Hey! I'm European... please rip me off!

Caution: This is an outright rant. It contains rude words.

You know what pisses me off more than anything? Being ripped off. You may have gathered this from other postings of mine.

But let me tell you about a staggering example of this.

Due to the upcoming custom animations abilities, and due to the fact I have a 'freebie' copy of Poser 3 from PC Plus Magazine which actually doesnt work because I have more than 1gb of RAM in my machine (Curious Labs FAQ says 'take RAM out of your machine or buy Poser 4...), I went to look at Poser 5 with a view to buy today.

On the front of the site it says 'Poser 5! Download Special! $199!'. Unlike some of the other offers on that page it does not say 'US only'. Which in itself is a bullshit policy, but I digress.

So I click the 'BUY NOW' button directly from that advert and it takes me, without asking, to the European webstore - which it initially displays in German - to buy at 260 Euros.

260 fucking Euros?!?!?! At today's exchange rate, 260 Euros is 173.63GBP. 199 USD, the advertised price on the front page, is 108.54GBP.

A difference of 65.09GBP or 119.35 USD.

Yes, because I want to DOWNLOAD the software - no shipping, no physical items or costs involved - from the UK and not America, I'm supposed to pay another $119 fucking dollars for it?! Poser 4 is only 99 fucking dollars!!!

Fuck them. I guess I won't be doing custom animations after all.

LOL

Ok. So they're still rip off merchants, but not very clever ones. I've managed to save myself $119USD by ordering the software via Opera instead of IE.

When I go through to the webstore in Opera, it asks me where in the world I am. So I said I was in North America. And then an no point in the 5 stage sales process where it asks for your address and stuff did it complain that I wasnt in the US after all. I put in all my real details, and it happily sold it to me for $199 instead of the European price of $318.

But still. FUCK Curious Labs. Even more so now I just paid them $199.

All I can say is that *this* version better bloody well work under XP with more than a gig of RAM.

Very clever, WTG!

hehe, nice work around Kris

Is the price difference because of VAT? Seems like most of the software I use (3ds max, combustion, character studio, etc) is more expensive to buy in Europe because of VAT tax, much to the annoyance of European buyers.

This is because everything is more expensive in Europe.

EVERYTHING is more expensive in Europe. The cherub hookers! Mon Dieu!

Yes, Huns, everything is more expensive in Europe.

BUT this is a DOWNLOAD. I want to click the same damned button in my browser as you do once I've paid. Is it fair that I pay 120 dollars more than you?

And you better not say yes or I will hunt you down and kill you multiple times. And then I'll fill your twitching corpse with lead until the sim crashes.

**WARNNG THREAD HIJACK IMMINENT**

I got ripped off by SL.

If you own land for a single fucking day of the billing cycle, you get billed.

a full months worth of fees for a single fucking day?

yet another fucking reason to hate LL.
must they constantly piss in water they one day may have to drink?

I like English tea.

I pay about 10x as much for English tea as I would for (crappy) American tea.

Its payback time you tea elitists!

I think we overcharge you on Big Macs too, and those, debatably, may not even be real food. (muhahaha!)

That's been the stated policy since land tiers were first introduced. If you owned land for a day that put you into a new tier, which you'd have to have approved in your account page before you could actually buy it, you have no one to blame but yourself.

I downloaded my copy of poser for, uh, free, from, uh, my completely legal software "archive"

ahem.... fuck you hippie
you can blame yourself for that

Well, He IS right Chris. I knew that from day 1. Thats why I always made sure.

what

Isn't she lovely?

But the prize for loveliness definitely goes to Chris

That is nothing to be proud of. To those of us who legitimately purchased the software, you gloating about having a stolen copy of it just makes you seem like an asshole.

Cristiano

Guess what, this asshole has never bought a single box of software. And you want to know what else? This asshole has never MET someone who bought software. You gotta be kidding me, the very reason people buy PCs instead of consoles is because its easy to get free games for them.
Actually, around here, if you pay for software you're likely to be laughed at
Heck, even my former place of employment had warez versions of pretty much everything adobe and macromedia ever released, not to mention windows, office, everything.
If you tell me you never downloaded anything off the internet, I wont believe you

i don't thinks fair for established professionals in rich countries to question the character of an impoverished student who lives with his mom in a um.. not so rich country.

definitely he's a criminal, but an asshole is wholely unwarranted!

Jauani,

I respectfully disagree with you. Economic status does not justify theft, made worse by gloating about it in a thread where someone talks about having bought a legit copy of it. That makes him both a thief and an asshole.

Cristiano

Argh, if I could get half this much of a rise out of pirates in SL on matter of selling freebies.

I use to copy/pirate stuff when I was younger but I guess I grew up and got wise to all that. Thankfully never got a virus from warez and whatnot but I actually make money now as an adult so I can support whatever I am looking for. LoL.

That and I also have my own personal poser-maker so I'm set for life on that end. I'll just create ideas and we'll work it out together.

Eggy, I have never downloaded any software from the internet that I didn't pay for first. Unless it was meant to be free. SL for example.

Devlin, when you were my age, software hadnt been invented yet

Cristiano, you need to learn some english:


Since I did not remove any personal property from anywhere, and did not deprive anyone from it, I did not steal anything

Copyright violation isnt theft, it isnt even a crime in many countries (it falls under contractual law instead), and it didnt use to be one in america, but now you people turned into a police state and are even enjoying it

Soon, there will be a virtual cop inside every computer that will decide what you can or cant do with it. I anxiously await that day

Copywrite violations are MORALLY theft, even if not legally. The violation DOES deprive the owner of the copywrite his rightful income for the sale of that item.

Take THAT ya young whippersnapper! Kids these days!

Eggy,

My English is quite fine - you didn't pull out the right definition from dictionary.com:

software theft

<legal> The unauthorised duplication and/or use of computer
software. This usually means unauthorised copying, either
by individuals for use by themselves or their friends or, less
commonly, by companies who then sell the illegal copies to
users. Many kinds of software protection have been invented
to try to reduce software theft but, with sufficient effort it
is always possible to bypass or "crack" the protection, and
software protection is often annoying for legitimate users.

Software theft was estimated for 1994 to have cost $15 billion
in worldwide lost revenues to software publishers. It is a
serious offence under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act
1988, which states that "The owner of the copyright has the
exclusive right to copy the work.".

It is estimated that European software houses alone lose $6
billion per year through the unlawful copying and distribution
of software, with much of this loss being through business
users rather than "basement hackers". One Italian pirating
operation employed over 100 staff and had a turnover of $10m.

It is illegal to: 1. Copy or distribute software or its
documentation without the permission or licence of the
copyright owner. 2. Run purchased software on two or more
computers simultaneously unless the licence specifically
allows it. 3. Knowingly or unknowingly allow, encourage or
pressure employees to make or use illegal copies sources
within the organisation. 4. Infringe laws against
unauthorised software copying because a superior, colleague or
friend compels or requests it. 5. Loan software in order that
a copy be made of it.

When software is upgraded it is generally the case that the
licence accompanying the new version revokes the old version.
This means that it is illegal to run both the old and new
versions as only the new version is licensed.

Both individuals and companies may be convicted of piracy
offences. Officers of a company are also liable to conviction
if the offences were carried out by the company with their
consent. On conviction, the guilty party can face
imprisonment for up to two years (five in USA), an unlimited
fine or both as well as being sued for copyright infringement
(with no limit) by the copyright owner.

Some people mistakenly think that, because it is so easy to
make illegal copies of software, that it is less wrong than,
say, stealing it from a shop. In fact, both actions deprive
software producers of the income they need to continue their
business and develop their products.