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Pirating abandoned content?

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cranioscopical:
The only abandoned software I've pirated is FARR. :P
-Deozaan (May 16, 2008, 08:56 PM)
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Hey, that's not farr fair!  It is funny, though -- or furry as we dyslexics would say.

Armando:
The only abandoned software I've pirated is FARR. :P


-Deozaan (May 16, 2008, 08:56 PM)
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Hey, I know the author... So, if you feel like sending him a few $. I've heard he's struggling and all he can afford to eat is mice.

mouser:
 :mad:


edit: someone messaged me asking if the smilie meant that i really got upset about the posts teasing me.  it takes a lot more than that to offend me, i was just playing along with the funny joke.

Fred Nerd:
it could even turn out that a certain amount of piracy would be tolerated specifically because it prevents the demand for free/open source alternatives from reaching a critical mass.  that's a scary though.
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As far as I know, Windows used to do this, they knew how many pirate copies of 98 were being installed in the private market, but allowed it because then businesses would run the OS that most employees already knew.
Same with Photoshop, this might have changed, but it used to be the 2nd most pirated software, simply so that it could be the standard, and businesses (and people with more morals) would buy it.
Office was that way as well,

So I think there is a point that pirating is playing into the hands of big business.

steeladept:
A few months ago I heard about a university professor, at GMU in Washington DC, that required students to purchase a textbook from him, that he wrote. He charged students a very high price for it, wouldn't allow them to buy it used, and the book included a label with the student's name and a serial number (how is that for anti-piracy!). If you didn't purchase the book, you could not pass the course. It was required! You couldn't even sell this book when you were done with it, because every student that took his course was in the same position that you were and couldn't buy it used.

It is quite possible that this teacher was making more off his book, by taking advantage of his students, than he was from teaching the course. People like that should die in an avalanche of used textbooks.
-app103 (May 16, 2008, 11:19 AM)
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In the UK that wouldn't be allowed - it is tantamount to extortion and at least a huge conflict of interest. The best thing the students could do is boycott his course en masse until he gets sacked.
-Carol Haynes (May 16, 2008, 11:42 AM)
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Actually that is illegal here too.  It is monopolistic practices and he can actually have his book shut down, in the least, for it.  Any competing publisher could take him to court for damages as well, since he prevented them from earning anything on their offering if it would have been chosen.  However, that is a somewhat tenuous claim, and let's face it - the university systems (including the suppliers and their systems, at least in the USA) are VERY totalitarian.  They love command economies and monopolies, or at least that is how they operate.  I have been to too many schools to believe otherwise.

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