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20,000 computer have been infected?
- Thread starter stevieapollo
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If you looked a bit further, there are plenty of pirates in the world, who attack boats and ships, threaten or kill the crew or passengers, and take everything they can. So piracy usually involves robbery, not just theft, and often murder. Calling copyright infringement "piracy" does injustice to a problem that is very severe in some parts of the world.
Copyright infringement is copyright infringement. It is not piracy, and it is not theft. That's not splitting hairs, that's using the right terms to be able to have a sensible discussion.
Everyone with an IQ higher than their shoe size knows that "piracy" is used as a term for "copyright infringement". If you look up "copyright infringement" in Wikipedia, you'll see:
All I gotta say is the moral relativism and rationalization in this thread are making my head spin
It's slang.
Do you take umbrage when someone says that they "love" a desert? Do you feel that your relationships have been cheapened by colloquial use of the word?
How about when someone says that a shop's prices are murder? Does that do an injustice to a problem that is very severe in most parts of the world?
"Copyright infringement", while technically more accurate, is too cumbersome to use in casual conversation.
How do you figure? It's okay to take something that isn't yours, without paying for it? I'm going to Best Buy to see if I can "Pirate" a new HD TV...
tell that to my probation officer.
So what makes equating copyright infringement with piracy okay but equating piracy with theft not okay?
Do you realize how petty it would be to rat out someone you don't even know on the internets all because someone is breaking copyright law over a $79.00 piece of software? I doubt Apple would try to enforce it, because the costs to themselves would far outweigh the gains.
Adobe Photoshop is one such software that is highly pirated. Instead of dropping the price, however, in order to sell more copies, they hike the price and claim that only professionals should use it (and only professionals and rich amateurs could afford it). Piracy tends to come hand and hand with absurd pricing. And instead of Adobe realizing this, they flick people off and raise their prices substantially.
Piracy of Adobe CS4 is a protest to the outrageous behavior of Adobe in marketing their software. Drop the prices to about which virtually everyone can afford, and see their profits increase.
Take all the people creating flash videos from Newgrounds, AlbinoBlacksheep, EbaumsWorld, etc (who a majority of these flash animationists utilize these stolen applications), and provide them with an inexpensive, full range suite, and see how Adobe's prospects are. My guess would be higher.
As for music, you'd be surprised how often the RIAA goes after people who download songs that have been released onto P2P by the bands themselves.
Then how do you explain 20,000 cases of pirating iWork, which is only $79? The fact is, you can't justify piracy because of pricing that YOU think is too high. This is America, the land of free enterprise. Anyone can make a product and offer it for sale at any price they choose. If the price is too high, no one will buy it. Supply and demand influence prices. If there weren't millions of people who think Photoshop is worth $1000 and pay it, Adobe wouldn't keep the price there.
Sigh.
Once again, how can you seriously sit there and compare the Creative Suite, lets say, Master collection to IWORK. My mind is being BLOWN right now by the sheer stupidity of some people.
Creative Suite 4 :
Photoshop (which alone is in its 11th version and rivals logic and final cut pro in its power and complexity)
Illustrator
InDesign
Acrobat
Flash
Dreamweaver
Fireworks
Contribute
After Effects
Premiere Pro
Soundbooth
Encore
OnLocation
Bridge
Version Cue
Device Central
and Dynamic Link.
Jist? You can record and make a feature length film, create the website and avertising materials, have an entire workflow so that your team can manage it and post process the snot out of it. That or 250 other ways the suite can be used.
Vs. iWork
Pages, numbers and keynote. Wow. Thats it.
Now, you can continue to justify stealing a program because you 'deserve' it or that you don't realize the power of the components, or you and some buddies can chip in, buy up the master collection for 2.5k (or less if you are a student). Divy up the roles amongst the group (one photographer/animater, one audio guy, one web guy etc) and learn all the programs, then venture out into the world and make serious cash; only if you are good at what you can do. If you can obtain a return on your investment of iWork by giving presentations all day, then more power too you. But Adobe is where its at because the cost of the software is in line with the revenue it can create straight from the box...that, and computer programmers are really picky and expensive.
I would do it in a heartbeat on principal alone. Theft is not a legitimate form of protest.
By the way its internet (singuilar)
Enough piracy talk...
Here's the darn removal tool for OSX.Trojan.iServices.A and B.
http://macscan.securemac.com/files/iWorkServicesTrojanRemovalTool.dmg
This should work for both the Trojan loaded into the Adobe Photoshop CS4 and iWork '09 packages as they are respectively the same, only a different variant.
Keep in mind to all that state "you shouldn't type in your password and you won't get infected" should know that this Trojan hides itself as part of the installer package. Anytime you install an application using the Apple Installer or something similar such as MindVision Installer, Stuffit InstallerMaker, etc, you are prompted to enter your password. If you want the software installed, you have to enter your password. So, not only do you install the software you want, you also installed the Trojan.
In my eyes, Apple needs to start going to signed packages as this could get really ugly really quickly.
Here's the darn removal tool for OSX.Trojan.iServices.A and B.
http://macscan.securemac.com/files/iWorkServicesTrojanRemovalTool.dmg
This should work for both the Trojan loaded into the Adobe Photoshop CS4 and iWork '09 packages as they are respectively the same, only a different variant.
Keep in mind to all that state "you shouldn't type in your password and you won't get infected" should know that this Trojan hides itself as part of the installer package. Anytime you install an application using the Apple Installer or something similar such as MindVision Installer, Stuffit InstallerMaker, etc, you are prompted to enter your password. If you want the software installed, you have to enter your password. So, not only do you install the software you want, you also installed the Trojan.
In my eyes, Apple needs to start going to signed packages as this could get really ugly really quickly.
