For some time ago I was looking at the poser forum. They had a discussion about question to their forum. When people post questions about things that you know are clearly described in the manual -should you help that person or just answer page243? When Vue4 came out, I said to a friend that I was thinking order a copy of it (the best thing I ever done, regarding software investments)two days later he phoned me and said I could dl it from his FTP. In other worlds, it's very easy to find it on the net. So sometimes when I'm reading the postings in this forum I think, aha there we have a warez copy! I can understand (hope don't get banned from RenderOs. saying this) when people have a copy of a very expensive prog for 5000-up$. Why? Because that company are not loosing anything, that person shouldn't buy it anyway. If he had that money he should prob. buy a car instead. I'm not encourage people to use Warez Back to prog like Vue. A small company (I think)with a product for a very reasonable price, normal people can afford it. So when my friend phoned me, I said no thanks. ------------------------------------------- Now I wonder what you think, should we answer easy to find in manual questions or not? I am aware that some of us sometimes think it's hard to understand the manuals technical english, me included. In that case perhaps we should ask -I'm reading about functions at page 216 but I don't understand. If we don't answer, are we an unfriendly forum or are we helping Eon to survive. -Please don't shoot the messenger boy!-

I'll help people when I can. If someone is using a WAREZ version, then they're paying in other ways.

Charles

I had suggested on the Bryce board a few months ago that when people ask questions, they identify the version, the page of the manual that they don't understand, or identify it as the 30 day demo. (That way we know they'll be asking for about a month.) Some of the responses were flame responses, some were positive alternate solutions. The reason I posted that was because I, unlike you, feel that warez does hurt the manufacturer. There are some who will steal an affordable $200 app just because its easy. This costs the company lost revenue which is made up for by higher prices. Most of all, it hurts us. Our art would be more unique and less common if the warez people weren't posting their stills all over the net. At the same time, I hate for people to flame someone for asking a silly question. Imagine an 8 year old using daddy's computer to explore their creative side. They ask a question and get flamed. That's very damaging to the young. So politely referring them to the manual page and telling them to come back and ask again if they still don't get it is just fine IMHO. I know of one warez user in this forum. I don't have a log of the conversation on irc, so I can't prove it, but I won't give him a nickle's worth of help and if he gets caught, I'll laugh with glee. There's no valid reason for warez any more. I've made decisions about purchase or non purchase just from the 30 day demos that are out there. The demos are fine and most of the apps we know of have them. Some you have to request in writing, others you can DL from the site. That's my 2 cents. (Oh, and I only have the no-save demo of Vue4 and am considering it.)

When somebody has not the money to buy something there is no reason to steel it. Whatever the price of a software is.

I agree fully with Guitta on this one, the price is not the issue. Stealing is stealing, period. The opinion that "it doesn't hurt the manufacturer because the person wouldn't have bought such an expensive software anyway" might have some kind of logical substance in it, but logic is not the only issue here. It's a question of ethics as well. We have do draw the line somewhere. And the only place to draw it is at $0. However, when people are asking questions that are obviously easy to find answers to in the manual, I would prefer that we give them the benefit of doubt. Sometimes (not here, but more often in another Renderosity forum) people are very quick to flame a newbie for asking simple questions that might hint to the fact that they don't have a manual available and they are therefore immediately suspected of warezing. People are innocent until prove guilty, and that should apply here too. Some people have a problem understanding manuals, especially in a foreign langauge, and then we should help. If it's obvious that they have an illegal copy, the flamethrowers can be lit, but don't be too easy on the triggers.

Wise words Kelderek... indeed the price of a software is not the issue here. Because, even people who CAN afford expensive softwares are using warez ! it's really a common practice. Go in big production studios you'll surely see a few illegal copies (maybe not the core applications, but surely one or two plug-ins).

