Indy developer wants to know from pirates why they pirate

I did a quick search to see if this was posted yet, and nothing came up, so I'm now posting it. In case there is already a topic about it, my apologies.

Now, Indy-developer Cliff Harris is asking the pirates why they are pirating his games. Piracy and the reasons for it is, depending on your viewpoint, a very complex issues with lots of things to consider, or really amazingly simple (why paying if you can get it for free!). The thing is, he is asking them directly, and now, the first results are in. He has posted his article on numerous sites, including slashdot and the Penny Arcade-forums. There are more links on the "results"-page, if you want them.

So... what do you think? What causes piracy? Was the experiment worthwile? Do you think it can be stopped, or that maybe other questions should be asked first (i.e. who uploads these things? who develops cracks, etc.?).
Since piracy is a sensitive issue, I suppose it'd be a good idea not to give any links or information on where to find illegal software.

However, we as indy developers might be affected to, one day, when we finish our new kickass MMORPG (it's gonna be awesome, definately better than WoW!). Maybe some of you were already?


I hope this thread is not against the rules, but I really find this experiment interesting and wanted others to know about it, too.

Thank you Error014.

I read the results page and a few of the linked forum posts. I found it interesting the effort that Cliff Harris put into analyzing, categorizing, and summarizing the results. I hope that the results make there way to developers beyond the indie level.

For anyone that doesn't like long posts, I will apologize now. For those that don't mind a bit of a read, here are my thoughts. I have had many discussions with people on this subject (more related to music, movies, and television content). As with the deductions that Harris made, my thoughts have revolved around three points: cost; quality; accessibility.

Cost - Market the product at a cost that is suited to the consumers. I recall a magazine article I read many years ago when I was in my teen years, claiming that the majority of disposable income is in the hands of teenagers. Although that was written over three decades ago I still believe that to be true. This same group however is timid to spend too much on one thing. I remember buying record albums and feeling really bad about spending $20, especially when there were only three or four songs that I liked. This has been somewhat resolved by companies like PureTracks that allows for the purchase of individual tracks for a reasonable cost. The danger is that distributors will increase prices defeating the benefit in this form of marketing.

Quality - Too much of the entertainment industry is driven by the volume of product moved and speed to market regardless of the value of the content. In one of the management courses I attended, we examined new product marketing. The statistics presented were that 15% of consumers will buy a product because it's 'new', 50% of consumers will migrate to a product over time with sufficient advertising (whether through media or 'word-of-mouth'), 30% may eventually buy a product when it has become established, and 5% will never buy it. The pay-back for investing quality into the product is that less money is required to promote that product to the second-tier as word-of-mouth is based on satisfaction. Potentially, a high quality product will reach 65% of the available consumers. High quality product generates consumer satisfaction. This builds a reputation or branding that will influence consumer acceptance to the next product marketed of that brand.

Accessibility - The simpler you make it for people to get something, the more likely they will get it. For me, it would be a bit of an adventure to drive to an orchard to pick a basket of apples however it's a minor task to go to my local store.

Again, sorry for the long post. I get carried away sometimes.

cause of the price(even idiots know that)!

and it seems we found one to give us that answer thanks bomber

Piracy has been introduced and made 80% of the time by the people selling that item, usually as a benchmark to get to bigger rewards. Once what seemed as a good idea of selling cd + dvd writers, being able to play copied games on a PS1 by using a match and spring (sorry if people didn't know that), playing copied and imported games by pressing a sequence of buttons on the PS2, and writing games and movies to memory sticks on the PSP has now been made slightly more difficult and challenging for console gamers.

After the dreamcast lost sales because it was harder to chip (and sh*t in some opinions), GameCube with noway of accessing their discs and has since failed and then the Wii taking over the market by storm, as piracy for it could be achieved copying games.

Although this isn't the only answer, piracy is driven by accessibility.
If things weren't accessible to be tampered with, they wouldn't be tampered with.

