Preserved Topic: Pirated Software (Page 2 of 3)

Maybe Adobe could offer a 3 month Pshop demo?




[This message has been edited by nooPhella (edited 06-08-2002).]

CF:
No, what i meant is when you draw a razor blade
with your name on it, add blood also....well, i might be a bit
concerned if it was my kid...do you know what i mean?
were you trying to tell us something?

SS: It's just the sig that I made for the June Sig Competition (Torture/Therapy). A razor blade would be pretty torturous, and the blood would imply that it was used/is being used and my name is on it since your name is generally on a sig. It's pretty disturbing though, but thats why I don't show my mom

They already offer a 1 month demo.

The 'educational' justification just doesn't make too much sense. I mean the software IS available for free or very little. Before I purchase any software, I generally download a trial version from the manufacturer to see what its all about. If you can't handle the heavy download on your 56k, many books actually come with demos. I believe the Photoshop WOW series does, I'll check later. There are many, many courses you can take through your high school or local community college that deals with different software.

Also most stores have fairly good return policies. Don't want to use a demo version of Photoshop? Purchase it and bring it home. Then evaluate it at home. If it turns out you don't like the software, by all means return it. This is the reason stores have return policies.

-Jestah
Cell 277

Also, if you really are the rare user who wants to learn how to use the software without the cost, going with a Linux setup could be a good solution for you. Theres lots of good software out there for free.

-Jestah
Cell 277

Ok CF... thanks...just checking to see
if the kids are alright as the Who would say

argument: some software is worth some hundred times more than some countries' minimal wage (not talking about industry directed software that's way over double zero)

any counter argument?


demi-argument: information should always be free. a program is just text in it's core, therefore information, so...


demi-demi-argument: most of the time the good stuff is freeware

if you use msoffice instead of star office... dude whatever

but if you use ps instead of mspaint... dude, you rule, i dont care how


incoherent, yes that it is. what isnt?

don't steal. it's just a matter of not-stealing.
i agree with your teachers.

[This message has been edited by Arthemis (edited 06-08-2002).]

The Who? I think you mean Pink Floyd my friend, you got your british classic rock bands mixed up.

CFB: LOL you don't show your mom hehehe...

Insider: just had to poke my head back to assure you that 'the kids are alright' is most definately The Who, and not Pink Floyd.

Thanks DL.
InSider. I don't know hip hop from rap and all that crap you
kids listen to. Don't ask, I Can't Explain, ok?

But British Rock? Well, that's My Generation and I
know that My Wife would agree with that.


Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere I'm not posting
to give you the Young Man Blues but just remember
that when it comes to British Rock..well I Can See For Miles.

So I hope you Won't Get Fooled Again into thinking this
was Pink Floyd and I hope we can all Join Together
and shout "Long Live Rock"

enuf already. I'm a Happy Jack Now. I just wanted
to post A Quick One While He's Away

Gets back on the Magic Bus with Baba O'Riley and asks
Tommy "Can You Hear Me"?

But again, I might be wrong. It might be the Stones.

A matter of not stealing?

C'mon. I mean if someone doesn't want to shell out money for a good peice of software, thats their business but its also stealing. It's like buying a car. You don't go out and steal someone elses Corvette because you want to see if you like it before you spend the money, you take a test drive. Adobe offers demos as does many other companies. Many video game manufacturers send out demos all the time.

Information should be free? You've seen AntiTrust too many times. Information is free, but when you apply that information to something and create a product, why should that product be free? After all a car is information applied to mechanics. Should all automobiles be free?

-Jestah
Cell 277

I think the worst pirate is Captain Crunch.
I think they should put him away for good.

i always thought the worst pirate is Captain Hook.

Definately Capt. Bluebeard...he was the worst...

Captin Kangeroo gets no respect.

-Jestah
Cell 277

"Information should always be free" is an opinion, not law. And a program is more than just text at its core, its hundreds, maybe thousands, of man hours and great monetary investment. If such work always had to be given away, then no one would be able to afford to create it, therefore it would never be created. That's one of the things copyright law is there to protect.

I'd just love to see one of you guys spend months and your savings researching and writing a book, then have someone come along and copy it without your express permission. "It's only text," he'd say, "and should be free."

And people need to start opening their minds to the idea that, by copying something, you may be hurting the author in ways you didn't even think of. Want a hypothetical example? Sure, here you go:

On my Web site I have an article on Big Tex, the ambassador, if you will, for the State Fair of Texas. So, some guy comes along, loves the article and the photos and wants to put it on his site. "It's just information," he says to himself. "I'm not selling it and good ol' Wes isn't making money off of it, so my copying it won't do any harm. Besides, anything freely visible on the Web can't be stolen." So, he puts the article and photos on his own site.

