If companies are so worried about piracy...

[chipbgt]

Why is it still so easy to find pirated games online? I took an hour to see what games I could possibly illegally download..heres what I "could have" got:

The Sims
Q3
UT
Driver
Need For Speed (any version)
Fifa 2000

..and the list goes on. And I am not talking about hard to find sites, I am talking about easily recognizable and well put together URLS. I mean don't companies have rights to prosecute when there stuff is put online? I just find it interesting how they want to prosecute so badly but cant get rid these big sites.

[Biff]

Gotta be a reason they are not doing it. Probably costs a arm and a leg for legal fees. They would just spring up somewhere else too!

[ablang]

In my experience, those games you "could have" gotten are just demos.

[OuTpaTienT]

No dude. He's not talking about demos. LOL.

Why don't they put a stop to it? How?

[chipbgt]

yeah...they are definitly not demos. http://www.sysopt.com/forum/wink.gif I mean I would post the site so people could see how blatant it is...but of course im not an idiot, and that I like my status here at sysopt.

[happyhamster]

While it's certainly possible to get stuff from the web, in my view it's not THAT easy. I tend to think most(not all) of what you may find are misleading and dead links, mixed with zillion popups, that make some money to some "smart" w4r3z d00D.

Then I think there's a problem with international sites. It's easy to shut down a site hosted in US, and even find the owner sometimes, but what should they do to a site hosted in China, for example, by a guy from Brazil? Pretty tough, ain't it?

Speaking of popups, my personal favorite is watching a newbie trying to find these stuff because a friend told him the web is easy and fun and full of stuff. Pretty quickly he has a hundred browser windows open, system slows to a crawl, and new ones pop up as he desperately tries to close them. Usually he is overwhelmed and, ashamed, has to ask for help. "Umm.. ya know.. don't know how that happened... there was this nice site... and I clicled on a link... and suddenly... all this **** started popping up.. by itself... I didn't break the computer, did I? can ya clean this up?"

[chipbgt]

Let me just add this again....it IS that easy to get these products. I did start (and stop) the downloads and I did find real links to all the above games. I am not trying to argue, but it is very easy to get them, even though granted there are a lot of dead ends.

[OuTpaTienT]

I agree, it IS that easy. And BTW, all you gotta do to stop pop-ups it turn off JAVA.

Now granted, without a high-speed connection then those 100+MB programs do pose a problem. But cable/dsl will make easy work of almost anything you want to d/l. We're talking 100MB in well under 15 minutes.

[This message has been edited by OuTpaTienT (edited 04-28-2000).]

[hd581]

chipbgt has a point about it being easy to find warez. As the internet becomes more popular, we're seeing piracy become more common. Enjoy the fast and easy internet we have today, fellas. Shouldn't be long before the government steps in, makes a whole bunch of laws and starts changing the internet world as we know it into a highly regulated environment (stirring up a large group of ppl screaming about their rights of course). Those l33t h4x0r d00d5 are going to ruin it for all of us.

[SysOpt]

IMO it is very easy to get the apps you listed and hundreds more -- full versions, not demos. I don't, because I don't advocate piracy and I keep my systems legal. But there is no denying that the prospect of clicking on a link and having a $200 app on my HD in 5 mins (DSL) is tempting.

I do wish companies would crack down on that ****. There are organizations that do (BSA, etc.) but they probably just crack down on the bigger ones so they can gain publicity and look good. They need to crack down on all of them. You can do your part by emailing the ISP of the web site that's hosting the warez - often times, the ISP isn't aware of it, and will shut the site down.

[This message has been edited by SysOpt (edited 04-29-2000).]

[RobRich]

I love the fact that if some little 13 year old kid can write HTML to post w@rez, or do a denial of service attack, he/she considers themselves some type of 1337 haXor. I think these people have watched the movie "Hackers" just a few too many times.

For the stupidiest (but funny) 133t site, check out JeffK:

http://www.somethingawful.com/jeffk/

On a related note, Microsoft just brought charges against a local company in my area for distribution of pirated Microsoft software. It appears that this computer shop was selling computers complete with a CUSTOM http://www.sysopt.com/forum/wink.gif reinstall and setup disk. It appears someone wrote a couple of batch files, and then used a ton of pirated software inorder to make more money.

