That's odd since the Euro typically trades at 25-35% higher than the USDollar. The USDollar is so weak from our deficits that everything we buy now in the US (and abroad) is noticeably higher, including software.

??? R3000 - R5200 - why is is more expensive in SA? Surely that is the same cost just converted to your currency ??? Or are you saying that pay is so much lower in SA that the cost is disproportionately higher.

That is certainly true in the UK - we pay higher prices because of the $1 = £1 conversion rate that is often applied and US salaries are generally higher than UK salaries, and the cost of living lower. (Though I think Dubya is doing his best to make sure the US cost of living increases to EU proportions from what I have read).

True, that's just the exchange rate, then there is the the mark up in the shops plus sales tax...That's why it's much higher...I see a product advertised in the U.S.A. for $200.00 from the vendor...Over here it is R1500 (Convered into Rands)Plus you pay Shop mark up + tax...which is a lot more than just the Dollar to Rands converted..Remember it's all about  import so it automatically become expensive for us...

Don’t Copy That Floppy:
Back in 1992, piracy was rampant. What could possibly stop it? An ad that you would swear was from the 80s? A horrible rap song?
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from http://www.gadgetopia.com/

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I want to reiterate my position:
It's important for us all to support authors+companies financially for their work.  If people simply take what they can, and only pay/contribute when they are forced to - i do believe that we will get what we deserve, which is that only the most agressive, restrictive and paranoid companies will profit.  if we instead endeavor to act morally, and support authors who do good work, both in commercial and free software, we will ensure that they thrive and continue to do good work.  it's important that when we see someone doing good work, we stand up and support them, as best we can.

Eóin just introduced us to a more recent form of a similar superhero,on this thread.
Here he is...





Actually, although (imo) it's a lame idea because this kind of stuff usually only gets jokes around it and not real atention, it actually is well done, the drawings are not bad at all, and you can vote on how you'd like the next part of the story to go!

It's not about whether the company or author deserves to have his/her/thier software cracked.  They DO NOT.  They deserve money for thier creation no matter how crappy it is, unless it doesn't work.  Even then, they deserve payment for that software, and you deserve the refund.

Software is not cracked, hacked, or keygenned by folks wanting to steal.  It is done by folks wanting the challenge of defeating the protection, or reverse engineering.  The problem is they post it to hidden FTPs or sites, or email it, with the intention of showing it off to peers who feel the same way, not wanting to steal anything, but others who know them and have access set it up and package it for distribution on the Internet. It's not about stealing, it's about the challenge, and the respect for breaking something.

Then of course there are the less than savory characters, desperate to make money or just to be a thug, who sell counterfit software, or distribute these works for money.

The hacking culture is just like the rest of society.  We originals didn't want to cause mischief or steal, we wanted to hack.  To stand up to a challenge, to work something out as a curiosity.  Not a thrill, although a good and successful hack is like that, and once again, NOT FOR MALICIOUS PURPOSES, or to steal, disrupt, harm, or other.  Just the challenge.  Many of us report our findings to the indvidual or company who we successfully hacked, or whose software protection we defeated.  Anonymously of course, but still we report our proof of concept and the software or company is hopefully better for it.

Herein lies another problem, the person or company whom we have given the information to fails to do anything about it, leaving themselves open due to lack of action.  While this is not a reason for people to do malicious acts or steal, it is a contibution to the problem.

No one should use software that has been stolen or hacked.  We should BUY our software, and contribute to those who make what we use.  The distros you find on Usenet (grrrr) torrent sites (GRRRR) and other are just immature and pathetic.  They should not end up there. It has gotten so that kids think it is cool to use, post, and distribute hacked, cracked or keygenned software.  IT ISN'T.

All that is moot.  You are at the least stealing, a common petty low thief.  There is no honor in that.  Nothing justifies it at all.  Not only that, but you are not defeating the software, you are relying on other's work.  It is shameful to even think of a justification.  If I were to walk into your home, take your things and use them because I am poor, or it is too hard to go to the store, there is no justfying that.  If I were to use your bank card, there is not justifying that.  It is the same type of wrong, no matter what the excuse.

Once again, a justification.  Over and above the laws of man or God, theft is wrong, plain and simple.  There is no justification.  Even if it is done out of desperation, it is still wrong.  Would I steal to save my family's life? Yes, but that does NOT make it right.

Stealing intellectual property is theft.  This is an original idea, owned solely by the creator, if you copy of use it without permission, you are robbing that person of that original idea, and that is theft.  The problem is too many people quibble about interpretations and circumstances.  We need to deal in absolutes here, right and wrong.  Software piracy can be explained, but not justified, and is in no way right.

As I said, if I sit in front of your home, and use your wireless that you pay for, I am stealing, whether it is out of desperation or not.

