Our Policy on Pirated Software We emphasise that the Agadir MacUserGroup (AMUG) does not allow or endorse the movement of pirate software within the realm of any of its meetings, activities or publications. It is not only illegal, but is also unethical and an insult to each and every computer user. Why? Read on. For every piece of software that is pirated, the price of that software supplied legally to the end user is increased. That means that honest people like you and me are paying the price for those guys that are running decks of CD writers - think about it for a moment. When you buy some software, you are buying the right to use that software - not the software itself. This is known as buying a license to use the software. The rights to that software are forever bound to the copyright holder and the software must not be illegally copied. It is a fact that a lot of people don't mind buying copies of pirate software. These people usually have the attitude that they have spent out a lot of money to buy their computer and peripherals so whatever software they can get for free to run on their computer is fine. Most (but not all) of these people are windoze users. How do we know these things? Because we have been around for a long time and have observed what goes on. If you are one of these people and are thinking of becoming a member of the Agadir MacUserGroup then please think again. You would not like it here as you won't be able to get any pirated software. If, on the other hand, you believe in paying for your software, like what you see on this website and would like to become a member of AMUG, then you will be made very welcome. The whole thing with Mac user groups is to be able to meet together, share our knowledge of the Mac together and help each other out with any problems, thus enhancing and extending the Mac user's experience of using their Mac. What a Mac user group is NOT about is sharing pirated software. The Dynamics of Commercial Software The big companies, such as Adobe, Symantec, Quark, Extensis and Corel (and thousands of much smaller companies too) employ armies of software developers and programmers to create commercial software. This takes a long time because it is a complicated procedure. It is a known fact that salaries from jobs in software companies are amongst the highest paid salaries in the world. These developers usually earn in excess of $75,000 a year. I know, because I used to be one of them. These companies only begin to recover their investment when the software product comes out of BETA and hits the marketplace. That's why great commercial software is expensive to buy. I read recently on the Adobe website that software piracy costs them over $700,000,000 (seven hundred million dollars) a year. They are now moving along with software installation security mechanisms to prevent software piracy. ShareWare and FreeWare Here at AMUG we believe in supporting all commercial and shareware development, by paying the required price for commercial software and by paying our required fees to shareware developers. How much better it is then to pay for the shareware that we like; that way everybody concerned benefits from these excellent initiatives that give us such worthwhile software and utilities to use on our Macs. We would exhort you to do the same; otherwise these great programs may not be so forthcoming in the future, and that would be a great loss to our wonderful Macintosh community. Recommended Shareware Please click on the link below to visit our page on recommended shareware and freeware for the Mac. Shareware and Freeware for the Mac Home Agadir Mac User Group 2009 http://www.macagadir.com