If you
want to sit on a chair after you have sold it... you have to buy another.
If you play a game until you have completed it, or are bored with it, then
sell it, you were not going to get any more functionality from it by
keeping it, but you are depriving the developer of a potential sale.
The licencing agreements that come with some games bind you (by the act of
opening the sealed envelope that you never bother to read) not to re-sell
the product once you have finished with it.
If you don't care about the developer when you buy their product, why
should they care about you by doing things like trying to make sure it is
compatible with your hardware, or making sure it is as bug free as
possible?
Sure it's our job to develop new products that you might want. But it's not
your job to sell on your old ones and deprive us of potential sales.
>Simply put, it takes a bit of common sense. You don't hear authors whine
>about lost sales when libraries buy their books, or game console
>companies whine when video-rental outlets rent their games.
I don't know about your part of the world, but authors aren't really losing
many sales from library attendances in the UK.
The games companies that allow their games to be rented legally (as
opposed to when libraries do so illegally) sell a licence to rent out the
games, hence they get their cut.
>Or movie companies whine when video-rental outlets rent out their movies
>on video.
Video libraries buy new-release films at ridiculously high prices, not the
low sell-through prices that the films are re-released at some months
later. The film companies get their cut of the rental cake from these
inflated prices.
The end result is simple. If you don't want to pay for your games... fuck
off. You don't buy a car if you can't afford petrol, why buy a computer if
you're too poor to afford games.
Mr Wrong
<3q4mkc$v...@mail.one.net>:
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
r. n. dominick (cinn...@one.net) wrote:
: Michael M Eilers (eil...@aruba.ccit.arizona.edu) wrote:
: : you are quite right. Production cost for a music CD is 35 cents apiece,
: : plus a dollar for the packaging. Throw in a few bucks for licencing and a
[snip]
: Recording, mixing and mastering costs are not 35 cents. You need to pay
: everyone who plays on the album, and those who sing, too. The recording
: engineers, attendants, and everyone else around the recouding studio must
: get paid. The people who work in the CD pressing plant must get paid. The
: plant itself must be paid for, with constant repairs to and upgrades to
: the hardware used to actually make the CDs themselves. The executives of
: the companies, music scouts, agents, and all related pond
: sc^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hpeople must be paid. And the recpetionists and
: secretairies too. Tours must be funded, advertising paid for...
Except all these things had to be paid for when records were pressed on
vinyl which is much more costly to press than cd's and vinyl still sold
for around $8.50. So were does the justification come then. And how
come tapes are still cheaper from your logic they should both cost the
same. Cd prices are a rip off but people put up with it so why lower the
profit. This is off topic anyways so I'll shut up.
: Don't get all self-righteous about manufacturing costs unless you
: manufacture something yourself.
I have put out a couple cds and records so I know what I'm talking about.
(all my cd's cost $9 b BTW)
--
--Mr Wrong
************************BE STRONG BE WRONG********************************
Orion's sword. Raised in need, raised in deed - Vivat Grendel
*********************Two wrongs do make a wright*****************************
Gary J. Robinson
: Gary J. Robinson (grob...@mailer.fsu.edu) wrote:
: : Michael M Eilers (eil...@aruba.ccit.arizona.edu) wrote:
: : : There is not now, nor will ever be, a paralell, comparison, or similarity
: : : in any way between libraries and software piracy. period. end of story.
: : There is such a comparison because I just made it. There is no difference
: : intellectually between borrowing a library book and reading it, and
: : copying a game and playing it. Most entertainment books/software are sold
: Of course there is! In one case you are making another copy of the work,
: in the other, you aren't. You are perfectly welcome to have Joe Blow come
: to your house and use Word Perfect for his report. You are perfectly
: welcome to lend him your machine and let him use it for two weeks. You
: are NOT welcome to copy him the software, just as you are NOT welcome to
: copy a book from the library and take it home for keeps.
This is weak reasoning. Let's say I own a copy of Ultima III. I have
played it to conclusion, and its entertainment value for me is exhausted.
I don't play it any more. Under your reasoning, it is perfectly okay for
me to let a friend come over every afternoon to play it, for weeks at a
time, until its entertainment value is exhausted for him too. Yet, it is not
okay for me to let him copy it, even though I would not be playing it at
the same time he is because I am tired of it. In both instances the software
manufacturer has been cost a sale. Yet the "borrow" example is okay
by you because I am paying some kind of price in that my computer is tied
up by someone else. Not that this helps the manufacturer; they lose a sale
either way. If this is your idea of ethics, I suggest you start over.
