Category: Safe Haven
Hi All, Simple enough. What are your opinions? I posted thisw because there was a big QuickNotes blowout about CDEx, music sharing, cracks, etc, and I'm hoping to get some more opinions for those who ...erm ... weren't ... well ... lucky enough to be there. You'll notice I put this under Safe haven, for everyone's safety. Lol. I think cracks are bad, especially for expensive programs. I think those should be hoenstly paid for, since the makers (i.e,GW Micro, Freedom Scientific, Pulsedata, etc), work hard to make them. I think sharing music with friends is okay, but I've never used CDEx and the like, because I've heard it's illegal. Plus, I can afford all the CD's I like enough to buy, because today's hit music is no near as good as it used to be.
So what are your thoughts?
Caitlin
Hi again Caitlin,
Well, I don't believe in cracks, it's just a way of getting something for nothing, I'd be so scared to download one, I'd be afraid I'd get caught. The problem is, prices of things keep gettinghigher and higher, and people want it, but can't always afford the high prices. If we can't afford a program, we just don't get it. Music however, I don't see any harm in using something like winmx, or kazaa lite to download it, as long as it's just for your own personal use, and you don't go and sell them, then the music companies would be after you. And when people pirate a piece of software, then sales go way down, and the software makers raise the price even higher, making it harder for the folks who stay on the straight and narrow, and get it the legal way.
wonderwoman
um wonderwomen, you say if you don't pay for the program, it makes it more expensive and don't think it is alright to get the cracks. You then say it is ok to down load music. what is the difference. If you don't pay for the music, it is the same as not paying for a game, or program. I think we are all guilty of getting music or a program free at least once! you ask a computer prohramer if cracks are wrong, they are going to say yeah. If you ask a musician that is trying to make money by selling there album and you are downloading it from the net, they are going to say it is wrong also! so I have to disagree with you totally! smile, angel
Angel77 made a valid point. If you don't believe in cracks (getting codes for free to register a program that requres a code that you have to pay to get the code.) then why downloading music? Downloading music is kind of stealing. If you do it the right way. Like if you own a iriver or ipod there are websites where you can pay to download tracks or a entire album. So if you pay to download the tracks and albums, you're not stealing from the artists or bands who spend the cash to create and sell their music. But downloading music for free I'm leary on touching as I've heard people say "Yeah it's leagal if you do it in the right sense." And then you'll hear "Oh I downloaded a few albums and then got a notice from the courts saying I'm being sued for something." It depends on what you believe in, and making the right decision.
Well, you both have a point, I guess I don't think music is as important as software, like jaws. With a crack, you're getting a program that fools another program in to thinking you have the right serial number. But I think they're letting people download the least popular songs, but I think if they're really popular, they may not be available on either kazaa lite or winmx. They closed napster down because people were downloading songs with it, but then they come up with other file sharing programs, so I'm surprised they haven't shut them down. I understand why people do it, those cds are so expensive, more expensive than cassettes, but they're trying to push people in to buying them by getting rid of tapes.
wonderwoman
I've heard several bleeding hearts say that softare is too highly priced, and this is why they download cracked products. I agree that some software is expencive, but there's a lot involved in developing it. I've heard some ppl say that they have a right to download software if they have no money and have a computer. there are legal ways of getting cheaper software, so I don't agree with this. For example, near me I have a major national retailer of computer software and pc's, there's an independant retailer in town too. both places were selling microsoft office xp. the major retailer was selling the pro version for £600 or there arounds. The independant retailer was selling the same product for £275. how could the independant retailer do this? when you bought the £600 software from the national retailer, you got all the books etc, making the software package more bulky and expencive. The local retailer got ligitamate discs, and only sold those discs, no books, nothing. You had to go with the help in the software itself. So there are cheaper ways of buying legal software. On another note, have you noticed that jaws is already cracked? this really pisses me off! I couldn't believe it when I found out and searched for it myself to check the authenticity of the information! Isn't anything sacred here? I just hope that those scumbags who take the cracked version of the auth disc for jaws will not have to call tec support! Cracking jaws should be more difficult now they've got the internet licence manager though, as a disc with a unique code is sent to the legal user, and this must be used in conjunction with the net or a phone call to a dealer to activate the product.
