Piracy in general

Discussion of piracy-related topics go in here. Please read the rules of this section first.
Forum rules
Please read the piracy section rules before posting in here. By posting in this section, you acknowledge to have read and understood them, and agree to abide by them at all times.

Of course, the global forum rules apply here too.
RuadRauFlessa
Registered User
Posts: 20576
Joined: 19 Sep 2003, 02:00
Location: Bloodbank

Re: Piracy

Post by RuadRauFlessa »

I have agreed with that since they started with DRM... but then again I don't buy games any more and I would guess neither do you iRon2000
:rock: :rock: :rock: :rock: :rock: :rock: :rock: :rock: :rock: :rock:
Spoiler (show)
Intel Core i7-2600k @ 3.4GHz
Corsair Vengence 2x4GB DDR3 2000MHz
Thermaltake Toughpower 850W
ASUS nVidia GTX560 1GB
CoolerMaster HAF 932
User avatar
Ron2K
Forum Technical Administrator
Posts: 9050
Joined: 04 Jul 2006, 16:45
Location: Upper Hutt, New Zealand
Contact:

Re: Piracy

Post by Ron2K »

The last physical product I bought was the collectors edition of Cataclysm. The rest of my game collection is on Steam (which I do tolerate). ;)
Kia kaha, Kia māia, Kia manawanui.
RuadRauFlessa
Registered User
Posts: 20576
Joined: 19 Sep 2003, 02:00
Location: Bloodbank

Re: Piracy

Post by RuadRauFlessa »

And Cataclysm is just awesome. so you don't need to buy anything else in any case.
:rock: :rock: :rock: :rock: :rock: :rock: :rock: :rock: :rock: :rock:
Spoiler (show)
Intel Core i7-2600k @ 3.4GHz
Corsair Vengence 2x4GB DDR3 2000MHz
Thermaltake Toughpower 850W
ASUS nVidia GTX560 1GB
CoolerMaster HAF 932
User avatar
KatrynKat
Insane in the Membrane
Posts: 24490
Joined: 18 Jul 2010, 17:42
Location: In my BDSM dungeon - aka Lockdown

Re: Piracy

Post by KatrynKat »

Ron2K wrote:The last physical product I bought was the collectors edition of Cataclysm. The rest of my game collection is on Steam (which I do tolerate). ;)
cause he wanted the CD... :)
"This eBook is displayed using 100% recycled electrons."
RuadRauFlessa
Registered User
Posts: 20576
Joined: 19 Sep 2003, 02:00
Location: Bloodbank

Re: Piracy

Post by RuadRauFlessa »

Nope you need it to create your account :P even if you don't install from it
:rock: :rock: :rock: :rock: :rock: :rock: :rock: :rock: :rock: :rock:
Spoiler (show)
Intel Core i7-2600k @ 3.4GHz
Corsair Vengence 2x4GB DDR3 2000MHz
Thermaltake Toughpower 850W
ASUS nVidia GTX560 1GB
CoolerMaster HAF 932
User avatar
Prime
Registered User
Posts: 27729
Joined: 01 Mar 2004, 02:00
Location: Getting into trouble
Contact:

Re: Piracy

Post by Prime »

Sojourn wrote:So....
My sister works as admin clerk for a very small business.
With very small I mean they have 1.5 mill turnover p/y.

They have an onsite file server, a normal PC running windows 2000 server.
Then each employee (8 of them) have their own laptop that have either win XP or Win7.
They connect to an offsite email hosting service with their own domain.

I was asked to evaluate their server and old laptops and make recommendations towards upgrades.
I have given them my recommendations, which included cost towards software licensing as they could not give me ONE legit product code for any of the laptops or the server software.

The only valid licenses I got was for their accounting program for each user and the anti-virus suite (although - the anti virus suite carries x5 licenses but is installed on all hardware which is x10).

They categorically told me that they have never needed to buy software because their "IT guy" can install this software without them having to pay for it, the "IT guy" told them that this is included in his fee - they should not worry about it.

I made them aware of how this could be a problem, and they admit that they know exactly what the law is, but, a penny turned is a penny saved, so they persist that their "IT guy" will install OS's etc for free.