Recently an IT guy came to my place to fix a problem with one of my hard disk... while he was typing a few DOS commands he asked me "hey, If you want a few softs, just ask !". I could get for free Premiere, After Effect, Lightwave, Quark Xpress, Director, etc... more than $10000 of softs. And this guy works for a well know international PC brand !

To answer Rimkopf's question : you know, if someone asks a very basic question, it doesn't always mean that he doesn't have a manual... I'm getting sceptical only when :

1. a CGI newbie asks "technical" questions about 3 or 4 softwares. Usually if you're a beginner, you don't start with Vue4, Cinema4DXL7, Poser4pro, and Photoshop 7 at the same time ! Unless of course, these softwares were "really cheap"...

2. Someone is reluctant to update to the latest free version of his software (most of the time you need to be a registered user to be able to download an update...)

3. Someone says "I have problems with the software of my dad, sister, boss, etc...".

If you think that the guy as an illegal copie without an manual, answer to his question "it's explained at the page 612 of VUE's first manual" and see what happens...

:) Eric

One problem is, even people who are registered and who have the manual are asking simple questions, since they don't take time to read the help files. So, we should always try to answer as the most polite and faias possible for this reason. The good atmosphere in this forum is closely related to the fair answers we (try to) give. ;=) Yves

I have to agree with Yves. I owned two copies of vue 3.1 before I won vue 4, and I asked stupid questions.....mainly cos I misplaced one manual and the other manual got lent to someone who was playing with a demo version.....this manual was never returned :( If someone asks something, our job is not to query or distrust. We are here to help each other. Hopefully we will all be doing the right thing, if the need arises, and people do ask, the last thing they deserve is to be made to feel like a pirate. Give them the benefit of the doubt, and presume their innocence before you condem them in guilt. Remember how some companies make us feel, when they automatically assume we are doing something illegal, even after we have parted with our hard earned cash to buy their software..... The same rule applies here....do NOT assume without proof.

Different countries might have different manuals;the technical item in the English manual ,for example metioned on page 123 might occur on page 345 in the German or on page 456 in the Frensh manual version.So it`s not so easy to identify a warez user in that way !Another point is: somebody might have bought a second hand application (ebay)which is fully legal but only missing the manual because the former owner lost it.In that case you might have the right to order a new manual,but sometimes it is not possible to get them, because the version you bought an older one.So asking "silly" questions is not a sign of illegality always.Fredi :-))

When buying a software second hand, you have to get the handbook also. It is completely illegal to sell a software that is not 100% complete. Guitta

Yes,youre right!Its like buying a car without documents; I forgot that.Fredi :-))

When buying a software second hand, you have to get the handbook also. It is completely illegal to sell a software that is not 100% complete. unfortunately, not everyone remembers this. Stormrage and I put a legal (originalcd's)copy of Ray Dream Studio 5.5 and Infini-D 4.5 up in a consignment store, with manuals and all cd's. we don't use them so we selling them. in poser forum there has been big discussions about warez because of poser 5 coming out. checked some warez sites and p2p apps, found maya4.01 for linux, mac, and win, just tonight found poser 5, both cd's in .cue format. did we download? no. I'm only using linux, and maya is just about the only quality modeling app for linux right now, but still was able to resist temptation.yes, I was tempted, but I don't beleive it is worth losing everything to get it. and Canadian law AW could take all three computers if they wanted to. Stormrage wants poser 5, but she won't use warez. we'll get the money to get her poser 5 before we get it for me to get maya for linux. a few hundred is easier to get than a few thousand. we have the ple of maya, it is great to learn this complex application with, and by going this route, we also have access to AW's services for maya.( like tutorials, free content, updates ect.) worth the inconvienience of the limited copy in the long run.

Why do you check warez sites?

