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Geek Culture / Pirate Bay founders jailed :O

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El Goorf
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Posted: 17th Apr 2009 14:53
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just heard it on the news, the people of piratebay have been jailed for a year and have to pay millions in fines..

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8003799.stm

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bergice
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Posted: 17th Apr 2009 14:57
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Hah, cool.

Was at a presentation by a pirate bay guy, he was swedish, he talked alot about this.

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prasoc
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Posted: 17th Apr 2009 15:37
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All I can say is good luck to them and thanks for all the fish.
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bitJericho
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Posted: 17th Apr 2009 16:03
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Looks like the torrent sites need to find a new country to base operations in.

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Guy_84
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Posted: 17th Apr 2009 16:16 Edited at: 17th Apr 2009 16:16
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Quote: "the people of piratebay have been jailed for a year and have to pay millions in fines.."

YAY! This is great news.



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Seppuku Arts
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Posted: 17th Apr 2009 16:33
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As somebody who's not a fan of piracy, I say 'good'. Piracy is why things like SecuRom exist and why PC game development is becoming more and more risky for losing $$$. It's a dent on PC gaming and I think the pirate-bay situation should send the right messages, though not end it.

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Veron
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Posted: 17th Apr 2009 16:50
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Extremely bad news, I went absolutely mental when I heard this, no joke.

To everyone siding with the media - ask yourself this. The media says they're running TPB (The Pirate Bay) for the money, and are rich because of it, but they don't even have the money to pay for the 30 million kronor fine (about 3 million pounds?). Are they lying? I doubt it. Look at the guys, they don't get loads of cash from this, and it's just the media trying to say that they don't care about freedom of speech and all that, they're just saying they do it for themselves, which is pretty obviously false.

Also, the charges fell well short of what the media had been pressing for, they had pressed for much longer jail sentences, not just a year, and fines of over 10 million pounds.

Quote: "Looks like the torrent sites need to find a new country to base operations in."


One loss doesn't mean this case is over. They have already said that they're appealing the decision.

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Samoz83
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Posted: 17th Apr 2009 16:54 Edited at: 17th Apr 2009 17:06
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So, they got sent to jail despite having no pirated software, video files, or mp3's on their server, none on their own personal computers, and didn't commit fraud or sell illegal wares????

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Veron
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Posted: 17th Apr 2009 17:04
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Learn about the case before you talk about it. Read up on what they got jailed for. They DON'T HOST any files, just the tracker/torrents. Read up on Swedish law. They had an extremely good case, and 2/3rds of the charges were dropped. Explain why those charges were dropped on the first day of the trial?

People like you who discuss major issues like this without knowing what they're talking about are exactly the problem with the cases.

Having said all this, no, I don't pirate, but I do believe in the freedom of speech aspect, just like the TPB owners.

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Van B
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Posted: 17th Apr 2009 17:14
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Quote: "Look at the guys, they don't get loads of cash from this, and it's just the media trying to say that they don't care about freedom of speech and all that, they're just saying they do it for themselves, which is pretty obviously false."


In what way is setting up a P2P system encouraging freedom of speech, a hobby, or a political statement?

That's the sort of thing you do to make money, no other reason, I wish they would drop the whole 'freedom fighter' bull and just take it like men. Piracy is illegal, making a website called Pirate Bay for pirates to share their pirate stuff is illegal, if you do something illegal then you can get in this sort of trouble.

Some people are serving 20 years for selling marijuana to cancer sufferers to help combat the medication side-effects - a year is nothing.


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Bejasc3D
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Posted: 17th Apr 2009 17:16
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When i first read the title, I was "the owners of that casino got jailed?" - I thought it was a fanceh casino in Vegas - lol.

But anyway, I agree with Verons side.... But it would bw wrong to say that i havent pirated before ..... I feel guilty..

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bitJericho
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Posted: 17th Apr 2009 17:23
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Quote: "Some people are serving 20 years for selling marijuana to cancer sufferers to help combat the medication side-effects - a year is nothing."


Interestingly enough, owning a website about pot as well as phone numbers and addresses for where to get it is probably not illegal, afaik.

Quote: "So, they got sent to jail despite having no pirated software, video files, or mp3's on their server, none on their own personal computers, and didn't commit fraud or sell illegal wares????"


I know someone who knows someone and they're extremely paranoid about that sort of thing, as it's just what the cops look for to bust em. I doubt any torrent operator has anything but legit software on the personal and business computers.

