The fact remains, you are “offering a pirated version of Race On on your home page”.

The interesting bit was however that because of offering a pirated version of Race On on my homepage (which is still available)

That is theft..!! You can justify it anyway you like, but it is what it is..

Don’t believe me? Maybe I should email Simbin and point them to your homepage and see if their lawyers agree with your defence?

Now seriously, this is NOT the thread to continually justify it. You are embarassing yourself and pissing everyone off in the process.

Crawl->Rock!

Hoopstar:
See.. this is where you loose me….When you steal Ferrari. Someone is missing a Ferrari..If you “steal” software, someone is missing a sale…

That’s the old MPAA/RIAA argument that has been invalidated long time ago.

No, not everyone who pirates something would have bought the product if it wasn’t available for free. That should be obvious the second you think about it. And it is backed up by this year’s sales figures for music, films and video games, for example.
Un fortunately I forgot where I heard the numbers, but a quick search revealed this data for the UK:

Retail sales of singles by format

Physical Digital Total Sales
2002 43.9m – 43.9m
2003 30.8m – 30.8m
2004 26.5m 5.7m 32.2m
2005 21.4m 26.4m 47.8m
2006 13.9m 53.0m 66.9m
2007 8.6m 77.9m 86.5m
2008 4.9m 110.2m 115.1m
2009 YTD 1.6m 116.0m 117.6m

Mojo66:
Not that I want to beat a dead horse, but this comparison is actually invalid. If you steal a Ferrari, someone is missing his Ferrari,

See.. this is where you loose me….

When you steal Ferrari. Someone is missing a Ferrari..

If you “steal” software, someone is missing a sale…

Same old same old..
Pretty simple – it scares me that you are educating our youth of tomorrow…

DW:
10Tacle were already bankrupt when GTR Evo came out.While I do not advocate piracy even of old titles like GTR2, the pattern of boxed PC game sales is such that sales after the first six months are not significant, so sales of what was then a two year old game at very low prices would not keep anyone afloat.

10Tacle still benefitted from the sales.

Are you to judge about how much? Does it make pirating GTR2 content honorable? (I think not and there is no gain in such an argument.)

moving-target: Where were all those guys and their aversion against piracy when GTR2 content was ripped into GTR Evo?Where was SimBin and THEIR code of ethics against piracy?GTR2 was not a SimBin owned product. 10tacle Studios and Blimey were also involved and they needed every cent out of it. While 10tacle Studios and Blimey were struggeling, SimBin sales were boosted by porting GTR2 stuff into GTR Evo.Sometimes it’s not a bad idea to stop for a second, THINK where you are going and who makes you go this direction. This differs us from a bunch of dumb Lemmings… at least some of us.

10Tacle were already bankrupt when GTR Evo came out. While I do not advocate piracy even of old titles like GTR2, the pattern of boxed PC game sales is such that sales after the first six months are not significant, so sales of what was then a two year old game at very low prices would not keep anyone afloat.

Where was SimBin and THEIR code of ethics against piracy?

GTR2 was not a SimBin owned product. 10tacle Studios and Blimey were also involved and they needed every cent out of it.

While 10tacle Studios and Blimey were struggeling, SimBin sales were boosted by porting GTR2 stuff into GTR Evo.

Sometimes it’s not a bad idea to stop for a second, THINK where you are going and who makes you go this direction.

This differs us from a bunch of dumb Lemmings… at least some of us.

Montoya: Like I said, I think Ferraris are way to expensive so I might just steal one. Just my way of getting a rebate..right?This has nothing to do with seeing everything black and white, it’s just a basic rule of society – Don’t steal!

Not that I want to beat a dead horse, but this comparison is actually invalid. If you steal a Ferrari, someone is missing his Ferrari, whereas after I’m finished downloading Race On from the piratebay, nobody is missing anything.
See, the whole discussion about piracy, theft, and copyright is totally anachronistic because the concepts that lead to the creation of coprights, patents and trademarks in the past became anachronistic in the digital age.
Patents were introduced to protect the backyard inventor, nowadays they are the biggest asset of multi-billion companies.
The copyright was introduced to encourage authors to share their work with the community, nowadays it is a mega-billion market.
What is copying n bytes of data from source A to destination B? If it would be stealing, then there would be missing something somewhere. There are a lot of countries in the world where copying software or music for private use is completely legal.
Maybe read a bit about Richard Stallman and GNU/Linux to get an idea of what freedom could mean in the digital age.

Lincoln Miner:
Piracy and the “It’s a rip off, it should be free” mentality has become the rallying cry for too many (not all thank goodness) of the younger internet generation.People like you are like a disease.You slowly kill your host over time.

If you were right, then there would be no Linux. Why are thousands of programmers working on Linux? Would you blame them if they would put Microsoft out of business?
Another stereotypical comment from a B&W person.

It’s easy to downplay RSC of late (and not entirely unfair either) but if you have been in the scene for a few years you’ll know what RSC meant in years past so give a bit of credit to the volunteers who worked their asses off there for nearly a decade and who made RSC into a place that took simracing a few steps forward (and sorry to those who were not informed prior to this announcement, guess me and James were just too dishearted and disjointed from the crash to do things by the book.. you deserved better)

Anyways, it’s been a great decade with RSC and I’m both proud and happy to have been a part of it all. Made friends across the globe and through RSC I have met people both online and in real life that have made a mark on me as a simracer and as a person. I would do it ALL over again if given the chance and I have no regrets about spending so much time on a hobby website ;)

The King is dead, but long live Simracing !!

