Geofa's earlier comments regarding the issue theft being academic until it happens to you...still ring true.The fact of the matter is that few if any give a flyin flip about the theft of others property.On the other hand, let them suffer loss at the hands of thieves and the howling never stops.While this thread has meandered through twists and turns, gone off topic and back again, the fact remains that theft costs everyone something..not just vendors.Imagine if you will, software which has suffered a hack attack simply being rendered unusable for its intended purpose.Similar to a bank robbers bag of cash being rendered unusable once the dye bomb is triggered.The thief still has the cash, but the dye makes it impossible for him to spend it or redistribute it. :(

Will they though? It will become harder to justify the extra cost built in to most addons which is there to compensate for the percieved loss through piracy...No doubt "you" will. I guess the question is how much ######in' do we need to go through in the process?

Thanks Sharrow, but unfortunately the final count down has already begun for me! Although of course I always think I'm 20!!!!! We call that in french "la m

Hello,For information .. Piratebay is online again ...Seem's it's exact .. winners trial just won a T-shirt ...

The t-shirt below (currently the logo on the Pirate Bay homepage) will be sent to the people responsible for the takedown attempt tomorrow morning, the Pirate Bay insider told TorrentFreak.

Regards.Gus.

And THAT ATTITUDE folks is why you will see FS Vendors causing FS Products to be rendered unusable in the event of a hack attempt.PB would have no distribution or audience if their hacked products were rendered unusable. :(

If they can sell someting for PC with profit at 34.95GPB (I assume they not selling at loss) why the same game for PS3 costs 44.95GBP? Isn't that just greed?

Here's a classical example of "perceived quality". You probably think the 34.95 PC price is a better value while the 44.95 is "greed", when it's not. Console games are far more expensive to produce, because:1) Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo are the only ones allowed to produce and duplicate console games. Which also means, they have to approve the game first, and they'll take a share of the product's price which, of course, will have to increase the end-users price to pay for this. And, on top of that, since they do the mass duplication themselves, the game developer doesn't have the chance to choose the duplication facility on his own, in order to find better prices, because of competition.2) Developement tools for console are WAY more expensive than PC, because they always require some kind of special hardware and/or debug versions of the consoles, and the costs are significant. And, there's no choice other than licensing the official SDK from the console manufacturer. PC games can be developed even with free/open source software.3) Even more than basic SDK, the middleware tools (graphic engines, sound engines, physic engines, etc.) for consoles are WAY more expensive than PC's.4) Developer's salaries are usually higher, if the developer is able to work on consoles. In fact, the only way to hope to increase your salary as a game developer, is to be able to list 2-3 years of developement experience on console developement in your CV.5) Marketing costs are way higher for console games, because the target audience is less hardcore and it needs to be reached with more traditional (=expensive) advertisig campaigns, up to national TV, which is something you don't see for a PC game, which nowadays is advertized mostly on the internet.So, I assure you, they are making more profit per copy with the 34.95 PC game compared to the 45.95 console game. The whole point is to gamble on the assumption the console game will sell much more, which is usually true.

Geofa's earlier comments regarding the issue theft being academic until it happens to you...still ring true.The fact of the matter is that few if any give a flyin flip about the theft of others property.On the other hand, let them suffer loss at the hands of thieves and the howling never stops.While this thread has meandered through twists and turns, gone off topic and back again, the fact remains that theft costs everyone something..not just vendors.Imagine if you will, software which has suffered a hack attack simply being rendered unusable for its intended purpose.Similar to a bank robbers bag of cash being rendered unusable once the dye bomb is triggered.The thief still has the cash, but the dye makes it impossible for him to spend it or redistribute it. :(

Of course people feel concerned when the bad event happens to them. You wont change anything about that, it's how people react all over the world. it is called selfishness.I don't think this thread has meandered off topic: the problem of piracy cannot be taken out of the context of the economy in general and at all levels, commercial, financial, the implications of laws and their applications etc...Producers and creators cry out against piracy , ok! but what about buyers confronted most of the time to hotlines in the hands of incompetent people, unable to answer clearly to a simple question and most of the time unable to express themselves in proper english ( or french when I'm confronted to them in France with french companies!!!) ? This is also a certain form of piracy the fact of not giving a proper help to a customer who has paid for it because it is part of the contract.

I don't think this thread has meandered off topic: the problem of piracy cannot be taken out of the context of the economy in general and at all levels, commercial, financial, the implications of laws and their applications etc...