As for money, these public torrent sites make millions, easily. All off of ads and donations.

As for my point about moving out of Sweden, I mean generally, not because of this case. Sweden appears to be increasingly hostile to illegal torrent site owners (arguably for good reason).

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Veron
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Posted: 17th Apr 2009 17:25 Edited at: 17th Apr 2009 17:27
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Sure, a year is nothing, but that doesn't take away the fact that it's jail time nonetheless.

Piracy is illegal? Torrenting was perfectly legal in Sweden until the new laws were passed a month or two ago, and i'm not even sure to what extent torrenting was covered in the laws.

Also, even if they were in it for the money... where's the money? Even their servers were purchased with donated money.

Quote: "In what way is setting up a P2P system encouraging freedom of speech, a hobby, or a political statement?"


Perhaps a statement of the way the entertainment industry as a whole works? I sure know that I don't like the way the industry works, however going to the extreme of promoting piracy is another thing altogether.

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Bejasc3D
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Posted: 17th Apr 2009 17:34
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Isnt it legal to download softare if you had previously owned it..?

example > you buy 'The sims'
3 years later, the disc is scratched to pieces and you download it.

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Veron
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Posted: 17th Apr 2009 17:37 Edited at: 17th Apr 2009 17:38
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I don't think so, I know that for us in Australia, we can make a digital copy of our CD's for personal use, assuming we own the CD, but it's pretty irrelevant, since that sort of stuff is on a personal, one-user level, whereas the TPB case is global.

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Seppuku Arts
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Posted: 17th Apr 2009 17:41
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Promoting illegal activity is not a way to deliver a political message as it can sometimes cost you your integrity and respect, it also means there's a way of getting yourself into trouble without your message being clear...though sometimes breaking the law I suppose is necessary. A statement on the entertainment industry? Is promoting piracy going to get you anyway, I have known of the pirate bay for a little while and I have never heard of such a goal. Surely the political message should be strong in their actions, otherwise, how would it work?

Instead of downloading their stuff illegally, why not a good old fashioned boycott? They don't get your money and you don't do anything illegal and you're encouraging people away from the products or industry you're unsatisfied, if companies see people not wanting their products, then surely that sends out a better message.

By providing the website and promoting piracy, you're an accomplice. They knowingly provided a service for that purpose.

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Jeku
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Posted: 17th Apr 2009 17:58
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Quote: "They DON'T HOST any files, just the tracker/torrents."


Exactly, I'm on the fence with this as I don't know which side I'm on. On the one hand, they knew full well that they are enabling people to break the law, and nothing else. However, they're technically not hosting anything illegal on their servers, or so I've read.

They always go after the suppliers instead of the customers in these types of cases.

Quote: "Some people are serving 20 years for selling marijuana to cancer sufferers to help combat the medication side-effects"


With that I'd almost agree with the government giving medical marijuana. They do that here and it seems to help people who are suffering from pain.

Quote: "Isnt it legal to download softare if you had previously owned it..?"


Probably it is, but I doubt a judge would fine you for that, if you could prove you own the game. Technically downloading a ROM of a cartridge you own is also illegal in most countries.

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Grandma
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Posted: 17th Apr 2009 17:58
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The thing is that piracy will never be "gone". It's almost organic. It will simply change way of operation or what one might call it if something comes in its way. If things become too difficult for torrent sites, they will switch over to other networks, like Tor. They also have a legal side to them which makes it harder to criminalize.

Back in the toughest times of the Soviet era, people shared an underground newspaper amongs eachother because it was hard getting news filled with real news rather than propoganda. The amount of punishment people would get for being cought with such a paper was severe, but they still carried it around, and shared it with whomever. I don't believe the anti-piracy laws will go as far as to create a police state in Sweden, but even then, people would share if they really wanted/needed to.

It won't matter. If they only put their efforts into making stuff that is worth paying every penny for, people wouldn't pirate. Well, except the weirdoes with no soul.

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Jeku
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Posted: 17th Apr 2009 18:04
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Quote: "The thing is that piracy will never be "gone"."


So what's the best answer, stop litigating? In fact the drug war will never be "gone" either, so just stop taking them off the streets? Yes I'm aware that there's a difference between piracy and drug abuse, but both of them involve breaking the law, regardless of whether there will ever be an end. Murder will never be "gone" either.

