tagliatelle
_____________________
Dactylo's don't think about there posts. It is an art to post so much.
What's your opinion about Macwarez?!
- Thread starter AppleWatcher
- Start date
edX
mac shaman
ed's been sleeping in this morning. 
wow, did this thread ever take off!!
i'm not sure, but i think ericbrian finally figured part of it out.
I guess i'm mostly with testuser on this one. I am impressed that my opinion means so much that my reaction is awaited with anticipation
Applewatcher - your post titled "what about students" seemed to imply to me that you were supportive of the "i'm too poor to buy it" rationale. you certainly seem to know some of the more popular pirated software. I am a student. so i either take advantage of student prices or do without. for a good online student discount vendor goto www.creationengine.com
and as far as m$ software - it's not even worth stealing
so applewatcher - what is your point?
wow, did this thread ever take off!!i'm not sure, but i think ericbrian finally figured part of it out.
I guess i'm mostly with testuser on this one. I am impressed that my opinion means so much that my reaction is awaited with anticipation
Applewatcher - your post titled "what about students" seemed to imply to me that you were supportive of the "i'm too poor to buy it" rationale. you certainly seem to know some of the more popular pirated software. I am a student. so i either take advantage of student prices or do without. for a good online student discount vendor goto www.creationengine.com
and as far as m$ software - it's not even worth stealing
so applewatcher - what is your point?
AppleWatcher
Tigerrr
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I think you've interpreted my post wrong. Let it rest now.
YES! Of course I do! Everyone does!
That's nice. But, I think there are students who don't...
AppleWatcher
edX
mac shaman
yea, duuuuh!!
so you responded to all my points and i accept your answers at face value. i have nothing to gain by doubting you. so how about answering my question - what was your point in posting this? was it just a joke as Admiral claims?
i'm also still a bit perplexed - first you want my reaction, and then your reaction to my reaction is to "let it rest now". odd
so you responded to all my points and i accept your answers at face value. i have nothing to gain by doubting you. so how about answering my question - what was your point in posting this? was it just a joke as Admiral claims?
i'm also still a bit perplexed - first you want my reaction, and then your reaction to my reaction is to "let it rest now". odd
AppleWatcher
Tigerrr
You see Ed,
We had/have some guys around here that ask for links to warez blabla...
Now I thought: What's the opinion of the Macusers around here?
You get it?
AppleWatcher
We had/have some guys around here that ask for links to warez blabla...
Now I thought: What's the opinion of the Macusers around here?
You get it?
AppleWatcher
edX
mac shaman
yea i get it. thanks for answering. i apologize for any misreading of your posts and the implications i made. it has been interesting. of course it's the same old arguments that still don't hold water and only amount to a lot of rationalization for doing something one knows one shouldn't. i think kids are going to do that with a lot of things, not just this issue. Seems like most of the adults, or at least professionals, on the site realize that it only hurts them in the long run.
so AdmiralAk had a good question back there about betas which i think is also relevant to this discussion. I can remember when shareware was distributed on the honor system. There was no expiration date. i admot i was guilty of using some of those programs without ever paying . Too lazy to even send postcard for some of them. I am sure i hurt some developers by not supporting them. It was before i, like some people here, really figured out the implications of it.
but now beta's are released all the time, many with the expectation that you pay for it right away. but often that beta version you try isn't worth buying. so you just leave that app on your HD or trash it. then a while later, a new versioon comes out. you want to reevaluate it. only it tells you that your trial has expired. is it right of you to hunt down those info files and trash them so yoou can start again, or is it wrong of the developer to have put them there without making them version specific? or at all?
Once i wrote to a dev. about this very issue. i was a bit cranky at the time and it wasn't the nicest of emails. but while he jumped me for being accusing of him, he also gave me the name of every file to get rid of and start again. i ended up buying the app the version after that one. but should i have had to go thru this in the 1st place?
so AdmiralAk had a good question back there about betas which i think is also relevant to this discussion. I can remember when shareware was distributed on the honor system. There was no expiration date. i admot i was guilty of using some of those programs without ever paying . Too lazy to even send postcard for some of them. I am sure i hurt some developers by not supporting them. It was before i, like some people here, really figured out the implications of it.
but now beta's are released all the time, many with the expectation that you pay for it right away. but often that beta version you try isn't worth buying. so you just leave that app on your HD or trash it. then a while later, a new versioon comes out. you want to reevaluate it. only it tells you that your trial has expired. is it right of you to hunt down those info files and trash them so yoou can start again, or is it wrong of the developer to have put them there without making them version specific? or at all?
