First legal anti-piracy case in Jordan.
JordanTimes.com - AMMAN -
An Amman computer system builder has been sentenced to three months in prison for pirating software, the first time in the Kingdom’s history that the court has imprisoned someone for software piracy.
I wonder how the average Jordanian with the average income be be able to afford such unbalanced software pricing ? I wonder if Jordan Intellectual Property Association (JIPA) take into account that average Jordanians cannot afford $150 for software license because that amount is actually very close to be their monthly income.
Thankfully I’m a free Software user and developer, thankfully I don’t have to pay license to anyone nor I have to hide my laptop if the anti-piracy squad showed up.
That doesn’t mean I don’t encourage people to license their software and operating systems, I have a licensed copy of Microsoft Windows Vista Yes, I paid for it but because I was forced to do so when I bought my laptop, there was no option to buy it without paying extra $150 for Mircosoft Windows license even though I never used it, right after I got the laptop I installed my lovely, solid GNU/Linux flavoured with Ubuntu, unfortunately at that time we didn’t have Ubuntu flavoured dell laptops and desktops for of course my next laptop going to be dell or any brand that has Gnu/Linux pre-installed.
I’m not against such laws in general but it has to be reasonable, First the Municipality have at least 40 DVD shop selling illegal copies of DVDs and they tax them too so basically the Municipality is a partner in the crime if they are aware of the legal side of what they’re selling.
You wont sense how hard and nearly impossible for almost all Jordanians to license their software especially when you know that you have to license every single non-free software on your computer and when you know that most of Jordanians cannot afford to pay that amount of money for software especially when buying a legally up and running computer cost would be very close to buying a used car or a small piece of land praying that their children would benefit from price increase later.
Microsoft Windows Vista license for home user doesn’t go over $300 for home user I guess (Correct me Mr Windows if I’m committing a mistake here.) or check Amazon.com for a very confusing pricing and naming scheme, anyway it’s fine amount of money to be paid to get your computer up and running legally but yet you have to license every single software you are using, no matter what.
If you were unfortunate designer who’s creativity was discovered while playing with illegal copy of Adobe Photoshop or any of their well respected Adobe products now you have to rethink about licensing what you are using of their products and here is a listing of some of their products pricing taken from Adobe.com official online store.
- Photoshop CS3 - FROM $999.00
- Creative Suite 3 Production Premium- FROM $1,699.00
- Creative Suite 3 - Web Premium - FROM $1,599.00
- Creative Suite 3 Design Premium - FROM $1,799.00
- Acrobat 8 - FROM $449.00
- Photoshop CS3 - FROM $649.00
of course story wont end here but there are lots of more software to pay for and get them licensed which means if you want to buy a %100 legally running and usable computer then you have to pay around $2500 dollar and yet it might only be for a single use.
Do we have to talk about licensing your games?
Do you know that using Windows as your primary operating system means you have to buy an anti virus software because even you are paying for the operating system and the vendor is making a quite good money out of that, they didn’t manage to deliver a solid that can be virus free operating system.
which would brought a smart question, If you like the idea of licensing your software then why you don’t go with lovely operating system like Mac? and only then you will have a cool, solid, fun to use and virus free operating system and loads of free software in many online repositories.
If you don’t like the idea of paying money for software or you cannot afford it like me then you should definitely go with a GNU/Linux operating system, maybe a seriously popular distribution like Ubuntu Linux.
Again, Software pricing should be balanced and according to a country income not globalised else someone has to globalise the income which wont happen at least in the next five thousand year or maybe four to sound more accurate and credible.
Finally, I’m all with running a legal computer but I cannot afford to play this game with Microsoft based operating system and I was never properly introduced to Mac so until then I will stick with my lovely, solid and highly customizable ubuntu linux.
Tags: gnu linux, jordantimes, laptop, software piracy, jipa, dell laptops, amman, municipality, ubuntu, free software, software license, windows license, pirating software, software user, intellectual property association, mircosoft, illegal copies
you know, in the office i used macs and at home I used pcs, now I thank god I got a macbook and never used windows for the past 2 weeks, and I don’t think I ever will.
I think it is good idea to switch to GNU/Linux operating system as it is more professional and definitely will be a Bonus for you in your CV.
Its not a question of which computer builder pirates the pre-installed OS. Its more like who doesn’t.
So, I wonder what this one guy did for them to pick on him of all people. Besides if they are really enforcing intellectual property, then its not just software, but also DVDs, music, and books.
Most of the countries that do enforce copyright laws normally crackdown only on the merchants rather than the consumers.
Good thing too, can you imagine anti-piracy squads breaking down doors to inspect PCs ?
Jad, I’m in IT so I understand your point, but none-technical people have problems running Windows XP/Vista. Can you imagine how much more trouble they’d have running Linux ?