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Veron
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Posted: 17th Apr 2009 18:06 Edited at: 17th Apr 2009 18:08
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Quote: "Promoting illegal activity"


I'll stop you at your first sentence. Torrenting illegal material is legal in Sweden (see my above posts) - or at least, it was.

Secondly, how do we know that TPB was intended to be for illegal activity? Torrenting is perfectly legal in the whole world, many game developers provide a torrent of their games simply for easier sharing, and to reach a wider audience.

Throughout this, I don't deny that what TPB have done is wrong, promoting illegal activity is bad, no doubt about it. Being jailed and heavily fined for it, with no real case, is a totally different matter. It doesn't matter why they do it, they could have their own personal reasons for all we know.

However, if the link to the image below doesn't show their intentions, then I don't know what will.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d7/The.Pirate.Bay.Cartoon-small.png

EDIT:
Quote: "It won't matter. If they only put their efforts into making stuff that is worth paying every penny for, people wouldn't pirate."


Some people pirate simply because they're idiots. Because they don't want to legitimately pay for the product, it's not because they think the products are mediocre, and not everyone is on a "personal crusade" against the entertainment industry, it's the fact that it's free, and to them - why not?

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Grandma
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Posted: 17th Apr 2009 18:26
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Quote: "So what's the best answer, stop litigating?"

I don't know what to do about it, I don't claim to have all the answers. I was merely making a point that it's unrealistic to think that it can just magically vanish with a lawsuit or 300.

Quote: "Some people pirate simply because they're idiots. Because they don't want to legitimately pay for the product, it's not because they think the products are mediocre, and not everyone is on a "personal crusade" against the entertainment industry, it's the fact that it's free, and to them - why not?"

Yeah.
They would fall in the "weirdoes with no soul" category for me.

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TheComet
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Posted: 17th Apr 2009 18:28
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Quote: "[quote]The thing is that piracy will never be "gone"."


So what's the best answer, stop litigating? In fact the drug war will never be "gone" either, so just stop taking them off the streets? Yes I'm aware that there's a difference between piracy and drug abuse, but both of them involve breaking the law, regardless of whether there will ever be an end. Murder will never be "gone" either.[/quote]

Nope, piracy will slowly become legal over time, just like cassette tapes. Did you know that it was illegal to make copies from your cassette tapes, even for private use?

And when the CD's came out later, you had to re-pay the stores to get the same song you bought on cassette on a CD. It was illegal to copy the song from a cassette to a CD. And those corporations get too much money anyway...

I just read through the article, and this is crap. They did not break any law, they didn't do any damage to those corporations, it was the people who pirate that did the damage. It was the people who pirate that broke the law. Not Pirate Bay.

And I still don't quite see how they were found guilty.

Quote: ""The court first tried whether there was any question of breach of copyright by the file-sharing application and that has been proved, that the offence was committed.

"The court then moved on to look at those who acted as a team to operate the Pirate Bay file-sharing service, and the court found that they knew that material which was protected by copyright but continued to operate the service," he said. "


They didn't store copyrighted material on the Pirate Bay servers!? Did they?

There's something missing here...

TheComet

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Veron
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Posted: 17th Apr 2009 18:32
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Well said.

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KeithC
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Posted: 17th Apr 2009 18:36
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Quote: "They did not break any law, they didn't do any damage to those corporations"

You guys are forgetting that they weren't just harming the "corporations", they were also harming small independent developers...such as those selling model packs (which people pointed me to on that site on numerous occasions). Is that fair to the guys who are barely scratching by?

I won't lose any sleep over this decision. They knew what they were doing was wrong and they did it anyways.

-Keith

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TheComet
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Posted: 17th Apr 2009 18:45
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Quote: "they were also harming small independent developers"

Quote: "They knew what they were doing was wrong and they did it anyways."


THEY? You mean the PEERS that upload torrents which point to the actual place to download. Pirate Bay isn't braking the Swedish law by hosting torrents.

What you say is true, but I heard somewhere that only 20% of the worlds population pirate. And most pirate for films and songs.

TheComet

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Veron
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Posted: 17th Apr 2009 18:46 Edited at: 17th Apr 2009 18:47
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Quote: "You guys are forgetting that they weren't just harming the "corporations", they were also harming small independent developers...such as those selling model packs (which people pointed me to on that site on numerous occasions). Is that fair to the guys who are barely scratching by?"


