Correct. The law is there and if someone who is arrested for something else is found to have softdrugs on him that will be taken into consideration and he will be charged for it.But normally people will not get arrested for having less than 5 (five) grams of softdrugs or less than 3 (three) (in other words no more than 2 (two)) Cannabis plants.

FWIW -- I seem to recall a number of postings on the FS newsgroups a few months after FS2002 came out where the poster complained that all of a sudden, when they tried to run FS2002, it gave a message saying the time limit had expired and it would not run...period.Oddly enough, these were also in SA.Like they say....if looks too good to be true....it probably is.Cal

Jeroen,Same situation with the South African Traffic Police...Speed Trap Cameras to generate revenue.... Parking wardens zealously writing out parking tickets.....but South Africa DOES act against software piracy. Two days ago a HUGE consignment of pirated DVDs was seized at Johannesburg International Airport...the second in so many weeks.

As if you do not get pirated software, CDs and DVD in the USA, Australia, Netherlands, UK etc etc etc ... you could fly today to almost any country in the world and without any problem get drugs, stolen goods, pirated software and movies - maybe we should blame ourselves for this because every nation deserves the government they have - we put them there, we keep them in power, we vote for them again and when we do point fingers, let us be aware of the 9 fingers pointing back at us.My drop in the pot

Excellent news that.Here they do act when they find something but there is no real system to it.Passengers coming in with a fake Guchi handbag are fined and have the goods confiscated (that's easy to do I guess) but I doubt they do systematic searches of shipping containers (maybe they do but only ones originating in known hotspots, if they do it's never given public attention and of course is easy to get around by routing circuitiously).Woudln't matter anyhow as this country is one of the main European centers for the production of pirated software CDs (they make the masters here, have them reproduced in Eastern Europe and sold in Russia as well as all over Europe) against which hardly anything is being done.

Good day all,Cyber Games is a HUGE piracy network. The SAP (South African Police) just dont bother too do anything about it. You can get any software from them. I wish MS would do something about them.Henk HugoShackleton Projectwww.shackletonproject.co.za

Thought so, especially seeing the message about "condensed manuals".And they're still shipping 767PIC which went out of production by Wilco months ago...

It's amazing. Dont he software companies have any recourse here? The SAP are completely overstretched with more serious crimes, so I can well imaging that software piracy is way on the bottom of the priority list.Henk - how are those Shaks doing?Erich

The Shacks are coming on fine. We are doing a MK2 now as well... esp for you RAF boys

I am also wondering with these "pre release date" copies if there is something fishy going on.The reason I mention it-is most of the "problems" I have read from people's posts are some of the same "problems" I had while beta testing. Since I got my gold I have seen not one of these problems. Coincidence?Please-I am not accusing the end user in any way-I am just wondering if there is a big batch of illegal betas making the rounds pre release-perhaps even being sold by legit dealers who also don't realize this.http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/Geofdog2.jpg

GeofThe Cyber Games copy is of course a VERY early beta... i will see if i can get a build number.

To answer the point about something fishy about pre-release copies... I can definatly agree there is something going on but I think it is important not to label everyone who has such a copy, such as myself, as software pirates etc. Many people obtained them from Microsoft and it could be partly them to blame for so many copies getting onto the Internet, I on the other hand have a good relationship with an executive at PC World here in the UK who passed one on before release just yesterday.As for the international laws on copyright, I'm sure we could go on all day about the 'ins and outs' and the 'what if's'. The fact is there is not much that can be done in such countries as South Africa where they may be on the brink of a civil war (if I understand correctly). The police, as someone quite rightly pointed out, have much better things to do.Unfortunatly, piracy is a big part of our hobby and everything else related to anything that can be sold to make money, DVD's music CD's and even these Pokemon toys (hate those little Japanesse critters!!). Perhaps we will never live in a society without it?Regards,Adam Nardone

Just to correct you on a point there. We are the most stable economy in Africa and we are most certainly not on the brink of war. Everything but

I apologise for that, just acting on information told to me. However the fact still remains that some police forces etc have way too much to do to worry about this sort of thing. I know that is a bad attitue but I'm convinced.Regards,Adam Nardone

Noone is calling people who legitimately get prerelease copies pirates.But you'd have top agree is that people who give their prerelease copies and betas to be copied ARE pirates (and the worst kind, betraying not only their licenses and NDAs but also the trust placed in them).