Quitting software piracy

Tek7 (Legacy)

Tek7 (Legacy)

CGA & ToJ President
As Hawk recently stated in the "My Windows Vista Experience" thread, software piracy costs the software industry billions of dollars a year. Plankeye followed up with a post saying, "I think all of us as Christian gamers can agree this is a common stumbling point on our walk."

While it might be difficult to admit that piracy is wrong, it may be even more difficult to purchase legitimate copies of software.

I've heard people joke that no one buys Windows XP Pro for their home computers. How would someone go about purchasing an inexpensive, yet legal, copy of Windows XP Pro? Furthermore, how would one change the registration information without having to format and re-install everything? Even if one can afford a copy of Windows XP Pro to make their system "legit," re-installing an OS brings its own set of problems. I'm not suggesting that we overlook the issue because it's inconvenient to do the right thing. I'm simply asking what everyone would suggest for someone trying to "legitimize" his or her system.

I've heard jokes similar to those regarding Windows XP Pro about high-end software like Adobe Photoshop. If a person is trying to learn programs in order to get ahead in the competitive Information Technology and Graphic Design industries, how is he/she to learn the program without downloading an illegal copy? An academic version of Adobe Photoshop CS2 costs approximately $290. How would someone unemployed, with limited funds, and seeking to gain the skills with popular high-end software gain the experience necessary to land a job? Again, I'm not condoning piracy or suggesting we ignore it. I'm merely asking the difficult questions that people earnestly wanting to "go legit" will ask.

In addition to software piracy, many members on these forums download fansubs. I'll discuss this in another thread for the sake of keeping the topics separate.

I agree that software piracy is a problem. I believe that many people would like to run computers with no illegal software installed. How should they go about doing so?
 
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those who cant afford the hi-end programs need to in the end find freeware programs. like i would love to use premier for AMV's but i think i do a decent job with windows movie maker. its a bit limiting but i like it. as for xp ive had some issues, considering my OEM is so screwed up and compaq never gave me a xp disk. technically legally i can have 1 xp home, but now whether i use a iso i found online or borrow a friends disk, thats against TOS, so how do i get a proper xp? i cant compaq qont send me disk so theirs no legal way for me to do it. so in the end im screwed unless i think outside the box then risk being fined who knows how much
 
Many schools offer discounted prices for software. While "discounted" is a far cry from "free," it's something to at least look into. I could get the academic version of Office from my undergraduate institution for $75. Not exactly pocket change, but it's not so bad.

To play the devil's advocate...freeware is GREAT for just personal use. Often, however, schools require their students to learn and use the real thing. Take photoshop, for instance. The academic version of some music composition software my brother will have to buy when he starts school is $600. And these are for students. Like students have that kind of money.
 
Schools that require you to use particular software will have it in their labs. There are always alternatives to stealing.

I have to say, schools are one of the best ways to get software cheap. Ohio State University offers what they call the Buckeye Bundle to their students. It includes a licensed copy of Windows XP pro, Office 2003 and Visual Studio for $99. If your school doesn't have a good deal on software, make them work on it. Afterall, they are there to serve you.

Open Source software is another alternative.

Search the bargain bins. The prior release of a piece of software could be extremely marked down in price compared to the current release. Buy, and when you get that new job and making the big bucks, pay for the upgrade to get you to the current version. For instance, to upgrade to Windows XP, you could have a license of Windows 98. 98 is 7+ years old now.

Expensive tools do make it easier to create. But as a supervisor who has had to interview potential employees, I value that someone has the knowledge of why the tool makes their job easier verses how to use the tool. Meaning, I would value someone who learned how to write programs with notepad and compile them over the command line verses someone who knew how to use a $1000 copy of visual studio to do the same thing.

From a technical standpoint, unless you are running your computer on a Windows Domain or need to run a web server from your PC, the cheaper Windows XP home edition is a much better idea. Sure, I would like a ferarri to get to work, but my little volkswagon does the same thing for a fraction of the price.
 
Plankeye said:
From a technical standpoint, unless you are running your computer on a Windows Domain or need to run a web server from your PC, the cheaper Windows XP home edition is a much better idea.
Click to expand...
Speaking of which, exactly what benefits does XP Pro offer over XP Home?
 
