The Computer Chronicles - Software Piracy (1985) 

Yeah, since 5,25 was the defacto standard and 3.5 was on it's way in....

Indeed, that was like a comedy sketch scene which made me chuckle. Taking into account that those 8" floppies were already old by this time and people in this series are often clearly jesting a bit, I'd assume the producers had the comical intent themselves in mind as well, even while by modern point of view it probably seems yet more funny. Nevertheless, when the context is gradually lost in time, it always gets more and more difficult to estimate what was intentional and what not.

Almost larger than Stewart!

That’s what she said

Yeah that's one giant ass floppy disk.

Yeah, I didn't know software pirates were using mainframes and minicomputers to make their copies.

Pretty sure most pirates just used mini floppies or diskettes lol

Nice time stamp

A crowbar can be used to break into a house, it’s ridiculous to gripe about legitimate tools because people can misuse them.

aCtIVISION has GoOd CuSTOMer SerVICe ! if your software faults, just call us! Why should you be able to make your own copies of OUR intellectual property??

You bastard!

Your joke doesn’t really work since that’s not really the “spirit” of piracy.

Developers still would like to recieve a paycheck at the end of the month. I know that I want to, at least.

It has always amazed how prevalent this kind of limping analogues have been for decades. One can metaphorically steal a thought, but in concrete sense that should require that the original thinker could lo longer think about it. That's how it is also with copying software - the original owner is not losing it. Illegal yes, but not a steal. If it would genuinely be stealing, locking up the physical media inside a safe should reduce software piracy.

Except these analogies break down when you extend them to their logical conclusions. If a person starts making money off that Porsche like people would do with software, now what? If he’s making a tiny amount is it ok but if he makes a billion dollars it’s not? And what entitles that dude to use the software even if he’s not paying for it? Why do the rules suddenly not apply because something is easy to do?

Also , and this is significant as well to the era, replacements would have to ship out, could take days or more likely weeks to receive. And contacting the company alone cost money as most of them did not have toll free support lines, and long distance calls you paid for by the minute back then. That was an era where you had an issue, you had to pay a per minute fee to listen to a company's support line hold music (sometimes for hours in certain parts of the year) just to get support/replacement. Meanwhile if this is some sort of mission criticized business software, you're hampered or halted while awaiting replacement.

One of the reasons for this is that Andrew Fluegelman died some days after this episode.

Eventually we were using another Amiga copy app to copy Marauder too!!! Actually nothing is eassier than a copy prog not copying itself.

HAHAHAHAHAHA

IM DEAD

Prison

It was rife wasn’t it - same experience - it’s interesting how brazen it was! That must’ve been their main distribution method before bulletin boards were more commonplace.

*whistles in 2600hz*

Fallout 1 and 2 allowed installing full game, so, disk was not needed for playing. Great in every way.

Yeah, and they've since learned (especially in the modern age), that you can't really count on user honesty if the penalty for piracy is a slap on the wrist/ "everybody does it". GoG depends on user honesty, and there are torrents of their full catalog available.

And I'd much rather shop there than Steam.

Yellowblanka: I can't agree with the punishment being soft. Some have to actually serve time in prison, and I guess up to 5 years, 11 years in some cases in a small handful even 20 years+, - the max anyone has so far gotten is life without, is rather harsh. Also there is always the possibility to pay high fines, and this can quickly lead to financial ruin for some of those caught possessing or distribution. Depending on the country one comes from of course, the punishment is different. Germany, for instance, the BKA hasn't much cared for software piracy in the past. Lately they cease property and even sports cars, whatever they find if they catch a distributor of Software/Games. (Interestingly, the pirates aren't always out there in the wild, but sitting in the company who creates the DVD or CD the games are stored on.) Yes, all their titles are available. The same is true for each and every piece of software and/or game. Not exclusively PC games but also almost every title that has ever been published for handhelds and consoles, and this is crazy. I mean, whoever takes it upon themselves to download all these, they will never be able to play more than a handful of it. Why not simply buy a game, and there are many out there one can have hundreds of hours of fun with it, and over time grow a collection, with that special game to look back on someday in the future. Anyway, yes, some things will never change, but there is always a possibility. :-) Gahl Blah: At the end of the day what matters is that money lands in the pockets of those who create and publish the game. ;-)

Yeah the punishments definitely aren't a "slap on the wrist".

