That is a blatant lie. None of the crackers for FS stuff actually sell the stuff, they only make it available on the warez sites.

I hate to give this guy more air but this is ridiculous. The very very very first post in this entertaining and informative thread was about a pirate who bought the Lotus L-39, burnt it onto a CD with a little hack to insert the keycode into the installer, boxed it up and then sold it at a bricks and mortar store to an unsuspecting public. Do you think the pirate forwarded the profits to Lotussim, donated it to charity or kept all the money for themselves?

Some today call it "karma"...back in the day it was called "what goes around comes around", and even further back in the day was called "reaping what you've sown".There is a certain irony to the practice of theft in that those who practice theft usually end up being stolen from or suffering other losses which costs a great deal more than whatever they've gained by theft..Bernie Madoff seemed to be doing well but now he gets to die broke and alone in prison away from his family..Hey, just sayin... :( :(

I don't think we should be surprised at the number of thieves in the world. A Univ. of BC psychology prof. says that about 1% of the general population could be classed as a psychopath. That is, they feel no remorse as they hurt or defraud others.Not all are of criminal intent- might be your boss firing you simply because he doesn't like the colour of your hair. Or perhaps merely keeping a found wallet. Your pain is of no concern!Having a sturdy lock on the barn door appears to be the only solution.Alex Reid

I have spent hours reading through this thread and want to chime in some if I may do so. This migh tbe a rather long post, but I am trying to respond to many different parts of this discussion in one post.First, I agree that piracy is theft. The biggest problem is that to counter such actions by others, legitimate customers get caught up in it with schemes that do not work properly or make it really difficult to use said software legally. In some instances, I can see why a game is or was pirated. Do I condone such actions? No, but how does one really stop it from happening?There are several ways and no way is foolproof really although Steam and Impulse from Valve and Stardock seem to work pretty well. On the Stardock front, they also do not use any sort of CP (outside of the recent startup of Impulse) to deter piracy. They have ways of knowing if a game is pirated or not. Does that mean they install intentional bugs in a game for those with illegitimate copies? I don't know, but I know that Ubisoft did that and issued a zero day patch to remove said bug in a game recently. When "customers" wrote in the forums about the game crashing at a certain point, they knew it was a pirated version and actually where the game was pressed (and thus sued said company for leaking said game).

The question was brought up about why we have blatant piracy and theft as we do today and part of it was touched upon, but a big part of why is missing. This is due to the parents honestly, not developers asking to much for a product or something being dodgy and not worth the price asked for. Many of us are baby boomers here on this forum and have wanted to give our kids everything we didn't have (I hear this from many people and shake my head). It's easy to see it on the nightly news (at least in the US) where some kids are arrested and mommy and daddy cannot grasp the concept that their kids just might be guilty of what they did to go along with the fact that they give the kids anything they want. Why should you buy a new car for little Timmy that costs $30,000 and cover the insurance and gas and not have him pay for it himself to learn the value of something. When parents give kids everything they want, they do not grasp the concept that everything has a cost. They also are not teaching their kids right from wrong when said parents bail them out of jail or hire high priced lawyers that get them off with probation only. Let the kids spend a couple of days in jail.

This may be the silliest stuff I have ever read. Thanks so much for wanting my kids to spend time in jail. Maybe you can bail your kids out, I can not. Kids doing what their parents say not to is nothing new. This kind of blanket statement about the cause of stealing is just...odd. I want better for my kids than I had. What's wrong with that? I have known rich parents with problem children. They did let their child spend time in jail. Did not help. Kids know right from wrong. They decide to ignore it. There's more to the problem than "It's the parents fault".Bob

Kids know right from wrong. Bob

That's fairly silly too. Anyone who's brought up a familiy knows that young children do not know right from wriong - they have to be taught the difference. A two-year old will just grab whatever he or she wants, even if another child is already playing with it.

