🚀 go-pugleaf

On Sun, 28 Sep 1997 14:29:33 -0700, eil...@psn-remove.net (Michael M.
Eilers) wrote:

>In article <34448505...@news.erols.com>, iDl...@Juno.com wrote:
>
>> >Actually they are anything but free.  By STEALING these games you drive the
>> >prices up in the long run for those of us who PAY for our games.  If you
>> >must STEAL please do so in a place where PROSECUTION is possible.  Maybe if
>> 
>> Not that I endorse Piracy or anything, but why do you say it's
>> 'anything but free'?
>> 
>> The people that Pirate software will most likely continue pirating
>> software.  Price doesn't effect them.
>
>Actually, it is pretty funny, but piracy is extremely expensive--in many
>way more expensive than buying the actual software. If you consider that
>the really hardcore WaReZ traders usually have dual-channel ISDN, a CD-ROM
>burner and 8 gigs of hard drive space, these costs add up. Even a
>small-timer that just grabs stuff off hotline sites will spend more money
>on online time and disk space than they would have on games. Putting
>WarCraft II on my hard drive takes up $60 worth of space in cost per
>megabyte, VS. $40 for the game itself--and this gets even worse with
>video-intensive games like Wing IV and C & C. I finally talked a friend of
>mine out of prating when he realized that he had bought 3 Jaz cartidges
>(+$300) just to hold a half-dozen games that would have cost him $220 to
>pay cash for.
>
>michael
>

The really big time warez pirates dont deal in the games much as in
things like Adobe Photoshop up to 3D studio Max.  3DSMax can run
thousands of dollars.   These kids set up unix shell accounts to
suck down the applications over a 3rd party T1 then download at
leisure to the local drive.   Yeah, CDR's are pretty prevalent, but
a 400.00 CDR is usually only part of a MUCH bigger kit these kids
have.  Some of the best PC rigs I ever saw belonged to some college
kids I knew casually.  

Hell, I have ISDN (thanks to Bellsouths REALLY cheap installs locally
in Atlanta) and the other stuff isnt that big a deal.  It really all
comes down to how much free time you have and whether the risk
of theft is worth it to you.  What I find interesting is that most
will pay for a piece of software they try and like, and or use for
work.