Warez Do You Get It
Sydney Morning Herald
Saturday November 7, 1998
MOST people call it piracy. The industry prefers "software theft" - a more accurate, though less romantic term. Theft is stealing, and the industry contends that loading software from a CD lent by a friend, or downloading commercial software from a Web site, is no different from sticking a copy of the latest stuff under your jacket at the local computer store.
An e-mail ad recently received by Icon promises various programs for the PC. "All programs is copy of originals with removed copy protection." The grammar may be atrocious but the prices sure catch the eye: AutoCAD 14 for $200 (rrp $5,495), Adobe PhotoShop 5.0 for $50 (rrp $1,495), Microsoft Office 97 for $90 (rrp $949).
The trend towards oh-so-slim user manuals and user-friendly software has also played a part in the growth of piracy. Years ago all programs came with an inch-thick, highly detailed user manual; those who copied the software had to work it out themselves. Now the manuals are positively anorexic. Everything you need to know is available within the program or as online help, and there's a wealth of third-party books available at bookstores.
And while software theft is much easier than it used to be, in some ways it's a case of history repeating itself.
In the early days of PCs, hard disks were small or non-existent, and the world before Windows (the MS-DOS operating system) restricted most programs to a measly 640Kb of RAM. So software was kept small - one, maybe two floppy disks - and copying those floppies was a quick and simple task.
The shift to CD-ROMs put a huge dent in software theft until last year, when hardware that could write or "burn" a blank CD-ROM went mainstream. Now it only takes a small amount of effort to find someone hawking a single or double CD set containing just about anything you want, from one application to a show bag of office suites, utilities and games. Such CDs are sold under the counter in some shops, advertised in newspaper classifieds and sold at some flea markets known as computer "swap meets".
Travellers returning from a holiday or business trip to Hong Kong, Thailand and Singapore also carry them in: discs with titles such as Super Windows Software and Best of 98 Vol II. They contain full versions (although sometimes not in English) of any number of programs for about $20 per CD, bought from places such as Hong Kong's Golden Square or Singapore's Sim Lim Tower and Sim Lim Square.
But the pirate's most popular pipeline is the Net. It has spawned an underground "warez" community, where Web sites, chat channels and news groups become conduits for swapping software. Up for grabs are not just the latest programs but advance copies of beta and alpha versions, well before the product hits the streets. Many warez sites reject attempts to connect via a Web browser, which is considered the tool of the wannabe warez hound. Instead the pirates set up an FTP (file transfer protocol) server, which will only accept downloads initiated by an FTP client.
FTP software provides more control over the file-flinging process than a Web browser, and is favoured by professional Web masters for sending files to their sites. Even so, FTP isn't all that hard to use, especially with user-friendly shareware programs like CuteFTP (www.cuteftp.com) and WS_FTP Pro (www.ipswitch.com). The sheer size of these programs, however, means a high-speed link such as cable is required. Conventional modem access, even at the 56Kbps redline, just doesn't cut the mustard.
Of course, pirate software is always available, provided you know where to look or who to ask. Of more concern are counterfeit CDs that resemble the real McCoy, from professionally printed boxes to those supposedly fake-proof holograms on the discs themselves, yet remain as unlawful as a bomb on a Boeing.
The Business Software Association of Australia is the official industry agency of anti-piracy actions. But as the world's largest software company, it is Microsoft that stands to lose the most. In September, Microsoft seized products alleged to be counterfeit - ranging from Windows 95 CD-ROMs to mice - from the head office of the Sydney-based retail chain Computer Interchange, also known as NCI. Legal counsel for NCI said it had not been guilty of any wrongdoing and that if the products were counterfeit, it had not been aware of that fact. Earlier this year, the Melbourne computer store KT Technology was ordered to pay Microsoft $200,000 in damages for knowingly importing and selling counterfeit Microsoft products.
Guidelines on how to spot counterfeit software and what to do about it can be found at the BSAA's Web site (www.bsaa.com.au).
© 1998 Sydney Morning Herald
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