Is it their fault that indie games/packs have been published? No. It's the fault of the user who uploaded them.

EDIT: Posted at the same time TheComet.

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Seppuku Arts
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Posted: 17th Apr 2009 18:47 Edited at: 17th Apr 2009 18:53
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Who's to decide how much they earn either? I mean if you're successful and create a product that people want, then you should be able to charge a price for it and earn from it. With increase profits it means expansion, it means hiring more staff, it means funding new projects, it means putting more money into the industry and expanding it. If a business starts loosing money, that means cut-backs and that can be staff - so staff become redundant and go out looking for new jobs, which aren't always aplenty.

Keith rightly highlights smaller business, I think on a forum for indie game makers that should be noted, how would you like it if you're starting to become successful and want to get funds for say to hire someone to do some of the media for you, but some sod on the internet is tormenting your game and no doubt indie games aren't difficult to pirate.

[Edit]

The Pirate Bay, like other similar sites, by promoting it, augment piracy and there should have been a law that makes them accountable. Okay, the punishment is harsh.


As they were convicted, to clarify things, what law was it that there were accused of breaking?

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TheComet
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Posted: 17th Apr 2009 18:49
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Quote: "Who's to decide how much they earn either?"


Actually, the Pirate Bay doesn't earn anything. They do it for fun.

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KeithC
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Posted: 17th Apr 2009 18:58
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Quote: "Actually, the Pirate Bay doesn't earn anything. They do it for fun."

I thought they did it to make some kind of statement?

Quote: "Is it their fault that indie games/packs have been published? No. It's the fault of the user who uploaded them."

Again; they are/were enablers, they knew what they were doing was wrong, and did it anyways.

Quote: "THEY? You mean the PEERS that upload torrents which point to the actual place to download."

Those peers couldn't have done so without a facilitator, such as TPB.

-Keith

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Veron
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Posted: 17th Apr 2009 18:58 Edited at: 17th Apr 2009 19:00
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I highly doubt that they "do it for fun." I think Sep was referring to how much the entertainment industry earns as well, not TPB.

The point is, it's not the fault of TPB that indie developers are getting screwed over, it's the fault of the people who upload the stuff.

Another interesting factor to note is the number of torrent sites out there. While TPB is the biggest, it still doesn't mean that sites such as Mininova should get away with no attention at all.
Sites like Mininova are in exactly the same boat as TPB, and if anything, they'd be in a worse position, as TPB have the advantage of being located in Sweden, where the laws regarding torrenting are different.

EDIT: Being a facilitator is in no way illegal, since torrents aren't illegal. The only thing which distinguishes one torrent from another is the content which it points to, and that content is the user's business, not the business of TPB.

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bitJericho
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Posted: 17th Apr 2009 19:02 Edited at: 17th Apr 2009 19:03
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Quote: "Actually, the Pirate Bay doesn't earn anything. They do it for fun."


Or so they may claim.

I've heard those Somali pirates did it for the lulz.

I don't know about you guys, but I can't run a milti-million hit a month website for free. That'd be a full time job, and that'd mean I need full time wages.

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David R
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Posted: 17th Apr 2009 19:07 Edited at: 17th Apr 2009 19:08
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Quote: "Those peers couldn't have done so without a facilitator, such as TPB."


Surely that makes Google a facilitator to people who illegally steal copyrighted text/images etc. from the web? Or does that logic only work when something is the enemy of the media?

I'm fairly certain the court/country is in bed with the media corporations. There is no way in hell the logic of their sentence.... well, there's no way it's logical. It could easily be applied to other situations where the 'facilitator' still gets off scot-free. But these guys get jailed.


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Veron
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Posted: 17th Apr 2009 19:16
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Quote: "I'm fairly certain the court/country is in bed with the media corporations."


My thoughts exactly.

Quote: "I don't know about you guys, but I can't run a milti-million hit a month website for free. That'd be a full time job, and that'd mean I need full time wages."


Nobody said they don't get paid for running the site - imagine the price of advertising space on a site as prestigious as it? The point is that they don't run the site for personal gain, and the money that they do get from it goes into either the costs in maintaining the website and its servers, and them needing to live.

In short, just because they earn money from the site, it doesn't mean they're in it for that money.

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Jeku
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Posted: 17th Apr 2009 19:21
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Quote: "Secondly, how do we know that TPB was intended to be for illegal activity? Torrenting is perfectly legal in the whole world, many game developers provide a torrent of their games simply for easier sharing, and to reach a wider audience."