um, that is not true either. you can down load some of the newest music just as much as you can the older music! smile, angel
Well, I guess some people feel that if it can be downloaded, and they can get it for free, they will. Of course I will never use a cracked version of jaws. There is a difference between music and jaws. Jaws performs a valuable service for those of us who can't use a computer screen, and there is the likely possibility that a person will need tech support at some point in time. I use to be on a list where they discussed cracks, not that that was the reason I joined the list, there were a lot of other discussions on there, but they did discuss cracks quite a bit.I would be scared to death to use a cracked version of a software program. As for music, I still have the radio, and my am fm cassette recorder, so that's how I get the majority of music I listen to.
wonderwoman
Though I suppose it's bad to crack things like jaws (access things for us blinks and other disabled people) I don't think it should cost upwards of $800 or whatever it costs now, that's outrageously expensive. All it does is read the screen, no supreme programming tallent behind it, plus wineyes does the same stuff for $400 less. And charging for things like remote desktop which sigitees have out of the box is just rediculous.
James
I am one who does download free music. I use win mx. I am also one that if someone tells me about a crack, I'm going to do it. Now, if I want something and I think the price of the program is worth it, then I'll buy it. Now back to the music. I am one that will download music because if there's a song I like on a cd, why spend all of that money on a whole cd when I just like one song off of it? A waste of money in my oppinion.
Troy
You can always use some of those music downloading services like itunes or emusic or napster...
James
Well last year when my mom bought me a new karioke for christmas, wefound that the cd kariokes just have the background music, no lead singer, so I could learn the words, and the melody, so people on ftp were telling me about winmx and kaza light, so I did download a few original songs, in order to learn the words and the melody of the songs, because to find all of those songs, btw, there 20 songs on 2 cds, that makes 40 songs, it would've cost a fortune to buy 40 cds, that had one song each on them. That was the only way I could learn the songs. The new karaokes they have now have a screen, and the words show up on the tv screen, fine for sighted folk, but not good for us who are totally blind. Well, I sort of got away from it, and haven't played the karaoke in a while, so I haven't downloaded any songs in months, but I still have winmx and kazaa lite on my computer, just in case I need to download a song. Oh well, I'll start a topic about the old karaoke versus the newer karaokes later. Anyway, 40 songs is a lot to download, and I don't have a cd burner, and I can't keep them on my hard drive because of disk space.
wonderwoman
If I had the money, there are programs that I would buy. I always try to find free programs, as opposed to getting cracks, but I will admit that I have used cracked software, and have given out cracks. I get very ticked off at how much is charged for some types of equipment and software, these often time being for the blind. There is absolutely no reason that they should cost so much. I shouldn't have to pay for software that costs more than my OS. As for music, most of what I listen to is rather out of date, and I doubt I'd find it anywhere in stores, or at least not most of it, so yes I do download and share. My thoughts on this varry. For the more popular artists, they'll make more money than I ever will in my lifetime I suspect. However, there are groups I consider good enough that I would buy their stuff, given the oportunity. Hmm, think I've rambled enough here.
Yup itunes and emusic are the two out there that they say are leagal websites to download stuff. Of course you gotta buy the tracks or the album on that site to download. That can come in handy. And what I do is go onto barnes and nobles website and sample the entire album. And if I have heard like 3 or 4 songs from a band on one cd and the price is right then I'll buy. Like the idea of being able to reconise the titles on a cd and then listen to the other tracks on that cd to see if it's good enough to buy.
Well well, I am glad to see that people are coming to their senses. We are coming to that point where i like to say there are no innocent crimes. Crime is crime some are just harder to punish. I am right along with you all when I say I have used cracked programs and I also download music like a mad man. I am also glad to see people defending the rights of a man who has worked hard to profect his product. Not only did he work hard but he must be proude to see how much you all enjoy it and are willing to shell out the money and back him. This could have turned out very differently. I was a witness to what happened with accesible chat and games for the blind . com. That, was not pretty for thouse of you who didn't see it. Keep up the good work Liam!
my point exactly. I am not saying that i don't download music or get cracks, but am saying everyone is quick to jump on someone for asking for a crack, when they are doing the same thing themselves! I see where it makes the person mad that that has put all the hard work into it! But, for those of you that do the same crime don't put other people down for the same thing you are doing yourself! Smile Angel
Hmm, interesting topic.
