Regarding "BAD NEWS"

[Dmeek]

The fact that BTS allows people to advocate the theft of their property on a forum which they fund speaks volumes on their patience, generosity and belief of free speech. I wish some would extend the same level of courtesy to BTS that BTS has extended to them.

[Zamo]

First off, I am not advocating stealing anything, though I am sorry if some of you took it that way. If you re-read my posts, they are quiteclearly hypothetical, albeit perhaps a bit too vindictive. I said "IF" you found a link, not "HERE'S" a link.

I run a small networking company and all of my software IS payed for, by necessity. It never-the-less never surprises me when I go out to a customer site and find all sorts of bootleg crap. Perhaps I have been doing this so long that I have become too jaded and cynical. I have not nor do I intend to steal any games. I do agree that possession of any...ANY bootleg software is theft and my comments about hypocracy relate only to those people who think stealing from a little company is bad and stealing from a big company is ok. There is NO difference. As several of you pointed out, theft IS theft.

I am not even going to bother downloading the gold demo, as I am going to buy CM regardless. Right now. I generally disdain pre-ordering software for several reasons, but in light of the situation and the poor position I have put myself in on this board, I will put my money where my mouth (er, fingers) is and do so.

I think Kraut probably said it best, how I was originally feeling. And I must reasses my comments in the absolute and say "some" not "all". I apologize to any and all who may have been upset by my posts. Especially BTS. Zamo

[Compassion]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Kraut:

This is funny ... lol ... i'm with zamo. If a link were to magically appear infront of you, you wouldn't be able to resist. You would all DL it, check it out, then e-mail the battlefront people and say "i found the warezed version, here it is, i got it from this server, no go bust them ... " <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Guess what... After I heard that it might be out I did do a little search. And yes, little man, laugh all you want. I would have simply reported it if I found a site. No, I would not have played it. Not only is it unethical, but the annoynaces of playig hacked games is too much. I don't want to have to engineer software just to play a game, so laugh all you want. No, I wouldn't ahve even downloaded it. Just found the server and handed the info over.

If you can't understand that someone else might not want to even bother trying to download it, then it's your own narrow minded problem.

Clay-

[Guest Captain Foobar]

ok

[This message has been edited by Captain Foobar (edited 01-22-2000).]

[W583]

Can WE all stop these talk

I know I am the one who brought this up

But so what

Why dont' all you smart ass get ur programming gears and start writing a program to stop CD imageing from a full cd

I know it might sound hard

but I think someday SOMEONE (unlike you ppl:keep talking) will make a software to help those huge company etc. BTS , MACPLAY ......

to get rid of the img problem

[Thomas Davie]

Sigh....no one is going to write a program preventing img files fom being used. No one is ever going to be able to prevent software from being copied.

And in the end, the only people that get hurt by copy protection are honest people.

I bought West Front by Talonsoft. I participated in Microsoft's beta of Windows 2000 at the university where I work. When the beta program ended, I legally took my copy of W2000 and installed it on my home computer. Guess what? West Front no longer worked. (and a lot of other programs as well)

But the original East Front did. The difference between the two? West Front had something called cdilla copy protection that is incompatible with W2000 for God knows what reason. So, to get the program to run, I figured I'd have to disable the CD check, in order to not have W2000 come into contact with the copy protection.

It took me 9 days of fumbling around very poorly with a hex editor, and looking up web sites on copy protection (putting up with pop up porn banners that I would rather not have seen) until I was finally able to disable the CD in drive check for a program that I legally own. I had to reinstall West Front 4 times because I buggered things up so badly. Finally, on a version 1.04a West Front, I was able to disable the CD check, but only when it was located on a certain area on the hard drive (shows you what I don't know).

So, do I support copy protection? In no way whatsoever. All it will do is cause honest consumers trouble. I've got no doubt that what took me 9 days would have taken one of these hackers a few minutes. All it makes me is less likely to ever buy another Talonsoft product, assuming they would stick with the same copy protection.

Same thing goes for Battlefront; I do not want to have to jump through these sorts of hoops to run software that I have purchased.

Tom

[Berlichtingen]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Why dont' all you smart ass get ur programming gears and start writing a program to stop CD imageing from a full cd<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well, to start with, there are valid reasons for .img files. Apple and now other software vendors are distributing software in that format. It is an outstanding method of online software distribution. Also, buy imaging a CD, you greatly increase the performance of the software on it (accessing the HD rather than the CDROM). The fact that is is used by pirates does not negate its legitimate uses.

[Guest Lokesa]

If I found the link, sure I'd look into it. Not to have a prerelease copy but to investigate and do some preliminary footwork for BTS.

It's like when I was a teenager. Somehow we figured that stealing from chainstores or any big industry was ok but small neighborhood places was a no-no.

