Is this legal?

[JCB]

Lets say a friend of yours brings his comp for you to look at and you think you might need to reinstall windows but he doesnt have a windows disk but he does have windows on his comp. Can you use your full version of windows to reinstall but use his cd key by pulling it out of the registry before you reinstall????
Would this be legal? Here is why I ask this question. http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.php?postid=123936&t=4499#post123936

[archie]

TTBOMK, if he doesn't have the the original disk in his possession somewhere, it is not legal. On the other hand, if he just doesn't have it with him now and you use your copy, then it would be legal ... as long as his original copy exists.

[highrisemech]

I do not agree we had a discussion about this once before and if my memory serves me right the conclusion was one copy per machine. Beside that his vesion may not be compatible for the machine he is trying to load. There may be proprietary issues.

[archie]

For the 1st part of the last reply, to clarify ... if someone has 10 licenses, he/she can install from the same CD to 10 PCs ... as long as there is one license per machine, it's legal. As for the second part, good point.

[JCB]

So, If they HAVE the disk just not on them its ok. But if they HAD the disk then its illegal?

[archie]

No no no ... whether the friend has his/her cd with him/her is irrelevant. What is relevant is that the friend has a license for it to be legal. The point I'm trying to make is > that particular copy of the CD does not necessarily have to be used ... unless of course there are proprietary issues as highrisemech points out.

[LoneWolf]

Who cares if it's legal? Just do what's convenient. It's not like we owe MS anything with all the crappy software they make.

[SARGE]

Lone Wolf, can I assume you're using a Mac? PCMech cares if it's not legal, and the mods are quick to pounce. Sure, alot of things are convenient. So convenient, we now have Win XP ;)

[Chris in U.K.]

Hey Lone,

It may be 'crappy', but we all use it!

Archie, what's TTBOMK? I assume it's not TireTool Beats Old Medieval Knights.

Chris.

[glc]

LoneWolf: Yes, we do care about keeping things legal here. May I request that you edit your post, or should I just do it for you?

Chris: To The Best Of My Knowledge

[Mr N8]

Lone Wolf: Convenient or not, its still illegal, and punishable. If you don't want to worry about licenses, get yourself a linux box.

About the proprietary issue:

I have a compaq, and it came only with a restore disk, which promptly went bad. Does Compaq tech support know how to obtain a new one? Apparently not. So, I used the Win98 disk from my other PC, and had to do all kinds of searching for the right drivers. (btw www.drivershq.com is a huge help in this case) However, the modem was impossible to find drivers for. I solved that by pulling it, and going with DSL anyway. The point is, the original disk isn't necessary, but it will sure save a lot of time.

NAte

[Bobo23]

This is dumb. I know people who use one windows 98 SE cd on about 100 computers. Your never gonna get caught, and why should you pay 100x the retail price if you only need one cd to do it. Micky$oft is trying to grub for more money? But do they need more money? no less is what they need.

And if thats illegal then shouldn't it be illegal to use a CD burner to give a friend a copied CD or CDROM?
Don't stop there...If so many people are misusing CDRW drives for this purpose then shouldn't there be a lawsuit against the manufacturers of these drives. They invented a product with the purpose of breaking copyright agreements!

The point behind my sarcasm is that If you wanna use Win98 on two computers in your home while only owning one CD, go ahead, nobody is going to lynch you. I personally benefit greatly from a CD burner because it allows me to borrow a friends games and copy them for my own use. Is UbiSoft or Capcom or Microsoft gonna come to my house and start askin me to pay $500 fines? NO, they don't have the time, they don't have the means to find out if I'm doing it, they don't have any proof that i did it (at least none that could hold up in court), and finally, They just don't care. What kind of reputation do you think they would get if they came after every freedom loving american who broke a copyright or misused a CD burner.

TO SUM IT UP: Do what you want with the CD's you purchased!

[Confused]

No proof. How about what you've just written.
Chas

[Bobo23]

Thats not proof for 2 reasons...1. they cant connect this username to the actual me, and second, i didn't confess to anything above.

[audiyoda]

Originally posted by Bobo23
they cant connect this username to the actual me

Wrong...you're IP is logged by PC Mechanic and can be traced to your ISP and matched against their user activity log -- Poof you're found.

