Do people pirate software for the Mac?

[SpeedFleX]

Software makers put DRM on the stuff to begin with as a way to try to combat the rampant piracy of unlocked, for-sale software.

If so many people had not pirated software, then we would all still be purchasing unlocked stuff like back in the 80s.

It is not a character defect in the seller that he attempts to padlock his merchandise, once evidence of nonpayment by "customers" begins to surface.

A fruit vendor may ask customers to make their own change from a cigar box in the front of the fruit stand, until the inventory and the cigar box contents don't jibe at the end of the day. Then there's a cash register and a kid watching the store and it's a whole big deal to buy an apple (and only slightly more difficult to steal one).

But who started the escalation? The person who does not feel like paying for the fruit.

Now it's true that the fruit stand goods are somewhat different from software, especially in the minds of software pirates, but the process that starts up the inconvenience for paying customers still originates with nonpaying customers: acquiring the product without paying.

I understand annoyance about apps phoning home. I used to think it was ok for them to phone home until we register the thing but after that, gimme a break. Then I realized that people will reggie the thing and share it on, or try to use a one-seat license on a network.

So the phone-home gig is another part of that reaction by vendors to people not buying their own license. Still ticks me off, but I do not blame the vendor for this, I blame the pirates.

yes and this is the problem, no matter what you do pirates will find a way.. Do you believe just because it's a little harder to crack that it won't be cracked at all and all the mean angry mob pirate gang who steal from you will magically spit out money and pay the full retail price?

Meanwhile back at home the honest customer who has always been a honest customer is installing a microsoft office pack for three computers on the fourth system because the thrid one is broken gets an error and now not only does the person have to call a robot voice at ms corp, no it has to type in a huge number and lets hope the system works....

Meanwhile the pirate with a cracked copy is done in 20 minutes with a download... Download, DOuble Click, Done!


oh and look at this cool thread https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/757919/

 

[Eddyisgreat]

I'll say with a bit of certainty that, while I don't condone it in any way, the MSFT's and Adobe's of the world couldn't care less about the wanna be photogs making banners for their sigs or script kiddies downloading buggy copies of Windows 7 to wow their friends.

The legal teams they go after are the big guns. The corporations who are inappropriately using software. People pay for photoshop? Hells yeah people do. The design houses and high end photogs will gladly pay 600 bucks for a license in exchange for a great product and tech support, especially when they can recoup their costs with one shoot. Its just not worth the reputation of a medium/large corp to have a whistleblower in the company who will submit your story to tech blogs and whatnot and trigger an audit, and you'd better believe the higher ups (if they are worth their salt) will call/fly/fedex your behind right to their desk so they can hand-fire your ass personally.

Most places are pretty generous with their policies. You get one license but usually its a dual shot so you can put it on your laptop and desktop, so the activation servers will allow you slide a few times and then start denying. I've used Adobe apps the most and deactivating/reactivating couldn't be any easier. Even when i've had issues requiring a full reinstall (and thus can't deactivate the current installation) all I have to do is call them up and the explain the situation. MSFT is the same way. Just keeps people honest. Of course, we already know that if Adobe really wanted to keep pirates (and future customers ) out of the loop, they could go the way of Pro Tools and dongle the hell out of everything, but that would hinder their digital download sales, and just wouldn't be very much fun (because I lose dongles ) .

You can't compare Apple to the likes of MSFT, AutoDesk and Adobe. Remember, later companies sell software and only sell software. Its high portability is just the nature of the beast. On the other hand Apple has already made their money off of you. We already know the Phat profit margins on Apple hardware, which you need to run any OS X application (barring the small scale hackintosh scene).

I'm glad I got out of that scene back in my windows days. Now that I look back on it, some of the things involved were downright stupid. Sketchy sites (astalavista.box.sk?), so many keygens that for some reason just didn't work (followed by some brand new processes taking up rescources....). Scouring the internets for the version that is prior to the version that came before the last, because the company blocked the leaked serial and now the patcher thats already out only works for the version that has that annoying bug that makes it useless. Such headaches.

If you're into pirating that's your thing. Legitimate just works, and you usually get pretty boxes, manuals and helpful support.

 

[Wondercow]

And, just for my curiosity, how many people with 50+ gigs (or many gigs of music, for that matter) have honestly purchased all of that legally? I have over 340 cds that i bought from either Circuit City, or Best Buy, or the warehouse, music plus....and i doubt that is even 50gbs of music....

That's just the 850 or so that fit on my wall

In Canada it's legal to both download commercial music and to copy music CDs (as long as the person keeping the copy is the one who made it). The only times I've availed myself of our copying laws was for the three albums that I have that are copy protected: I copy them and then write a letter to the label explaining that I will not purchase CP discs; I also explain that I've copied them instead and, had they not been CP, I would have purchased them. With the exception of these albums all of the music I have (about 500 GB) is mine that I bought.

 

[alfmil]

Duff-Man says.... ^^ see what I mean? ^^ ....oh yeah!

 

[jdechko]

Man, I'm gone for 2 days and look what happens.

Bringing up the issue of copyright infringement, I think I'd rather be charged with theft as long as the software I'm "stealing" is less than $1k. Less than $1k=misdemeanor/petty theft. Greater than $1k is grand theft and a felony.

But if we're talking copyright infringement, then we're talking punitive damages, and so far, it has turned out badly for every person convicted of illegally downloading songs.

 

[nanofrog]

Man, I'm gone for 2 days and look what happens.

Bringing up the issue of copyright infringement, I think I'd rather be charged with theft as long as the software I'm "stealing" is less than $1k. Less than $1k=misdemeanor/petty theft. Greater than $1k is grand theft and a felony.

But if we're talking copyright infringement, then we're talking punitive damages, and so far, it has turned out badly for every person convicted of illegally downloading songs.

Good point. It reminds me of the minimum sentencing between drug offenders that were caught with a very small amount of crack vs. powdered cocaine.

 

[geoffreak]

My policy is piracy is one thing if used for education purposes. When money is to be made, piracy is no good.