Well, first off, as for Jaws, Microsoft could have built in accessibility into their very operating system as early as 3 years ago, that's why they purchased an acccessibility company based in Germany I believe and added the basic readers to Windows 2000. At that point F.S., GW Micro and other companies threatened to sue them for putting blind programmers out of business. And it's that mind set of the companies that have kept us in the dark. Were accessibility built into Windows itself we wouldn't have to shell out thousands of dollars to people who are second-guessing the working of various controls and such. As much as I appreciate what Jaws has done for me I can't say I feel all that possitive about Freedom Scientific, why e.g. would they charge 50% more for a version that can read "professional" versions of Windows, thee is absolutely no development cost difference, it's just price discrimination. Finally Apple is breaking this deadlock by building speech accessibility into their Operating System and I hope Microsoft will follow suit. It's not about keeping blind programmers employed, if they are good they'll find a hiche, there will still be a niche for F.S. in making hardware drivers, stream lining the MS accessibility and customize it for users etc, but basically the screen reading companies have, in fact, been standing in the way of blind users getting the best possible accessibility to the computer and it really does not help me get any respect for them.
As for cracks, I agree, writing software is hard, it takes creativity, tallent, and I applaud those who e.g. are writing accessible games and think they're doing a great job. However, in general, here's my view on cracks. There is a lot of software you need for every day use, some software is unreasonablly priced but moreover you can't afford to have it all, if there is a way you can get it for free you will do so. The makers ven, broadly speaking, want you to do that because then at least you are hooked on their software. Microsoft e.g. could do a lot more to fight Windows and Office piracy in India, but they don't because they know if they do people will all switch to linux and there will be nofuture market for Windows related products and development platforms. I also refuse to pay $1000 for Visual Studio, I think it's very stupid and I get a crack for it. If I started writing software for comercial use / distribution I would buy it because that's a different purpose. By now I'm hooked on this development platform and such MS have secured a sale if I got into such a position. If there is no free trial version of software I think a crack is acceptible.
As for music, I wrote a 90-page paper on the music industry and downloading so I won't get into the details. Bottomline, the music downloads have not statistically hurt cd sales (the only exception is possibly last year because my paper only covered statistical research until 2003). CD sales are up even if music downloads are going on. I download music by bands I've read about or heard of and I'm curious about, if they're good I buy the cd because I like good music and like that people are trying to make and record it, this is especially true for the small underground bands, I also download a couple of songs I like to have for parties etc but would never buy, the music industry is not losing money on this, I would never have bought this music, the only reason I have it is because I could get it for free, if I paly it to someone else who happens to like it it might actually induce sales in the long term. Where the industry "loses" money is when people download music they would otherwise have paid for. The fact is most people like the idea of ownership and a cd is a great format, can be played anywhere and comes with nice packagin, there is a big value to owning it. When I like an album I want to buy it, not only to apreciate the artist but also because I like owning it, it's cool. So, the music industries figures about their "lost sales" are hugely distorted as they take the net price of all downloads and claim those to be lost revenue, they are not counting downloads of bands that someone is checking out, bands that the person would not buy anyways and also downloads of those who already down the cd but need the song for whatever reason. I'm not defending downloading per say, especially not if it replaces a legal way of getting the music but I don't like the way facts are distorted and it's made out to be something a lot more than it is, I want to be judged on facts, not on propaganda. :)
So, we're all guilty of something, when I have money I try to buy software, if I don't I download it, if I have to eventually suffer the consequences, so be it.
But, come on folks, let us at least try to support those who are leading the way and trying to create accessible stuff, like games for the blind, I think it's a cool effort, even if I've never played on e myself, those are more vulnerable than anyone to illegal cracks and downloads, if you like what you see .. I mean hear .. and you want some more, support the effort. Same with this site, everyone complains about $20 for a year's subscription, and this is a huge lack of appreciation for the effort that's gone into making this site what it is. :)
cheers
-B
Oh, one thing I forgot. The IPod is not accessible and their web page is a mess, I have huge difficulty navigating around it. BuyMusic is a bit better (www.buymusic.com) and I've purchased tracks from there. The main problem with these is that they come in a prorpietary format, such as .wma which forces you to use Windows Media Player and I hate that software (for a good mp3 player, reliable and not using up much memory look at Foobar 2000 I'm a big fan) or other formats that require special players such as the ITunes player, many of those are not accessible, even the software players and they also make it difficult to use programs like Nero or other cd burning programs to burn music to cd. In my view this is unacceptible, either make the downloads generic mp3s or make them into a new format or a forma t that would be less application specific, it took me almost 90 minutes to get the tacks I downloaded from buy.com to burn to cd and it was very frustrating, I had to log back in, get some security authorization to burn them, then Nero would not accept or convert them so I had to learn how to do this through the Media Player and it was a major hassle.
They got to streamline their downloading services a bit, if they do, it's a very cool thing and I'm all for it.
cheers
-B
First of all: there's absolutely NOTHING illegal about using CDex. CDex is a program that allows you to extract the audio from a CD and convert it to a file on your computer, i.e. an MP3. If you own the CD, you have every right to do this.