So what do one do?
At this point I don't have any intention of reporting anything, just curious to get your comments about this.
I told a client she either paid for her software or I walked off the job.

I'd be curious to know what the technicians fee is?

Ask her how her she would feel if her clients phoned her for advice but refused to pay her?
You can also tell her that he charges her X amount per hour to install software illegally, So all she is doing is paying him to steal money from her.
User avatar
Ron2K
Forum Technical Administrator
Posts: 9050
Joined: 04 Jul 2006, 16:45
Location: Upper Hutt, New Zealand
Contact:

Re: Piracy

Post by Ron2K »

RuadRauFlessa wrote:Nope you need it to create your account :P even if you don't install from it
Think she was referring to the soundtrack CD, mate. ;)
Kia kaha, Kia māia, Kia manawanui.
User avatar
Prime
Registered User
Posts: 27729
Joined: 01 Mar 2004, 02:00
Location: Getting into trouble
Contact:

Re: Piracy

Post by Prime »

Google Starts Censoring searches related to "piracy"
It’s taken a while, but Google has finally caved in to pressure from the entertainment industries including the MPAA and RIAA. The search engine now actively censors terms including BitTorrent, torrent, utorrent, RapidShare and Megaupload from its instant and autocomplete services. The reactions from affected companies and services are not mild, with BitTorrent Inc., RapidShare and Vodo all speaking out against this act of commercial censorship.

The entertainment industries’ quest to root out piracy on the Internet has yet again resulted in commercial censorship. A few weeks ago Google announced that it would start filtering “piracy related” terms from its ‘Autocomplete‘ and ‘Instant‘ services and today they quietly rolled out this questionable feature.

Without a public notice Google has compiled a seemingly arbitrary list of keywords for which auto-complete is no longer available. Although the impact of this decision does not currently affect full search results, it does send out a strong signal that Google is willing to censor its services proactively, and to an extent that is far greater than many expected.
Rest of article

And yet, as this guy pointed out, you can still google how to avoid taxes, build a bomb, kidnap a child. :roll:

http://www.techi.com/2011/01/google-censorship/
Anakha56
Forum Administrator
Posts: 22136
Joined: 14 Jun 2004, 02:00
Processor: Ryzen 1700K
Motherboard: Asus X370
Graphics card: Asus 1060 Strix
Memory: 16GB RAM
Location: Where Google says

Re: Piracy

Post by Anakha56 »

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2011 ... Content%29
How publishers punish us for buying new games
By Ben Kuchera | Last updated about 5 hours ago

There used to be nothing better than going to the store, buying a brand new game, and putting it in your system of choice to sit down for a nice day of gaming. This should be a grand moment: you just bought a game you're excited about playing, and the publisher has your money. These days, however, it has become a wonderful opportunity to punish you instead.

Here's how that goes down, and what I don't want to do when I buy a new game.
I don't want to install the game, or an update

I don't care what system it's on, what technical excuse you have, or anything else. Putting a new game into your system only to be told to go grab a sandwich while the game takes ten minutes or so to install is a pain in the butt. When the game is done installing and you're confronted with another loading screen? That's just adding insult to injury. I want to play, not look at a slowly filling progress bar.

Likewise, I don't want to be stuck installing an update. It's like a big sign saying "this game wasn't ready to ship." I mean, that's literally what happened. Publishers can now ship a game that doesn't work, knowing they can push out an update that installs the first time you play the game. So I have an idea: for every megabyte of patch I need to download, I get to punch one person on your development team. I'm not a strong guy, so it won't hurt that much, but it will make me feel better.

Don't get me started on the PlayStation Portable, a system that often requires a system update before a new game can be played, and then refuses to install that update until it's fully charged—even if the system is plugged in. This is a system that just does not want to be played. God forbid you buy a new game when you're traveling, because Sony's response is something akin to a middle finger to your silly request to play a game away from an outlet.

Day-one DLC is another subject entirely, but a simple patch before the game is released to the public? It's becoming the rule, not the exception.