Once i wrote to a dev. about this very issue. i was a bit cranky at the time and it wasn't the nicest of emails. but while he jumped me for being accusing of him, he also gave me the name of every file to get rid of and start again. i ended up buying the app the version after that one. but should i have had to go thru this in the 1st place?
The BSA tends to count every copied version of an application as a loss in money, as if every user running a copied version of a particular application would have bought it if he hadn't copied it. This is - of course - wrong, and thus the numbers the BSA gives out are in fact wrong.
But it's not that difficult, really. It's plainly forbidden to copy copyrighted software. It's forbidden to run software that you need a license for if you don't have one.
Also the reasoning that 'if you use software and make a profit with it' of course can't apply to games at all (or other entertainment software titles). Also the statement that 'I use Photoshop now for free and will buy it when I'm a graphics professional' can't be applied to games.
Another philosophical problem is that 'times have changed'. I remember the times when I had my Atari ST and the internet was not part of my life at all. (The 80s.) I only had two friends who also possessed an Atari ST, my other friends either did not have computers or used Macs or Amigas. So getting your hands on software titles for free (by warezing) was a completely different thing then. One of three would buy the software, two copies were made. Like that the software developer still made money, albeit less than if every one of us would have bought a copy.
Nowadays a kid connects to Hotline or Carracho servers and finds - with a bit of sweet talking and trading - archives with the newest titles. And oh so many of them. In the 80s I needed like 5 software titles plus maybe a game or 20. If I didn't find a title that did what I needed, I used GFA Basic to write it myself, if it wasn't too big a task.
So while back in the 80s software wasn't just available some klicks away and sharing software was mostly a private thing with (small) group dynamics and basically a positive feeling towards the developers, this has changed. People just grab everything they can. I know people who have every Photoshop and After Effects plugin ever made. Just to have them. They don't use it. But it's always a good trading argument for them. Actually, they don't really do anything productive on their computers. They're traders. They're addicted.
Sounds dumb? I remember myself. The summer of love, when Mac OS 8.0 Betas were the big hit on early Hotline servers. I would stay up half the night just to make sure that the 30 or so MB would dribble in through my 28.8Kbps leased line. In the morning I would - again - destroy the System of my PowerBook with it. And in the evening I would find a newer build on some or other Hotline server. Addiction? Yes, of course. I would have had a better time if I only downloaded one build per week or month, I could have done a lot more work on my computer (and gotten some sleep, too), but I was addicted to it. What excitement it was to test the themes 'Gizmo' and 'HiTech' with early builds of 8.0. How loud was the scream of everyone when they were removed before the final candidate stage. Hilarious, how the 'Special' menu in the Finder changed its name with every build ('Sunrise', 'Steve', 'S...'). It was a great time - and I was addicted to it.
My reasoning goes like this: Addicted traders don't really harm developers directly. They wouldn't buy the software titles. But they do indirectly by making the titles more widely available to users who *could* pay for the software but *don't*.
Kids who *need* expensive software for fun don't harm developers, because they could never afford to buy a license. But what they don't see is that there are alternatives. Do kids really *need* Microsoft Office v. X? They could use AppleWorks which is much less expensive. And they could buy the software or let their parents buy it for christmas. Photoshop? The 'Elements' version would be enough for most of the tasks. Use Graphics Converter for most of the missing features. But I didn't go that way myself when I was a teen, so I understand why people don't.
The people who *really* harm software development companies are the ones who sell copied titles. I know that in the late 80s a couple of friends of mine bought 150 games on about 200 floppy disks for their Amigas. An italian BBS sold such packages at a price we would pay for the empty disks. Many of the games sucked, but among them were at least ten titles they would else have bought themselves or gotten for christmas/birthdays, so actually there was money lost. And there are people selling copies of Adobe or Microsoft titles. Big time. Those are the criminals. And the buyers of course are the dumbasses, because they pay for something without earning the right to use the software.