And if it were the price that was the only answer, then why is piracy on PC games higher than on console games, when console game sales outweigh pc game sale 5-1

Just my thoughts on it all... someones turn to tell me I'm wrong now

well you have to take into consideration that some people like to do certian things just because they know there not supposed to do them , for instance tell a child "dont touch this cigarette lighter its dangerous" after saying this , all the child is going to want to do is to touch the lighter . there's my two cents

Whats wrong with touching the cigarette lighter?

well nothing , if you want your child to burn down your house ,
or start smoking i geuss , but the point is certian people want to do things simply because thier not supposed to.

cause more ppl own pcs,console game sales outweigh pc game sale 5-1 is because a lot of ppl use pirated pc game discs

If we'll take Russia about 5-10 years ago, when i was a kid, i thought that every game or program costs about 2 dollars and installing a crack or a patch is a required step of installation. Even the idea that a piece of software can cost several thousand dollars seemed crazy to me(and still some people think the same). Now things are starting to change, and i see less pirated games and software in the shops. Sometimes funny things occur - i remember i saw a licenced dvd of some film that was CHEAPER than pirated to attract customers I suppose piracy won't be stopped completely, but it can be reduced(lower prices, stricter laws)

It's the same in China, we have ppl sellin pirated games everywhere(but u wont be able 2 find 3dgs there, I guess there's 1 thing good about being small)

you can't use an argument to justify the same argument...

but you do agree it's accessibility and not cost then? or are you saying over 80% of pc games are pirated?

Selling pirated games.. you can then just as well download them :l
Anyway, I buy a game I like because I think it's worth it. But I only started buying them after I found out the online payment system. (Not that I pirated them before, ofcourse, I simply lent them for a while from... a friend <.<. Not that 'lego creator' cares if I downloaded the game for free). If I see a game now that I would want to play, but too expensive for my taste, I wouldn't buy it, nor download it, nor play it. And actually, I see more and more people around me doing the same. I guess that's what you get when you grow up .

Oh, P.S:
WEr can I doqwnlaod big rigs?!? I herd teh game wsa VEry god but can donload ANYWER PLES HELP???!!

Yes, yes I had to say that.

I know some people pirate software simply because 30 days isnt enough to test certain things. I'll have to admit (and I was under 18 when I did it, and I dont do it anymore, and obviously I bought it) I did it with 3dgs. I had a cracked a6.31 pro version, I didnt use any pro features, but tested all the comm. features until I thought I was decent enough with it to know that it was something to could do and would meet my needs.

I don't understand most of the excuses of the pirates. Let us take "low quality" as an example.

If you don't like a product and it's quality why do you have to steal it then? You can just ignore it.

I think the reason is another one. Most of these facts are just an excuse to explain the own behavior and to see yourself in a slightly better light.

The real reason is just the accessibility. If they could steal their food without getting caught - they would do it as well. They are thieves no more - no less.

It will be hard for Cliff Harris to turn the pirates into honest customers just with dropping DRM and improving quality.

"I think the reason is another one. Most of these facts are just an excuse to explain the own behavior and to see yourself in a slightly better light.

The real reason is just the accessibility. If they could steal their food without getting caught - they would do it as well. They are thieves no more - no less."

That is one hundred percent wrong in my case. I have never pirated something that I didnt plan to buy if I found it sufficient. 30 days is just not enough to see if something is worth $200. I dont do it anymore, but I used to and it has nothing to do with trying to see myself in a better light. I just dont feel like spending $200 on something im not going to use.

lostclimate: I was talking about pirated games. I really doubt that someone buys a game after he tested it over a period of 30 days
Then he/she already won the game and played it to the end.

But regarding more expensive tools: The publisher can offer you a test version of that software. If this is not enough then you don't have to buy it. You can tell it the publisher instead of stealing. Often they help you then. Lightwave offers you an unlimited test version in terms of time. But you cannot save.

There must be some restriction to offer an incentive to buy.

Perhaps it's just because most pirates are lazy. Downloading is the easiest and quickest way to play the game. And this is not something you could solve with today technology. Even if you could offer instant play when charging 60 euro, the 60 euro is too expensive to cover the download time of 4GB data.

I do think that in the future, big browser games can't be pirated at all, you have to pay but you can play instantly. It's just a matter of time before game piracy is gone .

