OT: The death penalty for cracked software - too harsh?

[noisetonepause]

I'd much rather kids crack software and make tunes than sell themselves for pennies and perpetuate this usurious death trap some have the audacity to call civilization.

It's great that you're so enamoured with your own protestant work ethic that you want nothing more than to piss your life away for the lukewarm pleasure of an 'honest' day's work, if getting up in time to milk the cows makes you feel like Christ on the cross. Really. That's awesome. But please. Some of us have bigger fish to fry.

And really. If work is so good for you, why not make sick people do it?

[snakedogman]

yes it is!
no it isn't!
yes it is!
no it isn't!
yes it is!
no it isn't!
yes it is!
no it isn't!
yes it is!
no it isn't!

...ad infinum

[glitchrock-buddha]

Ya Cracks are against the law, just like smoking pot. But at the end of the day, it's a moral decision of which you have to weight the consequences yourself. I generally agree with Johnisfaster about the cracks, in that it actually does get people started and can actually benefit software makers down the line sometimes. Are they better off because of cracks? Well obviously that would be pretty tough to prove or disprove. Clearly there are people that take advantage of cracks. But it does lead to people buying the product in many cases, due to increased reliance (availability of upgrades, support, and protection for future system upgrades). I myself started out using a crack of reason 1.0 when I first got into the software world. I didn't know what I was getting into and if everything would work, and I was in university and had no money anyways. That inevitably led to spending a fortune on software.

I've used lots of cracks, but I've ended up buying anything I've ended up using even once in a track. And I don't think that's wrong. In my case, the cracks are essentially demos with no time limitation or annoying noise. There is absolutely no ethical dilemma in this for me at all. They are essentially for evaluation and I don't want to feel like I have to force the time to try it out of the next two weeks or deal with silence or noise. And if I make a patch that I absolutely must use, I'd like to be able to save it for when I have the full version. I've had a crack on my system for a full year before I actually got into it and thought "Ya, this is awesome", and then bought it. If it wasn't there, I wouldn't have opened it up to tinker and bought the thing. And now, so many companies have my money, it's ridiculous: Ableton Suite, NI Komplete/Kore, GForce bundle, Arturia collection, all Sugar Bytes, Addictive Drums, Synful Orchestra, Sylenth1, Synplant, Camel Audio Cameleon/Alchemy and Camelspace, Ohm Force, Audio Damage, and the list goes on... Many of which I first used a crack. Many of these offered annoying demos or time limits, so hardly feel guilty using a crack while evaluating. I still gave them money even though the copy protection has sometimes wasted my time getting something authorized.

All that being said, if there were no cracks at all, I wouldn't care, they are simply more convenient for trying out software sometimes.

And if I see someone using a crack regularly who would have otherwise bought it, I'll tell them it's lame, because companies should be rewarded for their work.

So although I know it's wrong to rely on and benefit from cracks, I know that the times I've used them has not in any way caused potential financial rewards to be lost, on the contrary, it has usually resulted in increased profits for the software makers. But that I feel is my own personal choice.

[ze2be]

There should be laws against people singing songs they havent paid for! We need public surveillance microphones with song recognition software, together with face recognition cameras.

And home tape recording is killing music!!!

Everybody knows it, end of discussion.

[Mike Goodwin]

I ensure you rjbourc that you could read threads about this on hundreds of other forums from around the world every single day for hours at a time until the day you die, on this topic. Why on earth did you feel the need to start a thread here about it?

Sigh. Dam I am bitter.

[SubFunk]

stupid moral =?!&% heads!

cracks... bad? what about the dozens of people here on this forum who support companies who reverse engineer and then sell their shit cheap and legal... damn you!!! moral %$(&"

let's just all be good. F()k that!!!

[Lo-Fi Massahkah]

I'd much rather kids crack software and make tunes than sell themselves for pennies and perpetuate this usurious death trap some have the audacity to call civilization.

It's great that you're so enamoured with your own protestant work ethic that you want nothing more than to piss your life away for the lukewarm pleasure of an 'honest' day's work, if getting up in time to milk the cows makes you feel like Christ on the cross. Really. That's awesome. But please. Some of us have bigger fish to fry.

And really. If work is so good for you, why not make sick people do it?

.m

[LiquidFix]

I'd much rather kids crack software and make tunes than sell themselves for pennies and perpetuate this usurious death trap some have the audacity to call civilization.

It's great that you're so enamoured with your own protestant work ethic that you want nothing more than to piss your life away for the lukewarm pleasure of an 'honest' day's work, if getting up in time to milk the cows makes you feel like Christ on the cross. Really. That's awesome. But please. Some of us have bigger fish to fry.

And really. If work is so good for you, why not make sick people do it?

.m

+ 1.1

[NapalmBob]

When you are purchasing software you are are not actually purchasing software (unless its on a disc). Normally you are only purchasing the right to use that software in the manner laid out in the license agreement. Its not yours to do what you want with. So how is it stealing if you can never truely own it in the first place?

Someone recently said "No privacy without piracy" ie: the tighter a company tries to hold onto its code, usually through increasing intrusive techniques, the more people will resort to crackz and warez. And the inverse should also apply.