I'm a bit sorry for the long post, but I think it's important to say in a thread like this what's really happening. Posts like 'where do I find macwarez' should not be in such a thread. Posts like 'I do warez but I don't worry' should not be here, either.
What could 'the industry' *really* do to make it better? I have a suggestion. As an example I'll use Photoshop, for it is about the most traded title in the WarezWorld:
Photoshop Elements (with even less features): Free.
Photoshop Basic (with a bit more features than Elements today, perfect for Webdesign but not Print): 90$.
Photoshop Full (like today's version): 299$.
Everyone would download the Elements version. Because it'd be free. It would be enough to learn how Photoshop works. If you'd really like what Elements would do, chances are high you'd spend the 90$ for the Basic version some day. And the lower price for the Full version would make professionals buy the licenses earlier in their cycle.
Similar models could be made for almost all graphics professional software titles like Illustrator, FreeHand, Flash (!), GoLive etc.
But it's not that difficult, really. It's plainly forbidden to copy copyrighted software. It's forbidden to run software that you need a license for if you don't have one.
Also the reasoning that 'if you use software and make a profit with it' of course can't apply to games at all (or other entertainment software titles). Also the statement that 'I use Photoshop now for free and will buy it when I'm a graphics professional' can't be applied to games.
Another philosophical problem is that 'times have changed'. I remember the times when I had my Atari ST and the internet was not part of my life at all. (The 80s.) I only had two friends who also possessed an Atari ST, my other friends either did not have computers or used Macs or Amigas. So getting your hands on software titles for free (by warezing) was a completely different thing then. One of three would buy the software, two copies were made. Like that the software developer still made money, albeit less than if every one of us would have bought a copy.
Nowadays a kid connects to Hotline or Carracho servers and finds - with a bit of sweet talking and trading - archives with the newest titles. And oh so many of them. In the 80s I needed like 5 software titles plus maybe a game or 20. If I didn't find a title that did what I needed, I used GFA Basic to write it myself, if it wasn't too big a task.
So while back in the 80s software wasn't just available some klicks away and sharing software was mostly a private thing with (small) group dynamics and basically a positive feeling towards the developers, this has changed. People just grab everything they can. I know people who have every Photoshop and After Effects plugin ever made. Just to have them. They don't use it. But it's always a good trading argument for them. Actually, they don't really do anything productive on their computers. They're traders. They're addicted.
Sounds dumb? I remember myself. The summer of love, when Mac OS 8.0 Betas were the big hit on early Hotline servers. I would stay up half the night just to make sure that the 30 or so MB would dribble in through my 28.8Kbps leased line. In the morning I would - again - destroy the System of my PowerBook with it. And in the evening I would find a newer build on some or other Hotline server. Addiction? Yes, of course. I would have had a better time if I only downloaded one build per week or month, I could have done a lot more work on my computer (and gotten some sleep, too), but I was addicted to it. What excitement it was to test the themes 'Gizmo' and 'HiTech' with early builds of 8.0. How loud was the scream of everyone when they were removed before the final candidate stage. Hilarious, how the 'Special' menu in the Finder changed its name with every build ('Sunrise', 'Steve', 'S...'). It was a great time - and I was addicted to it.
My reasoning goes like this: Addicted traders don't really harm developers directly. They wouldn't buy the software titles. But they do indirectly by making the titles more widely available to users who *could* pay for the software but *don't*.
Kids who *need* expensive software for fun don't harm developers, because they could never afford to buy a license. But what they don't see is that there are alternatives. Do kids really *need* Microsoft Office v. X? They could use AppleWorks which is much less expensive. And they could buy the software or let their parents buy it for christmas. Photoshop? The 'Elements' version would be enough for most of the tasks. Use Graphics Converter for most of the missing features. But I didn't go that way myself when I was a teen, so I understand why people don't.
The people who *really* harm software development companies are the ones who sell copied titles. I know that in the late 80s a couple of friends of mine bought 150 games on about 200 floppy disks for their Amigas. An italian BBS sold such packages at a price we would pay for the empty disks. Many of the games sucked, but among them were at least ten titles they would else have bought themselves or gotten for christmas/birthdays, so actually there was money lost. And there are people selling copies of Adobe or Microsoft titles. Big time. Those are the criminals. And the buyers of course are the dumbasses, because they pay for something without earning the right to use the software.
