Re: Is it okay for a student with limited financial resources to pirate software?
 

ndi, do you have any idea of the work that goes into one professionally-produced song?

Anyway, your last big post wins for most rationalizations in a single piece.

Re: Is it okay for a student with limited financial resources to pirate software?
 

I'm thinking this wasn't a compliment.... :p

Re: Is it okay for a student with limited financial resources to pirate software?
 

The law is the law, its not ok to pirate software regardless of your financial state.

That said, I have torrented half the trash on OVI store because the ******s at Nokia don't know what Paypal is.

Re: Is it okay for a student with limited financial resources to pirate software?
 

I used to use pirate software, partly because living in a third world country it was difficult to get this software legitimately anyway, partly because it's just so damn easy! I now live in the UK and I haven't pirated software in a long time, and I mostly use free open source alternatives anyway. I do download music, but I don't really see it as pirating, because when I download something and I like it then I go and buy a legitimate copy at a record shop, and if I don't like it then I never listen to it again. I certainly wouldn't buy an album if I didn't know already whether I liked it.

I think that if DRM was less restrictive people would pirate less, because if it's more of a hassle to get something through legitimate means, then many people will naturally choose the easier/illegal method.

It's all very well to bring morality into it, but everyone builds their own morality, morality is not universal as many would have one believe. Also things are never black and white.

Re: Is it okay for a student with limited financial resources to pirate software?
 

I don't think Paypal works outside the US and we know that Nokia is focused on the global market not just in the US. I know you want them to do something special for the US and I agree Paypal would be nice.

Still, it's no reason for name calling or stealing.

Re: Is it okay for a student with limited financial resources to pirate software?
 

I don't agree but I understand why you might think that.

Let me ask you then, about music. If you were a musician, you love making music and for you its a joy but also a ton of work to get it just right, you need agents, band members, equipment the whole works. Now let's say you only make $0.05 or $0.10 on every song, iTunes takes 30%, the label gets their cut, so forth and so on and then all that's left for you is a few measly percentages. Now, if you were full-time and the only way of sustaining, you, your family, your children, do you think you'd still be ok with the world downloading your songs for free? Again, I'm talking full-time profession, not just a part-time hobby you do after dinner before you go to sleep.

So when people say, yeah, it just a stupid digital song, it has no value, do you think that would make you feel good after you've poured yourself into your art? You think that's right?

Look, some people get rich, some people don't. When people think Microsoft they think Bill Gates with BILLIONS of dollars, when they think music, they think Michael Jackson with his Hundreds of Millions. The music and software industry employs thousands if not millions of other people who also depend on the revenue.

Sure, there are the rich in any industry, that DOES NOT mean you can steal from that industry as a whole because you're also stealing from the regular workers, not just the big names.

Sorry I just can't seem to get my mind wrapped around taking for free someone else's hard earned work. I'm a photographer so maybe for me I'm more sensitive because my work is digital as well and I don't like it when I hear people say that digital media has no value, and no I am not rich.

Re: Is it okay for a student with limited financial resources to pirate software?
 

Interesting to see the poll results and read the justifications on this discussion.

There was a fully functional, expensive cad/cam 3d software I tried a few years back that was handed out freely. We were encouraged to make copies to take home and give to friends. Their rational was that they wanted maximum exposure and they wanted potential customers to see how great it was.
They said anyone who profited from the software without purchasing it would vigorously pursued and sued.
I felt this was an interesting approach and indeed, many got hooked on it.

Something that irks me in Canada is how pay a 12 cent copyright levy on every blank cd sold based on the assumption that the disc will be used to copy an audio cd. Guilty before charged!
I've been told this is what makes blank cd's more expensive in Canada than blank DVD's.

In a similar vein, check out this interesting story about manufacturers charging to activate features that already exist. http://www.boingboing.net/2010/09/19...-crippled.html

Re: Is it okay for a student with limited financial resources to pirate software?
 

[/QUOTE]Getting people hooked has been a tried and tested strategy for getting your software out there. Most software companies have a way to let you try it without anyone having to resort to stealing.

That's a shame. If people didn't pirate, then it would be cheaper for everyone. Why Canada chooses to punish law abiding consumers is strange.

It's a new model. The fact of the matter is you get what you paid for. You pay for 3 cores you get 3 cores. You look at what people are paying for 4 cores and you decide that's too much for you. Fine. 2 years down the line, you things change, you use more resource intensive software. By then you start to think you want to upgrade because your CPU just can't hack it. In this solution, you pay a small fee and then bam, you are upgraded to a faster speed.

When you pay for the fourth core you get more speed. At the end of the day you still get what you paid for. If they decided to just physically break that last core, once you decided you need to upgrade your only option is to replace the chip or the system. In this case, for a small fee it extends the usage of your system by another year or two. Interesting model, no?

I think it's like Cable (if I understand how Cable works). The physical cable actually has data for hundreds of channels but you call up Comcast or whoever and unlock channels you want to watch. It's kinda the same, though this is totally off topic.

Re: Is it okay for a student with limited financial resources to pirate software?
 

Same here in Finland, but it includes almost every blank media you can store something on: CD, DVD, Blueray, VHS, C, memory cards, mp3 players, DVB recorders, etc.
But as I pay for it I might as well copy stuff then.

Re: Is it okay for a student with limited financial resources to pirate software?
 

The US did the same thing on VHS and audio cassette tapes and IMO it's the most reasonable solution overall.

We were actually going to be prevented from legally taping over-the-air content. The legal compromise was that we could do so for personal use only, and a small fee would be assessed to recordable media since the most common use of the media was for recording copyrighted material. I'm willing to bet that is equally true for CDs and DVDs.

Of course, some of that fee should go directly to the content creators. In cases where a decent amount does not, to me that's an injustice.

SOMEhow revenue must be captured and distributed for content creators. It's only fair. I'm willing to entertain better solutions than what's in place now.