Each country is responsible for controlling illegal business activity inside its borders and the laws are different in each country.

Yes in Philadelphia if a client knowingly purchases illegal material he has committed a crime. the only defense is that he did not know the item was illegal. Even then he must return the item to the rightful owners and he loses his money. He can try to sue the criminals that sold him the illegal item to get his money back but that probably won't work.

So if a guy from Philadelphia bought a 50 dollar copy of photoshop from a Russian site Adobe has the right to accuse him of knowingly receiving illegal goods and that person would have no defense since $50 is obviously the price for an illegal copy.

A country cannot shut down a site that originates in another country it would be considered and act of war.
A country that blocks sites would be infringing on freedom of speech.
They do that in China and some other countries but in the US and the EU there would be a huge outcry.

Most countries do try to shut down sites that are obviously illegal, but often those sites just reformat with a new site and a new domain so the police are always one step behind. In the US there are police dedicated to finding web sites that sell illegal goods and I assume that the EU countries have these as well. But some countries like Russia just don't give a damn.

Other countries like china are actively involved in the pirated software trade. China is considered to be the leading source for pirated software and I don't think much business goes on in China without the government knowing about it.

A friend of mine once told me that Russia would never have its own software industry because nobody pays for software in Russia, you can't make any money. I think this is important to remember for game developers.

You can't make a game targeting the Russian market unless you plan on giving away the game.

Yes it is serious issue, lawyers, police and government officials talk about it a lot.

My God...I was going to declare the third world war

I was simply wondering why the brownsers and the credit card companies do not filter these sites if they are illegal

All over the world , not only in USA even in Russia it is not allowed ( officially ) to purchase illegal stuff

Maybe there is an explanation

These sites are not illegal, provide you dont make a profit i.e these software are meant for non commercial use
They make very clear that user licence is not included

Any lawyer in this site ?

The reason for asking is that I would like to purchase a very expensive software just for hobby ( nothing to do with game programming )

"I was simply wondering why the brownsers and the credit card companies do not filter these sites if they are illegal"

Money..... A credit card company will only go after illegal transactions if it saves them money, makes them look good, or they are forced to.

Look at how a credit card company makes money. They make money per transaction. It doesn't matter if the transaction is legal or not. Web servers are the same. They get paid if the merchanise is legal or not. Unless a website is stealing card numbers or hijacking a domain the companies make money.

So when a website sells illegal goods the only one who loses is the software manufacturer and the government. You get cheap software, the seller makes his profit, the credit card company gets its percentage, the webhost gets paid. Of course you may also get buggy software that is not what it is supposed to be, the credit card company and the webhost might get stiffed but what do you expect when you deal with thieves.

Really the people with the most incentive to close down these sites is the government... they loose tax revenue. But if a government doesn't tax these transactions why would they close them down?

Credit card companies might have the interest to deal with everybody but why dont the local authorities in each country prevent them from accepting money transictions with illegal sites ?

I dont suppose that a bank can make business, not at least officially, with criminals
E-commerce is getting more and more important nowadays
No control at all ?
Hard to believe

"why dont the local authorities in each country prevent them from accepting money transictions with illegal sites ?"

Oh they do but they are understaffed and underfunded.

And the only way they can determine if a transaction is illegal is if the original owner/manufacturer files a complaint. Some companies do not bother, and some companies are actively involved in the selling of cheap software. So as the theory goes if a software company knows that a percentage of its software will be pirated why not sell that software out the backdoor. Pretend to be a software pirate and then you at least make some money off your product.

Remember that these guys probably are not gang members who are trying to sell you a jacked car. These guys probably have university degrees in business and/or software programming. Smart guys who use their powers for evil


"I dont suppose that a bank can make business, not at least officially, with criminals"

define criminals

If I make a payment on a foreign account via my bank I must fill it up a questionaire
While by credit card or PayPal you can transfer money everywhere , even to illegal organization , without any control ?
Do you mean that none of the software houses or their official retailers have never complained ?
Or , if they did, the authorities , all over the world, can do nothing or they simply do not care
Nevertheless you could be sued
Again, hard to believe