>Heh, the never ending discussion :-)>I've experienced unusable CDs after using them. But not by>normal use, but my own habit to take it out and putting it on>the computer without the cd-cover.>>My answer: I'll make a copy of CD4 and use it myself. Sue me!>>/ Olle RCan we have an amen for Olie RAMEN

The region encoding on DVDs is an optional feature that nearly all motion picture and television content companies use. Part of the purpose of the region encoding is to control the release schedules, as there are often delays for the various regions. If the sole purpose of the encoding was copy protection there wouldn't be multiple region codes.People using DVD recorders, including the local commercial video profesionals that would be producing demo tapes, don't have to record a DVD with region encoding. Actually they would probably find the licence fees for the encoding software prohibitavely expensive.

Perhaps my post was misunderstood.I am not a member of the piracy gestapo. I do not condone piracy, It is theft, and results in higher costs for the conumer, me.That being said, I also feel that the "war on piracy" (especially as defined in this forum) is ill-conceived, overly zealous, and borders on offensive to honest users.Yet, I still get comments from some users who are pro-copy protection, pro product registration, pro spyware, pro, whatever means necessary, and then with the other side of their mout talk about obtaining CD cracks.That is hypocricy.Since the war on anti-piracy is so expensive, I pay more and more to subsidize the various expensive measures in use today.Rather than paying an extra $10 per title to pay license fees to brand "x" copyguard, I would rather pay the $10 directly to the publisher, let them pocket it, and give me a nice open disk that allows me to install the whole program on the hard drive.Isn't it Ironic, We create protected CD's that require the CD to be in the hard drive, and in some cases, loads large files like movies.Well, we hate stutter, so we build faster and faster CD-Rom drives so that they don't have as much lag, when reading from the CD.THEN, those very fast CD-ROM drive, end up destroying the very CD's we are trying to use, because the CD is out of balance and ends up disintigrating in the drive.And since we CAN'T make a backup, we are stuck with hassling with Microsoft for a replacement set (at about $20 or so bucks) or throw up our hands in disgust and purchase the same title again.Convenient. And yet all this is to help "protect" us honest users from pirates? Yeah, sure.So they soak us by paying a "surcharge" to handle the cost of protecting the CD, then they milk us again because said CD has become unusable. Needless to say, I have very little pity for a developer who expects me to buy the same piece of software twice. Which one is worse, the Pirate who won't pay for his software, or the developer which blames the Pirate so they can justify making honest users pay twice.

You blame the software developers for having to protect their work against piracy.Now THAT is hypocritical.If people didn't condone piracy there'd be far less of a market for it.At least over here you're expected to use pirated software and provide people with the software you did buy so they don't have to pay for it themselves.Until such a time as that attitude changes and people respect the fact that software piracy is NOT to be condoned, we will have to protect our investment in any way possible.

Isn't Holland amazing?

I have a simple philosophy when is comes to piracy protection mechanisms with software that I have purchased. If the mechanism annoys me, I seek out a way to remove the annoyance. Yeah it skirts legality, but the real damage to software companys with this kind of behaviour is to their pride, not their profits. I'd prefer that they don't annoy me in the first place!Gary

>You blame the software developers for having to protect their>work against piracy.>>Now THAT is hypocritical.>>If people didn't condone piracy there'd be far less of a>market for it.>At least over here you're expected to use pirated software and>provide people with the software you did buy so they don't>have to pay for it themselves.>>Until such a time as that attitude changes and people respect>the fact that software piracy is NOT to be condoned, we will>have to protect our investment in any way possible.It's not that I'm against programmers getting the money they deserve but your solution is flawed.Fact: There is no unbreakable copy protection.Fact: Most legitimate users know about the cracks some use them others live with the extra hassle of the copy protection.Fact: The hardcore pirate doesn't want to buy your software ever he will continue in his ways unless you invent the non existing 100% unbrakable copy protection. Hardcore pirates don't care what you think about them in their circles stealing software is cool buying it is lame.Now if you increase the protection you make it harder for your legitimate users to use the software they bought. More of them will switch over to the readily available cracks or they might go for a competitors product. Some might even be tempted into not buying the next upgrade because they find the cracked software is beter (like easier to use and install).The piracy protection only works for the casual pirate types (if a straight copy doesn't work they give up). If piracy protection in software continues to make life harder for the legal users these users will switch to competitors, use illegal cracks or will become pirates.I'd be interrested to know where you stand in the legalising softdrugs debate. I see many parallels with the piracy debate. In my mind the 100% no piracy is as unattainable as the 100% no (soft)drugs ideal.