Im glad to hear our friends here are respecting our right to make a living:-) Id like to tell you a bit about the computer industry and software piracy. Software piracy does have a big impact on software sales. There are people who pirate for the pleasure of pirating -- they dont even use the software. The are not the big problem -- the big problem is casual piracy. The pleasure pirates make software available to the casual pirates. Casual pirates DO use software. And there are far, far more casual pirates out there. They could afford a $500 computer. To me, that means they can afford a $200 software product (or can start saving their lunch money to eventually get it). Because of casual pirates, software protection continues to get more and more intrusive, because casual pirates ARE defeated by it. Software protection costs money, so vendors don't like to use it. But its either that or stop developing the product. Dont think about big companies like Microsoft. Think about vendors who support 10-20 families. If piracy on a title increases by, say, even 5%, someone will lose their job. If it gets very bad, the cost of development becomes too risky, so the technology gets sold and everyone loses their jobs. If you come across a Warez site, report it to the BSA (http://www.bsa.org). They really only help their own members, but chances are, there is a BSA member who is being ripped off on a Warez site. And they do act. Best regards, Lynn Fredricks e-on software

"When buying a software second hand, you have to get the handbook also. It is completely illegal to sell a software that is not 100% complete. "

No, that's nonsense. If you tell someone "I have the CD's but I can't find the manual" there is nothing wrong with that, its up to the buyer to decide if he wishes to buy it. I find it very unlikely there would be laws anywhere to impose the peculiar restriction you talk about.

You have to read the licence agreements of Vue d'Esprit (see Userguide) or any other software. You cannot sell a sofware where you 'lost' the handbook. That's illegal, whatever you may think.

What about oem-versions like corel or adobe sell?Or what about free full versions you somtimes get in magazines (maxon or metacreations with poser 2)?All these applications are licenced by their manufactorers (online-registration).

What the manufacturer does with HIS software is his own business. He developped the software, he is the OWNER of it and he can give it away the way he wants:-). When you purchase a software, you NEVER are the owner of it. You just buy a copy with a licence to use it. The software belongs to the manufactorer:-).

I see....:-))))

I agree absolutely that we do not want to help people to use a stolen copy, but the fact is that there are people around who simply cannot understand a manual. I contribute to a number of graphics and photography things, and a lot of the questions that I see seem to me to be very adequately explained in the manual, but if I get a question like that to answer, I reply giving baby steps. To some people 'open the vue file in Vue' is a baffling instruction. They need 'go to the File menu, find open and click it, at the bottom of the page that opens click file' etc.etc.etc. To one person I once said 'load the image into PSP' and she could not make head or tail of it. It turned out she knew how to open a file, but did not understand I meant the same thing by load one. So even the words used which seem perfectly clear to one person can be confusing to another. If the manuals were crystal clear to everyone, we could probably do without forums.

In my tutorials I even put screenshots of the tools buttons, but I still get bewildered people emailing me because they have misunderstood something. One wrote to me protesting that my snowglobe tutorial made no sense. I forget how she arrived at her difficulty, but it hinged on the fact that she did not realize that the globe glass was transparent, and when I told her that she said I should have spelled out in the tut that the glass would be transparent. I had not realized when I wrote it that there would be anyone who would have any problem with the concept of transparent glass.

So don't jump to conclusions that someone has warez if they don't understand the handbook. Most handbooks assume a basic knowledge of things like loading, saving, clicking etc., but if someone sits down at their brand new computer - the first one they ever had - they let the cd autorun and got through the installation by accepting all the defaults. But reading in the manual that you should open a file from the cd to do a tutorial may be utterly baffling.