"
There must be some restriction to offer an incentive to buy."

yeah, distribution.. in the license you'd not be allowed to distribute your files in anyway, not for free, not for commercial, not even for people to look at. that way the only purpose of using the software is to figure it out and possible get better at it. Also i do like lightwaves idea, the only problem is that if you do it that way, you can only check out so many options because it takes a certain amount of time with a model to see when you need to do something. As far as the games... there really is no excuse... the only thing i could say is those that download old games that you cant find as easy in stores have a small excuse, but not really that good of one.w

One thing nobody has mentioned is that people often feel ripped off by the people selling the software. I think this is a big factor in stealing music. Who cares if you steal a song from a rich cokehead singer right? So who cares if you steal a $50 game from EA, right? the last $50 game you bought legally was a piece of crap. So I think good customer service and PR would cut down on some piracy.
I have seen some of the stuff they sell in Russia, it is outrageous, and they sell it openly on the street. I saw an entire package of microsoft software selling for a fraction of what it should cost. But I think its different in the US. You actually have to work a little harder to get pirated stuff. I think it makes some people feel cool, They feel that they are hacking into the matrix when really all they are doing is shoplifting. So I think that these people also feel like they are fighting against Microsoft, EA games or whatever big evil company they are stealing software from. So maybe Indie games have some immunity from this, and maybe some good PR will reduce piracy. In a town where I use to live one of the movie theaters use to get constantly trashed by people. The manager started getting up before each movie and asking people politely to not make such a mess and keep their feet off the chairs, and it worked. people got to know him and it is hard to trash something when someone personally asks you not to. So I think someone from a software company needs to try to develop good relations with people who are using the product.
But some people will always steal because they can.

that's just ludicrous... you want someone from each software dev company was to personally ask someone using pirated their software not to... this would end up costing more to the consumers, lead to less people buying, then more people pirating, and an absolute opposite or what you'd hope to achieve...

if someone wants to steal something, they'll steal it, simple as. you can't say that if something costs too much it's then justified that these people are then put into the pirates category to make it seem ok of fighting the large corporations

if a car costs too much, people leave it alone and choose a cheaper version... why should the same not happen for software, is it just that cheaper versions of the same software are not available?

it's because noone gives a crap about it! In China even schools and use pirated software cause noone gives a damn about it, no1 can see why buying software can be better than pirating them

No it is not ludicrous , it is called good public relations. If a business wants to do well it must have good relations with its customers. You do not think someone from a company should personally relate to its customers? Just what do you think Steve Jobs does? He is the highest paid cell phone salesman in the world. Millions of teenage airheads think the iphone is cool just because Steve Jobs says it is. Every company must have a PR department, and yes part of the job of the PR department is to encourage good relations which will reduce theft. Really it is just basic economic theory.
I did not say people were stealing software because it is to expensive. I said they were stealing it because they feel ripped off . Because of the lousy PR by the big game developers people just do not understand why games cost so much. I think cost has very little to do with stealing except when people feel they are being taken advantage of.
And I never said that anyone was justified stealing software. I said that having a personal relationship with your customers will reduce piracy.

"noone" is a little exaggeration. This counts for your county but not for all countries in this world. Some people appreciate the good work of others. If all people think like you then there will be no more commercial software around the world, only hobby open source projects can survive. How many good open source games did you play in the past?

If you dont want the industry to die then a few people should pay the bills. Many artists, programmers and administrative people work hard for that.

What about you? Maybe you finish a game, a product, maybe you harvest some vegetable or rice from the fields. Do you want us to steal it from you because "noone gives a crap about it"?

It is very sad what you wrote here.

Lol. How many bags of rice do you think we could sneak away with in the middle of the night? Maybe $10 worth?


bomber doesnt give a crap about bills! He is thirteen. His mommy and daddy pay the bills. Or maybe communist china has free rent for everyone!

Frank, I wouldn't even waste your time to argue with this stupidity if I were you.

@all You can choose to believe it or not. Yin and yang. Karma. What comes around goes around. Vorsehung. Jesus. Whatever you believe. If criminals think they will get away with stealing they are just fooling themselves. I have lived long enough to realize that consequences have a way of catching up with everybody. You can trust old uncle Nitro on that one.

Inflated Price combined with a mentality that decides what is justifiable as inflated or not. Could be 5$ for Majong, or 3000$ for Max or Maya... It's all the same to a pirate. Don't forget about the virus's and fun bonus features!

Well this is what the situation is like, I mean some huge companies and some gov deparments still use pirated software so u can see what the situation is like

When it comes to an entertainment product like games , music or film people who pirate think they have a right which was given them at birth for entertainment without doing something for it. If I read about people who went to the movie theater and after the movie they write a review online and talking about that the movie was bad and they want their money back because of this, I always think about these guys no one forces you the see the movie in the first place. If you are buying a ticket to an entertainment event there is the risk that some of the stuff will not fit your needs.

