There was a time when I would have condemned that article. That time is long past. Personally I have never used any pirated software except one - and I still use that one today. (More on that later...) Also I haven't downloaded music or movies illegally. But... I no longer feel as strongly against such things as I did before. The entertainment industries have become so nasty, so overbearing, that I actually enjoy articles like the one linked above. I root for the pirates - they are now my "home team". I am disgusted by the graft paid to pass laws like SOPA, ProtectIP, and so-called treaties like ACTA. I am even more disgusted by the thousands of lawsuits by RIAA and MPAA. Not sure why but I seem to take all of that personally. At some point I imagine that I too will finally feel that last straw as my back breaks and start downloading anything and everything I possibly can!
I said earlier that I have never used pirated software with one exception. That exception is a piece of medical software for CPAP machines that was once available to consumers from Respironics. However they never allowed updates and eventually stopped making it available to non-medical professionals. So that software has become a standard download for almost anyone using a CPAP machine. I still must download pirated updates every time one is released. I don’t feel the least bit guilty about this as the software is not available otherwise. All other software that has ever been on a computer of mine has been purchased, is donationware, or is freeware (in which case I always donate if I find it useful and continue using it). Regarding music and movies, I did download roughly 60 or 70 tracks from Napster before the lawsuit. All were either TV show themes or similar cuts that weren't available any other way. Movies? Every movie I have at home is from a DVD I purchased, though I do rip each and every DVD to a hard drive and strip out the warnings and previews. No way I intend to keep that crap on any DVD I rip! I also subscribe to Netflix (streaming only now) and I have Amazon Prime for more movies.
Has DRM ever bitten me? Of course - I don’t know if anyone can honestly say it hasn’t gotten them at some point. A two-hour video I downloaded - an instructional video - had DRM and required a password to be entered every time it was started. I watched about 45 minutes and then when I tried to continue later it would not take the password. No help at all from the vendor. I finally was sent an email from another person who had purchased it and experienced the same problem. It said that I had to use the original WMP 9.0 - no updates at all and no newer versions. It instructed users to uninstall WMP and find somewhere to download the original, virgin WMP 9.0. They had stopped sending out that solution by the time I had contacted them. (2 years later I was speaking with a new owner of that company and he sent me that video in DVD format along with several others. But two years?) I also lost the use of about 2,000 music tracks I had ripped from my own CDs. I subscribed to Rhapsody for about a year, the service where you can't download any tracks but just listen to them. It was cheap - through Comcast - and once I had become disabled my computer was the only place I ever listened to my music. So that was OK until Rhapsody apparently ran into some pirating problems, real or perceived, I don’t know, but I had to install several updates because the previous one was screwing up my machine. (A problem for everyone, not just me). The anti-pirating software baked into their player was messing all manner of computers up. So I dropped the subscription. My problems arose with WMP 11 or 12 - not sure which. Rhapsody allowed you to build a database of your preferred music from which you could make playlists, etc. All the tracks stayed on their server; users could just listen to them with this subscription. Also, Rhapsody scanned your computer and listed all tracks found in the database so you could listen
to them on their player too. About a year or so after I uninstalled Rhapsody, WMP (11 or 12) refused to play any of the songs that were ripped from MY DVDs but were listed in the Rhapsody database, saying that I must have the Rhapsody player installed so that WMP could check to see if I needed a license for those tracks or not. Bullshit! Rhapsody had apparently tagged my tracks in a way that Microsoft wasn’t sure if they were mine or not. I have all the CDs but I really didn't feel like re-ripping them all. But that's what I had to do, because I could not find a way to "clean" the Rhapsody info from the tracks, and so many damn players use the WMP engine and thus also refused to play the tracks.
As someone who always purchased my music, movies, and software this stuff has been niggling at me over the last five or six years....
Too tired to continue bitching - I'll bitch more later.
Thanks!
Jim
Recent Posts
Yeah - but some might actually like this more! LOL! (This one should be worth a good pic! Or is that too OT?!)
on this one!
His post is what's directly above yours.
What 40hz really wanted to say! :-))