A couple weeks later, I get a call from Nancy Wiley and the State Fair organization telling me to remove the article from my Web site. I subsequently lose quite a bit of traffic ? more than my thief imagined, because he has no idea how many people search for "Big Tex" ? and in the process, many contacts who could help me get my TV show off the ground. Not to mention those who would have gotten to my site looking for Big Tex and discover other photos that they would have offered to purchase to use in various books. (Yes, that does happen to me.)

What happened? Well, because the little schmuck figured all information is free and was so arrogant to think that there couldn't be a situation he wasn't imagining, he didn't bother to find out that I had to obtain express permission from the State Fair organization to do the article and to post photos of Big Tex on my site, even if I took them. You see, Big Tex is a trademark of the fair and brings in revenue for them. And even though I myself had permission to use the information, once the fair found out that the information was being distributed beyond my control, they just figured it was safer to tell me to take it down, which they have the obsolute right to do.

So, again, my point is that even though you think you're not doing any harm, there are twists and turns your little minds aren't coming up with, which are the reasons we have copyright laws.

Great post Wes.

-Jestah
Cell 277

I think Captain Highliner has a crush on Billy.
One thing for sure, he would never babysit my kids.

sorry to hear about that Wes. That sucks.
That is indeed why we have copyright laws.

LOL @ ShootingStars` British Rock post. hehehe

Arthemis : dude, Get a grip.

And for the record I , too, would like to see you * all information should be free* bozos spend 3 ( or more) years in development 2 years in testing, supporting a team of progammers, an ad team, investing all the money you can borrow, sign a contract to have a few thousand CDs made, then stand up on a podium and say * Yea , it`s only information. It`s free.*

insider, cfb : Naw, you wouldn`t get it if I said it either.


Cell245

Brilliant post Wes.

It's not amazing to see justification when it comes to copyright infringements, and theft. People are notorious for justifying any and all behaviour to suit their desire to either be lazier, or save money (in essence being lazier by proxy). It's funny really, I have more respect when someone says "Yeah, I stole it...and it doesn't bother me."

Hey, a warped moral conscience, but at least they're not making foolish arguments to try and show how it isn't "wrong". Own what you do....own the consequences when they come.

One more thing. I'm a huge proponent of the ideal of keeping information fully accessible and free to users....however, I'm not a proponent of the theft of intellectual property, and the decimation of a human's work. Don't like the idea of a large corporation making money off of you for a product they had built by engineers? Fine...then go through the list of engineers that worked on Photoshop (etc.) and send each one of them a buck a piece to account for the amount of work they put into your pirated version of software.

Funnily enough, even though a buck is cheap as hell for all their work...hours of code and testing...it'd still be cheaper to buy the program.

So when people say "we support developers and the open source idea" that's great community spirit...when YOU'RE doing the work...but don't slight a man (or woman) their hard fought hours of work by hiding under that umbrella when you're too cheap to purchase the software.

Yes corporations overprice software out the ass when levied against the amount of distribution...but then I'd bet that you'd try and sell your car for a fuck of a lot more than bluebook price if people were willing to pay it.

~shrug~

Justification...it's a funny game.

---------------------------------------

As for Captain Highliner: Anecdote, completely true.
During The Grey Cup (basically the Superbowl of Canadian Football) one year, a new commercial for Highliner's "tartar sauce filled battered sole" came on.

As my friends and I were watching the game, the Captain looks right at Billy and says "Arr Billy, come over here and let the Captain fill yer cheeks with cream."

I damned near wet my pants after I stopped staring gape-mouthed in shock. Suffice to say the commercial never aired again.

*gently caresses his reciept for Photoshop 5*
I'm a goooood boy...

njuice42
icq 957255

*Writes this without reading any other posts*
Pirated Software!!? Give me some links!

[This message has been edited by OlssonE (edited 06-08-2002).]

Whoops, I think OlssonE just invited a rain of shit down on himself

To be fair, I agree with the above points about developers time and whatever but I still think that a learning edition should be provided rather than a month trial version. they can't be used for commercial works due to the watermarks or save disable features but without trial versions it does mean that a lot of gifted people will never be able start out in the industry and I think that would set us back years.

