According to an article I read recently, some warez sites are actually quite legal. Because they contain no pirated software. They SAY they have pirated software, oh yes. But actually, all there is is a maze of hostile html, false hyperlinks, agressive pop-ups, links to porn sites and so on. Since the site is impossible to navigate, the visitor can never actually see that there is nothing there to download. It's not illegal to make a false claim of offering pirated software (so far as I know). Why? It's all a ruse to drive up the hit counts of the porn sites. So I read, anyway. This only applies to some sites.

Well, if people go looking for pirate software, then it serves them right if they drown in a deluge of pornographic popups and javascript that crashes their browser. ;)

Legal warez? Definitely an oxymoron. Of course I've been to legit sites and encountered similar senarios so it doesn't surpise me. The porn pop ups have become more popular since the ad market crash that occured this spring, next thing you know yahoo will have porn banners for all their sites :)

true, there will always be pirats, like a lock on a car, the lock only keeps honest people honest, any one else will smash the window and take what they are wanting

Agree wholly, Famine. Pirates are clever. Hackers are smart. If you've any combination of the two you'll know where to get your software kicks for free, and that's always going to be the case, just like it'll always be true that bullies get elected to public offices and morons get hired for civil service positions. I know I may incur wrath for saying this but there are some instances where I don't particularly mind a little bit of 'sharing'... for example, if Microsoft patents and restricts the technology that makes it possible for me to read work circulars (HOW HARD WOULD IT BE to include a Word reader plugin to IE? How hard? Arrgh!), and then denies me student prices because I don't fit their profile, well, dang. Monopolies have to suffer that. (For the record: the ONLY Microsoft product currenty on my computer is IE: I taught my colleages how to save as RTF, and I use AppleWorks, and they have to deal). But artists that's a different story. A lot of love went into Michael, and there's no way I'd want to pirate that. I like the idea that there are people whose job it is to create these models, and I think these people ought to be supported. And if folks want to go lookin for Warez versions, they deserve what they get.

what if they get the actual working model? do they deserve that? :-)

Well, I suppose that if they're clever enough to find it and then not get any viruses or whatnot, that counts for something. Not much, though, really.

Hi, "clever" has nothing to do with it, it's simply a matter of patience, but since most people balk at waiting 3 seconds for a page to download, it would appear that patience is something that's in perenially short supply... :) Case in point, last night a colleage downloaded the new Kylie Minougue "Agent Provocateur" Lingerie Ad, (Oh Yes! :) it took him 3 hours of staring at a download bar, occasionally having to reload, etc. But he got it in the end, "everything comes to he who waits" (but then I've never met a female pirate :P later jb

Now I need to go download that add. Off to search usenet.

Attached Link: http://www.lemuria.org/mirrors/asfrecorder/

Cool so now I know if I want Porn I just have to search for "warez", thanks Phantast ;-)