Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!bu.edu!nntp-read!mofo From: mofo@bucsf.bu.edu (jason greene) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: "Demos" and piracy Message-ID: Date: 11 Jul 90 21:04:26 GMT References: <2741@dftsrv.gsfc.nasa.gov> Sender: news@bu.edu.bu.edu Organization: Boston Univ., Computer Science Lines: 48 In-reply-to: xrtnt@amarna.gsfc.nasa.gov's message of 11 Jul 90 03:11:06 GMT Thank you for taking a broader view of my subject, Nigel. But to clarify things, here's my convention: o That support of any demo made specifically for use by a pirate on pirated software is akin to supporting piracy. I don't believe that removing the "red sector demo" or any other demo that is obviously supporting a pirate or a group is censorship. Consider the case of John DeLorean. He built a neato, stainless-steel car (that some use to travel through time, but I digress). Johnny got caught for using and dealing cocaine. The car was discontinued because note only of it's relationship to the coke-fiend, but because the design may never have been his, that production deals may have been concudcted illegally, etc. Just the same, if there were a programming god like Dillon (no offense Matt) who was all of a sudden found out to HAVE BEEN a pirate, I would really begin to question WHERE he got his algorithms, WHERE he got his graphics routines, WHERE he even got his idea(s). And if the programmer were STILL a pirate, then he/she is performing an illegal operation and deserves to be punsihed in every way. If the president of the NRA committed manslaughter, ten years later, would be be allowed to carry a gun? Hell no! That certainly is not censorship. Also, who else remembers when not more than a month ago there was a posting saying "Call these boards! All pirate except..." ? I remember quite a large barrage of messages condemming the guy who wrote the post. His post was no different than the demos, except that the post didn't do a graphic song-and dance that we amiga folk love to show our friends. Don't get me wrong; a lot of the demos are quite incredible feats of graphic and sound programming, and deserve to be praised. However, I don't see the original Boing demo spitting out pirate's names, either. Jason ps: I can live without di**head pirates' demos easily. If I want to impress someone, I can just boot up the Juggler.