Rofl. Go to their site and look at their name. The PIRATE bay. Then go see if you can find if even 0.05% of the torrents are for legal things.

Quote: "Nope, piracy will slowly become legal over time, just like cassette tapes."


No, piracy will never be legal in most countries. Cassette tapes are not in the same sphere. Cassette tapes are like hard drives--- you can store anything you want on them, legal or not. Piracy is illegal by definition. Copying legit software is not piracy.

Quote: "And those corporations get too much money anyway..."


Communist, are you? So we should screw them over because they "get too much money". Righto.

Quote: "Pirate Bay isn't braking the Swedish law by hosting torrents."


Apparently they are now, as they're in jail.

Quote: "What you say is true, but I heard somewhere that only 20% of the worlds population pirate. And most pirate for films and songs."


So therefore let's just turn a blind eye to the entire problem. Let's just not charge for any software!

Quote: "Is it their fault that indie games/packs have been published? No. It's the fault of the user who uploaded them."


Ignorance is bliss. Would it be fair to create a site called tgc-cracks.com where you can download torrents of TGC software? Since it's not hosted there, it's okay, right? Just because it's called tgc-cracks doesn't imply that the owners wanted anyone to submit a torrent with a crack, right? Right? Ridiculous logic there, buddy.

Quote: "While TPB is the biggest, it still doesn't mean that sites such as Mininova should get away with no attention at all. "


Um, TPB is not the first pirate site to get shut down. There are other ones too, and TPB is the biggest one on the net at the moment. I doubt it will stop there.

Quote: "Surely that makes Google a facilitator to people who illegal steal copyrighted text/images etc. from the web? Or does that logic only work when something is the enemy of the media?"


The difference is Google isn't called FreeWarezHere.com. It's put in place for legitimate reasons (searching the internet). TPB is there for, well here's a clue, look at the second word in their title. If the site was called torrentshere.com and they actively tried to remove torrents of copyrighted material, I would be on their side. TPB actively pursues pirated material.

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Alucard94
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Posted: 17th Apr 2009 19:59
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On other notes the Ipred law that Sweden just took in is incredibly stupid. The intention mainly being to "stop piracy" but what it does is allows companies to see where someone (By their IP address, so I'm guessing it wouldn't be too hard to hide) goes online at any time, and then just showing a very easy-to-fabricate screenshot to the court to have someone down, what they then do is sending a letter to the subscriber of that network (Which does not actually have to be the person who has done the file-sharing) forcing for money and all of that. This law seems to change quite a things with the way Sweden handles the "tax" thing, before it was just for the actual faking of documents and similar (real) issues, now companies seems to just be able to force people who have not actually pirated themselves for imaginary numbers. It just seems so idiotic.
And when someone has gotten down for pirating (Whether they actually did or not) it's allowed to put up their name and what they actually did for crime as a notice in the newspaper.


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TheComet
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Posted: 17th Apr 2009 20:21
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Quote: "Communist, are you? So we should screw them over because they "get too much money". Righto."


If I am an artist, (like a game developer) and have a distributor who's going to sell my product (which is all a recording company does), do you think it's fair that I have to give away 90-95% of my earnings? I don't.

Contrast that with a distribution agreement for someone who makes kitchen knifes. That distributor only gets 15-30% of the revenues. In my view recording companies exploit artists and stifle the emergence of new talent. This should change.

Quote: "No, piracy will never be legal in most countries. Cassette tapes are not in the same sphere. Cassette tapes are like hard drives--- you can store anything you want on them, legal or not. Piracy is illegal by definition. Copying legit software is not piracy."


If enough people get together, the government can't do anything against them, and will have to change to the way the people want it. It has happened a lot, and will happen a lot. So some time in the future, piracy will become legal.

Also, have you checked the numbers of people online on pirate bay? I have never seen that number go under 12'000'000. Right now it is at 22.088.758. The corporations and government can't do ANYTHING to stop it. Sure, they can go and remove some servers, but one of them is locked in a bank safe. I want to see them get into there!

Quote: "Apparently they are now, as they're in jail."


That is the part that makes absolutely no sense at all.

Quote: "So therefore let's just turn a blind eye to the entire problem. Let's just not charge for any software! "


Exactly! Because you can't do anything about it! There will always be piracy, it's a lost war...