: The difference is blatently obvious. A library cannot loan a book out
: more than once per copy. Piracy, by definition, is DUPLICATING the work
: (remember, we're talking about COPY rights) - Borrowing a book is JUST
: that. No *COPY*ing involved.
This is only significant if both people want to use the item in question
at the same time. If, as is more likely, they don't, this is an
irrelevant point.
: : value is exhausted after a short time by the consumer. If you allow
: : people to borrow books from a library, you are allowing them to consume
: : this entertainment value without paying for it in the exact same way that
: : software entertainment value is consumed by the pirate.
: And how many times can "My Summer Vacation" be borrowed from the library?
: As many as the library PURCHASED. What do people who don't have it do?
: They WAIT or they BUY it.
Wrong. It can be borrowed thousands of times, millions of time, until it
falls apart. And each borrowing costs the author a royalty payment.
Again, your reasoning is pointless unless everyone wants to read the exact
same volume at the same time.
: With software, what happens? Another COPY is made - THIS is the illegal
: actions and this is why. Natural deterrents keep libraries from causing
: much damage (such as only a few copies of the book are available at a
: time). This does NOT EFFECT piracy and that's the key difference. In one
: case you are respecting the single user license, in the other you aren't.
You, like Mr. Eilers, have apparently abandoned morals and are falling
back on the current (and I stress current) law. Actually, licenses aren't
the law, they are contracts, but that is another matter. The point is,
the law can be changed. When people are debating the virtues of piracy,
they aren't denying the current state of the law; they are making
suggestions for change. Your argument is like saying "heroin is illegal
because it's illegal." It's circular reasoning.
: : But the bottom line is that there is no philosophical difference between
: : someone borrowing a library book and consuming its entertainment value
: : without paying for it, and the same person copying software and consuming
: : its value without paying for it. In both cases nothing permanent is kept
: I pointed it out. If you cannot understand, that's too bad for you.
So you don't mind if I loan out my games all over town, unlimited numbers
of times, till everyone has had their fill, as long as only one person is
playing the game at a time. Really!
: : (the software is erased from the hard drive once it becomes boring, the
: : book is returned to the library once read) and the only loss to the
: : author is loss of a potential sale. Surely Mr. Eilers does not think that
: : a fifteen year old with no money to spare who pirates a game is really
: : costing the software author a sale? If not, it is truly a case of "no
: It's been shown that the fifteen year old "finds" a way to purchase what
: he cannot steal.
You are wandering into the realm of nonsense. Shown by who? Shown when?
In what published research?
: : harm no foul." Mr. Eilers most likely is offended by those who can pay
: : for software but choose not to. Yet libraries allow even the wealthiest
: : patrons to borrow books free of charge the same as everyone else.
: You have a pathetic ananlogy that simply does not fit. By definition,
: analogies are different. How MUCH different is what makes an analogy
: useful to support a logical proposition. You analogy of course has a
: similarity, but it holds "no water" when put in the perspective of
: difference.
The only pathetic thing here is your reasoning, which considers typed
information on paper and typed information on disc so totally different.
The rest of the information world is not so limited in its analysis.
Every pick up a book or magazine which says "Please don't circulate to
your friends" ? I have. Publishers realize consumption of value is
consumption of value. They are not happy just because only one borrower
is reading at a time. Borrowing or photocopying, both cost the publisher
sales.
: : It sounds as though Mr. Eilers, in his desire to tighten up the laws on
: : intellectual property, does indeed want to crack down on that horrible
: : institution, the free public library. Libraries contribute to literacy
: Straw man, too? Get those people aligned against something based on a
: conclusion YOU made based on FLAWED data that was NEVER argued or
: supported by the opposition. You'd make a great politician.
Data? What data? Go read his post. You would not make a great anything.
: : and this public good is seen as more important than the public good of
: : intellectual property protection. There are competing interests here that
: : Mr. Eilers fails to ackowledge, and BOTH interests are valid. In the case
: : of software, the public interest is a computer literate youth in this age
: : of modern, competitive national economies. How many programmers would be
: : where they are had they not obtained free software in their youth,
: : entertaining software that drew them into the world of computers? If the
: : anti-pirates have their way the social cost in the future may be enormous.
