CompuServe Messages

I'm really not trying to be snotty, but your acceptance of the license when you opened the software does make you responsible to be your brother's keeper (at least when hs is using your machine). Put the other way around, you could be held negligent on your part of the license aggreement if your software is being pirated. I know, there is legalese and there is the practical world. But it is wrong that a union laborer gets paid for every shovel full of dirt he slings and every tasteless joke he tells, whils some hardworking independendent software producer gets to go on food stamps cause everyone looks the other way while thier buddies steal the poor guy blind. Piracy is not morally right, there is no rationalization that changes that, and it will not diminish until we, as users muster the moral fortitude to take action against pirates, whehter it be to put the cops on 'em or to shame them into destroying pirated software they have. And just about every rationalization I've been handed on the subject for doing otherwise is a smoke and mirrors for, "I don't have the courage to stand up to my friends bad habits". I'm not trying to be in anyway negative toward you or anyone else in this discussion. But, I had to take a long look in the mirror before comming to this point. And when I did I found that the ONLY reason I would not follow the morally correct road on this issue was fear. Every rationalization I came up with was a cover for that fear – he won't like me, she may not like me… But that doesn't matter, because now there is just one less place in life where I can hide from myself. Since you are a dealer you actually have a better reason than most to give your freinds: its taking money out of your pocket the same as if they picked your pocket. I'm sure if you explained it to them in those terms, they would at least be sure to hide their pirating activities from you. (O.K. I'm turning the collar around now, black cassock goes into the closet, Hawaiian shirt comes out… :^}