Quote: "Ridiculous logic there, buddy."


Yep, ridiculous logic, but that's the way it is right now...

Quote: "TPB actively pursues pirated material."


TPB INDIRECTLY AND LEGALLY pursues pirated material.

TheComet

Peachy, and the Chaos of the Gems

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bitJericho
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Posted: 17th Apr 2009 20:28 Edited at: 17th Apr 2009 20:30
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Quote: "Nobody said they don't get paid for running the site - imagine the price of advertising space on a site as prestigious as it? The point is that they don't run the site for personal gain, and the money that they do get from it goes into either the costs in maintaining the website and its servers, and them needing to live."


I'm gonna tell you a little secret. They're in it for the money.

Nobody would risk going to jail, moving shop to Sweden (is the owner(s) of TPB even from sweden? Doubtful), just for the lulz. If his bank account doesn't show a balance of hundreds of mill I'd be astounded.

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bitJericho
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Posted: 17th Apr 2009 20:31
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Quote: "If I am an artist, (like a game developer) and have a distributor who's going to sell my product (which is all a recording company does), do you think it's fair that I have to give away 90-95% of my earnings? I don't."


That's your fault for signing the contract.

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ionstream
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Posted: 17th Apr 2009 20:33
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Good lord it finally happened! Hopefully that'll show that we're still willing to fight out there and haven't given up yet.

Quote: "And those corporations get too much money anyway..."


The problem with this logic is that only big companies will be able to be successful, because they're the ones that can take the blow from piracy. Other moderate to low successful companies won't be able to recoup their losses. It shouldn't be that a game company has to make wildly popular games in order to stay afloat.

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NeX the Fairly Fast Ferret
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Posted: 17th Apr 2009 20:36
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I missed the first few days of this, but I have only this to say:

If you're going to jail people who enable to distribution of pirated material, why aren't Tim-Berners-Lee, Marc Andreessen, heck even Bill Gates in jail right now?

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David R
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Posted: 17th Apr 2009 20:38 Edited at: 17th Apr 2009 20:41
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Quote: "Communist, are you? So we should screw them over because they "get too much money". Righto.
"


I've got to say, I read that and I laughed. If the communist 'jibe' is intended to be some kind of negative inference then you may want to read up a bit on communism (McCarthyism is alive and well! )


09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-5b-d8-41-56-c5-63-56-88-c0
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bitJericho
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Posted: 17th Apr 2009 20:58
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Quote: "heck even Bill Gates in jail right now?"


As stated before, Bill Gates didn't invent "Haxxor OS 9.5". TPB was never intended to be legitimate.

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dab
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Posted: 17th Apr 2009 20:59
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While name conventions seem to be a problem here, why didn't they simply target the creator of P2P? It is his fault torrents exist for illegal matter to be spread? Also it is the companies' fault for creating content to torrent. Ok, that's stretching

I agree that some companies go too far out money wise. Makes me sick to see that Adobe can charge several thousand of dollars for software. If it is going to be industry standard, there should be some really cheap/free version for us youngsters to learn. My school could only afford 1 license even with the school discount or whatever. Crazy..

And regarding the contract where 90% goes to the company and not the artist. 1) It's your fault for not re-negotiationg 2) It is crazy that they expect that kind of revenue.

These big companies do rape everyone due to their financial advantage. Then again, it's a dog eat dog world out there. If you can't stand the fire, get out of the kitchen.

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bitJericho
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Posted: 17th Apr 2009 21:01 Edited at: 17th Apr 2009 21:01
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Quote: "I agree that some companies go too far out money wise. Makes me sick to see that Adobe can charge several thousand of dollars for software. If it is going to be industry standard, there should be some really cheap/free version for us youngsters to learn. My school could only afford 1 license even with the school discount or whatever. Crazy.."


Last I checked, CS4 costs only a couple hundred bucks to schools and students.

A non-profit that I used to work for bought dreamweaver on my recommendation for 20 bucks with a non-profit discount.

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NeX the Fairly Fast Ferret
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Posted: 17th Apr 2009 21:13 Edited at: 17th Apr 2009 21:14
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I think Adobe especially overcharge. I wouldn't mind if their software wasn't inferior. Bloated, slow and quite often buggy if you push it. SwishMAX, a Flash competitor, does probably 75% of what Flash can and it's...

...wait for it...