I'm a bit sorry for the long post, but I think it's important to say in a thread like this what's really happening. Posts like 'where do I find macwarez' should not be in such a thread. Posts like 'I do warez but I don't worry' should not be here, either.
What could 'the industry' *really* do to make it better? I have a suggestion. As an example I'll use Photoshop, for it is about the most traded title in the WarezWorld:
Photoshop Elements (with even less features): Free.
Photoshop Basic (with a bit more features than Elements today, perfect for Webdesign but not Print): 90$.
Photoshop Full (like today's version): 299$.
Everyone would download the Elements version. Because it'd be free. It would be enough to learn how Photoshop works. If you'd really like what Elements would do, chances are high you'd spend the 90$ for the Basic version some day. And the lower price for the Full version would make professionals buy the licenses earlier in their cycle.
Similar models could be made for almost all graphics professional software titles like Illustrator, FreeHand, Flash (!), GoLive etc.
ksv
web developer
Good words, fryke
As a "kid" myself (as I'm tired of being classified as), I have to correct you a little. "Kids" (at least us with macs ) also use software for creative stuff. Already when I was 7 or something, I started messing around with the system, apps etc with ResEdit. I've also made graphics to Escape Velocity plug-ins (Battle of Valhalla), and made my own. Back when I was 11, I had my own local newspaper (which I sold hundreds of copies of in total), and made some money on designing/printing business cards, CD covers etc. All that with legal software
What would I have done if I had a PC, and never touched a mac? Oh, I don't even want to think about it...
Oh, and I remember the 10.1 summer
As a "kid" myself (as I'm tired of being classified as), I have to correct you a little. "Kids" (at least us with macs
) also use software for creative stuff. Already when I was 7 or something, I started messing around with the system, apps etc with ResEdit. I've also made graphics to Escape Velocity plug-ins (Battle of Valhalla), and made my own. Back when I was 11, I had my own local newspaper (which I sold hundreds of copies of in total), and made some money on designing/printing business cards, CD covers etc. All that with legal software What would I have done if I had a PC, and never touched a mac? Oh, I don't even want to think about it...
Oh, and I remember the 10.1 summer
bubbajim
Mac-Junkie
Pirated software distribution is bad.
People who download software can do so because of the pirated distribution. From a developer's point of view, it must be gut-wrenching to see their hard work up on a warez site and someone is taking food out of their family's mouth. Some people work very hard to earn their money. These people deserve money for their efforts. These developers are people who make
Shareware a good business.
Now on the other side of the playing field are monopolies like Microshaft that bloat their applications with some much useless functions and then charge you insane amounts of money for it, deserve their software to be pirated fully (Yes it's appearant that I don't like Microsoft.) Because of companies that shaft the average consumer, I download pirated software for the pure fact that it can be done. I don't distribute the software to others, I don't have a webpage to give links to pirate sites, nor do I even use the software. I just like searching the internet and finding the software, it's like finding buried treasure to me, or better yet like valuable baseball cards. I would never trade them to someone, but I just like to collect and see if I can get the whole set.
Some examples of this would be back when Nintendo64 came out I didn't have a lot of money and I was quite aggitated of the price of the console and their games, so I started my quest to download every game for the Nintendo64. I ended up with over 280+ titles that I can play via emulation or via my CD64 unit which plays the games from a CD. Now out of the 280+ games, I have only play about 5 minutes worth of each game, just to see if they worked. I played games like their Zelda series, which I liked so much I bought those cartridges. I wasted so much time in getting these games, that the fun was for the hunt of these games and not to actually play them. So I guess piracy can mean different things to everyone. To me piracy is bad in business, but piracy is just a way to do things on the internet for others. If I didn't spend so much time looking for software and games on the internet, I probably would not be on the internet much at all.
Does this make me a pirate... YES.
Am I proud of it...NO.
Am I ashamed of it..NO.
To each his own and what is justified and proper to me, may not be the same for you.
Just remember that it's doesn't make you better/worse than anyone else. I just make you human for thinking for yourself and not conform with the masses.