I do share music among my friends. This is not for the purpose of undercutting the profits of the artists, but to expose them to new music. It's no different than making them a tape, burning a CD mix, or recording off the radio. I think the copyright law needs to be designed to protect the financial interests of the artists, while at the same time encouraging the exposure of new music. After all, music was meant to be enjoyed. Some artists realize this, while others are only concerned about the bottom line. My hopes in sharing my music with my friends is that they'll come to like one more artist, and thus support them through buying more of their stuff or seeing them live.
As far as pirating goes, I don't think we have any right to condemn those who do it. How many of us worked our fingers to the bone to pay for our software? Most blind people have their equipment purchased through a government agency or a school. While I understand we are at a greater disadvantage, and we have to spend more money to purchase specialized equipment, and money is harder for us to come by, we also receive more handouts than most people. I think this tends to generally give blind people a very low work ethic, where they expect something for nothing. I don't see much difference in cracking a program and getting it for free, or having somebody buy it for you. One way is just more legal, and keeps the developers alive. What if you were sighted, and didn't have access to government benefits or other handouts? I think this is an ethical question that each person has to answer on his/her own, and who are we to say that they're right or wrong?
hehe, I have a friend who used to work for PeopleSot as a developer. I asked him what he tought about software/game cracka and he said "if I can get this for free, it means they have not done their job making a good enough protection so I will get a free copy, they'll just have to work harder securing it". I sortf feel the same way, not to the same extent perhaps. And I think it's ridiculous when the Recording Industry Association's literature is explaining copyright infringement stuff, they claim copying a cd from a friend is like breaking into the reord store and stealing a copy. It's not true because when you steal a CD from the store it means that CD is lost and another one has to be made to sell to someone else, when you copy music it is not destroying or anulling something that already exists, they don't encur any costs and stand to gain based on the increased publicity. And the music industry must just come up with an alternative that is likable and usable by all, if not I will not support them. And I agree about the views of "something for nothing" stated in the last post, if I can get something for nothing though, I will, I mean, I would be stupid not to take advantage of what is given to me, but at the same time I am not expecting to be handed everything on a silver plate.
cheers
-B
I've cracked jaws version 5.0, and I've downloaded music using Gnucleus, and, to make things interesting, I've even ran a pirate radio station using a wireless microphone bought at kb toy, and some tin foil, and the big tv antenna up in the attick of my old house. The microphone would broadcast at 98.5 fm, and the tin foil would be connected from it, to the tv antenna up in the attick, and in this way, we could get it to go from the house to about 3 houses away! It was so cool! But, sadly, it wasn't in sterio, or very good quality, but it was there for quite a while. Has anyone else ever tryed this? If so, tell me about it!
If something is on the enternet then go head and take advantage of it. Just think about it some 1 took time and efford to krack that programs code. if you don't want people downloading music and programs make them cheeper.
But see it's a vicious cycle... the price of cds is going up and up because less people are buying them and more are downloading them. So people will then think "Hmm too expensive I'll just download it" and then the price climbs ever higher and ... well you get the point
Where music is concerned I think something like ITunes is a good idea where you pay far less for albums (around $8 from what I hear) than you would for a cd ($20 at FYE, greedy blokes they are). SO yeah.
James
Well, fact of the matter is that CD sales are not going down (they have been the last couple of years but so have the sales of most "luxury" commodities simply reflsecting a trend of contraction in society and shift in consumer spending. And the cost of producing a CD is between 90 cents and $1.20 so even a CD that you get for $2 makes some profit on behalf of the record company. Now with downloading and online music finally consumers have a way to circumvent this system of ridiculous profits that the labels have been generating.
The labels complain about the new technology and how it is ruining their profit margin. Fact of the matter is that e.g. this technology has enabled the price of a professional recording studio to go down from approximately 200 grand to about 20 to 25 grand at the most and thus their costs (production costs) have fallen dramtically, still distribution and promotion is expensive but they have been sued by a prosecutor in New York for bribing DJs to play certain artists they have on contract. I think the new online revolution is creating an entirely new playing field and you should never ever buy a CD for more than $10 unless it's an up and coming artist with no means of making money distributing a cd him/herself or if it's an import. I think CDs and CD online are not exactly the same concepts well the same product, one is, well, packaged and designed and has artwork and lyrics and background and it is much more of a product than merely the collection of songs. For me I usually want to buy the actual cDs of bands I really like because I feel the music is only about 80% of the vission they had for the album.
