This statistics makes me wonder if the same applies to movie downloads. I’m also sure it doesn’t fit with illegal software download, but none the less it seems that measures like cutting Internet access to pirates for life, as they intend to do in France if you’re caught three times, is not good for business, as you’re sending away your best customers.

Illegal file sharing

Of course, big music/software companies always say that they loose X millions from illegal use of their intellectual property, but forget to mention that they measure wrong: if I download music worth of 1000$ it doesn’t mean that I would buy it if I couldn’t download it for free (probably I would buy songs that cost 126$ a year, if this study is true).

The problem I see with illegal pirating is that it’s not really  stealing, nor correct, it’s something in between. I also hope things will come to a middle ground, where everyone will be happy, as it’s clear that stealing does no good to companies, nor does cutting access to those who steal (as they buy more that ‘normal’ users). If you have an idea I would like to hear it.

You might also be interested in what I wrote about online piracy.

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I, for myself, an early Vista adopter (since Release Candidate 2, if I remember well), as I’m always liked new things and as Windows XP was on the market for a long time I’ve wanted something else. But even now, after two years of using Vista I’m still confused sometimes when faced with simple tasks, like File Sharing without a password, which I needed a few days ago and just yesterday I’ve managed to do it right.

So, let’s see what I wanted to do and what stopped me: I have a desktop and a laptop and I was trying to share some files in order to copy them from one PC to another. I’ve browsed to the folder I was going to share, right clicked on it, selected Share and added Everyone as a Reader to the permissions list. Nice and easy, but when I tried to access that computer I was prompted for an user and password, which I didn’t set up anywhere else so end of the road for me.

Yesterday I’ve had a breaktrough, and let’s see what I did in a few easy to follow steps.

Step 1. Left click on the network icon in System Tray (highlighted with red) and you get the picture below.

Step 2. Select Network and Sharing Center, that opens the picture below.

Step 3. Select Passwork protected sharing (underlinded with red in the picture above) and turn it off. That’s all. 

What it does it allows users to connect to your folders without requesting for an username and password. If it’s turned on, in order to view/modify files in shared folders you have to know an username and password that has rights on the computer that shares the files. Usernames with blank passwords don’t work, as the system requires a password.

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