Nope, this thread started discussing piracy and it's still there.

virtuali: let's say all your points are valid. how do you explain then that in day of premiere a game costs 45.95 and 2-3 weeks later the price starts to go down? If the costs are so high why the price goes down in relativly short time? Because there's still a profit margain? if it can be sold for 35.94 a month after release why it couldn't be sold at this price from the beginnig? Because lots of people buy games just after release to have them right away and developes want to cash on that. Few weeks ago when Activision announced prices for Modern Warfare 2 the CEO said (I can't find the source now, it was on one of the gaming portals) that if it was up toi him games would be much more expensive. The release price for this game was about 10 GBP higher than usual (for consoles, for PC it was normal). He also said that if sales are good all further games will be sold at higher starting price. Isn't that greed?What about EULAs? You have to agree to it before you install but you can't read it before purchase. What if you don't agree with some parts of it? Can you get it back to the store? Not in UK I'm afraid. Games are sold AS IS in UK. If it doesn't work: tough luck, if it crashes your system: tough luck and so on. In any other industry something like that would mean an end to the producer. Not in software industry. It's not only the price that drives people to piracy. Buggy games, short games ( and I mean really short, 2-3 hours to finish recent NFS), no support, it all comes together.From Aerosoft installer: THE SOFTWARE IS FURNISHED

Of course people feel concerned when the bad event happens to them. You wont change anything about that, it's how people react all over the world. it is called selfishness.

Wait... my being upset because someone stole from me is me being selfish?? Holy rusted metal, Batman! What a leap of logic!

I don't think this thread has meandered off topic: the problem of piracy cannot be taken out of the context of the economy in general and at all levels, commercial, financial, the implications of laws and their applications etc...

Laws don't apply... because it's not cost effective to pursue legal recourse.

Producers and creators cry out against piracy , ok! but what about buyers confronted most of the time to hotlines in the hands of incompetent people, unable to answer clearly to a simple question and most of the time unable to express themselves in proper english ( or french when I'm confronted to them in France with french companies!!!) ? This is also a certain form of piracy the fact of not giving a proper help to a customer who has paid for it because it is part of the contract.

Ok... so to you, poor tech support immediately justifies piracy. Got it! :( When you purchase an automobile... if the dealer you purchased from gives you poor maintenance... do you then support the theft of cars from their lot??Poor tech support is not something you own that was taken from you. You are seriously reaching for justified piracy here...

I think there is an aspect of what could provoke piracy in the medium to long term which has not been discussed here and which from my point of view is probably of far greater importance than to pirate an addon!It is common knowledge I think that companies producing software are studying or perhaps even put into practice the limited number of times a software can be reinstalled whatever the cause explaining the necessity to reinstall it.The first to intend to do so or thinking to do it, is Microsoft for its operating systems. There has been papers on the subject on the web.I think that such a measure supposedly proposed to curb piracy is on the contrary a perfect measure to provoke piracy by people who at first would not have imagined to do so being honest and respectful of the laws.Why?Such a measure is a violation of ones private life. I have the right to do whatever I want in my household on the condition that I do not disturb the neighbourhood and do not infrige the laws of my country. No one is entitled to decide for me what I should wear, listen to, speak to or for instance in the case of my pc organize the different elements of its hardware. If I change my hardware whether I like it or not I'LL BE OBLIGED TO REINSTALL THE OS!Unless I'm wrong many of the members of this site have probably completely changed the structure of their PC's if not built it from scratch like I did. I have had WIN XP family for 4 years, I have changed my motherboard for the third time recently and consequently had to reinstall twice for that reason the OS. Add to this the crash of my boot driver once and another time the decision to reinstall the OS for a reorganization more user friendly of my PC, this makes 5 installations in all!Should I ask M. Microsoft or any OS publisher to grant me the permission to change my hardware and reorganize my work? Is he in charge of my life? No! No ! and NO!The result of such an arbitrary decision from companies for any software will be violations of their EULA. For guys who have the frightfull skill to hack a site like AVSIM, to crack softwares must be child's play! And the result will be another form of piracy which the measure proposed was sensed to curb.The conclusion of this post is that by wanting to go too far in terms of protection those companies not only would push users to acts that normally they would never think of doing, but breach a principle of justice which is that a person accused of a crime is presumed innocent. In this case the user is supposed to be a pirate prior to his act of buying the software and measures are taken against him to do a crime he has not envisaged to commit in his wildest dreams.If such a way of protecting a software was put into facts, we would be all of us users of PC potential pirates for the simple reason that we are not billionaires ready to buy our OS an unlimited number of times.What would happen if we accepted this measure? after having reinstalled the software at the maximum niumber of times authorized, we would refuse to buy a new license and our PC would not work. We are no billionnaires inclined to buy a product like the former ruler of the Philippines whose wife had in a huge hall something like a 1000 small eiffel towers and thousands of pair of shoes, all exactly the same! I've been there I can tell you this is true! I'm not mad enough to buy each time I need it the same software!So what would be the benefits for the companies of their decision?A/ the supllier of the software would be happy because his software would not be piratedB/ he would be unhappy because we would not buy a new licenseC/ As our PC would not work anymore, we would not buy other softwares and addons and pirates would go bankruptD/ the companies producing the softwares which they are so fearful to see pirated would see their sales growthrate diminish drastically by a reduction of pc users stuck with machines which do not function anymore!I push on purpose the scenario to its extreme limits but what I want to show is the way a so called protective measure can have nasty side effects in total contradiction with the aim proposed at the beginning. Let's hope the blindness of some decision makers will be stopped in time.Claude

