Ok... pops top on new beer I'm seeing a whole lot of stuff in the line of "piracy won't go away, so what's wrong with amnesty?" Simple. Yeppers. Piracy of software ain't gonna go away. It's a current fact of life for software companies. There's two things a company does about it: 1) You make it too damned expensive to indulge in piracy, 2) or if for whatever reasons you don't care to or won't or can't do that... Then you accept it as a fact of lif and call it a business expense. Pure and simple. Sucks, but there it is. And it IS a business expense. You don't placate terrorists, you don't beg a mugger not to steal from you, you don't reward criminals with buy backs and half price offers. It don't work and it never has. I'm not going to bandy words or play with euphemisms like "warez kittie" or any of that crap. I'm just going to shoot straight out on it: it's theft, as Schlabber said. And a software pirate is a fucking thief. If you do it, you come up with whatever justifications or excuses you want to, but it's just that simple. A thief steals because it's easier than being honest. A coward steals and hides behind political rhetoric and all the other BS that kitties feed themselves because it's easier than just admitting "Hey - I steal because I believe that it's my right and I'm prepared to deal with the consequences". Got news for Kupa. What's wrong with amnesty is that you're rewarding theft, and you're slapping your customer base across the chops. And your legit customers are going to remember it. This isn't going to turn a single goddamned software pirate honest. All you're doing is rewarding theives by giving out legit copies. When Poser 5 comes out, any who might have taken advantage of this offer aren't going to suddenly become legit Poser 5 upgraders - they're going to steal it too. Someone who will steal a $5.00 poser model from a vendor and put it up for trade on a warez board, is NOT going to shell out $149.00 + for an upgrade copy of Poser 5. They steal it because that's what theives do, and they'll steal it because they think it's cute to put one over on all of the suckers out there buying their software full price. Think I'm wrong? Ask one of the warez kitties that's a member of this forum. Pick one - any one. ;]

"I am a good person now and it feels... well, pretty much the same as I felt before (except that the headaches have gone away now that I'm not wearing control top pantyhose on my head anymore)"

• Monkeysmell