When it comes to software it is mostly the price but people who are really serious about what they want to do with the software will buy it. I m a proponent of digital distribution like steam which does a very good job in making it more valuable to people to buy games.


The people of today are overwhelmed buy so much media that more and more they start to think it is all just for them, for free but they forget that this stuff was made by people who also need to eat, breath and live thats why you pay money it is as simple as that.

There are some key factors:

• It's bcz free is always going to be cheaper.

• money isn't worth what it used to be and there seems to be less of it these days!

• Fundementally software companies need to find a different way to make money from their games and applications. The internet is a good business model for today, software applications should be generating income in similiar ways.

• Schools should NEVER have to pay for MS Office or any such applications.After all you're training these kids to use this software in their working lives which drives business to use your software, business are easier to piracy enforce.

We are rapidly reaching satriation point with more choice than ever before accross all of our digital markets. The consumer has less cash to spend in the first place and so much to choose from it's no suprise that they want to try before they buy or, in my opinion, the vast choice simply undervalues the product to the consumer and just like the old days of recording songs from the radio, it's far too accessible and therefore easier to pirate.

We couldn't stop this progress even if we wanted to, so it's about time software companies moved stepped up to the plate.

Think outside the box.... pah!

What do you mean by this?

Yeah, I haven't been in Russia for quite some time now, but those 7Wolf versions of games were always mad popular in Russia... That 'company' must have made millions,




Now that's a serious problem if you want to sell things...

However, everybody knows the whole idea behind paying for something is that you want something so bad, that you pay to get it. Apparently games for many people aren't worth paying for anymore. That's the real problem, the mindset on games, not really the fact that games often are available on warez sites.



They probably are going to, but I think using in-game ads to fund games is a very very very bad development.



The only way to counter this is for developers to become less greedy and sell their games for cheap. Simple.. It's also not healthy how some developers HAVE to make millions of one of their titles just to NOT go bankrupt. There's something seriously crazy about that also.



Yes, but I think it's reasonable to expect from the industry to especially step up their game as far as copy protection goes. I wouldn't mind if games were sold for far far less money if at the same time I have to install a complex copy protection system on my PC. As long as it's free from spyware and won't crash my PC, I couldn't really care less...

Cheers

one of my issues is that lately i find my self liking a game enough to pay more than $10 for it less and less

I'll buy a game if its content pipeline err gameplay or whatever you would call it requires a network subscription (and the requirement is valid and not just padding the bill) such as mmo's, metaverses, and steam games where you must be valid to participate in the community AND the community is worth a true desire to participate in (cs:s, quakewars,auidosurf,etc..) if its a single player game... forget it.. no need to buy it by my mind. The single player market is pretty dead anyway I mean, when was the last 20 hour+ adventure game you finished? I think mine was Oblivion, and I bought that cuz it was fantastic for a 1player game and the whole time i just wished i could lan up with my buddies.

So you see, I will support 1player games, but Im not likely to do so with crap like "murder at the abbey" hitting the shelves. In contrast, I have preorders on both spore and the sims 3. I have also, in the past, dumped more $$ into secondlife than I care to admit.

Honestly,
Neurosys

Uncle nitro is obviously not aware of the p2p situation as it exists in the world today.

I think Nitro is talking about Karma or something.

Copyright Infringement != Theft. I can´t understand why anyone would compare it to shoplifting. It would only be the same if the shelf magically filled itself again with copies of the taken objects. This won´t happen until there are replicators like in Star Trek.

I agree with Indiglow. The old idea of selling copies of bytes will work less and less and people will have to think of new business models.

Yeah thats what I mean. Things we do wrong have a way of coming back and kicking us. Not a very scientific opinion, I admit...but I believe it and have seen it Thanks for the help clarifying amy!

What I mean't by this was better put by Amy.



I would not like to see advertising in games becoming the main income for games development teams, any more than the next man. But then I also hate spam mail and pop-up advertising. Realistically this is a likely business model to see in the future, although I am sure there will be others.

The current MMO trend is a good reflection of the industry reaction, after all paying a smaller repeat fee to be a member, where your data is stored on their servers, stops copyright being a major issue. No account? can't play!

As games move more and more online, the ability to pirate software will be come something of a mute point.

Still those that can't hit the market with a strong and possibly unique MMO ip, may find it harder to get a real ROI for their product.