: And, if piracy were as rampant in the developmental stages of the
: computer, would we even be here? Yes, the social cost can be enormous.
Piracy has always been "rampant," yet there is always more software.
There is alot of "crying wolf" going on. I don't know anyone who has
purchased a home computer who did so planning to buy several times its
value in software. If piracy was wiped out, I think home computer sales
would plummet - dramatically.
: : It would be like book manufacturers cracking down on libraries, depriving
: : children of free books to read, and in so doing damaging their own future
: : customer base (and author base).
: Here we go, the "innocent children" part. (Again, STRONGLY using the
: pathetic and incorrect assertion that libraries and piracy are identical).
You like the word pathetic. It describes you well.
: "My car is blue, my chair is blue. They are the same."
: Quite simply, when companies cannot make enough money to publish
: software, and when authors cannot make enough money to write software, it
: will cease to exist.
Funny how that has never happened despite all the rampant piracy in the
world. In fact one of the hugest corporations in e country is a software
corporation, MicroSoft, that has grown to hugeness in this evil age of piracy.
: --
: +- Maxwell Daymon -+- mda...@rmii.com -+
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
john calhoun
Robinson) wrote:
~ Now, Mr. Eilers abandoned his moral position and fell back to a reliance
~ on technicalities in the law - and I am not so sure he is even correct
~ ...
~ But the bottom line is that there is no philosophical difference between
~ someone borrowing a library book and consuming its entertainment value
~ without paying for it, and the same person copying software and consuming
~ its value without paying for it. In both cases nothing permanent is kept
These analogies to cars, books, video tapes are as ridiculous as the legal
bickering.
The bottom line is: If I sell only one copy of a program I spent a year
(full-time) writing, I ain't doin' it twice! So everyone get the hell out
of the ivory towers and take a look around. Is it just becuase you don't
know anyone personally who writes software?
john calhoun-
--
john calhoun
Scheherazade Software
MARC EDWARD FORRESTER
>No it is NOT legal to simply install the software on another computer, no
>matter WHAT its apparent proximity to the first one is. You have to buy
>one for the office, one for home, one for the portable, etc...
Mm. But OTOH, unless you're a big company or an educational establishment,
that particular rule just plain isn't followed. Any more than the one
about how long you're allowed to keep films recorded off the TV is,
for example.
>I know that sounds harribly unfair, but (to use your analogy of books)
>if you want to read a book at work, at home, and on a plane, without making
>copies of it, you BUY THREE COPIES. period. Read the licence... did you?
Er. I kind of take it with me, myself. But I guess that's the analogy
breaking down.
Gary J. Robinson
: In article <3qd763$k...@mailer.fsu.edu>, grob...@mailer.fsu.edu (Gary J.
: Robinson) wrote:
: ~ Now, Mr. Eilers abandoned his moral position and fell back to a reliance
: ~ on technicalities in the law - and I am not so sure he is even correct
: ~ ...
: ~ But the bottom line is that there is no philosophical difference between
: ~ someone borrowing a library book and consuming its entertainment value
: ~ without paying for it, and the same person copying software and consuming
: ~ its value without paying for it. In both cases nothing permanent is kept
: These analogies to cars, books, video tapes are as ridiculous as the legal
: bickering.
Hardly.
: The bottom line is: If I sell only one copy of a program I spent a year
: (full-time) writing, I ain't doin' it twice! So everyone get the hell out
: of the ivory towers and take a look around. Is it just becuase you don't
: know anyone personally who writes software?
The bottom line is, you create software, not books or movies, so you don't
give a flying fuck if the intellectual property of authors and movie
producers is consumed by non-purchasers, as long as yours isn't. You
selfish asshole, you really give programmers a bad name. I have been paid
for writing software myself and unlike you, I can see both sides of the
issue. I have news for you, software is just one form of intellectual
property, there are lots of others, and the problem of uncompensated use
is not new nor is it unique to the software industry. If you have ever
borrowed a library book and read it then you have effectively ripped off
the author by enjoying the fruits of the author's labor without paying him
or her for it. Grow up will you, and admit there are larger issues here
than your paycheck.
: john calhoun-
: --
: john calhoun
: Scheherazade Software
Neil Brewitt
> Mr. Eilers' reasoning, carried to its logical conclusion, results in an
> argument to shut down all libraries. This reasoning is out of step with
> the cultural values of Western civilization, and certainly is not so
> powerful as to make everyone else "willfully ignorant."