-Craig

[Bobo23]

You are right about that Audiyoda.
However when I registered my name with pcmech.com they made a legal commitment not to distribute my personal information without my permission. If they did so it would not hold up in court because it is a violation of my due process rights.

Try me...its all in the constitution of the United States.

[HAL9000]

While you are reading the PCMECH agreement, you must have read the rules and taken note that open discussion of pirating software is not allowed here. This, you are clearly guilty of.

[Bobo23]

"Discussion of Pirating Software" I had no idea, this will be my last post ever about pirating software, i guess i better not talk about it.
Thanks for the heads up

[audiyoda]

Originally posted by Bobo23
However when I registered my name with pcmech.com they made a legal commitment not to distribute my personal information without my permission. If they did so it would not hold up in court because it is a violation of my due process rights.

Try me...its all in the constitution of the United States.

Ahhhh...that's what due process is all about my friend. The FBI (or any other law enforcment agency) get's a court order, PC Mechanic releases the information in question. End of story.

The agreement between you and PC Mechanic is just that, an agreement. Bound by it's own merits and nothing else. If there were a criminal investigation regarding any PC Mechanic member, PC Mechanic would have a legal obligation to release information upon order from a court.

And the last person to say "try me" to me -- still doesn't know what the livin' hell hit them. So before this get's any more personal, I suggest this be left on the floor so to speak -- or someone may regret their typing.

-Craig

[Bobo23]

Does a credit card company have to give credit card information away if the person says they want it kept confidential? Does a person working for a cigarette manufacturer (see the movie the Insider) have to give away confidential information after signing a confidentiality agreement? The answer is yes and no. It all depends on the matter. Being a minor infraction as it is, pirating software is not enough to warrant the violation of ones privacy (unless you can convince a judge to allow it which I am certain you cannot). However, lets say peoples lives are at risk (the cigarette case) then it becomes necessary in a judges mind to mandate the violation of oaths and privacy. Same thing with credit card records, these can't be seized without clear and present danger (pertaining to the 9/11 terrorism for example). They can't take away your privacy because they suspect an online faceless person is pirating software. This is also in the CONSTITUTION...amendment 4 saying search and seizure---you must have a warrant, or nowadays probable cause.

The fact that Bobo23 is tied to Me, is not something they know, they only know that Bobo23 the faceless entity has confessed to piracy (which he has not by the way if you read my previous posts) and in that case they cannot trace Bobo23 to me (violation of privacy, if PCMECH did disclose the information they could be sued).

The only way they could do this is if they knew ME and then traced ME to BOBO23. This couldn't really happen since they would have no proof of ME having pirated anything.

I'm sorry I responded again, I did say the previous one would be my last post, but I also said "try me" and audiyoda did, hence I had to prove him wrong. I am that way sorry.

[audiyoda]

You have proven no one wrong: Copyright infringment is a major crime -- a federal offense. Punishable by 5 years in a federal prison if I'm not mistaken. And don't think it hasn't happened -- it happens daily.

You make some interesting assumptions in your arguement -- the same basic arguments made by most people who would like to justify, or rationalize, theft. I'm a producer in the audio/video field -- everything I do is copyrighted -- for good reason: I spend a great deal of time and energy on my work. I take the misuse of my 'creations' personally and have in the past protected my rights in the courts. Let my give you one example: I found a specific audio track I had worked on a few years ago being traded on-line as a loop for loop-based audio creation tools like Acid Pro and Recycle. I did some initial searching and discovered a forum much like this one where people blatantly traded pirated programs, music....etc. After some asking around on that forum, I discovered the individual who seemed to have originalted the loop and I reported it to my local law enforcement agency who in turn reported the case to the FBI. They did exactly what I outlined -- contacted the owner of the server that hosted the forum, cross referenced the IP log with ISP logs and caught the guy. He's serving his second of five years.

You are underestimating the desire of a copyright holder to protect their investment. Disney, Microsoft, Coka Cola, AOL and many other large firms have sought damages or criminal charges against individuals many times and will certainly continue to do so in the future. And quoting the 4th ammendment won't get you much -- all that protects you from is unreasonable search and seizure. Unreasonable is defined by a court-- not you, not the ACLU, and certainly not the internet.

(And the next time you base part of your argument on a Hollywood creation [The Insider ???!???] remember that their primary focus is entertainment, not truth.)

