I am buying my next copy of Windows. You can get a copy really cheap now if you look hard enough (less than $100) through MSDNAA or through another student organization. For me, peace of mind is worth the price.
I'm Pirating the Next Version of Windows
81–90 of 268 posts
Re: I'm Pirating the Next Version of Windows
#82If you don't like their product or policies, don't use it. If you use it then you should pay for it. Use Linux, a BSD Unix, or a Mac. People who pirate Microsoft products don't really hurt Microsoft, they hurt the rest of the competition.
Microsoft has tried their damndest to ensure that you must buy their OS in order to use a computer. They've done this directly using the Windows Tax, and indirectly with over two decades of anti-competitive business practices, some merely shady and others outright illegal.
"If you don't like it, then don't use it" is pretty useless advice in this situation.
Re: I'm Pirating the Next Version of Windows
#83This is another example of companies pushing away would-be paying customers. This dumb logic has been the music industries policy for a while now; every person brought to trail for piracy was a potential customer or fan of the artist whose music they were pirating.
Re: I'm Pirating the Next Version of Windows
#84Seems like a pirated .iso would be a great place to deliver malicious code to Ring 0, hiding itself from the kernel and becoming essentially impossible to detect from the infected OS itself. I'm sure botnet creators are already well aware of this.
This is what I marvel at when I read such (poorly justified) piracy screeds. Are people insane? I might not have ultimate faith in Microsoft, but comparatively I have zero faith (and a lot of suspicion) of what are essentially bands of thieves among piracy groups. I engaged in casual piracy when I was a teen out of necessity, though I never felt the need to invent justifications. In my adult life, though...pirating e…
Eh.
If anything, the scene is demonstration that a completely open, self-regulated market can function in at least some sense. Maybe one group doesn't have any strong disincentive to posting a corrupted release, but other groups have a strong incentive to discredit them, and reputation is valuable (as much as anything can be in a free economy). There is a fairly effective web of trust.
You can't be sure, of course, but then I can't be sure that my "legal" software won't install a rootkit behind my back either-- or if I am, it's because I'm going on the word of criminals who are trying to redistribute it.
Re: I'm Pirating the Next Version of Windows
#85I share the pain this guy experiences. I had Age of Empires 3 which would not run on my machine, period, because it didn't recognize the CD Rom driver and, as Microsoft explained, it might be a 'virtual' CD ROM and that would violate the terms of service. And even though it wasn't and didn't I could never run their software on that machine.
Thus the who piracy economic argument is broken in three ways:
1) Folks who pirate software won't pay full price, sometimes they won't pay any price. So the economic 'loss' from piracy is either '0' or the area under the curve described by units pirated vs actual purchase price.
The loss is 0 if you use the reasoning that if there were perfect piracy prevention, none of these people would have paid for the retail version.
2) The cost of protection adds additional production costs (printing unique product code stickers and adding them) adding additional steps to boxing/shipping, adding additional activation software and its testing.
3) The additional cost of support when legitimate users like this guy call support to have a human you're paying anywhere between 10 and 25/hr to 'solve' this persons install/operation problems.
Folks who have done the math, with real numbers (and Lotus comes to mind), determine that they earn more money by not including DRM on the product. When Lotus first announced they were removing DRM from their 1-2-3 product they mentioned that nothing they had done had ever slowed down the availability of pirated versions but had added additional support burdens every time.
Re: I'm Pirating the Next Version of Windows
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're just reinforcing their argument. By not using the competition, you're ensuring the market for those products on the competition's OS doesn't exist. It's actively strengthening Microsoft's hold on the markets you frequent.
OK. The primary application that I need Windows for is Quickbooks Enterprise. I also still use my Windows Photoshop license since it was expensive, and not transferrable to OS X. My primary operating system is already OS X, and I only use Debian Stable on servers. I run Windows in a VM when I need those application, and only when I need those applications. How would you suggest replacing Quickbooks Enterprise? Do I j…
Microsoft has 90% desktop market share. Software developers won't support other operating systems until they have more market share, and people won't switch to other OS'es until there's more software.
If the software you need only runs on Windows then you should pay for Windows. Those that can move to Mac, Linux, etc and get away with using Wine or other alternatives should. The markets for alternative OS'es will grow then more people will be able to move.
Sounds like you are stuck on the Windows environment. You should stay and pay for Windows. There's nothing wrong with that.
Re: I'm Pirating the Next Version of Windows
#87These are great points and a good portion of piraters do so for these exact reasons. There are always going to be people who steal content/apps instead of paying for them but I am sure more than a few people pirate purely because it is a better user experience than what is currently offered. TV shows are a great example. I cut my cable about a year ago and haven't looked back since. I refuse to pay a premium for chan…
Apple tried rental of TV shows. They shuttered it:
http://allthingsd.com/20110826/apple-pulls-the-plug-on-tv-re...
Re: I'm Pirating the Next Version of Windows
#88This was the case for music for a long time (still is, but to a lesser extent) before iTunes came along. Downloading music through Napster, Limewire or BitTorrent was simply easier and more effortless. Even though people were willing to pay, they didn't because that would have required more effort to do so.
Re: I'm Pirating the Next Version of Windows
#89Seems like a pirated .iso would be a great place to deliver malicious code to Ring 0, hiding itself from the kernel and becoming essentially impossible to detect from the infected OS itself. I'm sure botnet creators are already well aware of this.
So, basically, "pirated isos might have rootkits"?
Re: I'm Pirating the Next Version of Windows
#90If you don't like their product or policies, don't use it. If you use it then you should pay for it. Use Linux, a BSD Unix, or a Mac. People who pirate Microsoft products don't really hurt Microsoft, they hurt the rest of the competition.
Correct! Even pirating Microsoft helps Microsoft.
The worst thing for Microsoft would be a strict enforcement of copyright: people would be running to alternatives.