are they legal ?

Hello

There are a lot of " cheap software " sites on the web
I quote one of them just as an example

www.oemsoftdiscount.com/ -

Are they legal ?
In the F.A.Q. Why so cheap ?
They speak of O.E.M stw , no manual, no upgrading etc
Does it make sense ?
On the other hand, If they are not legal why are they not banned , such as , for example the pedophile sites ?

I asked a long time ago, and this is what i came up with:
http://www.opserver.de/ubb7/ubbthreads.p...true#Post208338

I bought some software from one of these sites several years ago and it worked out well.
I tried to research whether it was legal and what I found out at that time was that the software manufacturer was aware of these sites and did not like them but at that time it was legal.
A lot of this stuff is OEM which means it is supposed to be tied to a new computer and you are not able to transfer it to another computer. How it works is a computer builder orders a bunch of OEM software which is usually 1/2 price and then marks it up and dumps it on the web. Don't know how you get $50 Cs4 extended.
The software I bought i got a low price and I was able to register it and use it for an upgrade later on. It was a Microsoft product and if they said it was legit then who am I to argue?
Don't know how it fits in to the piracy argument. I used a legit credit card on a site that looked legit.

No they are not legal, just call adobe to find out what they tell you!

You can get some legal deals on some of these sites though.
I forgot to mention that the software I bought was one generation behind the one that was current at that time. So I think it was a good deal.
You would have to do a lot of sweet talking to get me to believe that you can legally get photoshop at $50.
You can also check to see if a site is legit by contacting verisign... or whoever is processing the credit cards. Also the credit card companies sometimes keep lists of bad sites.

christian, microsoft products have an actualy oem version for thier products, things like zbrush do not, so they are lying claiming that it is oem when a oem version doesnt even exist.

It is what I thought
Most of their sofware are not O.E.M.
Anyway , why are they allowed to have a web site then ?

If you do a Whois on the domain name you will discover that it is a Russian web site. What is illegal in some places is not in others.

For anyone purchasing and downloading the software sold at sites like this, you don't need to worry so much about whether the company selling the software is legal or not, but whether YOU are obtaining the software in a legal manner according to YOUR country.

ok but this does not explain the reason why these sites are not banned in the western countries
I dont think that it is possible to advertise world wide any kind of illegal activities just opening a site in Russia

The site is Russian and hosted in Russia. How could anyone outside of Russia shut it down? What they are doing may not be illegal in Russia and so no one in Russia is going to shut it down. And most countries are not censoring the web so we can go wherever we want on it.

Do you mean that it is not possible to make this site " non visible " in other countries and \ or to warn people that it is not legal ?
Hard to believe
If so the WEB should be polluted of illegal sites, from tollerant countries
Moreove , as someone else said, the credit card companies should not accept to transfer money

While the downside is that warez can easier spread, you should be happy to have unfiltered access to the web. That's not the case in several countries like China or Northern Korea.

If warez and porn sites are banned, soon the next step would be banning sites with information the government does not want you to read/know of.
I bet this is what some people in the government want! More power by surveillance.

Only porno sites where minor are involved are not legal
You can not find them, or at least it is very hard, on the web
Thus there is some kind of surveillance in the web
Why not also for warez ?

why cant you just email and ask software developers about it? i think no one will know better...

It is what Christian did
The developer was not happy but he did not claim thay it was illegal

You a mistaken, many sites on the Internet contains pornography, even google not block this sites and they in first place in list if keyword swearword or other
Some warez sites are created to redirect users to pornographic web site
I know that in Russia and Ukraine too many pirated products, I know that this is not right but I nothing can do, the problem is that in my country are too low wages, so we have so many illegal goods.

Yea thats why I said I didn't believe $50 for a current version of photoshop.
The thing is there are many ways for software to get to the web that is semi legitimate. There are OEM versions, Student versions, old versions etc. Not all the discount software sites are selling illegal software. So you can get a good deal just don't expect free software.

@AlbertoT there is no way to tell for sure if a software is illegal until the developer takes you to court. Even asking them if the software is legal doesn't work. They make no money off of discounted software so they do not recommend it even if it is legal. And what a company considers illegal software may not in fact be illegal. Conitecs policy of only transferring a licence once may be in violation of copyright law, I do not know if it has ever been tested in court.

@Dan Silverman actually that stuff is illegal in Russia but it is not enforced. I was on a trip a few years ago to Russia and me and my friend went down to the corner Kiosk and they were selling all kinds of software for a fraction of its cost. She said it was illegal but nobody ever was prosecuted. A combination of sticking it to the western companies and not caring.

And yes the web is polluted with illegal sites!

Shhh! Don't say that! You might encourage more governments to regulate the internet.