Very interesting times we live in

There are new business models as you can see in the world around you:

• online-activation
• online gaming
• launching new titles first on console platforms
• gaming clubs via browser

The problem for the industry is: retail prices kept constant while production costs are rising more and more. The usual customer wants to have highest quality, wants a new block buster but don't want to pay more for that, no, they even want to get it for free.

Maybe sometimes you get tons of advertising in games in the future, like the breaks in television. Maybe you get free games with in-game advertising or you have to watch a trailer at every start. I find all this very bothering and this is the reason why I don't watch movies at television. But the majority does.

The market will decide, paying customers will steer, pirates can only destroy.

or ingame advertising, which i wouldnt mind playing a racing game, and seeing a mcdonalds at the next exit billboard on the side of the road, if anything, that just makes the game more real.

I agree with that, also think of it this way, if a game like SOCOM, now can be bought for 15 bucks... but when it came out was sold for 59 bucks... why couldn't it have come out at 20 bucks? why raise the price soo much, the only thing I can think of, is to pay off the dev team, but even then, you don't really need to do that right away, plus if a game comes out at a lower price, more people will buy it.

Also there already is advertising in games, think of at the very start of games, sometimes it shows another company, or even they're company, also don't forget about the advertising on a developers web site, that makes big bucks

Another thing, it's really not hard, or expensive (for a big company) to buy a couple dedicated servers that only hold valid serial numbers, and once the serial is used up, it can't be used again, make a person create cridentials, so they have to log in to use things, not hard to do at all, it may be a little more annoying for honest people, but it's something that must be done

Also copying (notice I did use the word "stealing") is not illegal in EVERY country, just because it is in the states, or the UK, doesn't mean it is in Switzerland, or Canada (Although it is on the way to becoming illegal here) In Canada, the law currently states that you are allowed to download any content you want, as long as you are not uploading content (sharing content) and hence ISPs in Canada have started to limit upload speeds (And download speeds for another matter) but I can safely download a movie and not be stealing that movie.. Although I do agree it is dishonest, because people did work to make it, and it's the same with games, and songs

I also know for a fact that it's not illegal to download, or upload stuff in other countries around the world

Pirating and downloading are two different things, some people here seem to thing that pirating is downloading and playing the game... that is very incorrect, pirating is downloading, burning, and selling a game or movie, or songs, that is illegal, and the reason people do it, is because other people in the world who are not internet, or computer savvy don't know how to download movies, or games, so they go for the cheaper price, and voila, pirating

I think that you have to look at the forces of piracy as the water pressure behind a large damn. If there is a hole in the damn, the water will pour through. You can get into the physics of it-- the why-- but it doesn't change the fact that it will pour out. It is a problem by design, not intent. Folks intend on being good, and software makers intend on providing good services for a fee, but nonetheless people poke holes in "digital security" any way they can, and anything that can be done to mitigate or stop it helps to ensure that good folks support software makers with $.

Reducing the barriers to purchasing and creating feasible pricing structures helps. That is if it is simply less trouble for folks to purchase something, then they will go that route more often than not.

Let's suppose you have a highway.
It's speed limited, but since there is no further protection, people are speeding.

Speed limit is set to an even lower value, people keep speeding.
"Warning", "Danger", "Beware" traffic signs are installed, people keep speeding.

A system for catching speeders is installed, but after a short time people just drive car by car on several lanes and continue speeding, because now it cannot be detected which of the car was too fast (actually both were, but there is no proof).

So that didn't work out. Next step is to place some sort of station where you have to register before being allowed to use the highway. Additionally you are required to have a speed limiter you have to turn on each time you want to use the highway. Of course it's a special verson, so you need to buy it before and can't use it on the other highway.

Now what happens?

People you were speeding before just hide their vehicle id and continue speeding through the sand next to the highway bypassing all installations.

People who always drove with the right speed, long ago moved to another highway which takes them to some similar place they initially wanted to go.

really good illustration there.

julz

well i think this is all about money...
All softwares are very expensive, i mean, lets take gs pro as example,

it costs EUR 713.44 ... so, for portugal a ordinary worker will recieve each month 450 euros, so after 2 months you have the money to buy it, but of course, if you have to pay house bills, food, etc etc, you will take longer..
Now how is over there? how much you recieve each month? some countries have a different economical prices for min salary.

maybe over there its 700 euros, maybe 1000 euros? or maybe 200.. but the price to buy this engine is fixed. So.. its not fair for everybody.. That leads to game copies, because you dont have the money yet to buy it. but another friend over america does.. etc etc..