Tek7 said:
Speaking of which, exactly what benefits does XP Pro offer over XP Home?
Click to expand...

shorter name... but really from having pro at school and home at, well home... the pro just looks more business like, a little more advaced i guess u could say instead of clicking on a name to log in u push ctrl+alt+delete and a log in menu opens....
 
Being a musician and a programmer gives me the proper perspective on software and music piracy. Two years ago I ceased pirating any music or software. The boost it gave my conscience and the ability it gave me to stop worrying about spyware or viruses has really improved my computing life. I highly recommend it.
 
I had a college friend a few years ago, that went to a technical college for game design. The professor of his "begining to game design" on first day of class gave them a list of programs they needed by the next day. Without warning, the list comprised of: Microsoft Studio .NET 2003, Gmax pro and quite a few others, totalling over $20,000. He didnt have any scholarships, and had to have it the very next day.
Is that wrong, I dont know, wrong to the companies that made the software, yes.

Its a touchy subject, that is all based on Morals.

Would I do pirate programs like that when i hit college next month, no. I have scholarships to cover those :)
 
Tek7 said:
Speaking of which, exactly what benefits does XP Pro offer over XP Home?
Click to expand...

Home is missing the following features:

Remote Desktop
Offline Files and Folders
Scalable processor support
Encrypting File System
Access Control
Centralized Administration
Group Policy
Software Installation Maintenance
Roaming User Profiles
Remote Installation Service
Multi-lingual User Interface add-on


At my previous job, the president of one of the departments purchased a laptop with XP Home installed without consulting the IT department and then they wanted us to set it up on our network. Because of some missing networking options, it couldn't connect to the domain. I've used Home a little just playing around and it's alright, but you can definitely do a lot more with Pro.

BTW, you can find a comparison guide with more detailed descriptions here.
 
well thanks to this topic and a youth group i got rid of over $1000 in pirated materials, i have almsot $200, somehwere around here. i at my climax i had $1300 or so, cant remmeber what my extra $300 is now though.....
 
My biggest gripe with XP Home is its lack of support for native low-level permissions settings (have to use PERL to do this) and lack of IIS.
 
My legal copy of XP home is on the way from newegg. I have been using a copy that has no product activations left from another computer, so i re format my computer every 30 days, have for a few months. I just apply a crack that shuts up the activation pop-ups. Not anymore :)
 
Windows XP Home vs Pro is an easy one. If you don't need Remote Desktop (1 user terminal server service), connecting to a company's domain/ADS environment or dual processor support, then you don't need XP Pro. Now to be very clear, Remote Desktop is NOT Remote Assistance, you get Remote Assistance in both OSes. What is the difference? With Remote Desktop I can remotely "log in" to the box and run a remote terminal session while Remote Assistance is more like Carbon Copy, PCAnywhere, where it is a remote control of a desktop. If you don't understand what I mean by this, then it is highly likely that you will ever use either. Stick with the Home edition.

If you own an oem license for which you received when you got your new machine, this license is NOT transferrable to another machine. The problem is most OEM licenses do not come with a cd anymore. Most OEM companies will create a partition on your hard drive and provide you with an emergency rebuild cd with will wipe out your hard drive and everything on it.

The other normal way for you to secure a cd is to purchase a full retail version which comes in a box and cd. This box will contain your product code which is needed as part of the activation process. If your cd becomes unusable, contact MS support, yes they will send you a new copy of the media which will cost you the shipping normally of 20 bucks.

Now lets talk about other software you have that is not legit, does a few alternative exist? I'll provide links at the bottom for commonly used apps and their free equilavent.

Often I find people with pirated software on their box cause they allow themselves to think, if only the company made it cheaper, I would pay for it or I'm only going to use it for a little while (how many of you are still using the shareware version of Winzip). This is the wrong attitude folks. This is rebellion against those authorities, ouch, yup, I'll call it for what it is. Guess what? You don't own the software, even if you bought it, you are under their rules. Too often people decide they don't like rules and therefore decide to reinterpret it to favor them.