Imagine wanting to learn something like Houdini that weighs in at £14,000 I don't believe there is a home user alive who would pay that so the only people who get to use it are those already in the industry. As I say, there are a lot of potentially very talented people out there who may never even see these programs.


~We're not here for long, we're here for fun~

With something like Houdini... the company pays to train the employee's (who have usually gotten into the industry knowing a less expencive program), who have already recieved training from schools. Its not meant to be a program used by small developement firms, or by freelance artists. If the company wanted you to be able to use it for free, then they would provide a freeware version of it for the public. But since they don't want everyone to have a copy, what gives you the right to steal it from them?

Hey Dan, I never said anything about stealing anything, but if Maya and lightwave can produce a learning edition then why not Houdini or Photoshop? If someone were dead set on trying one of these programs out and an LE version was not available then piracy would be the only alternative. When I stand before the beak and he asks me "how did you manage to buy Maya on your pay?" I would'nt have to bow my head and say "I stole it"

I'm not condoning piracy at all but I can see why people do it. There are dozens of programs out there I would love to try but won't ever get the chance because I have to choose carefully how I spend my hard earned and I don't want the old bill knocking on my door. I say well done to Alias Wavefront for having the courage and vision to produce Maya LE and I hope Adobe and all the others follow their example


~We're not here for long, we're here for fun~

As far as I know, there is a free limited edition of Photoshop, isn't there? And Houdini student version is only USD $250. If someone was really set on learning the program, they may as well take a class, and get a legal version of it, as well as instruction on how to use it.
By the way, I'm not condemning piracy. Just those who attempt to justify stealing.

Of course theres a demo version of Photoshop. Its just not a full unrestricted, uncrippled, version.

-Jestah
Cell 277

i am not saying that i support piracy but in my opinion if they do not want their programs or music pirated they should do more to prevent it. For instance iMesh and WinMX and Morpheus are all almost exactly like Napster. If they stopped napster then if they really cared why aren't they stopping the other programs. So piracy is just a way of life. The people in charge of all the programs that are pirated are just going to have to face that.



[This message has been edited by trust_no1 (edited 06-09-2002).]

nevermind....

[This message has been edited by Dracusis (edited 06-09-2002).]

CB: you posted about using a copy of so you could learn it before college. Well most art schools wont care if you know photoshop or not, it's just a medium. They want to know if you have a developed style and have started trianing your 'artist eye'. Also they want to see if you've invested yourself in being an artist you can show that with crayolas. Heck at alot of universities you may not even have a digital assignment until after your first two semesters of school . .maybe longer.

I saw a couple posts from people using the logic "I'm a student, I don't have any money and I need to use the software to learn it for class." Well I was in that position myself a few years ago. Heres my solution: I got off my ass and went to the computer lab where they provided the computers and software to complete my projects. I'm better for it too because I wasnt the only person in the lab, a lot of my classmates were there with me and we worked together. It was like having a mini Asylum, we critiqued each other, shared techniques, and became strong friends. . for the most part. So if you own photoshop don't pirate it go to the lab, hell if you own photoshop go to the lab anyway. If you're in a design/art program that doesn't provide some sort facilities to do your assignments you need probably need to find another program.

just my 2¢

Yeah, good advice Osprey. I own a copy of PS but I use the University labs all the time for similar reasons. I may have Photoshop at home but I have a PC. If I'm training to be a designer then I ~need~ to know how to use a Mac and use it well. Which also comes in handy when I want to test my websites cross-platform.

I also have access to a stupid ammount of equipment while I'm at Uni, digital cameras, kick ass scanners and four colour printers, digital video cameras! DVD burners, and my favourite, da 9X12 Wacom! I also have access to a huge range of other applications there that I'd never used before like Painter 8, Lightwave, Maya, iMovie, Director, err lots of stuff. It's a techno junky paradise and it's all legal, free and open 24/7!... Although thery get a little narky at you if your caught sleeping under the desks. Not that I've ever dont that before but I've seen it happen a couple of times, espically towards the end of semester when everything's due!...

Actually, when I walked into the G4 labs last friday morning (around 7:00 am) it was already half full with seedy looking people surounded by bottles of V and other various energy drinks.... My first reaction was to laugh but I soon found myself met several cold blank stares that said "die you bastard die!" So I shut up and quietly found a computer to finish my work.



[This message has been edited by Dracusis (edited 06-09-2002).]

Just to clarify, docilebob, that was a hypothetical example. But, it illustrates my point that there are circumstances that the "everything should be shared" advocates don't bother to imagine.

