Scott Kane wrote: "LOL! It's even nicer to bring a pathetic crack site down. The ones that really make me laugh, when I'm searching for cracks of my software (funny how Google lists crack sites, but everyday business find it so hard to get a listing..) is when they list all their "warez" and put a copyright message at the bottom of each page. <g>
Scott" I could, at least potentially, understand somebody pirating software for profit, BUT what I cannot understand is why the web seems to be full of software that has been pirated for no reason at all beyond that "it is there". And I do agree that pirating software is morally wrong. My "moral loophole" (dangerous terminology) is where a piece of software is no longer available but which is still desired and required. Unfortunately, converting an old Hypercard stack to a RR one is very rarely simply a case of opening the HC stack with RR - were that the case nobody would have avy reason whatsoever to need the Hypercard development environment. It seems bloody-minded and churlish of Apple to have withdrawn Hypercard completely - after all, they could still make the odd buck here and there. There is another factor that has not been mentioned in this discussion so far: that of what I would term 'legal parity' across international boundaries. This can lead all sorts of innocent end-users unwittingly into all sorts of traps. For example: I recently authored a CD-ROM (using Metacard) containing 60 Bulgarian literary 'themes' for 14 year-old Bulgarians to prepare themselves for Grammar-school entrance exams. These are copyright under Bulgarian law. However, if somebody picks up a copy of my CD and goes for a day trip to Turkey or Macedonia, as long as they can demonstrate that they were outwith Bulgaria at that time, there is absolutely no legal redress should they pirate the whole shebang and market it back in Bulgaria under their label. Needless to say, I have covered 25 percent of production costs so far! What a business genius! The other problem is that the US is percieved (no, surely not?) as a bully in other parts of the world - and it may be in certain political and economic spheres - so, by extension, a lot of US software legislation is seen as a US imposition on the 'have nots': in Bulgaria pirating software is a national sport and seen as a way for the "poor" Bulgarians to get their own back on the US. I have discovered this to my cost when advertising my "one-step program to software legality"; i.e. chuck out MS Windows and MS Office and install Ubuntu Linux and Open Office for the price of half a week's food-shopping. sincerely, Richmond Mathewson __________________________________________________ See Mathewson's software at: http://members.maclaunch.com/richmond/default.html _______________________________________ --------------------------------------------------------------- The Think Different Store http://www.thinkdifferentstore.com/ For All Your Mac Gear --------------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ use-revolution mailing list [email protected] Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