I know assemble and dissable, i learn cracking to protect my own programs, and applications.. but.. i can do crack almost any program. its a matter of time and paciente.

i dont know why i'm saying this.. but cracking is so easy, and you think:
"if i have the knowledge to make it "full version" why buy it? if i can have it, just by changings some lines of code.. i mean ... its a very strong tentation.. "

its like a pizza, you probably buy it, because its faster, and you pay more for it. but if you know how to do it by yourself, and you dont want to buy it, you can do it, then you just do it.. why buying if you know how to do it.. And you say its illegal to dissable a pizza, to know its ingredients.. so you cannot do the same pizza by youself lolol.

And i learned is learning illegal? i learn asm, and dissable, does that makes me a pirate? to learn, i need to pick some programs to test and use as real experiments, is that method of learning illegal.. i know how to crack and and do crack some programs when i need or they are annoying me with some screens sayings register now.. you have XXX time.. like milkshape one of the first versons i downloaded and cracked it 10 minutes or less.. i just needed the software for a while, i had no reasons to buy it, but i wanted to use it and those screens everytime i clicked to do something on the program, i had to disable that.. and they dont know that those screens are the first hint that leads for the code check and this making it full version?.. (O.o)

however i dont share my things, with others, and i dont contribute to piracy, i know how to do it, but i do it to protect my own applications.. and dont give them over internet. If i really like a software that i need it for a long period of time i buy it.

but i can't believe nobody of you had never used "cracked" things, cracked games, downloaded Mp3 etc ..

::::::::::
PS: by the way, the rules i know from my country its that you can download everything even crackings programs and games or music whatever you can, that legal, you cannot upload them ,cracked or mp3 etc..

So for us, the gov rules says its not illegal download piracy things, just who uploads them.

I hope this post dont causes me troble, i just wanted to contribute to the askwer of the topic.
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there are more important things to worry about.. cure for cancer, aids, any many diseases, alzeimer, aging, pollution, etc.. and we are always with out mind in fight, terrorismt, nunclear weapons, bombs, killing.. etc etc.. this world wont last if people wont change their focus, on the bad things to the good things.

We can think positive, if there is a crack, means the program is good, im sure, there is always someone buying if it really likes it.. cracking its perhaps 10% of the whole world problems probably. And there will be always fault in the system... like the manual says, there is no program bug safe, if there is a bug there is a fault , where someone can attack. There will be always the good and the bad, the poor and the rich, this is nature, we live in a world where everything is balanced, its a normal distribution graph, that how nature is, hot and cold, etc etc..

there is no need to fight, there will always be piracy... anyway if someone is good on cracking / hacking, there are companies that gives promotions invites :P .. cracking is art, understanding it is a "gift" and art and knowledge (know how to do it and do it) is not illegal i think.

I always played tombraider all the games, there is a new one that 9, and i friend of mine had it, and i had to played, but for me, it took only one day and this is true.. to finish the whole game wihout any crack or trainer things or codes cheats etc etc, the game is excelent, but too easy for me maybe, and i would't buy such a game that would give me 1 day of pleasure only.

if the post i did is agains rules please some moderator delete the post.

Sorry, I dont understand this. If you think, this game is not worth the money, then just dont play it! You dont have to play it. Nobody forces you to get TombRaider to your PC.

I have the same feeelings. I think that most games are too expensive at the day of release. 50 Euros for a game is often not worth at my mind. But I just wait half a year and I can get them for half price. I can wait even longer and get games for 10 Euros here in Germany. So why should I bother to crack, to steal, to be a bad example to my kids? I rather go into a supermarket with my son and buy a cheap game.

What you are doing is wrong. This also applies to the rest of products around us. If I cannot afford to sleep in a very expensive hotel then I dont do it. If I cannot afford an expensive car then I dont steal it. You could say, it is easy to open a car. You can learn it and it is not illegal to learn how to open a car. But it is not your property. It is just stealing.

i mean, i about TbRaider, i just got dissapointed, if i bought that game i would spend money for 1 day... but thats not the matter here.

Anyway, you have the real world, of thief, you can do it with cars etc.. and im not into that, i never will do it, just because its not my personality to do it.

Now, another thing is a software, which i dont think its realy a property ( since alot of people have it, but still its a property somehow, but not in the restricted way as a car.

