Okee, I downloaded Macromedia Studio MX [big file for d/l, 140M], and it was in a WinZip archive, and when I tried to unzip it, it got bout half way through, then said somethign about a corrupt file. I tried downloading another Macromedia Studio MX [this one 270M] and it was in the same type of archive, and when I unzipped it, it got about 3/4 done, and said an error about corrupt file. Is this because the file was corrupt when I downloaded it, or become corrupt through the downloading process?? [Note: I downloaded Fruity Loops 3, and Maple 7, and they booth work well]. ThanX!

AFAIK, It's impossible to tell if it was corrupted during downloading or before that. All you can ascertain is that the file is broken.

unless you can find a w4reZ d00d that posts checksums for the software...

What about the evil warez dood that provides a checksum of the corrupt file, knowing all along what he's doing?

Even if a valid checksum is made, how do you know it;s reliable? All those things get passed through so many pairs of hands, I suspect the checksums would get lost along the way.

Don't pirate, kids! It's bad for your health!

At school on the satallite connection, I've had corruption of zip files < 10mb, so it's entirely possible for it to happen.
But because your question is reguarding warez, we won't tell you about things you can do about it!

Consider this: suppose if Macromedia (or any other sw company) would put up a computer with Kazaa (or any other P2P filecharing thingy). Download their own program and keep it in the upload directory of Kazaa. Then totally mess up the file. That would make sure many of the people downloading the particular program would get a corrupted file.
I'm not saying they do this, I'm just stating this is a possibility.

I beleive recording companies are doing a similar thing already.

Oh, okee. I downloaded Falsh MX by itself, and it unziped w/o error. Most have been the large file size or something??

Any way, I don't really consider P2P warez, since no one gains monetary profits from it, just the bright, happy feeling down inside that they are helping to defeat [or break] the DMCA.

The pre-release of Flash MX is dead simple to open uop. :-)

Eh, yeah, when they unzip.

I had the same problem with DirectX 8.1 from the MS website, I downloaded it on a faster connection and it worked fine though. Again, it was a large file.

I recommend you use some sort of Download Manager (my personal favourite is Download accelerator Plus, from http://www.speedbit.com/).

gian: I would have thought those would just increase the chances of a corrupt file, since they may take out some of the error checking in order to speed up downloads. Let me know if I'm wrong though ^^

Perhaps. I am yet to have a corrupted download whilst using a download accelerator. I started using it because many zip files were coming in truncated or corrupted, and it has fixed the problem.

I'll have to get my hands on a decent one then ^^

HMMM YOU DOWNLOADED MAPLE 7 hmmm hmmm I SPENT VALUABLE TIME STEALING A COPY FROM HULL UNI ... would it be possible if you'd post me the link to the site you got it from in a private message ...

Thanks.

NO! We are not warez demons!

Why not? Its legal isnt it [ in good countries ] ?

I don't believe it's legal ON TPU.ORG.

As far as i am aware TPU.ORG is not a country OK ItinitI can u PLEASE [ begging here ] send it to me via e-mail ?

ME E-MAIL(1):administrator@lwap.org.uk
ME E-MAIL(2):v.lukyanov@gmx.net

TPU is run by people who are not vlad and are thus in a position to say that vlad is not allowed to things here if they wish.

I used to use DAP and it has spyware stuff in it [However, if you have the full version it might not], now I use FreshDownload, and it seems to work pretty well.

But, those don't realy help on KaZaA.

BTW, do you [Psion, gian] read people's PMs??

Yes, and they know all your secrets...

Did they tell that?

OK OK OK ... i dont like pirate software either

PLUS

I might not have ong to live i burst my 'Home Lab' glass temputure masuring instruemnt and i dont know what it has in it its not Mercury but still could be dangerous ...

no, I don't like pirates software either [when they make money for pirating], but still p2p nots pirates softwares.

P2P is pirate. The whole idea of pirate is stealing something which you have not paid for. Intellectual property is no different to a tin of cat food from a supermarket .. is it?

Yeah it is. I can't steal your thoughts so you no longer have them anymore, as I can do to your cat food. IP is a lot more complex.

- taubz

Well just because you cant see it most people will think its not there ... piracy happens on a non-computer peopel level too. Such things as playstation 2 games are copied. And DVD's in russia ALL DVD players even bought in a huge supershop which has like 100's of outlets are still chipped to accept DVD's from all over the world.

vlad: People do not think it's not there, people IGNORE it. Plainly and simply.

I quite like the fact of chipped russian dvd-players ... i just have to get one !

That's good for DVD player's to be modded like that. I mean, whats the harm of palying a DVD from Japan on a North American DVD palyer [assuming you bought it]?

I don't have any problem with copying softwares for own use, as long as not selling them or making money from them.

It's not about the harm of it. It's about violating that shrink-wrap contract you "signed" when you bought your DVD player.... and in the U.S., it's about not violating copyright law. Harm or no harm, the issue is changing the system that the music industry and Congress have established.

- taubz

Or just not going by it...

hmm, suppose you had a replicator (the StarTrek(tm)-kind-of replicator) and you would use it to replicate some cat food. Would that be stealing?

What exactly did you steal?