I actually mis-placed my Vue 4 manual for about 4 months (I found it recently while looking for something else ;)) and was using the Vue 3 manual instead. I tend to read all over the house and my books seem to rotate between lost and found, so it really is possible that when someone says they lost the manual its actually true. Rich

Thank's for you opinions. Just a clarification: Warez is NOK (not ok). But I strongly belive that some companies should have a private user licence and one professional licence. If you are getting money of what you are making out of their software, then it should cost. Vue is a perfect example of a perfectly private user priced software! Some people have problems to read a manual, or it's a manual with some errors (No name ;-)). I don't think it's rude to ask them which page they are talking about (in which language). But OK, we are a quite democratic forum and it seems that most of us/you don't like my idea. -----User licence is always included in the readme file on the CD---------

"You have to read the licence agreements of Vue d'Esprit (see Userguide) or any other software." Except nobody does. And while its marginally possible that the laws in your country may allow so called "license agreements" to be valid, they are not in my country. This is not my opinion, this is straight from laywers; if you sit down and negotiate some sort of agreement its binding, but having a you must click here button, is not legally binding its just nonsense. "You cannot sell a sofware where you 'lost' the handbook. That's illegal, whatever you may think." What I think, is that I will believe the words of Laywers, not some random artist - be she ever so gifted. You live in france? It is of course possible that this wonderful Union of ours will eventually dictate that your nonsense become forced on us a sad day indeed. And dont overlook the fact that its this kind of sick immorality that causes some people not to want to buy programs. Most people have a healthy loathing towards notion of having to pay a lot of money and still being told that they dont really own anything, theyve only gotten a license. Anyway, this is wildly off-topic, and I expect youll just repeat what you have said. So Ill just end it here. (You can have the last word)

I totally agree with Sacred Rose'e comment on this. It would be very unconstructive and unwelcoming if everytime someone asks a question about how to do something in Vue, he would be branded as a warez user. Many people (myself included) has quite a hard time learning operations from the manual. As you all probably know, we all use different ways to understand something. There are four types of learning: reflective observation, abstract thinking, active experimenting and koncrete experimenting. I belong to the last two. I studied the manual for about half an hour when I got Vue 3.1, even less with Vue 4. And the reason I sometime ask stupid questions is because I want to hear the explanations from different people with different approaches to the answere. And you all know how vague this 339 pages long user guide is. But if you all are worried that there are Vue warez users here, ask all members to supply a mug shot of them holding the box, manual and disks in their hands =) ...problem solved!

On the question of selling software on E-bay etc., you need to read the agreement carefully. Jasc's licence for PSP7, for instance, says you may transfer the software permanently provided you remove it from your computer, notify Jasc of the change of ownership, and the new owner is willing to be bound by the agreement. But a little further down comes the line 'You may not transfer the Software in exchange for consideration'. In other words, you can give it away but not sell it.

Terms for transferring software to someone else vary. I am sure I have a program somewhere that says you cannot transfer the licence at all, but of course I cannot find which it is just now.

But if you are thinking of disposing of a program, study its license agreement carefully. They are not all the same, and selling without the manual may be illegal with one and not with another, and selling itself may also be illegal with some. There is no one legal blanket covering all software. It all depends what you signed up to when you bought/installed the program.

lol Dez, I am registered user of Vue2.1 but have no manual. But I agree with you (see my previous post) > Babehunter : thanks to give your opinion, but why are you so angry ? Are you a lawyer ? -lol- ;=) Yves

Well,I think Warez are a large area with losts of "gray" zones.Buying software second hand isnt illegal,at least in germany(some manufacturors-sides even give space to sell their products!).So we should be carefull of blaming se- cond hand buyers and users(!) illegal.On the other hand not every licence-agreement fits in all countries allover the world (Windows XP !!).Most agreements are made for the American market and allmost useless in other countries (I dont refer to Vue now).Even the definition of what an illegal copy is varies .Some years ago a law was made that called in it`s inner sence even the installation of an application an act of illegal activty!!!.Someone of windows called every computer sold without a windows software illegal. To conclude software-piracy is a bad thing!But to repeat: asking is not illegal!Otherwise we should stop with renderosity at all!