And i'm not saying i steal, because i don't.. i just download, and then i crack it if i have the patience. i mean its not stealing, since the trial or demo is on the internet, and i downloaded it legally, then i just tweak it to fit my needs.. But one thing i must underline.. im not sharing with anyone such final cracked versions..., and i dont force anyone to do it. and i just use it for my self, for a short period of time, like i stated before, when i need to use it for longer period, i buy it, because i liked it, and i need the updates, and the extra features probably, that a trial don't come with.

I dont consider my self a hacker or something, i mean, you just need to go to notepad and change some bytes, and thats all.. you know, you need to change one hex byte and that can be enought to crack a low security program, now you tell me its illegal to open in notepad a program?

i never got rich with the use of illegal software, they did not got more poor because of me.. my schools use illegal Windows vista, its all around, its something its hard to fight. Bill gates knows that, do you think he cares? he wont get more richer or poor because of that. There is a large community (enterprises and such that will always the program original...) so for a standalone and personal end user version i think.. its not so "critical".

besided, when i say i know cracking and i did, dont means i still do it.

i usually have the money to buy software, im not rich but i do have money. Anyway cracking nowadays is becoming harder and harder. And its because of hackers that programs got better, more safe secure, etc etc. So there is a good side.

Do you remember monkey island? the copy protection was a scala ,you have to
turn it, to find the right word that you must enter. (My english is bad sry)

The other one was Anstoss 3, there you must type a word in.
example: Site 124 line 14, 3rd word.
That was effective and do not put any bad software on your pc, like steam
,securom, and another stuff that easy can kill your pc.(That was my experience)


And why the pirates pirate?
Easy: Because it is possible. It is in the human nature to do that.
It starts in the school in the pauses, easy to trade MP3's or Movies
over the MobilePhones. You can get a 8GB SD card for a few euros.

I think it will be hard to change the human nature, so that they never
steal again.

just my few sentence for that topic.

Is it illegal to use a hammer on a glass window pane?
Is it illegal to use a tool to open a door (to get into a car or into a house)?
Is it illegal to set a tv onto fire?

No, it is not as long as you are the owner of these objects.

But if you steal them you are a thief, just that, no excuses needed. You can live without TombRaider and your school can install Linux if they dont have the money to get a Vista license. And I am sure MS will offer very cheap licenses to schools, sometimes even for free.

In the case of editing software with notebook: Please read the license agreement and I am sure there is something written about decompiling or changing the code. I am very sure it is illegal to edit it in notepad.

well when i say school i say the school when you have 17 years old, im at university, and they give all students a original windows vista for free. They maybe have some alliance i dont know, but all we student can get it for free a genuine copy.

Anyway, i did not steal it!! i downloaded the trial! which is free and public .. so im not a thief. understand that, i just changed some things, that i downloaded legaly.. which is complelty different.

Just read the license agreement and you will see that it is not allowed to "change some things".

And I am sure you cannot download a full copy of TombRaider legally where you can "change some things" to make it a full game. The demo version is smaller and does not contain all levels. You probably searched for a warez version.

All these excuses dont make it legally or make you a saint. It is wrong, period.

you might be right.

but im sure not even you read all the licence agreements everytime you install a program.. By the way, there is no traslations for portuguese, in some softwares, and english is not my native lnaguage, and most of the text i can't understand very well. So its not my fault about reading something i cannot , because its i dont understand. Specially the laws part that they talk with a more rich volcubulary.

First i never said i played a warez version! beware of what you say...
I played the game a friend of mine had and it was not cracked.. and never stated i downloaded a full version of tombraider..


Think whatever you want, i just wanted to give my contribute to the topic.. and let them knows some stuff.

because i dont care.. the pirates always will be there.
And im not a thief. never did such things.
I wont come back to here, so .. you better get another topic to talk about. for me this is like a closed thread

This is a weak excuse. I will make a very exaggerated example to explain why I think so: If someone kills another people in another country he will get the penalty that is common in this country. There is no way to say: "I did not know that this is not allowed. I did not understand the laws."
No matter, it is wrong and will be prosecuted.

If you cannot read the license and if you do not understand it then you actually should not use it because you agree to the terms of license when you install this software. What if they write your soul belongs to them after installing it? You should better read it.

I am sorry if I bother you with my moral here. But I live from software. I sell business software, nutrition software, 3d models and textures. And if everybody would just steal it then I could stop this work immediately. So I often feel sad when I read about the easiness how people think about "doing some changes" to crack and steal software.
There is hard work involved of designers, artists and programmers, people from advertising and distribution. They all did good and hard work.

i totaly agree with you, they did a good job, dont forget im also a software designer, and off course i dont want people to start cracking. But i know there will be always those trying to crack,and the other that buy it, if it worths.