1.93Mb. One exe and two DLLs rather than about five exes and resident services spewing frankly crap all over the drive and memory. Want to disable your scratch disc under Flash? Well, stuff you, you can't. Even if you're packing 4Gb of RAM and editing maybe 40mb of images. Ever tried using the Pen tool on CS3? I'd say 5% of the time it some how mucks up the order of the points you're dropping and you have to undo until it starts drawing from the last point rather than the one before. Photoshop isn't bad but damn it's slow. Illustrator's decent but it seems to drop a lot of the conventions of Photoshop (why are the mirrors the other way round?) If the software was perfect, maybe the price would be reasonable, but I think it's a badge thing. Yeah, even software's got badge value now. :/

Truth is, the Adobe suite IS expensive. I only know of one person who actually bought it rather than using the college copy and they were rich enough to declare "£400 is nothing" so meh.

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Insert Name Here
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Posted: 17th Apr 2009 21:14
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*Cough* I bought PS Elements 7 the other day for £18 - the 'really cheap/free version for us youngsters to learn' is Elements.

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TheComet
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Posted: 17th Apr 2009 21:23
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Quote: "That's your fault for signing the contract."


True... But how come they make trillions and trillions of money?

Peachy, and the Chaos of the Gems

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Jeku
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Posted: 17th Apr 2009 21:23 Edited at: 17th Apr 2009 21:24
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Quote: "In my view recording companies exploit artists and stifle the emergence of new talent. This should change."


So... steal their music so the artist will get absolutely nothing? I see.

Quote: "So some time in the future, piracy will become legal."


I still laugh when I see this. There will never be enough people to support that laughable statement. Sorry to burst your bubble, but in capitalist societies people will not put up for this kind of Communist principle.

Quote: "Also, have you checked the numbers of people online on pirate bay? I have never seen that number go under 12'000'000. Right now it is at 22.088.758. The corporations and government can't do ANYTHING to stop it. Sure, they can go and remove some servers, but one of them is locked in a bank safe. I want to see them get into there!"


I'm pretty sure Napster had more in its prime, and look what happened to them. Those 12 million people are *all* trying to get something for free, something that people have worked hard to make. No government in the world will officially legalize piracy, that is just ludicrous.

Even the most hardcore Stalinist Communist state, North Korea, sends out cease and desist letters for posting their copyrighted songs on websites. I should know, I received one!

Quote: "Exactly! Because you can't do anything about it! There will always be piracy, it's a lost war..."


You couldn't be more ignorant on this subject, actually. Do you have any idea what would happen if they made it legal to pirate software, movies, and music? Those sectors account for BILLIONS of dollars that go into the government coffers.

Do you think companies like TGC would be in business if they just released everything for free? Idiocy.

Quote: "If you're going to jail people who enable to distribution of pirated material, why aren't Tim-Berners-Lee, Marc Andreessen, heck even Bill Gates in jail right now?"


Read my post a few lines up. Microsoft wasn't created "to enable illegal criminal acts." Are you just playing devil's advocate?

Quote: "If the communist 'jibe' is intended to be some kind of negative inference then you may want to read up a bit on communism"


Excuse me?

Quote: "why didn't they simply target the creator of P2P?"


While the original creator's intent may have been devious, he didn't advertise it as a haven of free illegal software. Like was stated before, you can find legitimate torrents on Linux sites, for example. TPB was not created for legitimate torrents.

Quote: "wishMAX, a Flash competitor, does probably 75% of what Flash can and it's...

...wait for it...

1.93Mb."


So... don't buy Flash? What's this got to do with piracy. Is this some twisted logic whereas you can accept piracy if the software is incompetent? Put your money where your mouth is and don't support bloated software, then

Quote: "True... But how come they make trillions and trillions of money?"


Interesting, I didn't know it's a crime to make money in capitalist countries.

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NeX the Fairly Fast Ferret
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Posted: 17th Apr 2009 21:25
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Quote: "What's this got to do with piracy."


It was a deviation from the purpose of the thread to be honest... a continuation along the lines of "maybe if it wasn't extortionate" that appeared a few posts up that devolved into a full-bore rant against Adobe's junk.

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Jeku
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Posted: 17th Apr 2009 21:28
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Nobody holds a gun to your head and tells you to buy Adobe's products. If there are products that rival them and they're cheaper, as you say there are, then buy them instead. Support them to keep making software.

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