Software Pirates Smuggle Humans

By Jack September 19, 1999 5:07 AM

According to a report from ZDNet's Sm@rtReseller The Asian organized crime gangs staff their counterfeit software business with illegal immigrants.?They also claim that US businesses lost $11 billion in software piracy and the US economy loses 130,000 jobs a year.?Could this be a reason not to use "pirate software"? Read more

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Losses due to software piracy are stupid   reply

Posted by sKillBot (travis@pulley.org) on September 19, 1999 12:04 PM

Software companies don't lose anything when software is pirated, dammit. They lose a potential sale, but the actual illegal copying of software doesn't make them lose money. That's like saying, "spirograph compaines lost $20 gazillion becasue more kids are watching tv instead of playing with spirograph".

RE: Losses due to software piracy are stupid   reply

Posted by spif (spif@ego-software.com) on September 19, 1999 7:03 PM

Considering that the problem exists outside of the united states, its fair to say that its a completely different issue than an american teenager pirating a particular piece of software.


US would have to find some way to control/regulate outside of our shores. This is either far off in the future, or very nearly going to elevate us to an even more despised position in the world.


Facts must be faced. The software industry has been a service industry in the guise of manufacturing. Its not the ideas that will be sold anymore, it will be the support. Look at redhat. Their software is free, yet they are making a killing (heh) selling a service.


All these whiny software engineers need to stop hording their work and start investing time in the service side. Think of how much ass kicking stuff we would be able to use if more source code was shared.

RE: Software Pirates Smuggle Humans   reply

Posted by A random shemp (No Email) on September 24, 1999 6:43 AM

Anything that has a 80% profit margin can afford, no deserves a little pirating. Plus just because I use pirated s/w doesn't mean I would've bought if I hadn't "stole" it. Sheesh I delete most of crap s/w I warez anyways. Forget the s/w companies and the illegality of pirated s/w how about installing a prog and having it fuck up your computer? How much does that cost computer USERS?

No kidding   reply

Posted by sKillBot (travis@pulley.org) on September 25, 1999 10:31 PM

I don't even want to think about how much time I've spent fixing windoze problems just because it's a crappy OS. Last week I spent way too much time on one because someone removed the netcard driver. And you couldn't add it back without having the system crash. And everytime you tried something different, you would have to wait for it to search for PnP devices, then say no, then say yes... and wait. It turned out to be a dumb program that had to be disabled from the windows registry so it wouldn't start up.

RE:  Losses due to software piracy are stupid   reply

Posted by A random shemp (No Email) on April 23, 2001 11:25 PM

dammit,  If someone thinks they are being stolen from, then they are being stolen from.  That's the very nature of steeling.  Haven't you ever felt like you've taken a little bit too much but then been told to take more?  

It's not stealing, if  the person giving doesn't mind.  On the other hand, if someone claims that you are stealing, all they have to prove is that they are the source of the commodity in question.