And i dont consider cracking steal. But i know what you want to say.
I don't steal, but even cracking i just do it for big companies, not for those small corporations or people doing there job standalone.
i crack things like winrar , winzip the like. things that there are already a crack outthere, but i dont get those who contains spywares, i do my own.

But i got your point. and i agree with you. but the fact is that crack is not everytime ok? i just do it sometimes when i really need it. and sometimes its not that simple.

What i usually use is a patcher program, the program search for a specific order of bytes and then it replaces it for another. That in some cases its enought to crack version 1, 2, 3, ... etc.. so i dont even need to crack everything again, i just need to download the legal trial or unregestered version.. and then run the patch already done, and it works (sometimes).

Of course this is like "phylosofie around" theme. And i dont need anyprogram right now. i stoped cracking for sometime, sometimes i can do it for fun, i mean, i change the paint program on vista, to have my initials, my toolbar names , and other costumized things etc..

Also knowking cracking art, helps alot for developers, to build more safer programs, and increase security...

I think i said everything... i dont have nothing more to say lol. you can go to those warez foruns , or teams, and learn cracking too, not for cracking but at least you learn how to fool some beginner crackers to not crack your software that easly.

What about the people working in big companies? Are they worse than standalone developers? Why should I do that?

It is still wrong and I will not do it. If I cannot afford 3ds max, then I use Blender, Lightwave, Silo, Wings or Modo. I see no good reason to do illegal stuff like this. What an example would I be to my kids?

even if you are a good example for them, nothing stop them from get cracked software.. I mean after all its all about money. Im sure the guys at those companies get the money anyway if the program is released, its not because someone cracked or something.

This is a difficult subject to talk about, of course, i dont like stealing, i dont consider this the real steal term, but i know its wrong, but, there are plenty of other wrong things like terrorismt, and others and noone do anything about it. Fight poberty fight for food .. etc.

While this is true I am not a police man, I am not a farmer. I am a programmer so I would rather fight for selling software

you right

another fact is that this is stealing, anyway you go about it. When you download or crack a program intended for sales(intellectual or medium) that action is profit not made, or a lost sale. The same as taking money....just my opinion though.

Every Windows PC has a unique ID to it, why not work around this? You can link it to this ID in a few different ways but would insure security to your program(s).

not exactly, not that its ok, but if i download a cracked version of 3dsmax that doesnt mean that if i didnt download it, they would have gotten me to buy the $3.5k program. On the same token, originally when i got 3dgs, i was 15 and got a cracked version of a6, darkbasic and a couple other engines. the reason for this is because i couldnt buy every one of them to see which was better. if i had not I'd never have bought a6. granted i still feel a little bad about it, it was wrong, but not necessarily inhibiting a sale.

This is not needed. There are evaluation versions of all these tools available. And even if you say "they would not have gotten me to buy the $3.5k program" they will ask for this money if they find this copy at your PC. At least this is what I read about Conitec. If they catch a warez user then he has to pay for the software and for the lawyer.

like i said, i dont deny it was wrong, but a 30 day evaluation does not necessarily give enough time, i like conitec's current setup with lite-c free, wish it used to be like that. Again, not a good thing to do, but it doesnt necessarily mean that the company is losing money if i do it.

Because software is over priced!

Hey send me your brand name jeans and i will pirate them for you at a price

You probably did not understand the markets. An overpriced tool cannot exist for long. Software is quite flexible and if you overprice your tool then another one will create a similar one. Actually you already find that everywhere.

Is Blender overpriced, or Wings3d, Silo, Lightwave, Modo? No, absolutely not. Maybe XSI or Max is overpriced but you dont have to steal it. There are enough alternatives. You are not making a blockbuster cinema movie. You even do not have the man power to do so. You just want to model a low poly object.
Most of the Max users here in the forum just create boxes and chairs. They could even use MED for that.

The reason is another one: People have no idea about the power of certain tools. They just follow some trends. And they believe a software can do the magic for them. So they also believe the most expensive tool will do the most magic. We all know that this is not the case in the fields of art. You have to become an artist, not a tool-user.

And what about games? Are they overpriced? I dont think so. I can get games for a budget price of 5-10 bucks.