Back to the topic though, hacking is not a malicious act, it is curiosity, not meant to harm or steal, not mischevious.  Those who distribute what has been defeated are the problem.  Back in the day we hacked and phreaked out of the pure challenge and discovery of it, now kiddies are finding it cool to hack and then distibute software, movies, and so forth.  It is the attitude of the net that this is "l33t" and other ridiculous, immature garbage like that.  Software was once hacked for the challenge, not for the distributon.  Authors and companies were notified of the method and software became better for it, unless or course the company or author did nothing.  People who knew us, our "friends" not in our circles, were the ones releasing our work onto the Internet for others not in our circles, and without our authorisation.  That is how this all got started, the "warez" scene and so forth, and it snowballed into the poor, wannabe cool attitude on the Internet today, the attitude that finds it "l33t" to distibute other's hard work.

When people finally start standing up and saying "this is wrong and not cool" is when piracy will end.  The hacking will continue though.  All the efforts by the RIAA and MPAA and shareware authors, and companies are just drops into an ever increasing black hole.  They will always be defeated and piracy will continue until we ourselves stand up and say it is wrong insted of finding ways to justify it or make it appear that we have reasons.  There is no reason whatsoever that makes piracy right.

Is there any difference bewteen a piece of software and ...

... a piece of music - you sing someone's song in public you have to pay 'performance rights' unless it is very old (eg. you need a license if a school wants to perform "West Side Story" in public.)

... a CD/MP3 or a film/DVD ?

... how about patents? Use someone's idea to create your own product and you're in big trouble

... clothes design (yes I know all the designers get their ideas ripped off but is it right?)

... a building - can you copy existing new structures without the original architect's permission? (Probably - I don't know on that one)

... a book that you have memorized ... can you print it as your own? Actually is it OK to photocopy a book in the library from cover to cover. You haven't stolen anything - the original is still there after all, plus it probably cost more to photocopy it than buy a copy!

... a car design - can Ford just clone a Ferarri?

These are all in the same category you describe for software - just intellectual rights - but I'd guess most of them are protected (and have been since copyright and patent law was introduced).

Thanks for correcting my spelling of Ferrari ... what do I know

There are no absolutes. Laws are creations of man and man is fallible.

Stealing is a matter of interpretation. If a nation goes to war with another and takes their land, is that stealing? No, we have invented another word, it's called "conquest". If I take something and nobody notices it's gone and I later claim it as mine, only I know the difference - in the eyes of the world it is mine. Thus the phrase "posession in 9/10th's of the law". Yes, it was stolen, but if that theft is not known, it is irrelevant because the law cannot or will not do anything about it. The same is true if I simply "find" something. If I find a $20 bill on the street with no identifying marks and there is no one around, no way to get it back to its owner, is it stealing to keep it?

Before there was copyright law it was not illegal for me to print someone else's book or sing their song. Was it still wrong then? If you would say yes, is that because it is illegal today, or because you feel it is somehow "intrinsically" wrong? If the former then you presume that all our laws today our "right" and should not be open to interpretation or change and history would argue that you are wrong as laws are always changing and being reinterpreted. If the latter, is it right to expect everyone to agree with you? Not if your neighbor with the the shotgun has anything to do with it.

Laws are essentially the agreed upon standards of a society, but as I've said those standards can change, just as the standards and morals of societies do. Is there any absolute right? Not unless you believe your own word to be the one and only valid one, or if "might makes right". I don't subscribe to either perspective.

When it comes to theft of intellectual property it's even more of a slippery slope and trying to define it in absolute terms is just asking for trouble. What if I have the same idea as you, but I have the money to patent it and you don't. It's now "my" idea, but you had it too. This is clearly just an arbitrary distinction - the only difference between my idea and yours is that I was able to use "the system" to protect my claim on it. It doesn't make it truly my idea any more than it is yours, it is only so in the eyes of the law.

Back in the days before recording technology musicians performed every piece of music live and they were paid for every performance. Along came recording technology and there was a huge uproar and backlash by the performers against it. Ultimately the technology won, as it usually does, but the artists were in some ways right to mistrust the technology - nowadays the majority of payment goes to the distributors (record companies), *not* the producers of the actual copyrighted work (the music). After all nobody is saying that the CD itself is the copyrighted product, are they? There's a separate patent for that. If I rip the CD to MP3, where the bits that compose the audio signal are completely different, it is still a copyrighted work. It is the audio itself that is copyrighted, the words and music too (separately, I believe). Yet this too can be a dangerous definition because in the digital world there are ways to make something completely unlike itself, such that the copying of it should not be illegal - after all it is just 1's and 0's and cannot be independently analyzed to have any resemblance to the original work, even when "played" -  yet it must somehow *become* illegal the moment that thing again becomes liken to the copyrighted work (see below). And then we must ask how exactly we define that copyrighted work. If it is music must we listen to it to determine?

