Renderosity, Renderosity, how do your poser threads grow? Why... exponentially, my dear 'Bear. snicker ScottA: "You guys just don't know what's really going on at CL. Everything is just hearsay.And that seems to generate a lot of avoidable problems. " So clear up the missapprehensions and speculations Scott, and tell us what's going on on the inside, dude. ;] Then we won't waste time on useless arguments... [and if you buy that one, I got some beachfront property ah'll sell yas REAL cheap. ;)] "If you guys were a bit closer with the company. You'd have a better understanding of the problems they have to deal with. And why they do what they do." Possibly correct. Might... but why should it matter? A customer pays money to buy a product - the companies problems or having sympathy for them is totally irrelevant. The customer pays for a product or service - their concern is "does it work? And does it give good value for the dollar? And what does it require to work?" Last I checked, CurousLabs, MicroSoft, Adobe, Discreet etc weren't paying their customers to really give a rats about the companies problems - it's only relevant insofar as in making a purchase decision based on wether the company can deliver and support the product. Spike: "Lets look at the facts shall we: If CL did not put in a good protection, they would have to bring the cost up to offset the warez and fraud. This is simply a part of bussness. Take your pick. " You're making the presumption, Spike, that warez is an indication of dollars lost to people that would otherwise buy it. It's not... it's an accountants worldview of "Oh.. x # of copies out = y # of dollars we lost!". You don't ever lose dollars that a pirate wouldn't spend on you... it's a fallacious argument. It's also fallacious that the consumer should pay for the actions of pirates in either costs or inconvenience. Does "presumed innocent til proven guilty" ring any bells? This is "presumed guilty just because we can't seperate out the innocent"... Phantast: "Incidentally, isn't there a slight irony in the fact that CL wish us to trust them with our personal data, but they clearly don't trust us with their software? " Heh heh. Yup. Ya noticed that, didya? ;] JCleaver: "CL could have used much worse copy protection, be glad they didn't! " Sorry, jcleaver... I don't buy that. Giving up a little bit of freedom is like being a "little bit pregnant", to carrry the ananlogy to an etreme. And companies bank on just that mentality: "oh well.. at least they didn't... ". Untill it's next time and they do.... VirtualSite: As long as you won't blast me for still owning Photoshop 2 and WordPerfect/QuattroPro for DOS... ;] I hear what you're saying, and I think you're correct. We're buying a product, not leasing it. The concept that we're only leasing software is a legal fiction that became embedded at some point in the late 80's... I'd have to check dates. It wasn't a common assumption prior to that. Shonner: I recognise that quote, and I'm a conservative libertarian, not a liberal. Grab a dictonary. ;] When I pay money for something, using it's not a "privelege", it's a right I paid for with my dollars. The concept that something is a privelege and we should be happy to eat crap for it is a "liberal" concept. By the way, just from curiousity, what major software company are you a shill for? ;] Megalodon: Ah... never mind. I just gave you more attention than you rate by typing your name... ;] Multiple sources: "Locks are only there to keep honest people honest." Honest people don't need locks. If they do, they're not honest by defintion. And I've lived in towns wher you could go shopping, get more stuff than you could carry, stop and set the bags down in the back of the pickup truck, and come back two hours later and all your stuff would be untouched - not isolated instances: that was the norm for those places. Honest people are honest because that's the way they like being. Potential thieves need locks. Jack: Don't bite yer tongue, it's painful and it's to no real avail. ;] Kbade: "Since hardly anyone will bother to read this far into the thread, I won't go through a detailed deconstruction of the illogic that oozes from a certain percentage of the membership here on security and related issues every time they are raised. " Don't kid yourself. I read ALL the freaking way through the thread to your post and past that. Some of us read everything and weigh the input. "CL is far, far, far more responsive to the opinions" No... someone is "responsive" when they listen to the feedback and then modify accordingly if it's overwhelmingly negative, as the bulk of this is whenever this question arises. If not, it's not responsive, it's a "like it or not" announcement. Shadowwind: "They know that really no matter what they do under the guise of "Otherwise we'll go out of business" will be accepted, maybe with grumbles, but accepted by those who make up their market." That's probably the gamble, and if it's true... that's a damned shame. As far as any copyright protection scheme "stopping" warez partially: bull. One cracked copy on p2p = indefinate cracked copies. Once it's cracked once, the protection scme is useless. That's how software protection is different from the "car alarm" analogy: the car alarm stops every theif except the one that breaks in, and when/if you recover the car, it also stops the next one who can't figure out how to bypass it. On code, once it's bypassed, it's gone - like exposing photographic film. That's also the flaw in the "stops Junior next door" argument: once the pro cracks it, Junior doesn't have to know how to code, he/she can borrow pop's internet connection and download the one cracked by someone else. Finally... again: Warez is a cost of doing business for software manufacturers. Going after the roots of the problem "Why people steal and how do we make it prohibitive in penalties and enforcement", companies take the route of passing the aggravation to the purchaser because a) it's easier and less expensive to THEM, and b) they generally figure the purchasers will grumble and accept it as ShadowWind suggested. It's a very simple equation: It's more cost effective to put in a sop that placates stockholders and inconveniences purchasers than it is to go after p2p users and software pirates. Doing the former, they make money off of people who grumble but still buy, doing the latter it's just money spent, no shortterm reccompense.

"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