Your analogy is a red herring. Mr. Eiler in fact mentioned nothing about
book fraud, and your assertions on his behalf were merely conjecture. Your
assumption was that he has the same feelings about books as about software.
Neil.
--
**** ne...@melkfri.demon.co.uk **** Neil Brewitt
*||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||* IRC: saggy
** Musician ***** Manchester,UK **
Newton A. Cheung
>
>In article <3qb7jv$a...@news.rain.org>,
>sa...@rain.org () wrote:
>
>When you pass on a piece of furniture, you cease to get use from it. If you
>want to sit on a chair after you have sold it... you have to buy another.
>If you play a game until you have completed it, or are bored with it, then
>sell it, you were not going to get any more functionality from it by
>keeping it, but you are depriving the developer of a potential sale.
Wrong.
The original purchaser gave you your share. The transfer of the license is
between the current holder and the next holder. The current holder will
cease to use your software. Same as your furniture analogy.
>The licencing agreements that come with some games bind you (by the act of
>opening the sealed envelope that you never bother to read) not to re-sell
>the product once you have finished with it.
Wrong again. Transferring the license is perfectly legal which is what the
current owner may do for free, or for a price.
>If you don't care about the developer when you buy their product, why
>should they care about you by doing things like trying to make sure it is
>compatible with your hardware, or making sure it is as bug free as
>possible?
The original user already and gave you your share. If you don't make your
product solid, well no one will buy it. Trying to make everybody buy only from
one source is ridiculous, and will not work.
>Sure it's our job to develop new products that you might want. But it's not
>your job to sell on your old ones and deprive us of potential sales.
Wrong! You sound greedy.
[snip]
>The end result is simple. If you don't want to pay for your games... fuck
>off. You don't buy a car if you can't afford petrol, why buy a computer if
>you're too poor to afford games.
You sir, need an attitude adjustment. Read a software license, you will be in
for a rude awakening. Kind of sad that a software developer doesn't know the
rules (my assumption since you mention "deprive us of potential sales" ).
How about why buy a new car when you can get a perfectly good one used?
Newton A. Cheung
-- not speaking for IBM
Christian Smith
(Marcus Dyson) wrote:
> When you pass on a piece of furniture, you cease to get use from it. If you
> want to sit on a chair after you have sold it... you have to buy another.
> If you play a game until you have completed it, or are bored with it, then
> sell it, you were not going to get any more functionality from it by
> keeping it, but you are depriving the developer of a potential sale.
And if I sell the chair then I am depriving the carpenter from another
sale. My heart just BLEEDS for all the people whom I am depriving of
thier livelyhood.
> The licencing agreements that come with some games bind you (by the act of
> opening the sealed envelope that you never bother to read) not to re-sell
> the product once you have finished with it.
Such licenses are immoral, and in many cases invalid.
> If you don't care about the developer when you buy their product, why
> should they care about you by doing things like trying to make sure it is
> compatible with your hardware, or making sure it is as bug free as
> possible?
Because that is how they make their livelyhood.
> Sure it's our job to develop new products that you might want. But it's not
> your job to sell on your old ones and deprive us of potential sales.
Whine whine whine.
> The end result is simple. If you don't want to pay for your games... fuck
> off. You don't buy a car if you can't afford petrol, why buy a computer if
> you're too poor to afford games.
Oh, snappy come back. "Fuck off, mate."
I would ask for the name of the company you write games for so I could
avoid your products, but I hardly think it worth my time. Your obvious
lack of any understanding of the real world will undoubtedly remove the
problem by putting you out of business.
---------------
Christian Smith
csm...@gmu.edu
<http://www.ido.gmu.edu/~csmith>
Microsoft Network is prohibited from redistributing this work in any
form, in whole or in part. Copyright, Christian Smith, 1995
License to distribute this post is available to Microsoft for $1000.
Posting without permission constitutes an agreement to these terms.
Portions of this .sig licencsed from Joe Ragosta (doc...@interramp.com)
Gary J. Robinson
: > Joaquin <joa...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
: > >My family lives all over the USA, but we will all go in on a game, and as
: > >one of us finishes it gets shipped to another. Not piracy in any form,
: >
: > And yet if you -did- all pirate this one legitimate copy, you'd be giving
: > the same returns to the producers, and getting the same amount of playing
: > time from the game. No real difference at all to anyone.