What’s Abu Mahjoob going to do when his computer tells him he has to recompile the kernel to install software X ?
Moey,
One day you will miss fighting viruses and then you will return to Windows.
Mu3aZ,
forget about how it would look on resume but it’s truly solid operating system.
Hani Obaid,
Maybe he’s the biggest in town or he’s a friend and they’re doing a pilot case to check the street pulse else you have a very valid question, I hope one of JIPAs would give us a clue.
as for compiling kernel, I have been using Linux for around seven years and like five years without Microsoft windows at all, I cannot remember that I’ve had to recompile kernel for any reason other than learning.
The old black terminal and command line only image of Linux has gone, I can assure that.
Bill Gates here,
Dude, you pay me mah money or I will @#$%& your computer! Oops! Vista does that anyway!
Nevermind
By the way, That piece of news is crap. They have been jailing people for software piracy since 1998. (First person to be jailed for it was “Talal Ghazal” from Ghazal computers in Gardens street)
As for my offecial cover-your-butt disclaimer: It’s illegal and unethical to steal other people’s hard work through pirecy. Pirates are nothing more than common thieves. You have to option of installing the so called crappy free software. but that’s your choice. If Adobe, Apple, Microsoft, Oracle have a price on their software that would be because they spent billions developing this software and expect to make profit out of it. Besides they provide support and other stuff with it.
Regarding the poor people of Jordan getting software. ALL major companies have 2 programs, 1 for students and another for poor countries like Jordan. Where they have promotional prices that are 85% discounted (Ie: Windows Vista for $15 or 10JD, ORIGINAL, BRAND NEW for students)
Unfortunately, the four Jordanian companies that were entrusted with this task ware taking these and selling them for premum price. And making tons of profit!
So don’t blame the big players, blame the evil greedy business people of Jordan and other parts of the world.
Ehm .. did I miss anything? Yeah, Ubuntu sucks, Mac is for wussies and Linux is for geeks who haven’t been out of their parent’s basement yet and who have no idea what female means!
Happy now?
Ok, kernel recompile was a bad example (I had to do that to enable NTFS support once), but my point was as a PC user since 1983 (dos, and every windows since), that’s more than 24 years. I still find Linux too difficult to work with as a client machine. I haven’t tried Ubuntu yet, but I’ve worked with Redhat 8/9, then Fedora, and use Red Hat Enterprise regularly at work as a server of course (where it beats any of our windows servers hands down). I’ve seen the standard GUIs (KDE and Gnome), but usually leave them off for servers to save resources, and didn’t find them that friendly for a client machine, but then again most of the software I’m used to won’t run on Linux without Wine, crossover-office, and enough tweaking to drive you nuts. The games of course won’t run at all, and many graphics manufacturers don’t bother with Linux drivers, and if they do they’re unsupported and outdated, and the built-in ones usually utilise your state of the art graphics card like a 3 year older model. The case sensitivity and file level security are alone enough to drive none-technical users away.
Qwaider,
The first part is the only accurate in your comment :p.
dude, I’m not blaming big players, I’m talking about the fact that WE Jordanians cannot afford paying that amount of money for software and THEY software vendors don’t take in consideration that we can’t and actually they don’t care, we are a very small market even if you want to talk about Arab Region.
as for basement thingy, I’d say it’s true but that because we are conservatives :p
Hani,
Linux is as easy and even easier for normal computer users but yes it’s hard for developers specially if you are used to control everything over GUIs but the fact is GUIs going to fail you at some point where text file configurations would come to rescue with it’s flexibility and expandability, anyway it’s matter of taste, if you prefer Microsoft windows then stick to it.
But what about an average Jordanian who want to buy a computer for multi task, starting from
Jad, if this single incident is only the beginning of a massive crackdown (which we haven’t seen yet), and pirate licenses are no longer an option. Then I agree with you, who can afford JD2000 worth of licenses when they can barely pay JD300 for the PC itself.
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Good post…well said.
Qwaider, that is actually interesting, but what is your source? Who are these four companies?.Anyways, some other good companies are providing windows for nos leera,student or not,
Linux for Geeks, Mac for wussies hehehe…classic
Abu El Batareeg (Jad) the problem with Linux is that not many companies develop softwares or hardware to work optimally with Linux, many of the softwares I use won’t work with Linux and every time I encounter a problem (getting a v.card or a lan) work you have to go all over Linux forums trying to find a solution. Linux would eventually work, but it needs time, things are getting better (Dell,IBM, WALL mart,governments) now adopting Linux, but it would just take time, just like FireFox. But for the majority of Jordanians, the Nos Leera (or most commonly a Free copy min El Shabbab) beats geeky Linux, though I wish to see it change.