Piracy has never been more justified. Scum like GOG and Steam want you to give them money for something that is infinitely copyable and has no scarcity. Especially GOG since one of the cofounders used to sell pirated games before he cofounded CDPR, but now that it is more profitable to be "legit" he is against piracy. No reason you should be giving money to GOG when goodolddownloads exists

If i should name one who deserved to get its apps illegally copied Adobe would be first in the list.

Nope, that is freshly initialized RAM being dumped in the monitor on an Apple II system. When the Apple II boots it initializes the unused memory to the pattern of FF FF 00 00 which is two bytes of all 1s and two bytes of all 0s.

lol my thoughts exactly!

Microsoft Office used to cost $1500 as well. Before that they sold Excel and Word etc all separately and it would be even more added up, easily a few thousands. Bill '100 billion' Gates' fortune is based on those fat years. If you find business computer magazines from 1992, or 1998 and 2003 you can see the price development of these expensive commercial software suites.

And this was the price back then, inflation adjusted in 2023 this is $2,000 !

Yeah, pretty bad example as the original owner will lose the car unlike software piracy, where there is no original owner, it’s just some binaries, libraries, and assets consisting of 0’s and 1’s. A better example would be photocopying a proprietary blueprint for a car, and then distributing it for free, which has specific instructions for how to build that specific car. Now of course, it’s not easy or cheap to build a car, but I think you get the point.

Yarrr, matey

I'm telling.

+joseph fulks - I wish Adobe saw it your way.

They don't even sell copies anymore, everything is "as a service" these days

Unless employed by Mega Corp where a fixed salary is paid for the rights to your work, most other (independent) developers had to distribute through a publisher, who upped the price exorbitantly. They monopolized the distribution system.

For once Paul's commentary was on the right tracks though.

@@CopperheadSysop and now we all switch to foxit ... You have no idea how shocked Adobe representative when I told him this 4 tears ago.

I don't think it was ever stylish, just desperate.

Oof they sure looked bad

Um, I hate to break this to y'all, but those aren't combovers. They're toupes. Men back then (and a few even still) would say to themselves, no one's going to believe a full head of hair...but I can pull this off. I know. I know. (Not kidding).

@@calvinsaxon5822 DUH, those are obviously combovers and not toupes, are you watching the samne video ?

The classic 3.25" trades at your locker haha, good days

In another episode he states that his family doesn't have a game console but they play PC games, so I'm not surprised that he never owned/played that game on the 2600.

Uh, no. It’s open source, which doesn’t equal free.

@@BlownMacTruck if you're paying for open source software you're doing it wrong lol

@@faerieringwildlifeandmore God you’re dumb. Apparently you don’t know anything about Red Hat, XNU, ElasticSearch, or any of the other huge number of giant open source projects like the ones I mentioned that use paid models. Don’t get me wrong - I think open source is amazing. I use it daily and have been a part of numerous OS projects over more than two decades. But you’re not doing yourself any favors by not understanding what it actually means. Maybe learn about open source and how it relates to freedom as a start. Here’s a hint: open source folks make a clear distinction between “free” and “free as in beer” - it’s a common phrase in the community. Learn what it means before making yourself look so ignorant.

@@BlownMacTruck how about this. I only like open source software that is free as in freedom AND free as in beer

You’re not paying (much) for the distribution. You never have, even with physical media. You’re just paying the developers. Everyone wants pay for their time and labor - don’t you? I don’t think it’s a difficult concept to grasp.

@@nickwallette6201 it’s the fundament of capitalism.