Software Piracy

[davidw]

Ok, just to give a head's up, I'm not trying to invoke controversy or anything, but I've really got to vent.

Years ago, I though pirating software was cool. I thought "Hey, I can get that for free, or for little money." I picked up my first pirated software when I was visiting Hong Kong. I did not know it was pirated, (of course I was very naive back then - 1995). The second time I went, I bought a few things, CDs that contained 50 full programs and stuff. I later realized I had bought pirated software. That was fine and dandy back then, but nowadays its really gotten out of hand.
I can't shop online anymore for games I want because I have no idea if it is real or not. I have no idea how many times I've gotten screwed over thinking ok, its a good deal, but its cheap. Then getting it to find out it was pirated.
I just went to ebay to look up a game I want (I could buy it for 15 bucks at the store, but thought I could use the money in my account to pay for it) just to find out that most "authentic" games have either Thai, Russian, or whatever languages along with English. Or, they are "genuine" and they are in Chinese with English subtitles. OH COME ON!!!! It doesn't take a genius to realize these are PIRATED!
I want to get a game, I WANT THE REAL DEAL. I am american. I want ENGLISH and ENGLISH ONLY.
The only software outlet we have where I live is an aisle that sells software in the Wal-mart electronics department. GRRR.

You can hear a song only so many times before it gets old.

[NDC]

Well, I also had many experiences in Asia where they sell pirated software CDs. They sold it for less than $8 USD per CD which could have anywhere between 1 software and as many as about 30~50 types of software on a single CD. They even had full one to one copy game CDs as well as multiple ripped version on a single CD. What you need, they had. They would literally show you a book with all the CDs they had for sale and there were literally hundreds and hundreds of titles.

As far as the "Genuine" Foreign language with English sub-titles goes, I have serveral of them. And yes they are licensed CDs, NOT pirated CDs. You will see that it has the original company logo along with the software company logo that imported them and changed the language... Heck, they even come with a registration form straight to the orginal software manufacturer...

That's the way they sell them out there in Korea. Just about all the games are that way or people just won't buy them for games that require reading passages for game play. heck, I had quite a hard time looking for all English games and when I did find them, they would cost about 5%~10% more since they need to be imported straight from the US. (Have difficulties reading Korean so.. LOL)

[davidw]

Originally posted by NDC
As far as the "Genuine" Foreign language with English sub-titles goes, I have serveral of them. And yes they are licensed CDs, NOT pirated CDs. You will see that it has the original company logo along with the software company logo that imported them and changed the language... Heck, they even come with a registration form straight to the orginal software manufacturer...

One of my probs before was that everying looked legit. I think it was Warcraft. I bought it off ebay. Everything looked genuine but it wouldn't work right. After a big run-around with Blizzard and someplace else, I was ultimately told that they could not do anything for me because it had been pirated. (Of course, my first sign of trouble could have been the label. It was a sticker rather than a paint job. I think I got the same flak with GTA 2. Except this had to do with certain "error messages."

The way I feel (since I've been burned a few times) is that you can take a turkey and stuff it into a chicken box, label it as a chicken and put seasoning on it like you would a chicken. Although it is still turkey, it tastes like chicken. (Figuratively speaking, of course). You've had better luck than me.