Just food for thought.

[rjbourc]

I ensure you rjbourc that you could read threads about this on hundreds of other forums from around the world every single day for hours at a time until the day you die, on this topic.

True, and you could have just skipped over this one.

Sorry, but it's the music software-specific aspect of this issue that intrigues me right now. I've given up trying to understand kiddies who steal gigabytes of music and movies, who steal games and graphics software.

I'm trying to understand the "I deserve to use a cracked version of every DAW and VST I want to for as long as I like and MAYBE I'll decide to pay for some of them someday" logic that keeps getting used.

It's just bizarre.

[Tone Deft]

I'm trying to understand the "I deserve to use a cracked version of every DAW and VST I want to for as long as I like and MAYBE I'll decide to pay for some of them someday" logic that keeps getting used.

It's just bizarre.

yeah, and this one kills me
http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php? ... e+operator
grown men begging for free software because some other people got a discount.

[leedsquietman]

Again, I don't think anyone really gets their knickers in a twist over people who run a crack for a while, like it and then buy it - it's just that far too many people are cheap and mean and have a sense of free entitlement, reading stuff like 'well you only have a EULA, so stealing is fine' is just pitiful and hilarious all at the same time - admit to yourself - I steal because I can and I refuse to pay because I'm too cheap and am spending my money on Iphones and 200 dollar Nikes instead. There is no difference, but if it makes you feel less guilty, continue to live in denial ... Any time I see someone say they are using Nuendo, or Waves Mercury or Platinum, my immediate thought is - probably cracked. That's the world we live in.

Some companies do not offer demos of their products and kind of leave themselves open to that kind of exposure - Ableton however, give a fully functional 2 week trial period, including the Suite instruments, so there is really no excuse on that front.

The so called kids Noisetonepause talks about - you can make reasonable music with the basic Fruity Loops or certainly with Reaper or Acid Music Studio etc. for 50 bucks. Acid have a free version. I don't think a kid prostituting themselves has anything to do with it, it's a sad fact of life, but most street kids I've heard of don't pull out their mixtape post sex act and say 'wanna buy my cool tunes for 5 bucks'......people come up with the strangest ideas and theories. The only valid justification is on a try before buy basis, especially where no demo or super crippled demo exists. And if you like it buy it - but in the mean time, admit you're doing something illegal and keep a low profile and don't go boasting about your crack on an official forum or asking tech support questions on bugs - the bug is most likely caused by the crack, coding errors and bits of missing code the hacker couldn't decipher.

[noisetonepause]

I don't think a kid prostituting themselves has anything to do with it

Haha. That's not *quite* what I meant by selling themselves. It was just seeing people suggesting that getting a paper route is a better use of a 14-year-old's time than learning about music, Photoshop, 3D modelling, or whatever. That's an utterly ridiculous position if you ask me. Get the cracked version, pump out some tunes, be artistic, don't grow up till you have to...

[Mike Goodwin]

I ensure you rjbourc that you could read threads about this on hundreds of other forums from around the world every single day for hours at a time until the day you die, on this topic.

True, and you could have just skipped over this one.

Sorry, but it's the music software-specific aspect of this issue that intrigues me right now. I've given up trying to understand kiddies who steal gigabytes of music and movies, who steal games and graphics software.

I'm trying to understand the "I deserve to use a cracked version of every DAW and VST I want to for as long as I like and MAYBE I'll decide to pay for some of them someday" logic that keeps getting used.

It's just bizarre.

Sorry my mistake. Ill go start another thread about how OSX is better than Windows. And then how analog is better than digital and we will all be winners! I guess after a while of not jumping in on these threads my total lack of interest turns into a bit of a illogical "stop this Internet pollution" rage. Again my mistake.

[friend_kami]

not this again..

i dont care if some idiot comes into my apartment and steal my tv, aslong as i can hit ctrl+v to make a new one.

thing about digital copies is that they are infact digital. for every person downloading a cracked version of something, you have a potential customer. i know people who simply just dont download demos and just finds the cracked version right away. if they use it enough and like it, they buy it. in the meantime they tell other people about this amazing software, which in turn makes for even more potential customers. some people have the resources to just go out and buy it. surely you could get a job, if you have an education and the luck to find one. almost every single one of my friends are unemployed for the simple fact that there is no jobs available. in a perfect world you could just go out and get a job, but unfortunately we dont live in a perfect world. people are getting laid off all the time, big companies firing thousands upon thousands of people and so forth.

is it wrong to use pirated software? yes, its wrong. the law says so. one could argue about how its morally wrong but this depends on alot of factors. is it morally wrong to "steal" a copy of microsoft windows? one of the world biggest corporations in the world, who actually stole their idea for this OS in the first place?

the law says its wrong, so its wrong. nonetheless, pirated software can be a great advertisement for your company, like it or not.
i know people that have downloaded cds off the net, only to like them so much they went and bought the real version of it. the physical version. this applies to software aswell.


its like that old saying that all publicity is good publicity.

this discussion is old, just drop it already.
my question is merely: what exactly did metallica do on napster in the first place?