• There seems to be an uptick in Political comments in recent months. Those of us who are long time members of the site know that Political and Religious content has been banned for years. Nothing has changed. Please leave all political and religious comments out of the forums.

    If you recently joined the forums you were not presented with this restriction in the terms of service. This was due to a conversion error when we went from vBulletin to Xenforo. We have updated our terms of service to reflect these corrections.

    Please note any post refering to a politician will be considered political even if it is intended to be humor. Our experience is these topics have a way of dividing the forums and causing deep resentment among members. It is a poison to the community. We appreciate compliance with the rules.

    The Staff of SOH

  • Server side Maintenance is done. We still have an update to the forum software to run but that one will have to wait for a better time.

A sophisticated pirate

I agree with GrinningJester about the just chill and lay back, Piracy can't be stopped and thanking the costumers that did buy the product. Back when i was beginning life on my own and in debt i used to pirate a whole lot. I didn't have the money to buy add-ons but i sure did want some of the cool stuff that was on the market, That's most of what this kids doing. But most of the people pirating are kids who won't get money from there parents, As most developers think that there losing a lot of money there actually not losing that much of the potential costumers, But i still don't approve of what this kids doing. The second reason this kids doing it is because at age 13 at home, at school, and on the internet what does every kid want... To be cool by sharing this he just thinks he's gonna be accepted and cool to whoever is on his site, He will sooner or later learn that people don't care whos giving it as long as they can get it. So I'm just saying sit back and watch it all crumble.
 
N2056 said:
And crumble it will with an attitude like that in the younger generation!
Click to expand...

And what? You think we should go do something. We can't really do much. I mean probably the only thing we can do is try to get his ISP to close off his internet which will be back up within a matter of weeks or even days...

I've never been a big fan of the age card, I never did understand why people used age as an excuse for so many things even on some people they don't even know the people they use it on.
 
I'm on the fence...if people want to pirate software, they're going to do it. I feel like it's a waste of time to make it the sole purpose of ones life to stop piracy. The current ways of preventing piracy are grossly inefficient and ineffective. By implementing anti-piracy software, you are simply delaying the inevitable, and in many cases the paying customer is hurt.

Bottom line is this kid is an idiot, and I feel like it was worthwhile to get the blog taken down. It took all of 5 mouse clicks and a bit of typing to report it, and now it's down.:running:
 
Let he who is without sin cast the fist stone.

Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

I think we all make photocopies from books, which had a statement included that we should have asked the copyright owner first. Didn't we all record music on casette tapes from the radio to listen to in the car. Or for the younger generation is all the music on your MP3 player fully legal?

Are all those recordable CDs and DVDs really just made to back-up data?

Okay, I confess I made illegal copies from books during my study and still sometimes do for my work. And I also recorded music from the radio and I still sometimes listen to music on "You tube", from which I'm not sure whether it is uploaded there legally.

Therefore I admit; I'm a fool like the kid who made this site.......

Huub
 
MCDesigns said:
Agreed and the sad thing is, his parents are doing a really poor job at pretending to be parents. Another reason to keep your kids off the internet unless supervised.
Click to expand...

Do you really think that modern day parents have enough free time on their hands to do that?

I would rather say that his parents are doing a pretty good job at being parents because the kid is bright enough to have his own website, he stays off the street and away from drugs and gangs and so forth. Also the kid SHARES.

Posting torrent links is but a minor thing. Nothing worth capital punishment. Or is that what you had in mind for either parents or the kid?
 
Well put!!

huub vink said:
Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

I think we all make photocopies from books, which had a statement included that we should have asked the copyright owner first. Didn't we all record music on casette tapes from the radio to listen to in the car. Or for the younger generation is all the music on your MP3 player fully legal?

Are all those recordable CDs and DVDs really just made to back-up data?

Okay, I confess I made illegal copies from books during my study and still sometimes do for my work. And I also recorded music from the radio and I still sometimes listen to music on "You tube", from which I'm not sure whether it is uploaded there legally.

Therefore I admit; I'm a fool like the kid who made this site.......

Huub
Click to expand...

So right Huub "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone".

hatt's off to ya!!
 