-Craig

[SINND3R]

This is getting off topic. JCB, if you're gonna install Windows using your friend's cd key on his own machine, go ahead; Just dont tell us about it. If you want to be legal go for it. My friend was sued a couple of weeks ago for cracking the password to the MSDN FTP and downloading stuff off of it. They then sent him a printout of his hard disk folder tree, circling which software was illegal. He deleted it, his daddy apologized and made an ass of himself, and that was the end of the story. Software Piracy is illegal, but hardly a law enforcement focal point. If it was, I'm sure Warez IRC servers would not remain for the years and years that they have and will. Dont pirate stuff, but if you do, dont mention it where you can screw yourself.

[Xayd]

Originally posted by Bobo23
Does a credit card company have to give credit card information away if the person says they want it kept confidential? Does a person working for a cigarette manufacturer (see the movie the Insider) have to give away confidential information after signing a confidentiality agreement? The answer is yes and no. It all depends on the matter. Being a minor infraction as it is, pirating software is not enough to warrant the violation of ones privacy (unless you can convince a judge to allow it which I am certain you cannot). However, lets say peoples lives are at risk (the cigarette case) then it becomes necessary in a judges mind to mandate the violation of oaths and privacy. Same thing with credit card records, these can't be seized without clear and present danger (pertaining to the 9/11 terrorism for example). They can't take away your privacy because they suspect an online faceless person is pirating software. This is also in the CONSTITUTION...amendment 4 saying search and seizure---you must have a warrant, or nowadays probable cause.

The fact that Bobo23 is tied to Me, is not something they know, they only know that Bobo23 the faceless entity has confessed to piracy (which he has not by the way if you read my previous posts) and in that case they cannot trace Bobo23 to me (violation of privacy, if PCMECH did disclose the information they could be sued).

The only way they could do this is if they knew ME and then traced ME to BOBO23. This couldn't really happen since they would have no proof of ME having pirated anything.

I'm sorry I responded again, I did say the previous one would be my last post, but I also said "try me" and audiyoda did, hence I had to prove him wrong. I am that way sorry.

Ahh, but there are exceptions to every rule, and we ourselves create them. Hell, this is what I do. I work tech support for a legal research dot-com, so among other things I help lawyers dig through case after case after case to find opinions that let them do things they're not supposed to be able to do in a courtroom. The catch is, for every absolute freedom set forth in the constitution, there's usually a "protect the community" or "hang the bastard criminals" case out there that went to at least appeals level in which a violation of one of those freedoms was allowed due to circumstance. And if it's allowed here, it can be allowed there and everywhere, at least enough to warrant a trial.

If we allowed people to trade software here, with the IP logging function of the forum enabled, some software company WOULD eventually go after a court order to force us to release the IPs of people who'd posted. If they get the order from one judge, they'd still go out and arrest the major offenders. Whether the order was legal or not would have to be decided in court, so even if you are exempt from any IP logs, you'd have to go through the trial process nonetheless, as well as post bond to stay out of jail in the meantime and all that jazz.

The exception to this, in things said on forums, is if we were to run a completely anonymous forum. If we required no email, no registration, and kept no logs, we couldn't be held liable for anything posted. But, if that were the case, the forum would be full of porn spammers and general adolescent idiots, so none of us would be posting here anyways.

So, the next time your local cops bust into a guy's house and raid all of his gear from him because they think he's a drug dealer, and the judge in the trial court lets all of their mistakes slide because said judge needs to be re-elected more than he needs to uphold the law, you remember this conversation and the invasions that come about when you throw privacy out the window to protect the "collective good" instead of "individual rights".

Hmmm, collective good, where have I heard that one before? ;)

[glc]

OK - I think we have explored this topic as far as it's going to go.

Software piracy is illegal. The original question was totally valid, but replies to such a question must be restricted to the facts of the matter - whether a proposed action is legal or not. We absolutely cannot allow anyone here to openly advocate piracy, which is what LoneWolf and Bobo23 have done. You two ladies/gentlemen must consider yourself warned. I see that Bobo23 has already apologized, and for that we thank you and accept your apology. What you do in the privacy of your own home, computer, whatever, is your business. What is discussed in a membership forum accessible to the public such as this is OUR business and we have legal obligations we must follow.

