Not related to what? Law enforcement risks are probably not related. Discouraging piracy outside of Russia, more likely related.
Made by Eugene Roshal, the author of RAR format and WinRar, Far Manager distribution included a text file in Russian that explained how a comrade can do a full unlock in 2 easy steps. Don't know if it helped with sales, but I don't think it actually solved the cracking problem, because Roshal ended up open sourcing it despite of it having a very sizeable following.
I'm paid to create software, not for copies of software. The difference is subtle but very important.
Copyright: literally the right to copy, as if monks haven't been copying books by hand since writing existed - and "Imaginary Property" - a concept invented so they can pretend information is scarce so needs to be owned and hoarded - were invented by lawyers, for the exclusive benefit of lawyers and the people who can afford lawyers, which is to say those already rich in actual scarce resources, as a means to extract value from the working class.
Humans, and future humans are the most valuable potential resource we possess as a species within a universe that is harsh and unforgiving with terrifying real scarcity. And in all my reading, and searching of the heavens and space as far as we can see according to astronomers including the SETI project, there are no gods, and not even any more advanced civilizations to help us. So to me, the idea that we came up with ways to enforce artificial scarcity of information which could save us from eventual extinction is baffling to me. When someone says "we need copyright" I hear "I hate humanity and want it to die". What if copyright turns out to be the Great Filter?
Now, I would respect copyright, but only if two things change. First, it should last no more than 3 years for creative works and the term should be dependent on the field for patents. Second, it should not be transferable.
> and not even any more advanced civilizations to help us
I think there are other civilizations. The universe is unimaginably immense, it's very much improbable that there aren't other planets with life. And, we can't completely disregard the idea that we aren't the first advanced civilization on earth.
> What if copyright turns out to be the Great Filter?
That's unlikely. My bet would be that there are other intelligent civilizations, they're more advanced than us, and they're watching us waiting for us to discover something before allowing any contact. That could be the origin of life, or the theory of everything, or a free/extremely efficient energy source, or some kind of spaceship engine that would allow faster than light travel, or any number of things really. It might be something social, but probably not copyright — world peace maybe? Or some entirely novel type of economy that benefits everyone instead of making the richest even richer and everyone else miserable?
That's not to say that every copyright is good or makes sense, but blanket statements like "piracy is not theft" are either so narrowly scoped to be useless ("it's not theft, it's some other unethical action") or ... wrong?
Not in the 90s, that's for sure.
Steam change this for games market though when they case to russian market with local prices.
I give away free content, so I don't mind if people use the website, but I have no incentive to create topics specific to (third world) users. They have never paid, and from interactions with them, they can't afford their own lives, let alone buying my products for under $10USD.
That's a tad condescending.
There's a life lesson in there, I'm sure.
In the next version of my program, I added a check for system language, and if I detect Russian then I bypass the license key checks, and the program is free to use. This stopped hackers from releasing cracks.