: where the hell did you get that logic? if he distributes the copy he
: bought, that costs the original developer money--*period*--and so does
: this ridiculous practice of handing the software around (if he retains
: any part of the software for himself.)
It seems clear from the post that he doesn't keep any of it. Not that
that makes any real difference in the real world if he's done playing it.
: >
: > But, that would be frowned on, whereas what you're up to at the moment
: > probably isn't. Odd, really.
: odd? THEFT. Yer outta yer skull with this one. "Same returns" vs. 3 or 4
: purchased copies? I think that makes a "real difference" to developers,
: or anyone in sales....
: michael
But Michael, it's just like passing a book around..... :) :) :)
And we all know from you that that's not piracy of intellectual property, even
though it costs the author sales.... :) :)
Funny how irate programmers get when they start to get treated as authors....
Is it immoral for a hungry man with no money to steal a loaf of bread? Or
just illegal?
History tells us "morals" are typically invented by priests - who
inevitably have enough to eat.
Gary J. Robinson
: In article <3qcmk8$1...@mailer.fsu.edu> grob...@mailer.fsu.edu (Gary J. Robinson) writes:
: > Mr. Eilers' reasoning, carried to its logical conclusion, results in an
: > argument to shut down all libraries. This reasoning is out of step with
: > the cultural values of Western civilization, and certainly is not so
: > powerful as to make everyone else "willfully ignorant."
: Your analogy is a red herring. Mr. Eiler in fact mentioned nothing about
: book fraud, and your assertions on his behalf were merely conjecture. Your
: assumption was that he has the same feelings about books as about software.
: Neil.
Sorry Neil, but read what he wrote:
[Start of Eilers text]
> This is not a simplistic approach
>it is a holistic approach, and the way (IMHO) these laws should
>evolve--by treating all published media (electronically or otherwise) as
>intellectual property of the creator, prhibited from public domain, and
>avaiable only by licence.
[End of Eilers text]
Doesn't sound like a vote for free public libraries to me.
Michael M Eilers
> Michael M Eilers (eil...@aruba.ccit.arizona.edu) wrote:
>
> : There is not now, nor will ever be, a paralell, comparison, or similarity
> : in any way between libraries and software piracy. period. end of story.
>
> There is such a comparison because I just made it. There is no difference
> intellectually between borrowing a library book and reading it, and
> copying a game and playing it. Most entertainment books/software are sold
i don't beleive you actually read my post. I made it cleare on both a
legal and intellectual level, that library borrowing is in no way
comparable to
piracy. Your inability to adress my arguments by concentrating on
tangential issues has been noted.
Borring a library book (I must say again, it seems) is absolutely legal
in every way, is open to all individuals resourceful enough to posess a
library card, and is independent of income/race/religon/philosophical
creed etc. that is clear. Nothing was ever suggested to the contrary.
the lending of books exists because of a licenced, legally sound
agreement between libraries and the authors they stock. Libraries exist
because of a moral belief that all peoples deserve free access to
information. Software is protected by law becuause of a similar ethical
belief that authros deserve to be compensated for their work, and have
rights to what they creat and publish.
Sofware piracy is breaking the law. This is both a legal
and a "philosophical" (your misuse of that term is also noted) issue. The
decision to be a law-abiding citizen is a moral one, and a part of the
basic social contract by which much of democratic society functions.
Contrary to your suggestions, software piracy is not in any way a
"philsophical" issue, unless your personal philosophy includes
rationalizing theft. Unauthorized copying of software in any form
violates not just the law, but the soverigny of the authors intellectual
property--see how the moral combines with and is complemented by the
legal? Laws certainly do change, but copright law (and the like) *emerge*
from moral imperitives demanded by a society, and are not usually subject
to radical revision.
If you can go on copying software, and are able to rationalize it as
"borrowing" and not theft, so be it--you are deluding yourself and hiding
from the real crime committed. The same laws that make libraries legal
and free also protect the material within from abuse--and derivatives of
those laws protect software today.
Congratulations on your obtuse stubborness. You must have worked hard to
achieve it.
michael
Dana Christopher Hartley
: ba.ccit.arizona.edu> <D95G8...@rci.ripco.com>
: Chairman Mao (m...@ripco.com) wrote:
: : : PIRACY DRIVES UP SOFTWARE PRICES
: : Besides, it is extremely difficult to pirate CD-Rom software (not impossi
: : ble, necessarily, just hard). In general, it isn't widely done. So how do
: : software makers justify charging as much OR MORE for a CD-Rom product that
: : costs MUCH less to make and is pirated much less frequently, if at all?
