I have a silly question.

[Havox]

A few fellow workers and I are interested in playing an SE4 Gold LAN game during our downtime here at work and we were wondering if all of us had to purchase the game separately or if we could pool our money and buy a single copy. I said we all have to buy copies, but I am not sure. Please advise. Thanks.

[Sivran]

Not a good idea at work, and not just because of the licensing issue.

Anyway, if it was just you and your buddies at home, on your computers, where you are the primary user, I'd say just use one copy. However, since you want to do this at work, and things in a work place must be very cut-and-dried, I'd say get multiple copies.

[Fyron]

If you want an official answer, you would be better off emailing Malfador at: se4 at malfador dot com

[Atrocities]

Havox said:
A few fellow workers and I are interested in playing an SE4 Gold LAN game during our downtime here at work and we were wondering if all of us had to purchase the game separately or if we could pool our money and buy a single copy. I said we all have to buy copies, but I am not sure. Please advise. Thanks.

Our company once faced a huge fine because a few workers played Quake over the lan. They used one copy, copied several times, and had a huge lan party going when someone talked. The company does not know who started the lan, but they had to pay severl hunderd thousdand in fines for having mulitiple "unlicensed copies" of Quake on their system. This is when they discovered that copying other software was illegal. In the end they forked out over a million in fines or so they said. So my advice to you is, have everyone buy their own copies, and keep the receipt.

[Havox]

good advice all. thanks.

[boran_blok]

let everyone buy a copy, it's sponsoring for SEV and beyond, that's how you should think, it's not like malfador's pockets are overflowing with money.

Buying more games results in more (and better) games.

[PvK]

Atrocities said:
Our company once faced a huge fine because a few workers played Quake over the lan. They used one copy, copied several times, and had a huge lan party going when someone talked. The company does not know who started the lan, but they had to pay severl hunderd thousdand in fines for having mulitiple "unlicensed copies" of Quake on their system. This is when they discovered that copying other software was illegal. In the end they forked out over a million in fines or so they said. So my advice to you is, have everyone buy their own copies, and keep the receipt.

Better safe than sorry, but... sounds to me like that company more likely had someone using that as an excuse to pocket a bunch of money, rather than an actual million-dollar payout for an employee-run LAN Quake session!

PvK

[Atrocities]

It was over many violations of the Software Business Alliance. When I say mulitple copies, I mean we had, at that time, nearly 500 computers, each using a single copy of windows 95, 98. Do the math. Add in all of the other software that was being used, all from ONE copy, and you see how the fines added up. According to the news letter, and the educational classes, the company came to a settlement over the violations and bought all the licenses they needed to run the software they had. That and the fines came to well over a million. It was a very costly mistake. VERY COSTLY.

So again, my recommendation is better safe than sorry, each should have their own copy, bought legally as the SBA can cehck this too.

[PvK]

Sure, for a whole 500-computer office of business software. I thought you meant for a Quake LAN party.

PvK