Comments on: Middle-Class Piracy in the Software Industry

By: Filler » Middle-class Piracy in Movies and Television

Filler » Middle-class Piracy in Movies and Television — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 18:03:06 +0000

[...] recap, I’ve written lately about middle-class piracy and how it affects the software industry. My friend is a pirate, but he pays for things when it’s convenient, [...]

By: Filler » Middle-Class Piracy in the Software Industry, take 2

Filler » Middle-Class Piracy in the Software Industry, take 2 — Fri, 30 May 2008 16:47:16 +0000

[...] recap, I’ve written lately about middle-class piracy and how it affects the software industry. My friend, the pirate, a really nice guy who’s kind of lazy, is a prime example. He could [...]

By: ast_tree

ast_tree — Thu, 29 May 2008 01:10:12 +0000

I believe that IP/piracy is surrounded by loads of BS I won’t buy. If you want my money, then convince me. Is you sell crap and I, somehow, happen to need it, I will download it for free. If you sue your clients, don’t expect me among them, I will be a freeloader.

That said, even TPM was broken in a month. If cracks/debuggers are forbidden in your country (hello, germany), you will get them anyway, so you find the jz and change it to be a nop, end of story. It’s a lost war since securom was broken.

By: boo

boo — Thu, 29 May 2008 00:05:39 +0000

I have the same issues with music. I’ve stopped buying music from Itunes because too often I’ve been unable to listen to music that I’ve paid for. Several times I’ve downloaded torrents of albums I’ve purchased because the DRM files don’t work for one reason or another. I wish I could get all of my music on Amie Street. Nothing is DRM’d and once I’ve paid for something I can download it again as often as I like.

By: Nerdmaster

Nerdmaster — Wed, 28 May 2008 22:37:13 +0000

Good point about Steam. Stardock Central is somewhat better here - usually they have an option on purchase to get sent a CD if you don’t want just the download. Now, the easily-cracked aspect is a separate issue I’ll get into Friday. For now, keep in mind that almost all systems for mass-market games are easily cracked, and those that aren’t tend to be … “iffy.”

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 28 May 2008 22:19:12 +0000

Steam is not a solution at all… it’s easy to crack, and requires that you download your software over and over again. Which takes forever, now that games can require multiple DVDs. I saw people have to sit out of a LAN party because something went wrong and they had to spend the whole night waiting for the game to download again through Steam. I know lots of people who are on dial-up; some don’t even have higher-speed options available in their area — so they’re just not allowed to play now?

By: Nerdmaster

Nerdmaster — Wed, 28 May 2008 21:29:47 +0000

Kupo, you're stealing my thunder :)

Friday I'll finish up about software, and Steam and Stardock Central are actually both great ways of dealing with the piracy situation. At least, for us middle-class folks who are just lazy pirates.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 28 May 2008 16:53:57 +0000

Well, dongle protections can range from extremely simple (one “hello are you there” check) to reasonably hard (challenge-response schemes which have to be emulated with dumped data) to really hard (an essential part of the program executing on the dongle).

By: Kupo

Kupo — Wed, 28 May 2008 16:10:13 +0000

I think what’s needed is a Steam for general software. I like steam because you can log into your account and download the stuff you’ve paid for to whatever computer as many times as you like.

Once someone implements this and gets most commerical software onboard, they’re onto a winner.

By: markus

markus — Wed, 28 May 2008 15:23:18 +0000

My personal problem is that the word "piracy" implies something organized.

I refuse to use that word, and I hope others have the same goal.