Well, of course, a two year old has to be taught. But any teen knows it's wrong to steel from a store. The disconnect comes from teens not realizing that the world is bigger than just them. They tend to care more about themselves than others. They don't realize that their actions affect those around them. A teen might say "I can drive fast if I want , It's just me in the car". But if they are killed in a crash, it surely is bad for their families and whoever they hit. Just recently some teens where shown graphic films of car accidents caused by the driver texting while driving. Some said they would stop texting and driving. Others said they would probably continue. They know it is wrong to text and drive, but do it anyway. Bob

Yes, greed is quite a problem. Spoken like a pirate customer.

That was just too far right there mike... Not everyone who has issues with the costs of addon aircraft is a pirate... understand that... I have plenty of issues with the costs of addon aircraft (I believe that an addon should NEVER cost more than the base sim when it comes out), however I DON'T PIRATE, as I myself am a software programmer and I don't want my stuff getting ripped off, so I remember that Karma will cause it to happen to me if I do that to someone else, hence I BUY all my software (yes even CS4).Oh and mike, just because your capable of shelling out 50 dollars for an addon doesn't mean the majority of people can... the fact is the majority of people don't buy addons or pirate them because of the fact that they can't afford to buy them, and there is no demo available... This only seems to happen in the FSX community too, because the X-Plane community doesn't seem to have this issue, maybe because the addon aircraft rarely cost over 20, and only a few rare times more, than 20, but never more than 50... and there is BARELY ANY PIRACY... FSX has so much piracy in addons because the cost is sky high for this stuff with no demos to boot...

----------Oh and mike, just because your capable of shelling out 50 dollars for an addon doesn't mean the majority of people can... the fact is the majority of people don't buy addons or pirate them because of the fact that they can't afford to buy them, and there is no demo available... This only seems to happen in the FSX community too, because the X-Plane community doesn't seem to have this issue, maybe because the addon aircraft rarely cost over 20, and only a few rare times more, than 20, but never more than 50... and there is BARELY ANY PIRACY... FSX has so much piracy in addons because the cost is sky high for this stuff with no demos to boot...

Pricing of a product has little to do with cost to produce. It is primarily concerned with disposing of the inventory and yielding the optimum profit while doing so. If not all people can afford a Mercedes, so be it.Note that "optimum" and "maximum" are not necessarily the same.Alex Reid

This only seems to happen in the FSX community too, because the X-Plane community doesn't seem to have this issue, maybe because the addon aircraft rarely cost over 20, and only a few rare times more, than 20, but never more than 50... and there is BARELY ANY PIRACY... FSX has so much piracy in addons because the cost is sky high for this stuff with no demos to boot...

I suspect the reason for the low incidence of "piracy" of X-Plane addons is due more to the lack of popularity of X-Plane vice FS (any version)... :( As with any "luxury product" (which addons truly are!), pricing is mostly a factor of perceived value. The only other consideration for setting a price is ROI. The developer must recover enough to pay those who actually did all the actual work...

This only seems to happen in the FSX community too, because the X-Plane community doesn't seem to have this issue, maybe because the addon aircraft rarely cost over 20, and only a few rare times more, than 20, but never more than 50... and there is BARELY ANY PIRACY... FSX has so much piracy in addons because the cost is sky high for this stuff with no demos to boot...

When the new xplane beta came out the other day I got a message when trying to run the MU2 that is was incompatible with the new version.I typed in google a simple phrase hoping to find the developer site so I could update my legal copy.The only thing that came up were pages and pages of pirate sites that had copies of it. I never even found the legit site.So I think the same works equally for xplane-sadly. By the way-does anyone have a link for the legit site where I can update my copy?

Hello,

By the way-does anyone have a link for the legit site where I can update my copy?

??http://www.x-plane.comLinks of interest:http://www.xplanefreeware.net/forums/index.phphttp://www.x-plane.orgRegards.Gus.