Some interesting points have been brought out, but it's time to call "time out". If anyone has a comment directly related to the ORIGINAL post and can keep the comment acceptable within our guidelines, go for it. If not, let's let the thread die. Any more unacceptable comments will be edited out and the thread will be closed.

To clarify this a bit more - discussions of and links to sites that have pirated or illegal software cannot be permitted and those will be edited also.

Thank you for understanding.

[Bobo23]

Ok, I'm not trying to prolong anything, I have some questions. I ask these questions so that I can know which is following the law and which is not.
You can allow us to ask what is legal and what is not so as to help me to follow the law right?

1. Is using Napster illegal?

2. What is the legal purpose of a CD-RW drive?

3. Can I legally copy a friends music CD?

4. How about software?

5. What if the software is downloadable on the internet for free but I just have too slow a modem?

Don't flame me people. I'm only 15 and I really do want to follow the law as I have to this point in my life.

[HAL9000]

Originally posted by Bobo23
Ok, I'm not trying to prolong anything, I have some questions. I ask these questions so that I can know which is following the law and which is not.
You can allow us to ask what is legal and what is not so as to help me to follow the law right?

1. Is using Napster illegal?

Grey area. It's legal to have the MP3 of a song provided that you have legitimately purchased an original copy.

2. What is the legal purpose of a CD-RW drive?


Storing data, backups of software or music CD's that you legitimately own.

3. Can I legally copy a friends music CD?

No

4. How about software?

Depends on the license agreement. Freeware software for example, can be copied and distributed. Generally speaking, if you have to buy it, you can't copy it with the exception of creating a backup.

5. What if the software is downloadable on the internet for free but I just have too slow a modem?

So long as it's not downloadable for free from a warez site. If it is legit that it's free, then it's not a problem.

Don't flame me people. I'm only 15 and I really do want to follow the law as I have to this point in my life.

Nobody will be looking to flame a legitimate question.

[Felix]

to make a long story short:

REGARDING WINDOWS: <b>you need as many licenses as you own pc's.</b> the license is the green piece of paper which is the cover of the windows OEM booklet. it doesn't matter which cd you use or whether you own a CD or not.

so I would say, reinstalling your friend's PC with your copy of windows is legal since reinstalling does not cover copyright issues. If your friend has a license, his use of windows will still be legal; if he has no one, it was illegal even before.

by the way, Micro$oft personally confirmed to me that downgrading is ok. That means, I can buy a new comp with Win2K OEM and however run Win98 for the time. The same with various office verisons. This makes sense sometimes.

REGARDING CD COPY: I once asked the copyright authority for copying music. The official answer: <b>for personal use only.</b> the clerk then explained to me, "you may copy for yourself, your family and friends, while 5 friends is quite a huge number."

Since the M$ license agreement states that <i>I bought the media</i>, the cd itself belongs to <i>me</i>, not to M$, and I'm free to make as many copies as I want, for backup or convenience or whatever. The sentence on the cd says, <i>illegal</i> copies are prohibited. So I just make legal copies...

[Bobo23]

So lets say you burn a Mix CD, and you use all your CD's to take the best songs and make one Mix CD. What if you and a friend consolidated your two owned CD's to make a Mix CD or better yet 2 of the same Mix CD (one for each of you). Would that be illegal since you now possess music which the other person owns? If that isn't illegal, then by the same reasoning you could make a full copy of a single CD and give it to a friend?

Also, What if someone copies a CD, gives it to you to Use since they aren't using their original anymore, or better yet they give you their original? (because they already had it installed on the HDD)

Also, If Napster is illegal unless you have the CD's then over 13,000,000 people worldwide are felons. Should all these people serve 5 year sentences.

Audiyoda, true this is the law, but how does it make you feel that you sent a person to jail for 5 years. Prison in my opinion is for people who rape, murder, assault, embezzel, etc. Petty theft, or computer theft, these things, though illegal, and technically felonies, don't seem like things that warrant sending a person to jail.

Are you blameless? Everyone does things that are wrong. Should they be sent to jail for something like this. Maybe so. Do you really think YOU needed them to be in jail? Thats for you to think about.

Personally I wouldn't be able to sleep at night knowing I had sent a person to jail for 5 years for something like what they did to you.

