12 nations put on copyright piracy list

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Its not so much about the Open Source issue - just that its seems a bad deal to be expected to pay big money for something you can get for free.

[mRx 16]

Good luck getting that copy (more specifically the key) to activate.

no doubt, I picked up a windows combo (word, excel, ect.) from Thailand, and the activation key didnt work. Bill gates has a water tight butthole when it comes to piracy.

[Niels Bohr 72]

Almost forget Matt85 is a Thailander fan.

Yeah. Around that area, they're known as super pirates. No government enforcement!

[mRx 16]

Almost forget Matt85 is a Thailander fan.

Yeah. Around that area, they're known as super pirates. No government enforcement!

They are some hardcore pirates. Me and the wifey are thinking to go over to Cambodia, shes kinda scared too though, she thinks that alot of black magic and voodoo stuff goes on there.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Adding to Erekese message...

Go open source, boycott Microsoft and use Linux. It's free, cheap, and runs quicker than Microsoft's products. Office 2007 can be as productive as OpenOffice.org software. It does the same thing, and it's free! Why spend 200 dollars or even 400 dollars to buy an office product that's free! The newer Windows software bogs down your machine forcing you to upgrade. It's money lost with little productivity gained. And, another point is with Linux is that it is more secure than Windows giving you no virus, and no spyware. Linux is also free! Plus, the GUI is alot more fancier if you use Beryl 3D GUI add-on. It's amazing! If you're not a PC gamer, opt for Linux! Worth to learn how to use it! Plus, you can buy a PC for about 100 bucks from eBay with enough specifications to run Linux. And, because it's efficient, you may also saves money on your energy bill.

I've heard that the new Vista will eventually make it impossible for any media to play on your machine without a license with Microsoft.

[Niels Bohr 72]

Hmm...Yes, Microsoft wants to hold the media standard monopoly.

If that was the case, then, there'll always be cracks to remove them.

[Marc and Olga 0]

its like bush wants the world to hate him and hate him

Bushie's doing a great job.

Bush is a chopf##k..

The one thing I don't get about the music, movie, software, etc industries is the alleged amount lost. It's stupid to assume that everyone who 'steals' a song, movie, or piece of software would ever pay for it. That said, if someone would never be a customer they can't be counted as money lost. When I'm in the Philippines I see pirated movies and albums everywhere. You go into the malls and there's pirated CD's & DVD's in display just like retail copies here in the US. If those pirated copies disappeared do the US companies really think the people there would pay full price for their product? Not a chance. I'm guessing they count them in their 'billions lost' figures though.

I KNEW Russia would be on that list...

Went to a few shops during my visit and saw some awesome things dirt cheap for instance, Windows XP for 100р. (that's about $3)

Good luck getting that copy (more specifically the key) to activate.

I shall plead the fifth on that one

no updates though!

[Ban Hammer 14,647]

Brazil didn't get to the top 10???

Sad...

argentina did

#######!

BUSH is on a huge power trip. Economic sanctions, ridiculous! He's invoking unfriendly international affairs which may lead to war.

yeah, steal our music and movies and it means war!

Copies like that are more of a problem than someone sitting in a theatre with a DV-Cam hidden under their coat.

agreed - copies made with a dvd cam are not worth watching - yes i've seen one made that way, it was worse than watching grass grow.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Adding to Erekese message...

Go open source, boycott Microsoft and use Linux. It's free, cheap, and runs quicker than Microsoft's products. Office 2007 can be as productive as OpenOffice.org software. It does the same thing, and it's free! Why spend 200 dollars or even 400 dollars to buy an office product that's free! The newer Windows software bogs down your machine forcing you to upgrade. It's money lost with little productivity gained. And, another point is with Linux is that it is more secure than Windows giving you no virus, and no spyware. Linux is also free! Plus, the GUI is alot more fancier if you use Beryl 3D GUI add-on. It's amazing! If you're not a PC gamer, opt for Linux! Worth to learn how to use it! Plus, you can buy a PC for about 100 bucks from eBay with enough specifications to run Linux. And, because it's efficient, you may also saves money on your energy bill.

I've heard that the new Vista will eventually make it impossible for any media to play on your machine without a license with Microsoft.

One of the themes in my dissertation was Technology vs. Democracy. Some interesting parallels here - technology exists to let you do whatever you want with digital media, but the functionality is essentially controlled by software/media companies who want to tell you how it should be used.

[Robor007 0]

The one thing I don't get about the music, movie, software, etc industries is the alleged amount lost. It's stupid to assume that everyone who 'steals' a song, movie, or piece of software would ever pay for it. That said, if someone would never be a customer they can't be counted as money lost. When I'm in the Philippines I see pirated movies and albums everywhere. You go into the malls and there's pirated CD's & DVD's in display just like retail copies here in the US. If those pirated copies disappeared do the US companies really think the people there would pay full price for their product? Not a chance. I'm guessing they count them in their 'billions lost' figures though.

I don't understand that either - $200 - $400 for a copy of Microsoft Office is just obscene (especially considering that these days, the new versions of a lot of current program seem to give you less freedom to use the functionality), when you can get an almost identical open source product from the internet for free...

Well I don't think many people 'need' Microsoft Office at home - especially not Office Professional. Most home users could get by with Office Standard or simply a stand alone copy of Word or Excel. A majority of Microsoft Office users are in businesses and that's where Microsoft gets a majority of their dollars. As far as 'almost identical' for free - not so much. The compatibility of Microsoft Office created documents in open source (like OpenOffice.org) apps is only so-so. I haven't tried to open an Office 2007 created document (one with the 'x' at the end of the normal .doc, .xls, .ppt, etc extension) in OpenOffice yet but I'm not expecting good results.

