Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!usc!ucsd!ucbvax!bloom-beacon!eru!luth!sunic!sics.se!bula!bjornk
From: bjornk@bula.se (Bjorn Knutsson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Demos and Software Piracy
Message-ID: <9704@bula.se>
Date: 27 Jul 90 12:14:01 GMT
References: <25337@snow-white.udel.EDU> <9542@bula.se> <1990Jul26.212345.27655@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu>
Sender: rnews@bula.se
Reply-To: Bjorn Knutsson <bjornk@bula.se>
Distribution: comp
Organization: Bjorn's Amiga, Sweden
Lines: 52

In article <1990Jul26.212345.27655@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> wlj1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Wayne L Jebian) writes:
>In article <9542@bula.se> Bjorn Knutsson <bjornk@bula.se> writes:
>>In article <25337@snow-white.udel.EDU> BARRETT@owl.ecil.iastate.edu (Marc Barrett) writes:
>>>Software piracy
>>>is legal in most parts of Europe, and the widespread software piracy
>>>there is the ultimate fault of the European governments.  If they
>>>want to curb piracy, they ought to pass laws to make it illegal.  Until
>>>they do, they can't blame these groups for taking advantage of the
>>>legality of software theft.
>>
>>You say that piracy is legal in "most parts of Europe". Ok, fine, name
>>those parts.  I can't think of any part, except perhaps parts of
>>Eastern Europe (I really don't know), where piracy is legal.
>
>Actually "raids on pirates" occur more often in britain and europe than in
>the US. I assume that the way piracy is done on the Amiga is similar to the 
>way its done on ye olde C-64 and I can only make a few assumptions but i see no
>reason why its different.

Well, the piracy on the C64 got more and more organized over the
years, and then most of the C64-pirates leaped over to the Amiga, so
the scene is sligthly different than it used to be for the C64. At
least the European pirates are very organized and when I was down in
Germany for the Cologne AmiExpo I heard that one "group" made over
DM 500.000 per month, selling pirated copies of (mostly) games.

>>Systems in the USA. Swedish newspapers (quite recently) ran a story
>>about teenagers using stolen VISA card numbers for calling BBS's in
>>the United States. Now, these teenagers were doing this to be able to
>>download pirated programs for free. 
>
>I doubt they used visas but instead just hacked out AT&T codes but thats not
>relevent. What is important is <if the amiga pirates are the same as c64

Oh, it was Visas, they also used them to buy computers, peripherals etc by
mailorder from the U.S.

>pirates> it kinda works the opposite way. Groups usually import games to the
>US from europe after NSTC fixing it <flickers and all> because games usually 
>are released in europe first. of course it can be different on the Amiga but
>i doubt it.

I guess it works both ways, but I KNOW that many programs are (or at
least used to be) released in the U.S first. 

>-Mark Dolengo

---
Bjorn Knutsson        / USENET: bjornk@bula.se or sunic!sics!bula!bjornk
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