What I'm conveying is that this exists from the internet all the way to the retail level. The SPA makes rounds through my region every couple of years, and commonly lodges multiple law suits against some rather large corporations and industries.

[This message has been edited by RobRich (edited 04-29-2000).]

[OuTpaTienT]

Not a bad idea there SysOpt.

I must admit, I've done my share of pirating when I was younger. But eventually got to the point in my life where I could no longer rationalize it...it IS stealing after all.

I'm not convinced it's all evil however...I mean we've all copied a friend's LP/CD onto cassette so we could have a copy. And while that's technically "wrong", I don't think anyone needs to be prosicuted for it.

But the way "warez" are distributed in such an semi-organized fashion, it's almost like organized crime. Like I said, coping piddly little things amongst friends isn't such a big deal (IMO), but offering unlimited free copies of retail stuff to complete strangers (the entire World actually) certainly is a crime in my book.

[konan3]

In my opinion a lot of these companies actually want their product put on the street in this way as long as it doesn't get out of control. think of it this way, what better way to get your product on the street for people to have a look at than to have someone else do it for you for free.

[ytay]

i have read where adobe actually releases their product to the underground for the purpose of free advertising......i mean seriously would i pay 1000 Cdn for photoshop 5.5....not, so if i d\l it have they really lost a sale

[jad1097]

When I was looking for a no-cd crack a while back I came across many warez sites and they have everything from ISO copy's to OS's,mp3's, e-mail bombs, cracking tools, etc.. Some have dead links but others are very well laid out sites with no BS.

It seems that ever one of them I have seen has at least one Adobe or Macromedia product.
I would have to agree with konan3's veiw of why the companys don't go after them.

[bhess]

I agree with ytay, I don't think the companies are really losing a sale.
Warez are a real pain in the ****. I think they are a scam for xxx advertizers.

[Hellmund]

They are actually starting to crack down on piraters though. A local playstation cd pirater was caught and fined $5000.I thinks it's just a matter there isn't one or two piraters out there and it isn't scum. One of my best friends recently purchased fifa2000 and it didn't run too well.He installed it,got a no-cd patch and returned it for his money back.He still has fifa now.You can e-mail the webmasters at sites such as www.Xoom.com (http://www.Xoom.com) but what if it is **DELETED**
They're are trying but it's no small feat. It isn't all that bad for the manufacturer of the systems though.The N64 is much faster and looks better than a playstation but because it's so easy to pirate playstation games they absolutely murdered nintendo is console sales. I wish they could plan some way of stopping the piracy though because I payed full price for things like UT and Q3 and I got offered a copy for $5.It's also gotten now so that instead of one pirate having to pay for the full version to copy for other people,Now all they do is download it off the net.It's a worry because if the developers aren't making money they'll stop making games.I don't know how to STRESS HOW MUCH I DON'T WANT THAT
Hellmund

[This message has been edited by Hellmund (edited 04-30-2000).]

SysOpt doesn't support the posting of links to warez sites http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/wink.gif -socalgal

[This message has been edited by socalgal (edited 04-30-2000).]

[enfuego]

First off, I believe that piracy is wrong. On both sides. People should not give away things that don't belong to them, and people should not accept things for free that don't belong to them.

But.... the clear trend on the internet is that software is moving to free. There was once a time when you had to pay to play bridge, chess, and backgammon, and now that's legally free. Same with calendar and address book. Check out www.halfbrain.com, (http://www.halfbrain.com,) spreadsheet, word processor, presentations, all for free. Also check out pcpitstop.com, free PC diagnostics.

My point is good software is used to drive traffic just like interesting writtent content. The internet allows all things possible, and this is more than possible. So in the long run, piracy will no longer be an issue as more and more software is made specifically for the internet that is free.

Rob

[chipbgt]

I would like to add, do NOT go to pcpitstop.com. There is a whole other thread already related to this ( http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/005961.html ) not only on this BB, but on all of them ( noWonder, anandtech...) And what do you know, its this guys first post here under this name. He is just spamming all the boards, and the validity of the site is very much in question.

[This message has been edited by chipbgt (edited 04-30-2000).]