People who download software can do so because of the pirated distribution. From a developer's point of view, it must be gut-wrenching to see their hard work up on a warez site and someone is taking food out of their family's mouth. Some people work very hard to earn their money. These people deserve money for their efforts. These developers are people who make
Shareware a good business.
Now on the other side of the playing field are monopolies like Microshaft that bloat their applications with some much useless functions and then charge you insane amounts of money for it, deserve their software to be pirated fully (Yes it's appearant that I don't like Microsoft.) Because of companies that shaft the average consumer, I download pirated software for the pure fact that it can be done. I don't distribute the software to others, I don't have a webpage to give links to pirate sites, nor do I even use the software. I just like searching the internet and finding the software, it's like finding buried treasure to me, or better yet like valuable baseball cards. I would never trade them to someone, but I just like to collect and see if I can get the whole set.
Some examples of this would be back when Nintendo64 came out I didn't have a lot of money and I was quite aggitated of the price of the console and their games, so I started my quest to download every game for the Nintendo64. I ended up with over 280+ titles that I can play via emulation or via my CD64 unit which plays the games from a CD. Now out of the 280+ games, I have only play about 5 minutes worth of each game, just to see if they worked. I played games like their Zelda series, which I liked so much I bought those cartridges. I wasted so much time in getting these games, that the fun was for the hunt of these games and not to actually play them. So I guess piracy can mean different things to everyone. To me piracy is bad in business, but piracy is just a way to do things on the internet for others. If I didn't spend so much time looking for software and games on the internet, I probably would not be on the internet much at all.
Does this make me a pirate... YES.
Am I proud of it...NO.
Am I ashamed of it..NO.
To each his own and what is justified and proper to me, may not be the same for you.
Just remember that it's doesn't make you better/worse than anyone else. I just make you human for thinking for yourself and not conform with the masses.
edX
mac shaman
so would it be safe to interpret that there are many of us here on this site who want no connection with warez? We do not want information about it's availability distributed here nor do we want to hear about people having troubles with their illegal copies of software. We can't stop it, but we don't have to be associated with it.
ksv
web developer
As I said earlier, I think it'd be cool if e.g. photoshop had two kinds of licences, one non-profit/non-business/home-user licence (e.g. 29.90 $) and one licence for businesses or people who make money directly out of using the software (299 $, maybe more). Of course no one could control the use of the "cheap" licences, but using them for business would be just as illegal as having no licence.
You know, getting a pirated copy of Photoshop 6 isn't harder than getting a legal licence, and actually I think adobe would sell more and perform better if they released a licencing method like this.
Maybe my idea will come through if I write a 4 page letter to Adobe?
You know, getting a pirated copy of Photoshop 6 isn't harder than getting a legal licence, and actually I think adobe would sell more and perform better if they released a licencing method like this.
Maybe my idea will come through if I write a 4 page letter to Adobe?
I'd say we wouldn't really care. I'm for example interested in other users' experience with betas of upcoming titles. If someone loses his OS X partition while updating to 10.1.3 5Qsomething - not so interesting. Maybe helpful to others who tried it, but not to me. But if they're talking about a newer build of 10.2 than 6B11: I'm definitely interested. They should put it to the 'Rumours' category, but yeah, I'm interested.
well. i was talking about builds of Mac OS X for example. ADC members who get their hands on new builds officially are asked not to talk about them in public. and of course they should not spread the builds via warez sites. so basically the latest Mac OS X 10.2 build floating around must be considered 'warez'. That doesn't stop me from wanna-know.
similar with Photoshop 7 builds. they're not public betas, so must be considered warez.
now. i'd say talking about this is nothing that rumour sites don't.
if one 'prolongs the life' of a beta (be it public or not) is changing the way the software is intended to be used. that's why most of the little helpers for this are named cracks (or krackz).
if you never bought a license for photoshop, the same reasoning must be applied to photoshop 7 betas like for photoshop 6, i guess.
if you are an owner of a photoshop 6 license, using a ps 7 beta without being part of the beta program is of course illegal, but it's philosophically a different matter, as you are likely (and entitled) to buy the final version at an upgrade price.
