Author: Dann Corbit
Date: 14:02:07 06/12/03
Go up one level in this thread
On June 12, 2003 at 15:03:36, Keith Evans wrote:
>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.)
In the US, piracy is sometimes pursued, and there are hundreds of arrests. For
instance:
http://www.customs.ustreas.gov/xp/CustomsToday/2002/January/custoday_buccaneer.xml
However, I think it varies a lot from country to country.
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