The "molecular design" of the cat food - i.e. its taste - companies spend millions on developing cat food tastes which cats like! Bet you never knew that!

If that's the case, then you stole it when you *programmed* the replicator to produce that food, not by replicating the food.

Cat Food hmmm cant they just make it addictive ?

I don't know if cats can become addicts to anything, however they want to develop a food that a cat will find tastiest(if our cat doesn't like the taste of a particular cat food, it won't eat much of it unless its very hungry whereas if it likes it, it gobbles it up and comes meowing for more), whilst using the chapest possible methods.

Yeah , but software piracy is nothing like cat food. I think its all very very very naughty buisness with any form of stealing or piracy , but chipping DVD's against americanised ( i am being stereotypical of your parliament and democracy system - not the american people as a whole ... hmm ) corruption of the world is good and honest ?

I'm againsat piracy in theory...

Absolute morality hmmm well i'll stick with relative.

The thing with software is, is that even if you legaly purchase it, you aren't buying the software. You're buying the licence to use it.

The TPU server is located in the United States. Thus the activities performed on this server are subject to the laws of the United States.

Okay

does that mean we can all sue people without reason?

No It means *the server* can sue people without reason.

Excuse me if this post is just me blabbering on about my opinion on copyright ^^

The thing with piracy is that without it you would probably find some software companies going out of business. Since things like 3DS Max are most commonly learn't by home users who bought a pirated version, and hence in their future career bought an original copy to legally sell their art/designs/etc.

Commerical Software companies obviously mind, but in a way still want students to buy pirated software, since they would almost NEVER buy an original copy (1000 pounds (1500 USD) for an original 3ds Max I believe), but if they have the skills, then they may get hired by a company and hence have to buy an original copy. As apposed to one or two people learning it though expensive courses or payed for by their company.

Home-user software on the other hand is different and is even sold at decent prices (Free-10 USD, I mean how many of you are so cheap your not willing to dish out 5/6USD for some software you downloaded to support the company so it makes better products)

Games are the wierdest catagory, since it is the younger generation who buy them (or get their parents to buy them) and they tend to have less money to spare then people with jobs or at university. Yet game prices are reasonably expensive (compared to home-user software) due to the costs in buying development tools, marketing and the amount of developers needed to work on such projects.

I believe P2P distribution by current UK (EU) laws (which most of the world (including US) bases their Computer Laws on) is only illegal if you, a) bought (opened the box) the original software and hence distributed/modified it, or b) install the software, and hence agreeing to the licence agreement (which usually states the same contract as the original buyer). In both cases you are in breach of contract which has a pretty hefty fine and/or a jail sentence.

In the case of Music and Movies, I know that if you are the original owner and you copy/distribute it then you are breaking copyright law, but if you are copying a copy (that does not explicately say anywhere that it is illegal to copy/distribute it) then I don't know how far the law covers.

Also, would like to point out that if the TPU admins are reading PMs they are probably in violation of the data protection act ^^

Copying a copy is no different than copying the original in terms of copyright law, but it would not violate any shrinkwrap license agreement.

I'll have to re-read the Copyright and Computing laws but if I remember correctly there is no law making it illegal to copy a copy unless it is in breach of contract or it is source code. (in literary works it is, but not in terms of computing)

I don't see why there would be a difference. There's no special rule about photocopying. Re-typing a text is just the same. Re-typing something that someone re-typed? You're still making a copy of something that you don't own (IP-wise).

- taubz

It quite strange that actually there are still p2p netoworks,you would expect the huge record companies to sue the pants of the makers of such protocols.How does it all work? Just wondering.

what did the makers of the protocals do?

taubz, have you studied computer law? It is a very wierd and strange part of the legal system.

Sourcecode has to be the most annoying part since it doesn't fall under any other copyright catagory, and also because 2 programs source could be very similar or identical without the programmers actually ever viewing each others code.

CDR700: with the idea of sueing the people who made the program for transfering the games, music and software across the internet, could you not sue Microsoft (for IE, telnet, FTP, etc), all FTP server/client makers, IRC servers and clients (with DCC support), etc. So if you sue the P2P program makers, then should not all those companies be sued as well? Only real difference is that P2P makes it easier to find the software, games and music. It is unfeasible to check every file to see if its a copy of an original, or whether it is a legit file to share.

DragonWolf, yes, I've studied (in and out of the classroom) copyright law and the DMCA. I'm not familiar with other "computer law," but we're talking specifically about copyright law anyway.

- taubz

Thankyou very much,i get the idea.But huge p2p corporations - they get sued,dont they?

Nope, its not them commiting a crime. They can say their users are "mis-using" their products and violating their user-liscence agreement.

How nice.

The only P2P "corporation" that I know of is Napster, and they got sued big time, and now they're defunct. The rationale was, as I recall, that Napster's service (not program) was *primarly* used for copyright infringement and the makers of Napster did nothing to try to remedy that. That doesn't hold for FTP programs or the like.

- taubz

Was there software sharing on Napster or just empifrees??

As far as I can remember, just mp3.

Also dont forget all the child pornography scandals with p2p !!!

While we're on the subject:

http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/2002/11/21/news/6433.shtml