What about copies... ?

I like Spyrus get allot from work, shareware, freeware etc.

i'm very careful in who i hand my money to and someone selling pirated copies just dosn't fit into my catagory of trust worthy. so no, i have never bought pirated anything.

Yeah, I buy my games, I do not burn progs or games or ask somebody to burn them for me. I have seen a friend of mine get suited for breaking a copy right, and i do not want the same to happen to me. He was making boot-legs or whatever they call it of some program. He got away with it for a while, and then he decided to get greedy and was making copies of WIN XP, and cracking the cd keys, until one day one of his customers was asked to automatically update on XP, he accepted, and they found out that he was not a registered. He told on my friend, and he was taking to court and was suited. He went through a lot of stuff that i do not want to go through just because i didn't want to buy some, and have the evidence taht i bought it. I understand if you don't have the money, i will have to say buying it and having the receit and all the customer services alittlebitnumb said, is really worth it.

I usualy find that after I palyed the (FREE) demo of a game, I'm all done with it in the first place (short attention spann) so why buy the original.

Most of the software I use is GNU GPL or free/shareware (www.sf.net)

But sometimes I too tend to pay friends and family the cost of the copy (like $3 for the disk)
But usualy It'll be a beer ;)

thank god for the free platform GNU/Linux or BSD !!

long time ago i used to buy copies , but it was expensive that time, not like today.

anyway, since i studied programming and i know how much it takes from time to hard work to come up with a good application, i start appreciating and show respect by purchasing the original if i can do that.
and if i can't afford it, then i don't need it .

nowadays, my company afford everything original for me, from OS to VISIO, Project, MS Office, AV, whenever i need a pack of software they get it.

Note: although i appreciate the good work but i still believe it's unfair for lots of peeps who can't afford.

Well I think if you can afford it buy it legally.If not rather go without it.The consequenses could be lethal.

I don't agree with you. Companies can decrease the prices, but they keep the high prices (i can only speak for Greece). I don't think that programmers are so expensive so the companies need to have so high prices.

Yeah i know a things about programming, and i know how hard can be to put a piece of code working right, but i think that if the companies could profit with a software then they never will decrease the price...

I know programming too and in games even more difficult.

I'm with Numb on this one. I buy all my software, music CD's because I get the original pressed copy. I place value on this, a programmer or a music artist deserve to make their choosen living by their craft. Last time I checked it costs money to live in the world and free has a price. Best I can put it my son burns music CD's if I let him up to 20 per week and most if not all are discarded upon his bedroom floor listen to one time. Music is an art a language something to be held dear but because he gets it for free it has no value, yet all the people music he burns for free have a life need to make a living and be it music or a program if one pays the cost it has value to you if it is for frrr it becomes a broken CD on a floor. Is this what you wish of your life to discard everything? Free has a cost as Freedom has it's cost, Free is the value you place upon your life and the items in it that you paid good people for so they can also make a living.

Although I have occasionally used pirated software, I do mostly use software that is legal to copy or bought legally now.

I would definitely *never* *buy* illegal copies of software because not only is the copyright holder not getting their cut, but someone else who is a criminal is instead.

I also feel that people who don't want to pay for commercially licenced software should use free software, rather than pirating commercial stuff. Unfortunately sometimes I do have to use commercial software for business, in which case I have to buy it and pass the cost on to my clients... I may have to buy more licences for Windows soon for some new work I'm doing unfortunately.