Young People and Piracy

[ScottW]

I think the only way to stop it is through effective copy protection and usage restrictions, such as Microsoft's latest efforts to tie each installation to a particular machine, require hardware registration through the web, etc.

In some cases I think it can be argued that a person who pirates a piece of music or software wasn't going to be a customer anyway since they couldn't afford it, etc, so what's the harm, but I think there are tons of cases where potential customers opt for pirated software and music over opening their wallets.

[Mike]

Well sometimes it's really about convenience. I realize that somedays I want to listen to a song but don't want to go and buy the single in the store, so what do I do?...DOWNLOAD!! I see a lot of my friends borrowing stuff from one another and since they don't want their friend borrowing a legit copy, they'll burn him/her a copy of whatever they wanted.

Piracy is going to be very difficult to get rid of, but I think one day it will be done..Then again the day that piracy is ended something bigger and more illegal will be happening..

[BobViper]

ALOHA
I didn't know that Microsofts "effective copy protection and usage restrictions"WORKED!?!

I see cracks all over the web if you look.

Haven't seen ANY type of "Protection" that someone hasn't taken to challenge and Cracked! DVD etc.....

But good to keep people\crackers on their toes!

By the way there are still plenty of "Old Pirates" Around !!

[JacobM5727]

maybe if artist stopped being so cheap, made things like cds special, so that people would actually want to buy them, like with special booklets or other cool features.

stop making lazy a$$ crap songs to fill a cd with one good song, things like that...(my japanese cds are all worth the $40, but i am sorry i spent $20 on the latest limp bizkit a while back)


as for software, i like the whole cdkey thing, if they made it harder to crack then it seems like a good idea

maybe if people gave younger people things to do, like good jobs, bank accounts (stupid commercial federal), they would not have as much free time to crack anti-copy stuff

and no, i dont crack stuff... only when i lose my stupid jewel cases and need to..

[Bullion]

Piracy is an issue that i dont believe can be solved. DVD encryption was alleged to be uncrackable, but it was done. In my opinion/experience the only way to prevent pirating is to make the media on which the data is stored large. Before CD burners if a game was to be copied it had to be ripped and crammed onto floppy disks all 20 odd of them and compressed. Obviously now with broadband internet, burners and dvd writers this isnt a constraint. If Consumers demand DVD writers and broadband which drives the price down on these previously expensive devices younger people can now afford to purchase these appliances and pirating is acessible. ITs a catch 22 situation your damned of you do and your damnd if you dont.

My 2 cents

[NDC]

Yeah, I agree. anti-piracy is going to one that's hard to uphold. While software companies are thinking of ways to copy-protect their products, we have people who are looking for ways to crack them...

[Bob The Great]

Piracy is never going to be fixed. But we shouldn't give up. I think the indrusty is going in the right direction. Windows XP has some good anti piracy features, but has some really big problems with it. What it basicly does is stop the "lending" of it to friends. Sure you can go on the web and download a "fixed version. But it does make it so less of them are stolen.

I don't condem people for pirating. I'd just like them to really look at it. Look at them selves. Sure it's cool to have stuff for free. But it bites when someone gets the same idea about something you have.

[Ultima]

Okay people, I'll just say it out loud:

IF SOMETHING CAN BE ENCRYPTED, THJEN IT CAN ALSO BE DECRYPTED

Face it, it's true, they will always keep a way to get around it, just in case they might ever need it, for what reason nobody knows.

Something like a backdoor in.

Ultima

[speedstik]

I am against piracy, however, If I purchase an audio CD, why should I be prevented from ripping the songs into mp3 format? I have a large hard drive and it's convenient to have the songs on the drive rather than pop in CD's all of the time. I also like to burn my own compilation CD's.

I do admit I download hard to find songs from time to time, but the vast majority of mp3's on my system are ripped from my own CD's.

As long as you have locks, you'll have people who will break them.

While I agree with Scott that we need to keep up the pressure and devise new technology to protect intellectual property, like terrorism, this is a malaise that is here to stay.

Microsoft with its Activation technology failed. Today you can find "cracks" on hundreds of "warez" sites.

Those who want to steal, will.

I believe the other way to combat or at least reduce piracy is to reduce the price of software. I mean very few people, IMO, will pirate a $20 WindowsXP disk. But if it costs $200, there's a lot of incentive.

But this is a chicken and egg thing. Prices can only be reduced if more people buy........