Author: Keith Evans
Date: 12:03:36 06/12/03
Go up one level in this thread
On June 12, 2003 at 14:35:41, Uri Blass wrote:
>On June 12, 2003 at 14:16:52, Dann Corbit wrote:
>
>>On June 11, 2003 at 20:07:59, Jerry Winters wrote:
>>
>>> I'm doing a College research paper on Software piracy, i was wondering if
>>>anyone could guess the percentage of people that visit this site, who use
>>>illegal chess software on their computer? Any guesses? Based on visiting RGGC
>>>and other sites i was guess about 90% is that reasonable?
>>
>>90% is absurd.
>>
>>It's really quite pointless anyway, for the following reasons:
>>1. You can get a free system consisting of:
>>A. Ruffian/Crafty/Yace {and other strong engines} that is close in strength to
>>the commercial systems
>>B. Winboard that allows simple and free online play
>>C. Scid that gives good database access to chess information.
>>
>>Since all of the above is pure gratis, stealing is nothing but stupidity.
>>
>>2. You can get ChessMaster 9000 for about $30 or so. The King is a very
>>strong engine (strong enough to beat 99.999% of the people who play it every
>>game they attempt). It also has lots of usability features that make operation
>>simple and pleasurable.
>>
>>If your integrity isn't worth $30 to you, then you are a pretty pathetic excuse
>>for a human being.
>>
>>3. The expensive commercial systems like ChessBase and Chess Assistant are well
>>worth the cost. And if you can't afford to cough up $150 or so, then use one of
>>the above systems instead.
>>
>>Considering the difficulty and danger associated with software piracy, and the
>>banal stupidity of the entire exercise, I think it is probably pretty rare.
>
>I do not think that there is difficulty and danger in software piracy.
>The police does not go for every home with computers to check if the owner is
>quilty in software piracy so practically the people who are quilty can be almost
>sure not to be caught.
>
>Uri
At a previous job one of my very well paid coworkers would spend hours copying
DVD movies and recoding as DIVX. (This was before the pushbutton tools existed.)
He wasted hours of time to make an inferior copy that he could only watch on a
PC rather than spending $15 at the store to purchase a legitimate DVD that he
could watch on his TV.
It didn't make economic sense but he did it. Now that anybody can do it, he
might not be doing it any more. Part of it might be the desire to be in some
sort of subculture and the feelings of superiority that derive from that. "Look
at those lemmings who go to the store and actually spend money of this stuff...
They are idiots, I'm far superior to them." etcetera
Also look at how many people hack DirecTV. (A satellite TV service.)
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