God has called us out of the world to be holy. We dishonor Him by our acts of willful disobedience and rebellion by the smallest things in our lives and then we expect Him to bless us in our every day lives! We have comprised His holiness and glory over a piece of music, or shareware program! All because we don't agree with those money grabbing companies making software we want and they are charging waaayyy too much, so we'll show them. The other excuse I hear often, "I only need it for a few weeks" or "I'm just evaluating it for purchase". So a little compromise is ok?

So where does that leave us? Are we then defeated? Are we without recourse? Let me provide you with a few "safeguards" against piracy that I hope will make you feel empowered.

- Ask permission instead of forgiveness, humble yourself before those in authority over that software/music/thingy. If you are unclear about a piece of software, ask instead of assuming. This one alone will save you from the uncomfortable humbling that will come eventually. If it is shareware, contact the author, if it is a big program (MS Office) and you are unsure, humble yourself and ask those in authority. If it came from school, contact your school, if it came from the Internet, just delete it and start over ;)

- Just because you can access the media, a downloaded setup.exe or .iso image, ask yourself this question, do I have a license to use this particular program? Did it come from an authorized source?


Psalms 139

"Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting."

Ok, now for some alternatives to commonly used commercial products ...

Photoshop - Microsoft Acrylic Beta (http://www.microsoft.com/products/expression) - free while it remains a beta and downloadable for free
MS Office - http://www.openoffice.org/ - in particular snag the 1.9+ beta build, solid suite

Please list other programs you are looking for free alternatives and we, the collective, will attempt to provide you with something equilavent.
 
Plankeye said:
..but my little volkswagon does the same thing for a fraction of the price.
Click to expand...

:eek: You drive a volkswagon too? What kind? :cool:

I agree with Hawk, and I will have to give that Acrylic program a tryout.
 
Oh man, I used to be the biggest pirate. Here's my piracy history: Way back in the day I used to use WINMX to download games, apps, movies, and rarely an mp3 or two. That was a pretty dumb idea though because of all the viruses involved. I used that for about a year. I used to brag about having DVD rips of the LOTR movies while they were still in theaters. Anyway, the reason I stopped using that is because somebody I was trying to download some game (Raven Shield if I remember correctly) told me about suprnova.org. I used that like crazy, I grabbed a ton of of virus free PC games and movies on that. It was kinda funny, I usually go to church with a burned copy of games for my friends and use their CD copier to make 3 copies at a time. Around the time RIAA started getting mad at kazaa is the time I started to feel conviction (or was it fear of the RIAA?). After that I very rarely downloaded any PC games or movies. Of course I had to download the Jedi Academy beta and the HL2 anon leak (I'm a sucker for betas and getting to play things before anyone else does). After that I mostly just downloaded Dreamcast games (which I don't feel bad at all about). So as a result of all that I have gigabytes of software sitting around on my computer that I don't really intend to delete or ever use again (I'm a pack rat). The thing that pretty much stopped me is suprnova.org's demise (they really had it coming for a long time). I could still get stuff if I really wanted to, but I just don't. After I stopped downloading all those PC games I spent alot of my money on buying all those games I had stolen before, and I've found that I get alot more enjoyment out of things that I've actually paid for than ones that I just download. Alot of the games I DL'ed I still have never played! Anway (wow, this post is kinda out of order), the thing that probably got me interested in downloading all this junk in the first place was that a friend of mine hosted a LAN party a long time ago, and I wanted to be the guy with all the resources. At the time I wasn't allowed to play M rated games, so I resorted to stealing them (my parents knew I was doing it and I knew they didn't feel to good about me doing it). Oh, and about game cracks (things that let you play games without the CD for those of you who don't know) I used to collect those and still do, I don't see anything wrong with it as long as I own the game. I guess that's pretty much all I have to say. The conclusion of all this nonsense is this: I didn't really get a whole lot of enjoyment out of downloading all that illegal stuff, paying for what you want is so much better.
 
Pilgrim said:
:eek: You drive a volkswagon too? What kind? :cool:
Click to expand...

Jetta VR6.

Back on topic. If you don't have this site in your favorites, add it now:

www.sourceforge.net

It is one of the best sites for finding opensource software out there. You can get replacements for WinZip, torrent software, graphic tools, games, web site software and tons of programming tools.

Also, be on the lookout for promotions. Not to long ago, I scored a copy of Visual Studio VB.NET for free by simply watching 5 .NET training videos from Micrsoft's site.
 
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