(cough) I mean most activities on the net are legal, there are very few illegal sites and even fewer that get noticed. lol

A part from joking , in my opinion , it is a serious issue

Suppose that a shop in the center of Phyladelfia sell stolen stuff
Are the clients responsible for it ?
I dont think so, the authorities must control

If you digit " Cheap software " on Google you can find a lot of these sites
Even though the domain is in Russia ,it should be sufficient to remove them from the data base
Why dont they do it ?
Same consideration for the credit cards

Maybe are they legal ?

I'm pretty sure that they're not legal. Becuase they get a warez version and selling it.

Each country is responsible for controlling illegal business activity inside its borders and the laws are different in each country.

Yes in Philadelphia if a client knowingly purchases illegal material he has committed a crime. the only defense is that he did not know the item was illegal. Even then he must return the item to the rightful owners and he loses his money. He can try to sue the criminals that sold him the illegal item to get his money back but that probably won't work.

So if a guy from Philadelphia bought a 50 dollar copy of photoshop from a Russian site Adobe has the right to accuse him of knowingly receiving illegal goods and that person would have no defense since $50 is obviously the price for an illegal copy.

A country cannot shut down a site that originates in another country it would be considered and act of war.
A country that blocks sites would be infringing on freedom of speech.
They do that in China and some other countries but in the US and the EU there would be a huge outcry.

Most countries do try to shut down sites that are obviously illegal, but often those sites just reformat with a new site and a new domain so the police are always one step behind. In the US there are police dedicated to finding web sites that sell illegal goods and I assume that the EU countries have these as well. But some countries like Russia just don't give a damn.

Other countries like china are actively involved in the pirated software trade. China is considered to be the leading source for pirated software and I don't think much business goes on in China without the government knowing about it.

A friend of mine once told me that Russia would never have its own software industry because nobody pays for software in Russia, you can't make any money. I think this is important to remember for game developers.

You can't make a game targeting the Russian market unless you plan on giving away the game.

Yes it is serious issue, lawyers, police and government officials talk about it a lot.

My God...I was going to declare the third world war

I was simply wondering why the brownsers and the credit card companies do not filter these sites if they are illegal

All over the world , not only in USA even in Russia it is not allowed ( officially ) to purchase illegal stuff

Maybe there is an explanation

These sites are not illegal, provide you dont make a profit i.e these software are meant for non commercial use
They make very clear that user licence is not included

Any lawyer in this site ?

The reason for asking is that I would like to purchase a very expensive software just for hobby ( nothing to do with game programming )

"I was simply wondering why the brownsers and the credit card companies do not filter these sites if they are illegal"

Money..... A credit card company will only go after illegal transactions if it saves them money, makes them look good, or they are forced to.

Look at how a credit card company makes money. They make money per transaction. It doesn't matter if the transaction is legal or not. Web servers are the same. They get paid if the merchanise is legal or not. Unless a website is stealing card numbers or hijacking a domain the companies make money.

So when a website sells illegal goods the only one who loses is the software manufacturer and the government. You get cheap software, the seller makes his profit, the credit card company gets its percentage, the webhost gets paid. Of course you may also get buggy software that is not what it is supposed to be, the credit card company and the webhost might get stiffed but what do you expect when you deal with thieves.

Really the people with the most incentive to close down these sites is the government... they loose tax revenue. But if a government doesn't tax these transactions why would they close them down?

Credit card companies might have the interest to deal with everybody but why dont the local authorities in each country prevent them from accepting money transictions with illegal sites ?

I dont suppose that a bank can make business, not at least officially, with criminals
E-commerce is getting more and more important nowadays
No control at all ?
Hard to believe

"why dont the local authorities in each country prevent them from accepting money transictions with illegal sites ?"

Oh they do but they are understaffed and underfunded.

And the only way they can determine if a transaction is illegal is if the original owner/manufacturer files a complaint. Some companies do not bother, and some companies are actively involved in the selling of cheap software. So as the theory goes if a software company knows that a percentage of its software will be pirated why not sell that software out the backdoor. Pretend to be a software pirate and then you at least make some money off your product.

Remember that these guys probably are not gang members who are trying to sell you a jacked car. These guys probably have university degrees in business and/or software programming. Smart guys who use their powers for evil


"I dont suppose that a bank can make business, not at least officially, with criminals"

define criminals

If I make a payment on a foreign account via my bank I must fill it up a questionaire
While by credit card or PayPal you can transfer money everywhere , even to illegal organization , without any control ?
Do you mean that none of the software houses or their official retailers have never complained ?
Or , if they did, the authorities , all over the world, can do nothing or they simply do not care
Nevertheless you could be sued
Again, hard to believe