Wait... my being upset because someone stole from me is me being selfish?? Holy rusted metal, Batman! What a leap of logic!Could you please read carefully what is written? It's not you which would be unselfish, you're the victim, it"s your neighbour who thinks this will never happen to him!Laws don't apply... because it's not cost effective to pursue legal recourse.I don't speak of the application or not I say Piracy is to be taken into a global perspective including commerce, finance, law etc. To pretend to treat the subject by elluding one of those elements is foolish and unrealistic.Ok... so to you, poor tech support immediately justifies piracy. Got it! :( When you purchase an automobile... if the dealer you purchased from gives you poor maintenance... do you then support the theft of cars from their lot??Poor tech support is not something you own that was taken from you. You are seriously reaching for justified piracy here...

Again you make interpretations; I did not say it JUSTIFIES I said it creates indirectly a new source of piracy where the pirate is the company which does not fulfill the terms of the contract. If I buy a car, my vendor has the obligation to give me a warranty and put it into action if something happens to the car. When I Buy a software I consider:A/an abuse of dominating position to oblige me to pay for an online supportfor a good which I don't know, which manual generally translated in my language is so approximate that you cannot understand what it saysB/ The hotline is (I speak for the french case confronted to different companies french of foreign) dealt by guys who have a list of prepared answers and when a case is not in their list they are unable to answer the problem. Moreover they have generally linguistic problems which makes the conversation impossible to get thru properly.As a whole by doing so the company acts like a fraud vis a vis his customer who has an unviolable right to get help on the product he buys and an efficient one; its more ilmportant than the bla bla bla of presentation you have to endure before you get to the point for which you phone.One of the most obvious form of not fullfilling the contract is on airlines companies with the so called mastership of foreign languages by attendants on board.I defy any foreigner on an Air France Flight to understand the "so called english" spoken by the members of the company especially when presenting the security measures. From this point of view AA has done a major upturn when they put into practice their multilingual videos. But they do not use it all the time.In 2007 on my flight from Paris to Dallas prior to landing the stewardess who was supposed to be fluent in french translated in french the following line:"Please ladies and gentlemen dismount the tablet in front of view"!!!!! I had an american neighbour and joking I asked him "could you please lend me a screwdriver!!" Why ? Well the attendant asks us to dismount our tablets! We had a huge laugh!Back to Paris I wrote to AA and signalled the case. To thank me I got 2500 miles on my account. But honestly this should never happen. Think what it would be in case of emergency and panic!!!!It's not mandatory to speak any specific language when you board a plane!But the attendants must be able to give understandable orders to passengers whichever language they speak, it's the first contact to reassure the passenger freighthened for his life.

Hmmm, we've now gone to calling software creators/vendors pirates and thieves. That notion is ludicrous to the extreme. :( Consider FS Vendor X who works three years on a project, offers it to the public at a reasonable price, sees it on a warez site within 48 hours, and now FS Vendor X is the thief???May I suggest that you come down from your ivory tower and join the real world.FS Vendor X is simply someone who worked three years for you the user and expects just compensation for his work.FS Vendor X has a right and obligation to his customers to stop or severely erode the possiblity of his products being illegally redistributed in a usable condition. :(

11 pages is quite an accomplishment for a thread of this nature, but if it keeps going the direction it is, it will not see 12.

The only direction I've seen it going is justification.I seriously can not grasp this mindset. :(

The only direction I've seen it going is justification.I seriously can not grasp this mindset. :(

Well I have to confess-I have never looked or been aware of these sites so I just went and took a look at pirate bay.I am appalled in so many ways....it just is disgusting-their mocking makes me wish it was 100 years ago and the kind of quick justice that was done then could be done to them.Do these individuals really feel good about themselves and what they are doing for humanity? ...and how could anyone not feel for developers feeling violated- and violated or raped are the only words I can think of if I saw my hard earned work pirated like this. In my case I'd stop developing.At a certain point it is not about profits but about right or wrong. Believe it or not I think there are some still in this world that feel that way.In my case that would be it-period. I'd go make my profits somewhere else.I admire developers that continue to develop despite this-cause I sure wouldn't.