This is a subject I'm all fired up about lately (although focused more toward copyright as it applies to creative works than toward warez) because a girl at work argued with me about it. She was a computer major and "had a class" all about the subject. According to her, anyone should be able to take anyone else's stuff off the Internet and use it how they please. In her words, "the Internet was based on file sharing." She didn't explain what the hell that was supposed to mean and how it meant anyone could plagiarize my writing and my images. And I was too dumbfounded to argue the point properly.

Basically, to her, copyright laws haven't been written to apply to the Internet yet; it's all just one big "gray area." I can guarantedd you she's never even read the copyright laws. They're pretty clear. It gets me aggravated just thinking about the conversation. And to top it off, she's hot. And that really steams my clams.

Anyone remember the Content Protection for Recordable Media and Pre-Recorded Media
(CPRM / CPPM) Specification. Nope? Well basically it means that you will need "permission" (i.e well not exactly but close) to backup or store almost anything on your hard drive or other storage media....sound scary? read the book 1984 by George Orwell...now that's scary.

what i'm saying is be careful what you wish for. yes, we need to protect IP and copyrights and trademarks etc....but if you let the politicians do it...well the next thing you know is need you need their permission to create a file in the first place.


So there is another side to the copyright issue. ...and that's when dickhead legislators use "protecting intellectual property" as an excuse for.......well read this for a start:
http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/20020503_dmca_consequences.html

Ah, well that`s good. I`m not near as bummed about it as I was a bit ago.

Seems that *steamed clams * is becoming a way of life...

The more I learn about people, the more I love my computer..

Wes what your coworker seems to be confused about is that sharing and stealing are two entirly different things. Sure when everything was still ARPA professors and scientists used it to share ideas and research but they were sharing their own ideas. They weren't trading copies of their favorite boy band's albums.

I found software piracy to be a rather good idea up until I came across open source software.

Now it seems a far better idea for me to use the open source alternative as opposed to a pirated piece of software.

This holds a two fold benifit.

1) You don't get that shamed feeling for using pirated software.

2) You get to help move the market shares towards the free software thus providing more demand, better support for the software, and better software.

Alternatives to PS like Gimp or to MSOffice with OpenOffice even Visual C++ with Gnu C/C++ (gcc). If the people who can not afford to purchase the proprietary they should use the open source alternative. From here they will learn how to use the open source version, tell their friends about it, and ultimately bring it into the work force with them. This would then further increase the performance of the open source version of the product since revenue could be put into the design team to further tweek the software for specialty needs.

Piracy of software does not have to be an issue, it just takes a little research, and you don't have to pirate.

Further into the future the major piracy concerns will be with elite specialty programs, movies and music.

I really don't like piracy in the areas of music and movies. I feel that if you want to use MP3's you should at least own the CD that the music is on, or if you don't delete the music after 24 hours. The musicians do work really hard at their craft and if you like what they do you should suport them, and respect their right to sell their work. If they wanted to give it away they would. I think pirating of movies is just bad form. If you see the movie once you aren't nessesarly going to want to see it again. At least wait to rent it for the $3-5 or go to the theater, or buy it. Yes the people behind the movies tend to be rich, but you should still support their 'ART' and pay for it as they request.

Ranting is fun.

Cheers,

Morph, ShootingStar, WarMage > Very good points.

Dan & Jestah: I am of course aware that there are demo versions of photoshop, heck i could proberbly find half a dozen copies of it if I trawled through my collection of coverdiscs but I cant see how you can learn an application like photoshop in 30 days unless you can sit at your screen for 18 hours a day. I have been using photoshop for 5 years professionally and at home and I'm still learning. ok, you can develope the flavour of the program in that time but that won't get you a job.

Now, faced with a crippled 30 day demo version, or $250 dollars for a student version or a full, unrestricted free version, which way do you think the average pirate is going to go? Even if Photoshop were brought down to $10 people would still obtain free, illegal copies. for some I don't think its the cost they find prohibative as the pure joy of getting away with something.


~We're not here for long, we're here for fun~

look, fact of the matter is, don't take it if it doesn't belong to you. Accessability & availability doesn't neccessarily make it right. If I made some killer software, and decided to market it, I wouldn't want people to just plaster it all over the www and get it for free. Taking intellectual property without permission is no different that stealing your next door neigbors car. They are simply taking something that doesn't rightfully belong to you.....not that I really care, just calling a spade a spade.



[This message has been edited by jive (edited 06-09-2002).]