We value freedom in this country, we are all free, but some are more free than others, and maybe if people had the decency to consider what its like for the other person. maybe they didn't know it was wrong. Maybe they knew it was wrong and should have to pay you royalties, but FIVE YEARS IN JAIL?

Some people will read this and think I am overreacting, some may think i missunderstood what the person did to audiyoda, some may think this post is inappropriate for this board, but before you yell at me, or kick me out of pcmech, or anything like that, reread this post and think about the man sitting in a winter-cold cell with people around the corner waiting to do things to them. To get a feel for prison and what its really like please see Shawshank Redemption. How would anyone here like to lose 5 years of their life to something like that.

Audiyoda, you have put a man in jail for 5 years, you have to live with that.
I will say no more.

[fatboyjim]

Somebody mentioned the MSDN FTP? What is the address of this please? A friend said when I told them about the HDD tree printout that "There is no such FTP server, and if there was it would be free"

I suppose he kind of has a point, but I am still not convinced

MSDN FTP Address then please. Thanks,

[HAL9000]

If you are in possession of the original license of the software, then you have the right to create a backup of it. You and a friend making a mix CD of CD's that you both own, IMHO, would not be legit as you never actually paid for the portion of the music that your friend put on the mix CD and vice versa.

Yes, technically, everyone that downloaded from Napster and did not actually own a legit copy of the music they downloaded committed a crime.

If your friend is no longer using a piece of software, removes it from his/her PC, gives you the CD and license, then you can legally put it on your machine provided the EULA is OK with this. There was a recent article where somebody was shut down on E-Bay for selling his old copy of Win95 that he no longer uses. Apparently, you cannot do this with Win95.

I dunno, it gets really damn picky. What it comes down to is what you do in your own home is your own business and you're the one that must feel comfortable with it. Comfortable enough that you are not going to get charged anywhere. If you don't have any issues with piracy, then that's your business, but it becomes the owners of PCMECH's business when members openly discuss and condone piracy on the message board.

[audiyoda]

Originally posted by Bobo23
Audiyoda, true this is the law, but how does it make you feel that you sent a person to jail for 5 years. Prison in my opinion is for people who rape, murder, assault, embezzel, etc. Petty theft, or computer theft, these things, though illegal, and technically felonies, don't seem like things that warrant sending a person to jail.

Tell me how it feels to have something you work very hard on stolen and used without your permission? Maybe you can't tell me, but I can tell you. I can tell you how long I work in my studio making just the right mix work for a client's needs. And then taking that piece and marketing it to various record companies and finally after constant no's getting a maybe and finally a yes. That entire process took me almost 12 months. Do I feel remorse, no. Do I feel bad, no. I feel sorry for the individual(s) who were caught because they used the same argument you are using to justify their actions. They honestly didn't see anything wrong with stealing my idea. When the prosecutor asked them if they understood what theft was, they said it was stealing something from someone. And the one guy that ran the FTP site said that stealing is a crime and should be punished -- but he then said what he did was not theft.

Are you blameless? Everyone does things that are wrong. Should they be sent to jail for something like this. Maybe so. Do you really think YOU needed them to be in jail? Thats for you to think about.

No one (save for Jesus Christ if you are a Christian, Mohammed if you are Muslim....) is blameless. I've done my fair share of wrong things and I've paid the price. As a producer, I know how much time and effort artist put into music, so I make a choice not to download mp3's I don't already own on CD. The software I own I do hae copies of -- but I already own the licence. And yeah, I thought about it -- I thought about the music I created and not being paid for it. Not getting the proper royalties, having my rights smeared in my face.

Personally I wouldn't be able to sleep at night knowing I had sent a person to jail for 5 years for something like what they did to you.

I sleep just fine, thank you asking.

We value freedom in this country, we are all free, but some are more free than others, and maybe if people had the decency to consider what its like for the other person. maybe they didn't know it was wrong. Maybe they knew it was wrong and should have to pay you royalties, but FIVE YEARS IN JAIL?

You are quite right -- we do value freedom, actually we probrably value freedom over any one thing we have. Yet freedom comes with a price -- our legal system. If you break the rules, you risk your freedom. Plain and simple. Considering how much downloading goes on of mp3 and how much time, sweat and personal sacrifice artists put into their music, five years isn't enought.

