wow, a one man effort. very nice. I saw something on this maybe a month ago or so actually here on slashdot. it is indeed a niche product, but I think with the way the economy is, some people would prefer a smaller price tag. I can justify spending money if I see that the product will be used fairly often, and while your software looks pretty bad-ass, I can't see myself using it more than a few times. honesty is what I'm giving you.

I've pondered why certain software devs don't think about a "limited use" or rental license for their products. this could make sense with certain VST's for example. I know I saw this one VST pack for about $100 and I thought, "I'll never really use this more than a few times, so I'm better off looking for a free or cheap alternative." however, if I had the opportunity to maybe say, play around with it unrestricted [as in, full usage, no weird sound effects or nag screens] for 3 days at a significantly smaller price tag, I could do that, and the dev would still get money from it. obviously it's better if it's free, but the dev should make SOME money from it. however, piracy figures into all of that and it becomes a big issue. but, if that limited use cost could be factored into the final price [say I paid $20 for 3 days, and that would count towards the $100 pricetag], that would encourage me to buy the product if I really saw myself using it more. of course, it could also work if you have a larger scale project that has multiple apps or pieces and are able to purchase them separately instead of in one pack [as above].

that being said, I think most of the people I know running studios out here will pay for software and not pirate it. plus, they can write it off as a business expense, right? so software "piracy" is really an iffy issue for this kind of market, although I will not say that it doesn't happen quite a bit.

the other thing I see a lot in the audio software market [especially DAW's] is a program that doesn't receive too many updates, but when it does, they charge the user some "upgrade" fee for it. again, reasonable if your program is nicely priced and used a lot, but if I just spent $400 on your software and you release a new update the next year that adds like one synth but breaks compatibility with other programs I'm using, why should I shell out another $150? reasonable upgrade prices for people who paid out the nose already [again, looking at the down economy, salary freezes, etc.] for your product is a good reason that I will not buy your product.

I know not all of this is relevant to your cause, but I think it's good to hear about these things for future endeavors as well.

does it run linu.....er, windows?!?

mod this up. that's scary that it can be done without javascript, and practically in every browser.

they seem to have forgotten that they used to give "spawn" CD keys that allowed you to play with friends. I thought you could play LAN with that too.

I buy games, and bought SC1 [and Brood War] and played the hell out of it [spawn copies at LANs!]. might not want to buy SC2 if that's how they want to play...

I know parent was an AC post, but why was it modded down? It's true that it would be hard to sway the courts with what they believe in since there's lots of bribery and money involved in places that we cannot see or hear. Not to mention that most people weren't savvy enough to pick up on what was really happening. Yes, you could say that people download illegal things from it, but TPB never hosted the files themselves. That was done by their users.

They, for YEARS, stared in the face of those promising to bring litigation and not only stood up for themselves, but sent back nastygrams and publicized them. They're not heroes, but I think they at least had an inkling of knowing what they were doing.

I for one laud them for selling the brand name only [like previous posts have said about Napster] and using it to fund other political projects. Again, not heroes, but I will give credit where it's due. They're not completely selfless, but they're not scaredy-cat "internet commandos" as you put it either.

Best of luck to the future TPB.

or a rocket sturgeon!

I'll be here all week, try the veal.

I have really no issues with Vista to be honest, and Windows 7 seems like it'd be alright. But seriously, if you're going to have an opinion and criticize other users for what they've said, at least post under your handle and have some balls so it doesn't look like cheap attempts at astroturfing.

can you please put this in a car analogy for some of us? this is slashdot after all...

wait a minute, are you that asshole that keeps parking in front of my apartment building with your laptop out and looking for an unsecured network? our router is password protected. get off our lawn!

I thought you couldn't upgrade apple products; you just threw them out and bought a new one...

Steve Jobs 4G! Now with more gigs of brain and DRM!

I believe the proper term is his "endowment" fund.

Also under development: A device to keep the device on that forces Alzheimer's patients to keep their shoes on.

what you say WOULD be awesome, but I get the feeling they would create a brand new entity and do the exact same thing after folding the RIAA [bankruptcy, or what-have-you]. these guys are exploiting people because they know all the underhanded sneaky tactics needed. I'm sure NYCL could confirm some of the crazy shit they've pulled over the years.

"From David Lyle, Acting Executive Director of ACS Law
To ACS Law Staff

Team,

I'd like to talk to all of you today about a very important issue that is right now affecting our public image. So serious that major news outlets may even pick up on it. It is in regards to our publications on copyright and as members of the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy, we need to look after each other. We have learned an important lesson today and we must share it with everyone so we can't make the same time wasting mistakes in the future.

That lesson, friends and coworkers, is that violating copyright is totally fucking awesome.

I mean we used to spend how many man-hours on one of these reports? 120? 240? Wasted wasted time. The information is out there just waiting to be copied. At first I thought this brilliant new technology would be expensive. I mean, how much do we spend just on the software that turns our computers on? Nope, just two simple commands: ctrl-c ctrl-p. These are the shake-n-bake methods of success.

That shit we did on Democracy and Voting? Yeah, take note. I just discovered that using this thing called Google will pull up page upon page of data that is as good as if not better than the crap we've been slaving over! Ever heard of a site called blackboxvoting.org? Fire up the goddamn presses. Frank LoMonte, that piece you did on the First Amendment was good. But Wikipedia's article is better. Next time save yourself the trouble, they're practically giving the stuff away out there--work smarter and faster people. Don't work harder.

And if any of you pansies come up to me like our now ex-employee Jenkins did about credit and citations, you'll be getting a citation yourself. You'll be fired. Now that's a citation. I just wrote a five hundred page report on the Second Amendment in five minutes, I don't have time for citations. Hell, you're lucky I don't fire the team that figured this out months ago and didn't tell us! I mean, we're a team people. We need to work together.

And if you're worried about the media, don't be. I've already bragged to them about this and told them they should pull their heads out of their asses and use it. Maybe that's why they're all dying business models? Ever think of that? This shit's free and they're paying for it. Morons. And the real icing on the cake is that since this hit the news, page views has tripled. It's fucking win/win no matter how you look at it.

I'll bet you think I'm a chump typing all this out when I could have just ctrl-c ctrl-p from The Onion and if you caught that, good for you. I'm still learning here, let's grow together.

Your friend and boss,

David Lyle, Acting Executive Director of ACS Law"

All credit for this article goes to DeskLazer, who painstakingly used sources all over the internet to assemble this article.

you'd like a few nights with the type of girl who'd marry a buffoon like that? who's working cheap now? =)