BTS doesn't treat us like dirt, somehow they've gotten us (or at least me) to view them as common people ie "one of us" and to take whats theirs would give me endless grief, not only wrong but not worth it

Personally I dont think what W583 found was a copy, not sure what it was but I hope it wasn't anything bad.

Again BTS, you guys are ok, we appreciate you Anything we can do to help your quests, let us know.

[Pirate]

Well, this is what I have to say about pirating.

If you think it is Ok to pirate a big company's game because they can take it, you're just plain stupid. The main reason for my point of view on this is that the big game companies don't "make" games. Developers make them for the big companies. Many of these developers are just small operations like Steve and Charlie, they just don't show up on your radar.

What you are doing hurts these "little people" because they make their money off of royalties, and if you steal from the big fish, they don't pay the little ones.

So all of you grow up. This game will be pirated. The Beta has nothing to do with that. It will most likely be pirated by some one who works for the company that dups the CD's. Unless of course, Steve or Charles do them all them selves. Then the pirates will just buy a copy and do the same thing any way. It will then be sold to three main buyers in Asia. After that you will see it everywhere computer games are sold at auction on the internet. BattleFront will then have to try and squash the sales of these pirated games. But the damage will be done.

Just an old hack,

Pirate

[Guest Lokesa]

hmmm, I didn't intend for my message to say it's ok to steal from the big guys

Long ago I realized my theory on theft from the big guys was full of holes

What I meant by my post was that to me BTS is part of my community, and therefore take issue with theft of it's products whereas theft from strangers although wrong doesn't neccesarally incite me.

[Doug Beman]

As Nelson Munz once said, "it's a victimless crime; like punching somebody in a dark room. HA-HA!"

No, seriously, I really don't know WHERE I stand, definitely, on software piracy. I know it's wrong, regardless of whose stuff you're taking.

But I've done it. Not recently, but I have. I am running the WIN95 that came with my PC (altho I REALLY gotta break down and get the upgrade to 98; I'm resisting cause I can't find my Photoshop4 CD etc, and if I can't transfer P-shop to another hard drive and back to mine after upgrading, I ain't upgrading)

The games I USED to play, before CM came out and made all other games pale, are legal (FightingSteel, M1TP2, MechCommander, I'm gonna order that MindRover game). I guess the only games/other programs I've used that I didn't buy were things that didn't interest me enough to go get my own. (You know, your friend has something you HEARD about being GREAT, so you BORROW a copy to try out) And for those games/whatever, I didn't keep playing them, specifically BECAUSE I wasn't that interested.

When there're games out there that I MUST play, I go buy a copy. (I've technically paid for CM, although I won't actually get charged til it ships) If I can muster any willpower at all, I wait 3 months for the game's price to drop below $35. For M1TP2, I think I waited overmuch cause it took me 3 stores to find it, and the success came at an EB in Hanover, PA, where my friend is asst. mgr. I paid $10!

[Possibly interesting story follows] I also bought a Playstation and some other crap, so the total bill was like $230. My friend was with me, but not on the clock, so one of the standard EB employees was working the register. He said "hey, I'll make this an employee purchase even though the person paying isn't an employee and you'll save $25." It took 5 minutes of the combined of myself and my friend to convince this guy not to ring it up as an employee sale. So I pay $25 extra?! Worth it to be able to play GT2, which I am going to BUY.

As soon as the price drops a little.

DjB

[civdiv]

Alright, all of this has made me feel guilty so I must confess my sins. I have installed my single copy of both WIN 98 plus and Norton System Works 2000, on both my desktop and my laptop. God, I feel so cheap.

[Doug Beman]

Wrongo, civdiv. Current license rules for MS and Symantec allow users what is called "secondary install rights." This means you can install WIN 98 on a desktop and a laptop. I'm not positive, but I believe the only restriction is you can't be using the two simultaneously.

DjB

[civdiv]

Well, when I equalize my files between my two cpus (via direct connection), am I using both at the same time? I know, inane topic, but hell, nothing else to talk about.

[Guest Big Time Software]

Er... I think it is time to close this one up I will end it with a few words...

1. Seems the IMG file is there, but it is in fact a fraud to simply piss people off with a long download for nothing.

2. Piracy is wrong because there is nothing different between software and a car, no matter WHAT some slightly off logic people want to think. Just because it is easier to steal than a car doesn't make it right.

3. I used to pirate without thought when I was a youth. Computers were new and money was short. Honestly, I didn't fully understand that what I was doing was in fact stealing. Same logic trap that the pro-piracy folks use to justify their stealing.

4. Avoiding pirating is tough to do because it is so damned easy to do. So I don't come down TOO hard on the occasional pirate type person. Sometimes I do "double use" even when I am not supposed to, but at least I own the thing and don't run it at the same time. But I don't have any sympathy for the folks that spend large portions of energy SPECIFICALLY to pirate software. And the lowest form of all is those that try to justify it.

Anyhoo... enough of this Off Topic piracy stuff for a while

Steve