And before you scream that artists make more than enough, think again. I am certainly not on the anti-mp3 bandwagon because I think it hurts the industry. I think it's killing the artists. And before you disagree with me, read this by Steve Albini (http://www.negativland.com/albini.html). You may rembmer his name or seen it on a few CD's -- he produced Nirvana's multi-platinum In Utero. And I gurandamntee you that everything he outlines on that page is right on the money. So you may get a little perspective on how I feel as a producer (and in this case, artist/creator/producer) when something I created is taken from me without my permission.

-Craig

[Bobo23]

I must have misunderstood what this person did. I didn't understand that it was something that took 12 months of work. If you could explain it. I still think that 5 years is excessive for theft.

Whatever it is, I think what they did was a civil crime and should have been delt with civilly, as in the person should pay money, but not be sent to prison. Lets call it prison, since that better eccentuates what it actually is and represents. (again see Shawshank Redemption)

FTP: Laws state that the FTP owner who posted files illegally will face financial penalties, however the downloader will not as long as the files are removed. If they are not the downloader must pay the retail price of the program downloaded to the owner of the product. Posting a file is a more serious crime.

I may be acting childish and rebellious here, but can I please have this explained to me. I am open to learning the ethical value of why this is a criminal offense. It seems to me that stealing peoples work has always been a financial offense, meaning MONEY was the penalty.



Since Napster's creation the music industry has BOOMED! it is proven that Napster helped the industry. Artists actually make MORE now because of Napster. This is because it has spawned a revolution in online music sales, be it from Amazon, Yahoo, BN, any online retailer, the point is that Napster may have been a significant contribution to our economic boom during Clinton's presidency. It has been a definitive infuence on the music industry in a positive way!



Help me out, someone above said that they sent him a printout of his hard drive and circled the illegal files?
2 questions. (1) How can I print out my hard drive structure/tree/list thingy? and (2) how could they possibly get that, is it a internet server? or can anyone access the hard drive on my computer just through an internet connection?

[audiyoda]

Originally posted by Bobo23
I must have misunderstood what this person did. I didn't understand that it was something that took 12 months of work. If you could explain it. I still think that 5 years is excessive for theft.

It was a DVD authored by myself and a friend. He has a band and wanted a unique way to promote the band to industry-types. I either co-wrote or wrote all the songs they did on the DVD. I also produced all the tracks, shot the DVD footage and authored the DVD. I then promoted the DVD to various associates in the music industry. Entier project took almsot 12 months.

Since Napster's creation the music industry has BOOMED! it is proven that Napster helped the industry. Artists actually make MORE now because of Napster. This is because it has spawned a revolution in online music sales, be it from Amazon, Yahoo, BN, any online retailer, the point is that Napster may have been a significant contribution to our economic boom during Clinton's presidency. It has been a definitive infuence on the music industry in a positive way!

I don't know what you've been reading, but you're wrong. The industry iteslf is doing fine, but the artists are hurting more than ever. The industry will always do fine -- the music industry is set itself up that way. Did you know that the industry expects 12 out of every 13 bands/artists that are signed to actually lose money and finally fail? The 1 that does succeed does so in a huge way -- all by design. Napster and the like has done nothing but hurt bands and artists that are already starving. Why do you think I make most of my living doing video? My 'chosen' field is audio but the times just don't allow for it. And they haven't for about three years.

Don't fool yourself into thinking Napster has helped any artist save those indy artists that are the 'in' thing for a week or two until someone finds a new group to replace them. Sure they get their stuff downloaded but to the industry, "that don't mean diddley!" What matters to the industry is butts in seats at concerts but concert attendance is at a 15 year low. What matters to the industry is sellability -- and right now, there are very few groups able to do that save for the boy and girl bands. And even their sales are down. Before you spout off about the pluses of Napster, read so industry trade rags, you'd be amazed at the load of bull the mp3 proponants are selling you.

-Craig

[Carl Price]

Originally posted by HAL9000

If your friend is no longer using a piece of software, removes it from his/her PC, gives you the CD and license, then you can legally put it on your machine provided the EULA is OK with this. There was a recent article where somebody was shut down on E-Bay for selling his old copy of Win95 that he no longer uses. Apparently, you cannot do this with Win95.