Cheers
-B
I agree with post 17, often times I will sue cracked software to see if it works, and then buy it. I did this with quicken 2004, as well as microsoft mony.
That radio station thing sounds cool! One other thing I did once in school is I had a teacher who worked on computers and I needed a program which I couldn't afford. So what he did is he burned me the software so I got it for free.
Troy
I've done the same thing--used cracked software to try it to buy it, and bought programs I can't afford. Cracks and music are such a difficult issue because there are so many factors. On the one hand, no one is losing money if you weren't going to buy it anyway. Also, sharing music and software actually makes you more likely to buy new stuff sometimes. I think in general, it evens itself out. that being said, I think downloading cracked software when you would have bought it is a form of protest as well; some prices are just extraordinarily high, and I hate the record companies' policies in general. However, when money is truly going into the hands of the developers who have worked hard to produce music/software, I think we should definitely buy it, if at all possible.
I don't really agree with copying music much, unless it's for your own use or you can't find it in the shops, for example with some of the older songs that are only available on LP and not on CD. I say for getting cracks of software, fine if it's for your own use and to freedom scientific, cut your prices a bit more, then people wouldn't have to get crack copies of JAWS. Well, that's why I've got a crack copy of jaws 9, because I probably could never afford to buy my own.
lmaooo watch the people who have cracked screen readers get banned...
I'm not saying having a crack is bad, well it is. but, I'm sure we've all got one at some point. hell, I even saved it to a disc whitch is hidden in the safety of my...well, uh, that's another story.
music, well if we have programs like BareShare, then only download for personal use...
To post 15, what did happen?
And yeah. I have been guilty of piracy. However, I don't do it anymore though, and bought licenses for all the stuff I cracked, then reformatted my hd and started over.
I either download music from itunes, or from a site. Yes, I am guilty of using a cracked version of jaws. I also have a cracked copy of window eyes, just incase something happens to my licensed version of jaws, and I need to use a backup screenreader. I think we r all guilty of pirating some software, and downloading music. If I can get it, I'm going to get jaws 9 cracked.
lol
What's so funny AZN?
The only reason why I've got the cracked copy of jaws is because I can't afford to buy it and even if I could, I could think of more better or important things to save for! Hahahaha!
Same here Harmony.
Yeah, jaws I dont have a license for. I have jaws90..0552 on the system, but I don't have the latest version.
We're all guilty of it though, so just come clean guys LOL.
But for example, I used to pirate, say, games, but then realized that 1) these guys hbarely get any money as it is, and B) these guys really do need suppport; and then I shredded all of the game cracks. Jaws I feel is... Well, its a crime nonetheless, but FS doesn't need anymore money. It's like, what now, for a pac mate MSA? 200 dollars or something insane like that.
So. Yeah.
Also, if you just want the internet, nothing but that and a few programs, use ConnectOutloud. Oddly enough, the demo never expires even though it says it does. Nice, eh?
what is connect out loud?
From freedomscientific.com, its like a baby jaws. Only supports ms word, and the internet (IE) and a few other crappy things
That's a really old proram isn't it? I remember hearing about it, but I never tried it out.
Yeah, yeah old indeed, but if you wanna go on the internet, and just go on the internet it's perfecto
I also got a crack of talks. Does anyone have a crack for mobile speak? I wanted to try it to see how it sounds.
lol, now that's what I don't have, talks/moble speak
I finally had enough money to buy talks+phone a couple of months ago. I've only got cracked copies of JAWS and Microsoft Office because I'll never have enough money to be able to afford to buy them, unlike some people who have legal copies of everything. Sure they'd do the same thing if they didn't have the money to pay for it or couldn't get anyone else to help with that.
This is a very interesting topic. First, the screen reading software, should be built right into a computer like apple does. Its time Microsoft figured this out. I Have to purchase everything myself, and let me tell you its tough! About the games, I have purchased many games, and some were crap, and I couldn't get any money back, so I am stuck with them. I think though the games that are made for us blind folks are getting better and I will purchase a game if I can really try it out first. I share music not to under cut anyone but to expose people to different bands. I worked for an agency that made c.d.'s for the government, and the cost of a disk is cheap, what most likely costs the most is the music part of it, the time spent in the studio and so on. I guess like it was stated earlier, if you can get it for free why not, we all can't afford everything. I don't want everything handed to me, but make it reasonable. GW Micro, at least is trying with their leasing plans, a big ass company like freedom scientific, won't give us a break on that. Just my views for now.!