You don't "catch" a trojan. A "trojan" is software that you decided yourself to download, install, and run on your computer, which doesn't do what the author told you to do, but instead does something to harm you. So in principle, any place that you can download any software from, _could_ be a source of trojans.
You have to decide if you trust the people who run the site not to put anything malicious on their site. And it should have been obvious to anyone with half a brain that a site offering illegal copies of iWorks cannot be trusted. Usually if you can identify the people running the site and they have a reputation to lose and/or money to lose in a court case, you would be a lot safer.
When someone says that X "pirated" such and such a piece of software, the common understanding is that they obtained an unauthorized copy of the data. "Piracy" is not being equated with copyright infringement -- the word itself is being used as slang for a specific type of copyright infringement... a type which is not, by all legal definitions of the term, theft.
My formal logic is a bit rusty, but I'm rather bored at the moment, so I'll try to demonstrate this in another way... Note: this is more for entertainment purposes. I'm sure any logician will find my attempts at formal logic to be reflective of my performance in various mathematics classes (i.e. piss-poor.) Oh, and I'm a LaTeX noob, so I know that my set notation isn't terribly good. It would be better if I could figure out the various macros...
I don't know if this will really help the problem. Pirated apps won't have an Apple-blessed signature, true, but I doubt that would deter people from installing pirated software..
The only way it might have been preventable is if Apple made it impossible to run anything that wasn't signed. That's not really an option right now though, since it would require cooperation from the hardware (and even then it's not a guaranteed thing -- look at the iPhone...)
This Mac owner is totally sickened by the self serving, dishonest stance taken by most here. No ifs, buts or maybes, Theft is wrong.
I pity all the children with thieves as role models.
I pity all the children with thieves as role models.
Ah, but there's the problem. Mixing common understandings with legal definitions. For many here, our common understanding is that piracy is a form of theft, even though we will admit that, legally, copyright infringement ≠ piracy ≠ theft.
As others have pointed out, this is false to the point of the opposite being true. If you weren't ever going to buy the product you probably never will, whether you pirate a copy or not. On the other hand, if you were considering buying it, a pirated copy might push you over the edge.
The new Mac box set is a good example. I'll probably "test drive" a copy of iLife '09 until Snow Leopard is released, and assuming I like the iLife '09 upgrade, I'll buy the box set when it includes Snow Leopard; if I don't I'll get the 10.6 upgrade by itself (and revert back to iLife '08 since I would have decided to prefer that).
There's no iLife demo, though, like there is with iWork, and anyone paying attention knows that Snow Leopard is just around the corner, so buying the box set now is a little foolish. On an unrelated note Apple really should have included (and advertised the inclusion) of a free 12 month OSX upgrade in the Box Set package so you can get 10.6 when it comes out as a free upgrade.
Indeed. And the RIAA and MPAA have invested millions of dollars to make your common understanding of piracy be exactly that. I'm contesting that it's not, and that despite the copious amounts of propaganda that's told you otherwise, duplicating a series of bits is not the same thing as physically taking someone else's property such that they no longer have it.
Indeed. Theft is wrong. And, with the exception of a couple of specific cases, unauthorized duplication of software is wrong as well. (At least for me it is.)
OOOhhhhhh do tell! Which specific cases are we talking about? Doesn't "unauthorized duplication" imply wrongeyness (trademark and service mark pending)?
I would love to see some of you self-taught internet lawyers argue these semantic loopholes in front of a judge. Let me know when you are heading to court to vindicate the rights of software infringers everywhere! I wanna watch the traiin wreck
The pirate isn't stealing the apple when the salesman isn't looking. He's given the stolen apple from the thief knowing that it's stolen.
Although companies could just protect their software against piracy better? Look how many illegal Photoshop users there are. Surely Adobe has looked into making activating Photoshop more secure?
Although companies could just protect their software against piracy better? Look how many illegal Photoshop users there are. Surely Adobe has looked into making activating Photoshop more secure?
I can say with a bit of certianty that while its their most popular product (look at photoshop.com/photoshop lightroom etc) with the most recognition, the serial/activation method is there to pervent the most easy forms of piracy I.E. have one disk and share it amongst friends. These efforts only kill off the majority of newbies and 'keeps em honest', so to speak.
You're right, they could be as ruthless as the digial audio workstation or RIP station guys i've worked with who have a sickening amount of dongles , some of which make random calls and crash the program, but with the amount of mobile users and a fairly robust activation scheme this isn't necissary. I'd honestly like to see them instill a dongle system on the Master Collection just because of the cost , but as I understand it, the master collection for CS3 accounted for 1-2% of overall sales, where the bulk was made (by legit customers) for solutions tailored to their needs , such as the very well priced design premium etc.
Like said, most of the people who pirate photoshop suck at it anyway. the other people can increase their skill by the availability of online training content and access to support and communities.
"Unauthorized duplication/distribution" does not automatically imply "wrongness". For example, I see absolutely no moral objections to any firmware for the WRT54G that's made by Sveasoft. They require you to pay for it to download it, but I see no moral objection to downloading it from P2P and Rapidshare. By their definition, I'm pirating it -- and they've even filed DMCA claims against people who distribute it.
I would love to see some of you self-taught internet lawyers argue these semantic loopholes in front of a judge. Let me know when you are heading to court to vindicate the rights of software infringers everywhere! I wanna watch the traiin wreck
First, I'd never argue a case in court -- providing your own defense is idiotic if you're going up against a company with a legal department (with the possible exception of small claims court when it's likely that the company won't bother showing up.) Secondly, I'd have no problem going to court if I were facing Sveasoft or another such company. I don't know if I'd win it, but I'd certainly be willing to try.