I believe I agree with Hal's post with the exception quoted above. I own (bought and paid for) a license to use the software program(s). The license itself is an entity. I don't believe anyone has the right to tell me what I can and can't do with that license. Even if the terms of the EULA say differently, I don't believe it would hold up in court because licenses are transferred all the time. Say, for example, that I sold my business which is a corporate entity in itself. The new owner certainly owns the license to all software that was owned by the business and I no longer own nothing.

[Bobo23]

Carl your right in my opinion.

Audiyoda, that sounds like a very long and strenuous process and I understand the work that went into it. I don't think that the people sending it around online had any right to do what they did. Do you know the number of people that downloaded this DVD, if so perhaps you could require the offender to pay the retail price of that DVD times the number of downloads. I agree that you were robbed and I see this as a terrible offense, however I think it could have been settled more civilly if this person had to pay you for their crimes. You can't compare what this person did to murder, or rape, or assault, or embezzelment.

I saw a report on MTV about the Napster issue. MTV was clearly on the side of Napster and they had many artists talking about how they like the idea of napster and many of them said their sales went up significantly after it became popular. It makes sense. A person is browsing songs on Napster and comes upon a song they like. They download it. They like the song, the band, everything. They have slow 56k modem and they don't feel like downloading the other songs by the band, they simply click over to www.amazon.com or www.bestbuy.com or any other retailer which offers online ordering and home delivery. They order the CD using their credit card and voila, they recieve it in the mail a few days later and have not had to download anything. This happens A LOT. Sure there are those people who use napster for their primary source of music aquisition, but the tester-outers-then-orderers outnumber them. Napster is what boomed online music sales! Just because metallica is out of style now and nobody wants to pay for their music, they had to ruin it for all of us, including the other bands and the online retailers.

BTW, credit card companies also benefited from napster (online ordering w/ credit cards) A lot of people benefited, more than those that did not.

BTW napster is not housed in the United States and its servers aren't even on this side of the world. They settled the lawsuit by removing certain materials they were requested to remove. The lawsuit was against napster not the people who used it.

[audiyoda]

Let's face it: We'll agree to disagree.

In this case, it was not a civil matter. It was a federal offense of the copyright laws of the United States. Period. It was music that I created. The music was never and has never been for sale -- it's entire purpose was for a demo. Very few people actaully got their hands on the actual DVD (only 30 were actually authored). The guy that's in jail had gotten the DVD through unspecified means, but he did admit he had ripped the songs nad put them up on the FTP site. He just didn't think that was wrong -- even though there were copyright statements on the DVD and each song was registered with the government.

And for every pro-napster article/documentary you've seen, I can find the opposite. I personally know dozens of artists (some you've probrably heard of) that will tell you Napster (and mp3 downloading in general) hurt's their livelyhood. I saw that MTV piece -- first I don't trust the editorializing MTV tries to pull off -- second, the artists they interviewed were primarily unsigned acts or acts that are barely making it. So to them, anyone listening to their music is a plus.

The problem is when the industry itself sees revenue down from mp3 downloads, in the end it's the artist that get's the shaft. Because the industry will make it's money regardless and by any means it can -- to them, artists are nothing more than income properties -- interchangable as a lego piece.

-Craig

[HAL9000]

I think what it really comes down to is that you know if you are stealing software or music as you're not in the store puchasing it. If it's a chance you're willing to take, and you can sleep at night with that risk, then you do what you want to do, but hiding behind the constitution or using the fact that you're 15 won't last forever. You most likely will never be caught, unless the theft goes too far. If you are caught, then you must know that you must pay the price, and that will be up to a judge to decide, most likely not in your favor.

So do as you please with the understanding that piracy is frowned upon here, so obviously, cannot be supported in any manner as PCMECH has to watch its backside as well :D

[highrisemech]

The law is the law we may not like a particular law and there is nothing wrong with that. But just because a person does not like a particular law doen't mean they have a right to break the law. PCMech is obligated to follow the law and as members of PCMech we should support that. The courts have decided to protect an individuals intellectual property which is the right thing to do. If a person wrote a song,made a movie, wrote a program and so on obviuosly they would not want folks copying it and getting rich on thier invention. Obviously people do copy and get away with it but this still does not make it right.