I suspect the reason for the low incidence of "piracy" of X-Plane addons is due more to the lack of popularity of X-Plane vice FS (any version)... :( As with any "luxury product" (which addons truly are!), pricing is mostly a factor of perceived value. The only other consideration for setting a price is ROI. The developer must recover enough to pay those who actually did all the actual work...

that may very well be possible with x-plane, however let's remember this as well...There are plenty of people out there who WOULD buy the product, but can not validate spending so much, as such they PIRATE it... I myself focus primarily on open source development (no I don't get paid for it, but ah well... I have a love of what I'm doing so it really isn't that important to me...) however even as an open source dev you have to worry about piracy because companies will rip off your work and sell it (it has happened before). As such, that's where my view on piracy comes from. However, the main reason that most people don't buy addons is because of three things: A. they are too expensive... 50 to 80 dollars for a single aircraft is ludicrous.... same with scenery. Second of all, and most importantly, most people don't even realize these exist when they get stuff like this. Because of the lack of marketing to a broader audience, things like this happen. Personally, I think the best solution is sort of what valve does with steam. All the major simulation developers for base sims and addons get together and work on a single digital distro service. In event you buy a new sim boxed, it will have a little pamphlet in it saying "hey you can activate this on here and get digital backup and not need your disc in drive". In the process, theres a store page where you can browse various add ons and sims to buy. This would assist in people learning more about the payware stuff. Furthermore, there are plenty of people out there who don't think payware stuff is all that much better than freeware, so they have never bought any of it. In that case, you need demos to prove them wrong. Time limited but fully functional would be best... that way, someone who is a skeptic can look at it and realize that there is good stuff out there. The fact is, the marketing is currently done in a way so screwed up, it isn't getting anywhere near as much attention as possible. in all, thins need to be more well known that they are out there, and that there needs to be demos and better pricing. Personally, my favorite idea would just to get microsoft to put FS04, FSX and Accel up on steam, allow you to activate your cd key on steam to dl off there with your retail key, and then have the 3rd party addon makers putting stuff up there too for FSX. The fact is, if more people know about it, you will most likely be able to tap a new market.

When the new xplane beta came out the other day I got a message when trying to run the MU2 that is was incompatible with the new version.I typed in google a simple phrase hoping to find the developer site so I could update my legal copy.The only thing that came up were pages and pages of pirate sites that had copies of it. I never even found the legit site.So I think the same works equally for xplane-sadly. By the way-does anyone have a link for the legit site where I can update my copy?

well unless it stopped you completely from using it, I would just blow it off... 9.40 mainly changes electronic stuff, and provided they fixed that one issue from an earlier beta, there should be NO issue...Oh and that MU-2 seems to be the exception, not the rule... in general, most people buy the stuff for x-plane.... the mu-2 is 30 dollars, and hence will be more pirated....

stealers are everywhere... can't remember how many accounts bibles have been stolen in churchor ministers steal money from .............. it's down right ... well . ...... people just can't find contentment with in themselves. thats the key in life. it's why you'll find some of the happiest people haven't got much in matrial goodsyet alot that have great riches are miserable. I know, I've worked on the island of Palm Beach for many years.as far as addons go for me I have a nice twin comanche (Eaglesoft)a nice single 177 (AOPA gift)a jet fighter F18 (Aces)a single turoboprop (Epic)a push pull O2(FSD)A REEEALY nice 206 (DoDo sim)A 747 (IFly)and a few othersand I can Nav by roads with GEX .but , I know there are some who'll read this and say I should have this or that, or , what I do have is junk.who cares , ...not me :( you know ,what I think really ticks them off, is the fact that I can be content , and they havn't found out how to do that, but I hope they would.Joe

I believe that an addon should NEVER cost more than the base sim when it comes out

I think this is a good rule of thumb. But it does set a ceiling on how authentic and comprehensive an add-on can be.Consider the base Sim likely sells 100x the units of a successful add-on (my numbers from thin-air).A complex add-on with a team could easily find themselves in a financial coffin corner.The product could be more complete or more stable but the costs are prohibitive.I