...
I agree with every point said...
JUSTICE, n A commodity which is a more or less adulterated condition the State sells to the citizen as a reward for his allegiance, taxes and personal service.
User avatar
Prime
Registered User
Posts: 27729
Joined: 01 Mar 2004, 02:00
Location: Getting into trouble
Contact:

Re: Piracy

Post by Prime »

Anakha56 wrote:http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2011 ... Content%29



I agree with every point said...
Seconded!
This is part of the reason I by classics. Everyone else can play bug tester TYVM
Anakha56
Forum Administrator
Posts: 22136
Joined: 14 Jun 2004, 02:00
Processor: Ryzen 1700K
Motherboard: Asus X370
Graphics card: Asus 1060 Strix
Memory: 16GB RAM
Location: Where Google says

Re: Piracy

Post by Anakha56 »

And another Ars article about DRM schemes hurting legit customers:

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2011 ... Content%29
DRM run amok: how Bioware and EA are screwing users right now
By Jon Stokes | Last updated about 2 hours ago

Thanks to a combination of DRM idiocy and technical and communications failures on the part of EA and Bioware, I (along with thousands of fellow EA/Bioware customers) spent my free time this past weekend needlessly trapped in troubleshooting hell, in a vain attempt to get my single-player game to load. The problem, it turns out, was the Bioware's DRM authorization servers, and as of Tuesday afternoon, the situation still is not resolved. For four days now, those of us who made the mistake of shelling out for Dragon Age:Origins (especially the Ultimate Edition) have been unable to play the single-player game that we paid for. And the unlucky souls who bought the game on Friday haven't yet seen it work properly.

Note: we've contacted Bioware and EA PR for comments, and as of press time have received no reply.
Nothing like editing the registry on a sunny Saturday

By all accounts, I'm fairly representative of today's console or PC gamer—mid-thirties, a day job, a family, and a dearth of free time. In any given week of my life, I have about five hours or so that I can spend playing games. So when I get a free moment to play a game, I don't want to participate in some wannabe "social network for gamers"; I don't care so much about achievements or points; and above all, I definitely do not want to spend my precious free time patching and troubleshooting a broken game. I just want to play the game that I paid my hard-earned money for, and I want to play it right then and there while I have a spare moment to spend.

As Ben Kuchera pointed out in a recent article, just sitting down and playing a game is getting harder and harder to do. Game publishers of all stripes are getting greedy, and putting out games that are rushed, buggy, deliberately incomplete, and addled by bone-headed DRM schemes that serve mainly to frustrate legit players. EA and Bioware are a recent case in point.

Sometime on Friday morning, Dragon Age:Origins players who booted up the game for a session of single-player dungeon crawling were greeted with a nasty surprise: all of the downloadable content (DLC) that they had purchased for the game had been flagged as "unauthorized," so their saved games wouldn't load. Again, these were vanilla, single-player saved games, representing untold hours of gameplay and investment, that users were suddenly unable to load.

...
I agree 100% with article yet again. I hope EA/Bioware respond would be quite interesting to read their response...
JUSTICE, n A commodity which is a more or less adulterated condition the State sells to the citizen as a reward for his allegiance, taxes and personal service.
User avatar
rustypup
Registered User
Posts: 8872
Joined: 13 Dec 2004, 02:00
Location: nullus pixius demonica
Contact:

Re: Piracy

Post by rustypup »

gamepron wrote:Garry Newman – the creator of Garry’s Mod – asked, quite innocently, whether anyone was unable to shade polygon normals.

He received a few comments, mostly jokes, but a quick look at Google suggests that there are indeed a few people who are experiencing problems with their game.

…you can hear Newman’s chuckling from here. Not the normal response to a wide-spread bug report, but this is no normal bug. It seems that the developer has deliberately enabled an error in GMod, which will only affect people who have pirated the game.
:lol: eat hot plasma, you deviant free-loaders...
Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so - Bertrand Russel
User avatar
Ron2K
Forum Technical Administrator
Posts: 9050
Joined: 04 Jul 2006, 16:45
Location: Upper Hutt, New Zealand
Contact:

Re: Piracy

Post by Ron2K »

Closing this thread now as we now have a dedicated Piracy section - let's create separate threads for separate topics from this point onwards.
Kia kaha, Kia māia, Kia manawanui.
Locked