Adding to Erekese message...

Go open source, boycott Microsoft and use Linux. It's free, cheap, and runs quicker than Microsoft's products. Office 2007 can be as productive as OpenOffice.org software. It does the same thing, and it's free! Why spend 200 dollars or even 400 dollars to buy an office product that's free! The newer Windows software bogs down your machine forcing you to upgrade. It's money lost with little productivity gained. And, another point is with Linux is that it is more secure than Windows giving you no virus, and no spyware. Linux is also free! Plus, the GUI is alot more fancier if you use Beryl 3D GUI add-on. It's amazing! If you're not a PC gamer, opt for Linux! Worth to learn how to use it! Plus, you can buy a PC for about 100 bucks from eBay with enough specifications to run Linux. And, because it's efficient, you may also saves money on your energy bill.

I'm a Linux (Ubuntu) user myself. In my opinion it is a superior operating system but I'll also say it's not for everyone. Linux on the desktop is getting better and better but it's not there yet. It's fine if a knowledgeable Linux user sets it up for someone as a simple Email/web station but if they want to do other things that Linux isn't so good at they're probably going to be disappointed and want to fall back to Windows. For instance, a majority of games have no native Linux versions and using WINE or Cedega it just a poor workaround. Also try doing voice/video chat in Linux. AFAIK there is no single app to do this and it's very difficult even using 2 apps.

As far as Office 2007, have you used it yet? I agree it's expensive but it's a very nice product. Add to that you have a vast majority of businesses using Microsoft Exchange and open source products don't interface well with it (if at all). Microsoft is so firmly entrenched in business these days companies are almost forced to run Office for compatibility.

I shall plead the fifth on that one

no updates though!

No worries. Just use http://www.windizupdate.com. Note that you can't use Internet Explorer as it doesn't work on that site. (standard disclaimer about Microsoft not recommending using non-Microsoft official updates blah, blah, blah.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

I've not gotten Office 2007. The reviews I've read suggest that it isn't worth the upgrade at this point. I'm still using office XP on one PC and Office 2000 on another. Both are good enough for my purposes. I prefer 2003 to XP and 2000, but I'm not sure I want to relearn a new interface just for the 2007 version.

Open Office works pretty good - I've not had any problems opening basic documents saved in XP and 2000. But I suspect its the ones with complex formatting that cause the problems. Personally I think we'd all be better off with open source software rather than dancing to Microsoft (or indeed - Apple's) tune.

[Nessa 23]

Brazil didn't get to the top 10???

Sad...

I was amazed by that too. Interesting.

[Robor007 0]

I've not gotten Office 2007. The reviews I've read suggest that it isn't worth the upgrade at this point. I'm still using office XP on one PC and Office 2000 on another. Both are good enough for my purposes. I prefer 2003 to XP and 2000, but I'm not sure I want to relearn a new interface just for the 2007 version.

Open Office works pretty good - I've not had any problems opening basic documents saved in XP and 2000. But I suspect its the ones with complex formatting that cause the problems. Personally I think we'd all be better off with open source software rather than dancing to Microsoft (or indeed - Apple's) tune.

I agree it's not worth the upgrade - especially if you're talking about home users. The new interface isn't too bad. I didn't like it at first but after using it for a few weeks I'm used to it and it's pretty slick. Want to hear a really cool feature? Type a document in Word. Decide you want to change the font. You pick the font chooser and as you mouse over the different options it redraws the entire document with that font.

I'm a big fan of open source. My personal laptop is an IBM T43 with a legal OEM Windows XP Professional license but it runs Ubuntu Feisty Fawn 7.04 by choice. My work laptop is running Ubuntu Edgy Eft 6.04 but on it I have a VMWare virtual machine of Windows XP Professional. I need it for Microsoft Office (Exchange and document compatibility).

[Niels Bohr 72]

Robert,

I used Office 2007. Takes about 30 minutes to launch the application. Nice interface, poor practicality. The features are the same as the previous versions. The difference is the usability. You can find tools easier. Plus, they used a new file format called .xdoc which is not a cross-platform friendly format. You can, however, encode your document into standard .doc as well.

Everyone else,

Hmm...Yes, Linux is not for gamers. I hope you noticed I mentioned that. . Anyway, Ubuntu Fiesty Fawn (version 7.04) is in itself a lot more friendlier compared to prior versions and distros of GNU/Linux. It has easy manageable wireless settings. In fact, all I had to do was stick in my USB 802.11G wireless card and it works instantaneously without any drivers to be installed. The only wireless chipset that it's not compatible with is Broadcom since they are very secretive about releasing the code to make their chipset run.

OpenOffice.org is just as much a productive suite as Office. The conversion between .doc and .odt may leave some formating off, but, it's easily fixable. I can emulate any document created on Microsoft Office with OpenOffice.org. I am an expert when it comes to it.

On a final note, if those who want to experiment with learning Ubuntu or any GNU/Linux distro, purchase a machine from ebay for 100 dollars and play around with it. You'll find later that you can also use it with a VIA C7 2.0GHZ/EPIA miniITX computer platform that consumes about 60 watts total will save you tremendous amount of energy. As against the performance hog of a Windows machine that needs nowadays at least a 300 watt power supply to run.

Edited May 1, 2007 by consolemaster

[Jasman0717 9]

I am surprised that the Philippines isn't a part of the top 12!