PurpleBubble said:
Do you really think that modern day parents have enough free time on their hands to do that?
Click to expand...

yes they do, or they shouldn't be parents. my kids never use the internet in this house unsupervised, except on the RARE occasion when my wife leaves the computer on and no one is home for an hour. (at most)
we have a password that the kids don't know. they can't start it without us.
otherwise they each get 1 hour/day or 1.5 hrs if they do their homework immediately after coming home from school. their internet time comes after dinner, not before. it's not that hard to do. it's just basic parenting. now, what they do at their fathers house, that's out of our jurisdiction.
 
cheezyflier said:
yes they do, or they shouldn't be parents. my kids never use the internet in this house unsupervised, except on the RARE occasion when my wife leaves the computer on and no one is home for an hour. (at most)
we have a password that the kids don't know. they can't start it without us.
otherwise they each get 1 hour/day or 1.5 hrs if they do their homework immediately after coming home from school. their internet time comes after dinner, not before. it's not that hard to do. it's just basic parenting. now, what they do at their fathers house, that's out of our jurisdiction.
Click to expand...



There you go, it isn't hard and it isn't time consuming. It's just plain common sense. My son is now part of my business and believe me if he didn't have a sense of values or "corectness" I'd be out of business.
Why then is it OK for others to behave that way?

Here's a scenario, what if all developers just stole everybody else's code, reverse engineered stuff etc. The customers would soon be questioning ethics, why all models seemed to be the same etc. Is that what people want?
 
bazzar said:
Here's a scenario, what if all developers just stole everybody else's code, reverse engineered stuff etc. The customers would soon be questioning ethics, why all models seemed to be the same etc. Is that what people want?
Click to expand...

???...your logic is questionable...
 
bazzar said:
Here's a scenario, what if all developers just stole everybody else's code, reverse engineered stuff etc. The customers would soon be questioning ethics, why all models seemed to be the same etc. Is that what people want?
Click to expand...

In case of freeware, I couldn't care less as long as everyone involved is properly credited.
As for payware, well...kind of a fraud, eh?
 
Piracy is bad, mkay?

Simply put, its way too easy today. Im from the DOS era, and it was not hard. Just copy that floppy. But you limit the distribution to just a few friends. 4-5 copies at most. Even when the internet first started, you had a few rare pirate pages, and newsgroups. Both of them came with risk's and needing special software and knowledge on how to use them. It was still back room and limited to the people who really wanted to pirate. The people you would never get money from anyways.

Today its a different story. Pirate Bay is splashed across the headlines every other week, and Torrents are simply easy. You need zero knowledge to find and use them, and you redistribute it to thousands of people, not a select few. So now every day people (who would of purchased the product) can pirate it and save a little money. Inversely, companies who put in any anti-piracy measures are seen as the bad guy because it only seems to effects people who properly purchased the software. This also tends to drive more people into downloading the torrent.

Overall, piracy is bad, no matter how you try and justify it. Threads like this only shows people how easy it is.
 
I started out playing games well before the DOS era, when you simply threw a tape into your parents' (or your own) stereo or linked your two tape decks together and hey presto, you had a perfect copy.

You have, however, hit two of the nails directly on the head. It's not too easy to copy things now, but it is vastly too easy to distribute them and there's no comeback against the uploaders, who are the root of the problem. Likewise, the companies that actually do try and protect their products end up annoying the very people who keep them in business at all when they make the protection too overzealous or it pushes the price and timescales of projects out the window.

The big problem is that certain developers just decided, when I wrote the last paragraph, that I am, simply must be, a massive pirate who uses massive amounts of illegal software. Simply because I say that the current situation doesn't work. I've already said my piece about the only way it's going to get solved and, as predicted, I got shouted down by the "it can't be done!!" crowd. Right now, though, there's no good coming out of the situation at all for developers, they lose whatever they do.
 
The first thing pirates do, is rip out the copy protection. So people who download the pirated version dont have the copy protection to deal with. Does this mean that the copy protection's dont work? No. Not at all. It just keeps people who legitimately buys it from giving it to a friend. It stops what we call casual pirates. It wont stop torrents and skilled hackers who can rip out almost any projection.