Interesting point of view. It reminds me the problem of game copies : most of manufacturers don't allow personal safety copies of the game they produce. In practice, and if you have young children, it's interesting to do such copies. Are they considered legal or illegal, I don't know, maybe it depends of the country

WEll not all countries are affected by the licensed law like Korea. I know piracy is heavy there and reselling games n proggies is heavy there. My point is i bought alot of software over there no clue if its real or not i got manuals licensing agreements and the works that you get with normal proggies. I never bought a proggie over there for more then 50 bucks. bout 60,000 WON. This includes poser 4 and vue and paint shop pro. now i do not know what the retail value is normally. i am sure that poser n vue are way more then that. but what can ya do when u live somewhere that only offers such? i do not buy of the internet i do not have enuf faith in online dealings and money (not to mention no credit card) so am i to be blamed? ooo ya when i mention manuals i got em but they all are in korean. was vue n poser exported into korea for the koreans market? now i ask this for your opinions and not to get flamed. as all dealings that i partake in when im in korea (lived there for over 2 years) are legal for korea. but another question is then if u start saying refer to page 83 in vue manual how would that help me if its not in my native language yes i know a lil korean but not enuf for those terms lol

was actually looking for something for kupa.

Waldemire, when you install the application you are usually presented with a registration screen, if you don't get an error on registering then it is a legit copy you purchased. if you can get the updated from the manufacturer's website then you have a legal copy by thier standards. you should be able to get replacement manuals in a language you are more competent in from the manufacturer. I'm sure E-on software would have no problem sending you a copy in pdf format in english if you asked them. ~wandering off to bed to try to get rid of this cold~

Jaqui, who or what is kupa???

OK, went up, I even did not remember the name (LOL)

~handing gebe a extra large coffee...cream and sugar on the side~

actually, on a side note: to test the connection and webserver config on my comp, I had someone download corel photo-paint 9 for linux from me...it is a freely available download from corel.. would that be warez? since the app in question is available free of charge. re: personal use license and commercial use license Terragen has this in effect, you can get the app free from thier website, limits on render size for personal use. for commercial use the license must be purchased and it removes the limits on that. this seems to be a good way to go with licening for personal / commercial customers, though to develop an application as well as Vue, poser, maya, max, rhino you can't give the personal license away, that is a big part of the funding for developing. (talking through myhat here since I'm developing a full graphics suite for linux under the gpl license, which means it is completely free, and source code MUST be given with app or else made available for easy download )

sweet didnt know they would give me a translated one WOOT now ill understand it all without calling or messaging my ex korean gf haha or some old friends of mine from there

I'm against warez, but I'm not a witch hunter either. I try to help out whoever asks because it's not always a foregone conclusion that they pirated the software because they ask a simple question. I'm with Sacred Rose on that one. I bought every single one of my programs and have even over bought (the extra Vue vegetation) which I never got my money back on those already in Vue 4 after repeated emails. I didn't even get a reply. But that's another topic. The whole intellectual property law as it relates to software needs to be rehauled, at least in the US. The license agreement which supposedly deems all these acts "illegal" are usually written so poorly that a lawyer could make mincemeat of them in 5 seconds. Not to mention the fraudelent nature of which they are presented (after or during the install) where honest users are pretty much cohersed into agreement after spending their money. It's a scare tactic by software companies to keep software from going the way of books, movies, etc. I hope someone does finally challenge the license agreement via a class action suit in court and then we'll finally get a ruling. Although, I doubt I'll ever see that, because the companies know that such a ruling would probably be against them and ruin their scare tactic forever. The threat is the same as "Not for Resale" and yet you see hundreds of items on Ebay, garage sales, flea markets and no one says a thing. So the idea is while the creator of the license agreement assumes that the document is legal, it may not be in reality, and is certainly not in many countries. And don't get me started on demos. As a developer, I know full well that demos aren't always a good indication of the real software. The demos are a promo, advertising, anything wrong with the real software is conveniently disabled unless you buy the real version, and then you find out. Demos are created by marketing people, not by developer's wishes many times, and so... My 2c