If you need urgent support, call 999 or go to your nearest A&E. To contact our Crisis Messenger (open 24/7) text THEMIX to 85258.
Options
Essential support for under 25s
Essential support for under 25s
Take a look around and enjoy reading the discussions. If you'd like to join in, it's really easy to register and then you'll be able to post. If you'd like to learn what this place is all about, head here.
Comments
The short answer is, because we will pay it, we're either richer or stupider than the Americans.
Just different demand and supply conditions, very little to do with 'evil dirty corporation fatcats'.......
But to summarise, I dont mind ripping off software from the beast that is microsoft, but software developed by small software houses, such as digiguide, mirc, trillian, nero I'll usually pay for.
GDP is meaningless to this debate. Despite the fact most industries pay similar wages across the globe Europe is very expensive to hire workers in. Rigid labour markets make it harder to hire and fire workers, higher corporation tax, higher property prices, companies have to pay more in benefits, they arn't allowed o work as long, pensions, thier productivity is lower, minimum wage is higher, more successful trade unions etc all contribute to higher costs.
No, of course they're not.
And in any case labour, rent and other costs are still infinitely cheaper in the likes of Greece and Portugal than in the USA. How on earth could you suggest otherwise???
The almost double price tag on DVDs and games amounts to nothing else than price racketeering, and you know it as well as I do.
I truly find it astonishing that you could suggest otherwise. If you really are an student of economics you must know that no 'demand and supply' conditions are really responsible for 70%+ price hikes on certain products.
You can try to play the devil's advocate for as long as you want. You know very well the reason why DVDs, CDs and videogames are much more expensive in Europe than they are in the US. And it has absolutely nothing to do with economic conditions, supply and demand or labour costs.
If you think I am advocating for the devil then why get so wound up?
As suggested it has everything to do with Economic conditions, and as a student of economics I know this quite well......
(not to mention the fact that what you are arguing i.e. price-fixing, monopoly, unfair competition are economic conditions)
Like I said, to some extent and in certain conditoins the things just mentioned do play a part, like in any market, but that is not the only factor involved by any means......
There are countless other products that don't seem to attract this massive difference in prices. Perhaps sales assistants at Tower Records get paid so much more than other workers that film and games distributors are forced to put a 70% extra on their product, to cover such exorbitant costs, right?
And it still leaves the little question of why manufacturers would go to such tremendous trouble as to create different formats for different regions so suckers in Europe can't even buy one or two DVDs if they fly to America. Surely if it was all down to increased costs in Europe manufacturers wouldn't mind someone who's flown all the way to America to buy the odd DVD there and take it back home would they?
But it is dangerous to generalise to excessive, and getting back on topic, it doesn't justify stealing in my opinion........
Any idea why they have this difference in release times?
Because it is difficult to do a World Wide release without a huge publicity budget, if you can focus on one area, then another you dont need as many staff.
And Aladdin, if it is price fixing (which in part I think it is) that is still because of demand and supply, they couldnt fix the price high unless there was the demand. It is our fault.
It's because US tv's are crap. Germany/France, the uk and australia/NZ regions all have PAL tellies. Everywhere else has NTSC's.
Historically this was because of differing power grids, but that problem has long since been overcome. The yanks had got used to grainy, badly coloured telly though and didn't want to change (ever notice how tv brought from the US has very orangey looking people on it?). Theres also a strong element of badly thought out protectionism of course.
While a NTSC dvd will play and look "ok" on a pal tv, it simply won't work the other way around. European dvd's are actally better quality, containing more lines of information for our superior telly's.
My mother likes to do "filesharing" which is also basically theft as far as I understand (as you are copying music without the copyright holders permission, right?) and is not really any different to walking into Woolworths and knicking a CD.
Edited to add: A Christian is someone who is in a relationship with God through Jesus. Every single person who has every walked the earth (except for Jesus) has sinned, Christian or otherwise.
Are you asking if using pirate software constitutes a sin? Because yes in my opinion it does. Are you asking if Christians will use such software knowing that it is a sin to do so? That is an entirely different question.
Why is religious hatred directed towards Christian so rift on this site and elsewhere? If someone came on disresepecting all Jews or all Hindu's they would be flamed and barred straight away!
Therefore, (iam aprobably being all to ligcal here), it's much like a robin hood situation - despite, after all, this piracy, they still are mega rich and make millinos each year.
and good to see you on, not in my dept. i see anymore :eek:
I don't want to pay hundreds of pounds for AutoCAD or whatever. I just can't afford it.
Using pirated software in the case of really high-end CAD programs is a necessity, I can't afford to take the moral high ground.
Or thousands.
Out of interest, what do you need high-end CAD programs for, unless they're for commercial use? And if they're for commercial use, a couple of grand isn't a huge investment...
If only it were as simple as that. Painting a nice black and white picture may justify it, but the reality is more complicated.
Do you really think that if pirating were to harm companies (as you seem to suggest it does) that it would only be the rich executives who would get hurt?
No
It would be the ordinary workers who get laid off etc as well, and more........
Speak for yourself. You don't speak for me.
Something to do with the arrogance of statements like "Every single person who has every walked the earth (except for Jesus) has sinned, Christian or otherwise." perhaps?
Except of course, that is bollocks.
So theft is justified if you can't afford something? Hmmmm...I'd like one of the iPod Nano's...
bread is a necessity not software.
personaly ...the only bit of software i can remember paying for was worms world party.
thats worth it though :thumb:
worms 2 is good too
as i said before it depends on how you use it, if you'd buy it if it werent available legally, and the company who makes it and how they treat their customers
The other game Im palying is online poker, which dosnt cost me anything infact Im making money (so far)
26 on play.com if you have a debit/credit card. There are copies about online, but unfortunatly the site i downloaded it from is no longer active.
What are barras like these days? Heard it's gone downhill a bit what with the polis etc.