Its a fine line, between protecting our investment, and intruding on our customers. Some say having no protection gives more sales. Some argue not having protection just makes it easier for the pirates and casual pirates, and you loose more sales. I dont know. I dont have the numbers. The people who have run the numbers like EA, Valve, and such clearly show that they believe having copy protection is worth it.

The only games that I have ever seen that are truly copy protected are MMO's and games using online distribution like Steam. I have yet to see a pirated copy of World of Warcraft. But this is not an option for FSX. There are other recent games like Red Faction that use MS Live. You need to use a CD key and register on Live to save your game. Ya you can pirate it, but you cant play online or save your game. Then pirates are only sharing out a massive demo =) But again, it detours customers. Its always going to be a fine line. There is no true solution to satisfy everyone, but if we dont do something, we will go broke, and everyone has less 3rd party options.
 
I agree almost entirely with that post - I happen to agree that at least simple copy protection to limit "casual" copying is an absolute necessity - it's an unfortunate truth that even many normally honest people need reminding that they shouldn't be doing something illegal. Clearly it's untrue that having no copy protection means copyright doesn't apply, but there seem to be a lot of people who believe it is the case.

It's interesting that EA, however, dropped copy protection down to a simple serial code and CD requirement on Sims3, after major customer backlash from their recent attempts to prevent copying of their software. I read a report in the press (possibly the BBC technology section? I may be wrong on that) that "experts" now believe the Sims3 is the most copied single piece of software in history - yet EA haven't (yet) done what was expected and announced that they're putting even more draconian protection on in the future as a response.

In the end, though, societal laws work on a principle of punishment for breaking the rules. Punishing downloaders in a meaningful way is utterly impractical. There are so many of them it would cost far too much both in monetary terms and the effect it would have on the economy. Therefore you have to find a way of effectively punishing those who actually do the distribution. No single developer or even a small group can do that yet no-one seems capable of pulling together enough strands to create a rope which you can use to hang the *%$£@#s responsible for the current situation.
 
Gibbage said:
The people who have run the numbers like EA, Valve, and such clearly show that they believe having copy protection is worth it.
Click to expand...

Side note:
EA and other companies are reverting back to the old school DVD check and CD key for their newest releases.

At the moment, the trend is basically: Copy protection yes, but not too sophisticated.

Should be good news for everyone, yet upon reading that Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is going to cost 60€s upon release (10€s more than the average game on release day), I get the impression that the publishers *want* people to pirate their stuff for whatever reason. :kilroy:


The only games that I have ever seen that are truly copy protected are MMO's and games using online distribution like Steam.
Click to expand...

Plus games like Joint Operations or BF2 which require a valid key in order to play them on internet servers.
 
I'd also like to add that although many people like playing games online, there are still massive numbers who don't play games against other humans at all. They don't care whether they need a code to play online or not.
 
I love these pointless arguments :D

I can throw stones - well, small ones. My tape recorders always cost that bit more for the recording industry's "take", so I paid for the right to use the tape deck to make music compilations for my own use. But the music industry is different anyway... Besides, why "steal" music anyway? If it is good, it will be played on the radio or internet often enough anyway. There's so many "legal" broadcasters out there, that you can hear your favourite songs on public playlists a lot of the time.

...and recording from public broadcasting for personal use is allowed.

As for software. I have, on one occasion, reformatted my main hard discs so that I was unexpectedly able to use a "free trial" twice. I bought that software in the end anyway - as I had planned to all along.

Personally, I have never felt the need for more wrong ownership than that. If I can't afford the item, I simply don't buy it. But it is not the hackers and crackers who are totally at fault - it is US - the generations that spawned them. This total lack of respect in some people today is simply because there is a big gaping hole on their upbringing.

So next time you see "inconsiderate behaviour" feel a spot of pity for someone who is less blessed with morals than yourself. And then go say sorry to your own kids and grandkids...

By the way - if you are one of those who thinks wrongdoing is cool, I just hope you never have to come home to find your house empty and vandalised, or your wallet missing, or your car not where you parked it.

Oh... and have you taken your daily pinch of salt yet?
 
This, among many other factors, has pretty much killed my desire/ability to do this for profit. :frown:
At some point the BS factor becomes more than this is worth. In some ways I am happy, as I can now model whatever I want the way I want, and don't expect anything fast.
My hero is Piglet :ernae:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top