So clearly the trickiest bits are defining what exactly is copyrighted. Let's say I take an e-book and encrypt it with a standard encryption algorithm. It is now completely unrecognizable as the original work. Without the key no one may know its contents and it is effectively *not* the original, copyrighted material. Yet, almost magically, if I use a decrypting program and the right key, I can get back this copyrighted material out of "thin air", in a sense. So then what if I give my friend the encyrpted file, but not the key. Is this copyright violation? He might be able to guess the key or crack it, but then where is the copyrighted information - in the file or the key? Without the other both are meaningless.

Worse still, what if I use a file archiving program to compress and split the file in two. I give one half to one friend, the other have to another friend. By themselves the two halves aren't even halves of a book, they can't be read because they can't be decompressed. Are they still the copyrighted material they originated from? If you were talking about real-world products you would probably say no. If I take a book and rearrange its physical structure so it is in its most compact form possible then cut it in half and give each half to different friends, it's clearly not still a book. My friends can't get together and suddenly have a whole book. Yet somehow this *is* possible in the digital realm.

If my computer were to be siezed and examined for copyright violation the encrypted file would not truly be the e-book, it could not be read as such and if the key is destroyed and I have forgotten it, it is for all intents and purposes *not* the e-book and never will be again. Yet a sophisticated cracker could probably figure out the password and decrypt it. What if you decrypt random data and it creates the Mona Lisa? Highly unlikely, but possible. So then what seems most important is my intent, at least as far as what is provable and considerable to the law. Does this then come down to evaluating intent, and if so how do you prove intent? This has always been a difficult thing to deal with in court.

The possibility even exists for completely random data to be interpreted as text or audio or anything else and there is the further possibility that this interpretation of random data could resemble or even exactly reproduce a copyrighted work. This is not possible in "the real world", at least not by random chance, yet it is fully possible in the digital world. Yes these are tricky arguments, but without an absolute definition of what exactly is copyrighted, and without being able to consistently and accurately distinguish between copyrighted and uncopyrighted work, the law is meaningless since it can't be consistently enforced.

The law, as I've said before, is changeable, it is not an absolute. We did not always have copyright protection or patenting, they are not inherent rights. I would agree that some system needs to be in place to encourage innovaters to innovate and our current system was designed to do that, but let's not confuse that with some intrinsic "righteousness" for the idea of "owning" a concept. There is no such thing except where we have provided that facility, merely as a means to the end of encouraging and rewarding innovation and progress. Ownership is not the end goal, it is merely the means to that end.

I am not making arguments for pirating, rather I am showing that this issue is very difficult precisely because of the lack of absolutes in the equation. The definition of theft itself is not absolute - especially where digital elements are concerned - let alone the laws regarding it, or the items that are being stolen. Don't confuse my intent - I *want* copyright, theft, etc. to be clearly and absolutely defined so that 1: I may safely comply with copyright, etc. without confusion 2: my own copyrighted works may be safely protected without loose interpretation or vaguery. I want to know that I can protect my creations and that any creation I have is truly owned by me legally. With the above discussed uncertanties I don't feel that is truly possible. Most people just take all that for granted, just as they take many, many things in life for granted, but that doesn't mean they are not legitimate issues.

Just a few things to think about. I'm not an anarchist, don't take me too seriously.

- Oshyan

That was a good read.  The base problem is this:  YOU know what you did, YOU know it was wrong, so it is still wrong, very simple.  A crime needs to have malicious intent.  Therefore, you picking up an unidentifiable $20 bill is not a crime. If you right over and spend it without at least allowing for someone to claim it, that may not be a "legal" crime, but it is a moral one, still a crime, and wrong.  If someone posts an ad saying they lost it, yet you leep it or do not repay it, that is a crime.  If you give your friend a copywrited work, it is a crime, period.  Encryption doesn't matter.  If I give you my WindowsXP CD, but no key, it is still a crime.  The point isn't the law here, it is how we govern ourselves, our morality.  It is not a crime to have a website boasting "hot teens" as long as the "teens" in question are of legal age, but is it a moral crime to insinuate youth?  Yes.  It should not be allowed.  

One thing though, my arguments are all wrong.  Why?  Reality itself is interpreted.  These things we call laws, morals, governing guidlines, they are all created by the way we interpret reality.  If someone interprets reality different, does the law apply?  Majority rules.  

VERY well put.  Instead of coming up with ways to justify what is being done, think about the actual right or wrong of it.  Over and above legalities, is it right or wrong?

Problem:  Who decides right or wrong?  Majority?

I agree with you 100% and was adding my own point.

Another point is, even though I am not Christian, the Bible is a very good read and a great set of guidelines to govern ourselves by.  I am NOT turning this into a religious discussion, but if you look at your point, it could be do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

I wish we could be trusted to govern ourselves.  There was a time when we could trust those governing us, now we cannot even trust those we employ, we elect to govern.