back to your and Admiral AKs question, Ed. if you're able to completely deinstall an expiring demoversion and reinstall it and use it for another 30 days, i guess the company could not do anything about it legally. it depends on the small print of the demo license, i believe, though. the greatest thing about those demo versions is education. you can offer a course in golive and use the 30 day trial for yourself and all of your students. that's what i did last summer. at the end of the course, one student informed me that he found such a life prolonging device. he called it a patch. i smiled and told him the same thing i said before: "buddy, that's fine with me, as long as you're not making a profit out of the software and as long as you know you're not a legitimate user of the software anymore. buy the stuff if you start to sell webpage design."
similar with Photoshop 7 builds. they're not public betas, so must be considered warez.
now. i'd say talking about this is nothing that rumour sites don't.
if one 'prolongs the life' of a beta (be it public or not) is changing the way the software is intended to be used. that's why most of the little helpers for this are named cracks (or krackz).
if you never bought a license for photoshop, the same reasoning must be applied to photoshop 7 betas like for photoshop 6, i guess.
if you are an owner of a photoshop 6 license, using a ps 7 beta without being part of the beta program is of course illegal, but it's philosophically a different matter, as you are likely (and entitled) to buy the final version at an upgrade price.
back to your and Admiral AKs question, Ed. if you're able to completely deinstall an expiring demoversion and reinstall it and use it for another 30 days, i guess the company could not do anything about it legally. it depends on the small print of the demo license, i believe, though. the greatest thing about those demo versions is education. you can offer a course in golive and use the 30 day trial for yourself and all of your students. that's what i did last summer. at the end of the course, one student informed me that he found such a life prolonging device. he called it a patch. i smiled and told him the same thing i said before: "buddy, that's fine with me, as long as you're not making a profit out of the software and as long as you know you're not a legitimate user of the software anymore. buy the stuff if you start to sell webpage design."
edX
mac shaman
I guess my perspective is pretty close to you guys on this one. I see nothing wrong with people who have paid for the last (or any previous ) version as being entitled to play with betas, publically issued or not. After all they are the target market and should get some say as to how the program is shaping up if they want. the idea that any beta should be withheld, assuming it is really a beta and not a glorified alpha, is absurd to me.
On the other hand i have no interest in certain kinds of betas - like norton products and osx. I have enough little quirks to work out with 'fully functional' system software to want to go there. and i don't really care about hearing about them because i like surprizes. knowing just makes the wait seem that much longer sometimes.
as far as the disabling of shareware expiration, i wish they would all just make it an annoyance to continue using it - like graphic converter. I continue to use it and put up with the 30 sec wait each time i launch it. Only recently have i started to feel like i occasionally use it enough that i should pay the price. to put it another way, it was only after my original expiration date had passed that i began to see a reason to buy it.
and every developer should make the expiration version specific. period. i should be able to evaluate each and every improvement before a product reaches a point that it is worth being paid for.
i am also ok with this idea that the shareware version is missing a few nice features as long as those features actually fuction once you buy. I hate Adobe's policy of keeping you from saving and printing right from the start. I rarely work on anything all in one sitting, so i am denied the opportunity to really test it the way i would use it.
i do believe things are far better than back in those days we traded disks and called and connected to a bbs just to find any software, but there is still room for improvement in the system.
On the other hand i have no interest in certain kinds of betas - like norton products and osx. I have enough little quirks to work out with 'fully functional' system software to want to go there. and i don't really care about hearing about them because i like surprizes. knowing just makes the wait seem that much longer sometimes.
as far as the disabling of shareware expiration, i wish they would all just make it an annoyance to continue using it - like graphic converter. I continue to use it and put up with the 30 sec wait each time i launch it. Only recently have i started to feel like i occasionally use it enough that i should pay the price. to put it another way, it was only after my original expiration date had passed that i began to see a reason to buy it.
and every developer should make the expiration version specific. period. i should be able to evaluate each and every improvement before a product reaches a point that it is worth being paid for.
i am also ok with this idea that the shareware version is missing a few nice features as long as those features actually fuction once you buy. I hate Adobe's policy of keeping you from saving and printing right from the start. I rarely work on anything all in one sitting, so i am denied the opportunity to really test it the way i would use it.
i do believe things are far better than back in those days we traded disks and called and connected to a bbs just to find any software, but there is still room for improvement in the system.