: I agree with almost every point your posting made, except for the one
: above. CD-Rom software is VERY easy to pirate and distribute, and it is
: done by alot of pirate groups these days. I would say that the biggest
: problem, when dealing with CD-Rom software, was to distribute it,
: something the Internet and the ISDN-lines have solved. CD-Rom software is
: today just as pirated, as the disk-releases we all grew up with.
[Cut some]
I would have to say I think you are exaggerating. I think we all realize
that CD roms are capable of being copied but I would propose that this
copying is one done by major pirating organizations that copy to resell.
I personally have never BOUGHT pirated sofeware and have never known
anyone to. Owning a computer for most of my life, the type of piracy that
I see most common is one guy( or group) buying a game (etc) and giving
out copies to all of his friends.
This sort of pirating seems the most common to me, however I am sure the
professional pirates hurt the company more.
But my point is that CD's do STOP this casual form of pirating. I do not
see any valid argument for your statement that CDs are just as easy to
pirate. Simply untrue.
______________________________________________________________________________
Reply to : dcha...@unity.ncsu.edu (Dana Christopher Hartley)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Future Shop
Damir Smitlener
[...snip...]
> When you pass on a piece of furniture, you cease to get use from it. If you
> want to sit on a chair after you have sold it... you have to buy another.
> If you play a game until you have completed it, or are bored with it, then
> sell it, you were not going to get any more functionality from it by
> keeping it, but you are depriving the developer of a potential sale.
Nicely put, but....
> The licencing agreements that come with some games bind you (by the act of
> opening the sealed envelope that you never bother to read) not to re-sell
> the product once you have finished with it.
This isn't strictly concerned with pirating, but if software companies
continue to sell - oh, excuse me - license, buggy products, then I will
continue to treat software I purchase - excuse me, license - as if I own
it. While I won't distribute copies, if I no longer have a use for it, I
will sell it to someone who does.
Since virtually all licenses specifically state that the
manufacturer/developer won't guarantee that the product will work at all -
much less work right - and are sold without any sort of warranty on the
product (tried to return open software to CompUSA lately?), I'm actually
selling Nothing for Something.
--
damir smitlener |
da...@mindspring.com |
smi...@optica.mirc.gatech.edu |
Damir Smitlener
[...snip...]
Now, distributing copies to friend and foe alike is another matter entirely.
Paul Schultz
is in c.s.i.p.d?!?!?!?
--
======= Paul Schultz a.k.a. Khyron (DistorSion / Kosmic) Musician ======
========= (c)1995 w00p Music. - Proud Cincinnati Banana Rock! ==========
= email: khy...@iglou.com / www: http://kosmic.wit.com/~kosmic/khyron/ =
======= ... You're only afraid of what you don't understand ... ========
Kevin Tieskoetter
mda...@rainbow.rmii.com (Maxwell Daymon) writes:
> : (the software is erased from the hard drive once it becomes boring, the
> : book is returned to the library once read) and the only loss to the
> : author is loss of a potential sale. Surely Mr. Eilers does not think that
> : a fifteen year old with no money to spare who pirates a game is really
> : costing the software author a sale? If not, it is truly a case of "no
>
> It's been shown that the fifteen year old "finds" a way to purchase what
> he cannot steal.
Completely agreed - look how many $50 game cartridges are sold to these
"no money to spare" 15-year-olds. Doesn't Mortal Kombat sell for
something like $80 or $100? And boy, does it sell!
-kevin
//----------------------------------------------------------------------
Kevin Tieskoetter / Software Engineer, Specular International
//----------------------------------------------------------------------
Scott Mason
[...snip...]
>I see most common is one guy( or group) buying a game (etc) and giving
>out copies to all of his friends.
>But my point is that CD's do STOP this casual form of pirating. I do not
>see any valid argument for your statement that CDs are just as easy to
>pirate. Simply untrue.
What? How so? Joe "Pirate" Schmo buys a CD Game pops it on his
CDROM drive and installs said game. Joe then gives CD to his friend
who installs, etc. CD's may SLOW piracy in that only one person can
steal (yes steal) the game at a time, but it doesn't STOP it.
Scott
--
The comments or opinions expressed here are not necessarily those
of NSWC, US Navy, Federal Government, or any agent thereof.