Mojo66: @Montoya: If you think the world is either black or white, then you might call my Race On upgrade pack piracy, definitely. Fortunately the internet is still providing enough freedom (yet) so that an individual can set it’s own rules, up to a certain degree. You know, as a good citizen who is true to the capitalistic system, you might indeed say “if it’s too expensive, then don’t buy it”. But there are other colors between black and white, there are other cultures than the US and there are other systems than capitalism. Widen your mind, dude. 300 years ago, The Pope set the rules, who cares about The Pope nowadays? Anyway, I paid good money for Race 07, then paid for Evo then paid for STCC. I got all of this via Steam, so I’m stuck with it. The Race On update would have cost me €25. The full game, i.e. Race On + Race07+Evo+STCC costs €30. Therefore SimBin honors those who have supported them in the past with a mere €5 rebate. If I get Race On for free thanks to the internet, good capitalist citizens would call that piracy, I call it getting a rebate that is closer to what I would have expected. As I said, not everything in the world is either black or white. Use your brain, broaden your mind, and don’t blindly follow any rules.@TeroD: Whoever wants to run a dedicated server usually gets a free copy the SimBin game in question to do so, you just have to direct your request properly. On first glance, this seems to be a nice draw by SimBin, but it also is a nice cheap way to shut up the forums that are usually associated with those dedicated servers. *This* is the reality dude.

Piracy and the “It’s a rip off, it should be free” mentality has become the rallying cry for too many (not all thank goodness) of the younger internet generation. People like you are like a disease. You slowly kill your host over time. Funny thing is you don’t realize you’re a disease. You think you’re the cure.

My guess is we’ll never see you in iRacing.

Anyways, I will also miss RSC just for the information that was stored there. I have a bunch of bookmarks which are now obsolete, and of course I didn’t bother to save that information myself …

Mojo66:I currently teach physics and mathematics at a local high school. Therefore I feel the responsibility to teach some of the not so smart kids here some political basics.

Makes sense.

Not.

depends on the number of lawyers he got…

“Will they use that same moronic defense as someone who is pulled over after running a red light at a seemingly desolate intersection, only to see a cop pull out of an adjacent convenience store or alley with lights on?”

not the same case, not the same “defense”
if he made no money from that…

“You can live in your society all you want, but if you want to join forums such as RSC then you have to obey their rules. If you don’t like the rules, don’t join. If you do anyways and break the rules, then expect a ban.”

and if you are a hacker, you make the rules, so i think your system has lacks too… even if u follow the forum rules, if you speak a little bit too much they’ll ban you.
i respect forum rules but maybe i didnt remember the rule 1.265.8313.498.7945 page 8 line 62 word 49 stating that what i just said on the 100th forum i suscribe this year was forbidden… so maybe some rules need some “work-around” or are simply outdated, world change, internet change, rules have to change to be adapted to all of that, thats what i think.
after that, i think there is more people here that buy their games than in some other places, simbin cant complain too much, gamers that bought all simbin games could, i think, complain a little bit to get real 2009 3d engine, more cars, more variations, and some gtr2 features like weather, night etc…

and +1 for UncleChuckle

Now, I’m making this very simple so even kids who are not so bright, like Tomas and ermax18 can follow: Capitalism means everything is owned by somebody, regardless if it is a physical object, or Intellectual Property, like a patent. If you lack the funds, you can’t acquire something. Example: you have no income, you die of starvation in capitalism.

Communism is the opposite: everything is owned by everybody. Goods are shared among each other.

I’m dramatically simplifying things, but those of you who are smart enough get the idea. The rest will end up beating Afghanis anyway….Also, real world countries always run a mixture of a number of systems, for example the country I live in is running so called social market economy.

Now, although I live in a country whose political system is social market economy, that doesn’t necessarily mean that my ethics agree 100% with that system. But I try to live as much to my personal ethics as possible, without ending up in jail. This is something which some of previous commenters obviously failed to understand (however, enjoy the freedom of the internet, where even dumbasses like ermax18 can have a word).

Now what has all of the above to do with SimBin and Race On? That’s easy: A number of people specifically mentioned on Nogrip that they only bought GTR Evo because of my GTL mod. Which means SimBin made money because of me. Now even if I would have physically stolen Race On from a shelf of a department store (which I didn’t), the net calculation would be that they owe me money.

Mojo66: P>Oh and BTW anyone who thinks I’m a thief should delete all my mods, thank you!

Sorry to say, but honestly you are just making a big arse out of yourself in this thread, Mojo. And ‘MODs’ ? Come on, really… it’s called ‘Conversions’ at best. Your attempt to dignify that you apparently pirated Race On content, with an argument about everybodys right to make their own set of rules online, is just as hilarious as it is sad. Grow up dude

Hoopstar: So I wonder if I’ll get my donation credited back from RSC..??

I’m sure you will, much like the people that bought apparel etc from Drivers Emporium, never received it and asked for a refund.

UncleChuckle: Never ceases to amaze me in this day and age why RSC is the latest in a long line of sites to be wiped out by a hardware failure. The backup should NEVER EVER EVER be anywhere where a hardware failure will hurt it. Clearly a lot of these hosting companies are run by morons. Hard drives are the weak link in computers. I just lost my 300gb external drive and my entire iTunes library.
Just have to wonder what sort of RAID array the hoster was running, if any. It’s like that flightsim site that got taken down recently because the main site AND the backup were on the same server and a hacker ran riot on them.

I completely agree. I just cannot understand how this could have happened if the two servers had proper RAID-arrays. Four drives would need to fail at same time for this to happen, and that is pretty much impossible. Either the two servers had no RAID or someone really screwed up big time.