Why History Needs Software Piracy: How copy protection and app stores could deny future generations their cultural legacy.
posted by homunculus on Jan 27, 2012 - 53 comments

Don't Make Me Steal - a Digital Media Consumption Manifesto.
posted by Artw on Feb 4, 2011 - 107 comments

Chasing Pirates: Inside Microsoft’s War Room - From the special thread that Chinese factories counterfeit in mile-long spools that adorns software authenticity stickers, to near-perfect bootleg discs leaving microscopic evidence of their factory origins, to Mexican and Russian gangsters who are dealt with very carefully, the NYT covers Microsoft's multi-pronged, international war on piracy.
posted by Blazecock Pileon on Nov 7, 2010 - 30 comments

Russia Uses Microsoft to Suppress Dissent - Adding to its long-running series on corruption and abuse in post-Communist Russia, the New York Times has reported on Russian authorities using the pretext of software piracy to seize computers from journalists and political dissidents critical of current policies. In a surprising twist, lawyers representing Microsoft have been found working with Russian police, despite reporters and NGOs providing evidence of legitimate software purchases. An official response to the NYT piece suggests impostors claim to represent Microsoft in Russia, and notes the company's offer of free software licenses to these and similar groups.
posted by Blazecock Pileon on Sep 12, 2010 - 25 comments

So there is this guy named Jona Bechtolt and he is an electronic musician and multimedia artist who performs as YACHT. He recently described in an interview some audio software that he had illegally downloaded, adding "Does all this piracy make me a bad person?". The company that makes the software that he illegally downloaded apparently saw his comment and wrote a blog post where they linked to his interview and stated "We've put up with rampant idiocy from people that style themselves members of the creative community but are actually members of some kind of bullshit that doesn't have a name." Then Mr. Bechtolt commented on that blog post kind of apologizing, but also saying "I'm a musician and I haven't bought music in years, nor have almost all of my musician friends." Then the company wrote him an open letter explaining why they did not accept his apology. [via Pitchfork]
posted by ND¢ on Jan 31, 2009 - 130 comments

dont pirate software cos if you do the cd will keep coming out of the drive and then you will look silly and injure your employer by making him trip over ADOBE RECOMMENDS GENUINE SOFTWARE THXBI [flash]
posted by Pretty_Generic on Nov 17, 2005 - 36 comments

Anathema, darknets, master rippers, and currys: The Shadow Internet. [via Volokh]
posted by designbot on Jan 3, 2005 - 53 comments

Think the RIAA is doing something new by threatening and suing? Think again... it's all part of a 4-step process.
posted by clevershark on Nov 10, 2003 - 13 comments

First it was the music industry complaining about the file sharers, now it's the file sharers complaining about people stripping the adware out of their software. More proof that 'piracy will find a way'.
posted by mrben on Apr 25, 2002 - 11 comments

$100 million in fake software seized .The copies of Windows Millenium and Windows 2000 Professional were indistinguishable from the real thing except for their failure to crash every 15 minutes(I made that up).Ever burn a copy for friends? Is that wrong?
posted by Mack Twain on Nov 17, 2001 - 31 comments

Software Piracy Detection Vans patrol the streets of the UK. Or do they? In the immortal words of the Pythons, "The looney detector van, you mean."
posted by harmful on Nov 8, 2000 - 7 comments

Got to get this (just couldn't find a better link on Adobe -- the press release is very dry) which basically means finding someone else who's bought it and copying it of them.

So, given the in depth discussion of design copyright here, where do we stand when it comes to software?

Who can honestly say they haven't got any major pieces of software on their machines that they didn't pay for? And has any private individual ever been caught with same?
posted by James Bachman on Sep 17, 2000 - 29 comments

No more Mister Nice Guy. They've built a web crawler looking for piracy sites. It should be interesting. I wonder how many computers and how much bandwidth they're assigning to the job?
posted by Steven Den Beste on Aug 2, 2000 - 6 comments

The end of view source? New software on the horizon may allow you to control who saves, copies or prints your web content. Are the days of right-click piracy coming to a close? Will this add weight to the budding concept that people might actually pay for content they want? Should we care?
posted by scottandrew on Jul 11, 2000 - 15 comments

The warez, mp3-traders, hacker and terrorist industry just got a just got a boost in the arm. the goverment and all the music companies are going to see that the internet is not to be regulated. You cannot stop individuals from sharing files between themselves and everytime you start to ban one program another one more innovative than the last pops up. I am going to stop my little rant here because I don't want to seem like i am anti goverment ...viva la revolution.
posted by neo452 on Apr 10, 2000 - 0 comments