[geoschmo]

Ubik,

At the risk of permanantly labeling myself as an "old-fuddy duddy" I feel I must speak my mind about this.

Whether or not you purchased a copy of SEIV legitimately is irrelevant.

You humorous responses about conspiracies and Portuguese pirating are also irrelevant and misdirecting.

The fact that you purchased a copy does not entitle you to emailing or receiving copies of the .exe file. That remains the legally protected intellectual property of Malfador. Your purchase fee only entitles you to use the game. It does not transfer actual ownership of anything except the pLastic content of the CD the software came on.

Of course no-one is going to get rich pirating a game like SEIV, but even small scale copying like this can set a precedent which could destroy a game like this.

The fact remains that your request for the .exe file was wrong. You participated in illegal behavior, however trivial in your mind, and encouraged illegal behavior in others.

The ramifications of your actions may not be clear to you, but they are obvious to me. There may be individuals reading these forums that are considering the purchase of this game. They may not realize before seeing your post how easy it is to steal a game like this.

The real nightmare for game designers is not the "Large-scale Pirates". It is the public's general attitude that seems to be that if it can be copied, it's ok to copy it.

For whatever reason, technical or economic, Aaron decided not to copy protect the retail Version of the game. The fact that he did not however does not give anyone the "right" to copy it, any more than leaving my front door unlocked gives anyone the "right" to come in uninvited.

When all is said and done, you could have simply waited till you got home and got your purchased copy.

Geo