Pirated Software

[MH]

RE: Pirated Software - warez version et al

I'm a Professor of Humanities, and every semester I find myself confronting the philosophical realities of the Post Modern Era. And again...here it is. In The Stranger, Mersault kills an Arab - and yet, in today's moral climate I find about HALF the collage class is unwilling to condemn the act as wrong! We inevitably find ourselves caught in an Alice in Wonderland of morality, where right is wrong, and wrong is right...and - well, what-the-hell.....nothing matters anyway!

So here we see people literally stealing the intellectual property of others and rather than all condemning it, we find too many are willing to engage in a sophistic justification. What's probably most sad, is this in an age of unprecedented wealth. Fifty dollars for the cost of a game as entertainment is so incredibly cheep by social standards it is mind boggling. Try to attend a sporting event for less. Not to mention the game is still providing enjoyment long after that football game has receded into the distant past.

Not just a generation thing. A colleague of mine uses pirated software himself. Here's a man without any need financially to do so, and yet without any other moral imperative other than a vague and remote fear of "getting caught" he simply shrugs. But "getting caught" and other legalism isn't the answer. I heap on this colleague the scourge of the campus, literally reducing him to a intellectual pariah. Kind of like how sexual harassers were treated as cads or pigs, before we tried to litigate it away with policies and laws, which only resulted in making it MORE OK...as long as they "don't get caught." So the man who treated women poorly was a pig and society shunned him until he reformed, so should the computer industry shun these pirate low-lives.

Sorry to be a bore...and an old fashion one at that!

[Guest ACTOR]

MH,

Seems like every discussion that involves this subject degrades rapidly. No matter how much we talk about this subject, those that choose to use WAREZ will continue to do so.

Not sure we can change their minds through discussions on this forum...

Let's lock this one up...plz

[This message has been edited by ACTOR (edited 08-03-2000).]

[aka_tom_w]

Formal request to lock this thread up now.

I think we've all spend enough time on this issue.

[Chupacabra]

No offense, but I think this is a subject best left alone. Everyone has their own opinion, nobody's opinion is going to change as a result of what gets posted, so why bring it up? This is just going to turn into a flame war.

And in case you're wondering, no, I don't support piracy or pirates.

[fiftymicrolitres]

MH; with regards, I hardly think that L'etranger is representative of the philosophical dichotomy that exists with regard to piracy. IF taken as an example of Existentialism, Camus is not one to look to for explications of right and wrong (think The Fall and The Plague).

Perhaps one should turn to Immanuel Kant for this?

In any event, I think pirates should be executed.

regards.

5m

[Guest Big Time Software]

Hi guys,

Multiple requests have come up to close this thread. We certainly welcome the anti-piracy feelings, since if piracy was the norm we would stop making games and do something that could actually earn us a living without 80 hours a week of stress and hard work. Hehe... I love to see the expression on the face of a pirate if he didn't get paid for a job he did. I bet you a million bucks it would look exactly like ours when we see an illegal copy of one of our games on the Net.

Thanks,

Steve