Main Area and Open Discussion > General Software Discussion
moral behaviour in the shareware industry
urlwolf:
well, case 2 is pretty much closed. No problem. Normally, if the freeware version is really that good and the shareware one doesn't offer any advantage, the market should take care of it. But this is normally not the case.
Anyway, I'm more interested in the other two cases.
mouser:
just my 2 cents:
if you pay for a program and the comany dies and makes no provisions for you to be able to activate the software or if you pay for it and they go out of business and dont deliver it, etc., then i dont see anything immoral about bypassing the activation of the program using whatever means you have available.
app103:
As far as something you may have bought that requires online activation (is that what you mean in #1?)
You paid for it, you have the serial, you are legally entitled to use the software...
Do whatever you have to do to enforce your rights to use that software.
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As far as #2 goes...I don't see any way you could get your money back legally/illegally, morally/immorally. Maybe I just don't understand the question fully, or I am still a bit naive about some things.
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I think the best way to handle #3 is to contact your credit card company and file a complaint. They will most likely refund you the price paid and go after the company that handles the transactions themselves, to get their money back. They are more effective at getting their own way than you, since they can just take what they refunded you off the that company's totals next month and the company really doesn't have much room to argue about it.
I wouldn't try to bypass anything unless the credit card company denied you a refund, and they usually won't in a case like this.
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And last of all...
Disclosing the name of company X might not be a good idea. Could cause trouble.
Disclosing Y serves no purpose at all.
Disclosing Z could serve to the public good by alerting others before they make the same mistake you did.
mouser:
good points by april.
f0dder:
#1 - sucks. I wouldn't find it immoral to use a w4r3z copy in this case, considering you paid for the software.
#2 - tough luck, have to agree with Josh on this one.
#3 - pretty bad. Find w4r3z copy, or ask your CC company for refund. (Slightly off on a tangent: when my VISA card was stolen and abused, I got 100% refund even though it took 12 hours before I realized the theft and blocked the card. The refund did involve filing theft with the police, and giving a copy of the statement to my bank...)
Can't see why disclosing names of any companies/products would be a bad thing - software authors have to take consequences of their actions, just like everybody else.
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