Rosetta Stone for learning Arabic? And is pirating a copy to learn a sin?
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Just wondering if anybody has any experiences with learning Arabic with Rosetta Stone, or any other languages.
I got a copy yesterday, and started using it... It seems like I'm learning a lot! I really like how it teaches you without using English.. So you don't affiliate words with English words, you affiliate them with thoughts, like learning a first language.
Oh yeah, if anybody wants to know how to get a copy of the program for free, including all 3 language packs, just let me know. I don't consider pirating this program to be wrong, because I believe Allah would sanction it for people to learn Arabic. I have also heard hadith which claim that Muhammad said he would release slave from war if they taught 10 Arabs how to read. I think it's important to learn Arabic, and the $600 price tag is ridiculous (and I'm dead broke, no job). What do you think? Am I wrong?
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The only sin I see is charging $600 for software, brother. In fact if there is a sin worth using stoning as a punishment....
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The only sin I see is charging $600 for software, brother. In fact if there is a sin worth using stoning as a punishment....
rotfl rotfl laugh laugh
Well, I guess that's why they call it Rosetta Stone.
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Salaam Seattletruth,
the origins of copyright and royalties are fraudulent in any case, the entire concept of getting paid endlessly for no effort is usury, so have no worries at all about copying anything, if I create a path at work, I don't expect everyone who walks on the path, I don't own but created, to pay me each time they use it, you'd think me mad, but someone spends an afternoon in a music studio and expects to be paid each time their song is played, or creates software and hike the price to $600, when they could provide the software for next to nothing and still make money, as it costs them nothing to reproduce, only to originally produce, they all wish to make vast amounts of money for no work.
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go for it, i'll have a copy ;D
edit please contact this member for such information through PM. Thanks.
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Stealing is theft. Theft is immoral. Denying someone their legal right to payment is theft.
Justify it away if you wish. Just remember to not get angry when someone steals from you!
Salaam Seattletruth,
the origins of copyright and royalties are fraudulent in any case, the entire concept of getting paid endlessly for no effort is usury, so have no worries at all about copying anything, if I create a path at work, I don't expect everyone who walks on the path, I don't own but created, to pay me each time they use it, you'd think me mad, but someone spends an afternoon in a music studio and expects to be paid each time their song is played, or creates software and hike the price to $600, when they could provide the software for next to nothing and still make money, as it costs them nothing to reproduce, only to originally produce, they all wish to make vast amounts of money for no work.
That is just lies. Internet and data charges are costly. Support and customer care is costly as well as skilled labour. As well as developing the next version and so on. You are in a dream if you think just because it is data it is free. Go and provide your goods and services for free and then come back and moralise. And it is quite false to label something as usury just to justify your views. Usury is interest.
Sorry I develop software for a living.
And I might add, don't use the site for illegal commerce it could actually bring the site into disrepute.
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Stealing is theft. Theft is immoral. Denying someone their legal right to payment is theft.
Justify it away if you wish. Just remember to not get angry when someone steals from you!
That is just lies. Internet and data charges are costly. Support and customer care is costly as well as skilled labour. As well as developing the next version and so on. You are in a dream if you think just because it is data it is free. Go and provide your goods and services for free and then come back and moralise. And it is quite false to label something as usury just to justify your views. Usury is interest.
Sorry I develop software for a living.
And I might add, don't use the site for illegal commerce it could actually bring the site into disrepute.
Would I have bought the software if I couldn't pirate it? No. I'm dead broke. I wouldn't have given them a red cent.
Are they missing something they formally had? No.
Bottom line is that if I didn't download it, I would have not given them a penny. They aren't missing anything. No harm done.. No need for justification.
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Would I have bought the software if I couldn't pirate it? No. I'm dead broke. I wouldn't have given them a red cent.
Are they missing something they formally had? No.
Bottom line is that if I didn't download it, I would have not given them a penny. They aren't missing anything. No harm done.. No need for justification.
Oh well it's your call. Just don't bring Free Minds into disrepute by using it to disseminate software illegally.
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Well anyway disregarding theft and all that, is the program actually good? do you need any arabic to use it?
The program is great.. You dont have to know any arabic first.. But it only teaches you in Arabic. It's confusing at first but you start to catch on..
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Salaam Wootah,
it is not expensive to create things, it only becomes expensive when you pay a lead actor $20,000,000 to appear in a movie, software again isn't expensive to create, Linux for example is an operating system created absolutely free, and all the additional software to compliment it has been created absolutely free, by people who beleive copy right is a crime, as it is, only a confused mind would think charging for nothing was fair, a tax imposed without just cause or reason.
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Salaam Wootah,
it is not expensive to create things, it only becomes expensive when you pay a lead actor $20,000,000 to appear in a movie, software again isn't expensive to create, Linux for example is an operating system created absolutely free, and all the additional software to compliment it has been created absolutely free, by people who beleive copy right is a crime, as it is, only a confused mind would think charging for nothing was fair, a tax imposed without just cause or reason.
Hi,
I wouldn't think justifying theft to be fruitful. Nearly every time the argument boils down to jealousy. Take acting, your example, it is not your or my business what someone wants to pay someone else. Linux is an OS that people offer for free that is there prerogative to do so.
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Salaam Wootah,
it is not expensive to create things, it only becomes expensive when you pay a lead actor $20,000,000 to appear in a movie, software again isn't expensive to create, Linux for example is an operating system created absolutely free, and all the additional software to compliment it has been created absolutely free, by people who beleive copy right is a crime, as it is, only a confused mind would think charging for nothing was fair, a tax imposed without just cause or reason.
While I don't disagree with the main thrust of your point, I feel a need to clear up a common misconception here. As someone who used to be very active in developing free software, every one of the licenses commonly used relies directly on copyright law to preserve their open nature. This includes the GPL, LGPL, BSD, MIT, etc. Copyright is unfortunately a necessary evil, even if we disagree with all the terms of current copyright laws.
That said, there is NO justification for holding any software up for ransom with a $600 price tag. The production costs have paid for themselves thousands of times over at this point, and media and distribution do not cost that much.
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then how should the developpers be paid
programming is not easy
programming is not acting
programming is hard and takes time
if you think you can ask a programmer to do programs for free without anything in return, you are wrong
unless said programmer could afford it... but i don't know many programmers that spend 3 or 4 years studying programming to end up making stuff for free
it's a job like any other, so how would the developpers be paid? they are not slavesnow the price tag, that's a whole different matter
Would I have bought the software if I couldn't pirate it? No. I'm dead broke. I wouldn't have given them a red cent.
Are they missing something they formally had? No.
Bottom line is that if I didn't download it, I would have not given them a penny. They aren't missing anything. No harm done.. No need for justification.
you would still be using their software without paying, but it's their call, should they really sell it 600 $? knowledge cost a lot of money with them
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That said, there is NO justification for holding any software up for ransom with a $600 price tag. The production costs have paid for themselves thousands of times over at this point, and media and distribution do not cost that much.
I don't understand why anything has to be justified. If someone wants to sell something they own for 600 dollars then let them. Buy it or don't buy it. End of story. The market will decide if the price is value or not.
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Piracy is not illegal in Maldives.
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Check your local library. When I lived in Phoenix, with a public library card (which was free, of course) I was not only able to check out Rosetta Stone cd's, but the library system actually had a website with all the Rosetta Stone packs loaded onto it. You could log on (again, for free) and legally use any of them. Your local library might be the same.
As far as the content, RS is a good way to learn how to be conversational in a language, in a relatively short period of time. Don't expect high-level study though. I messed around with the Arabic RS and was not really impressed. I certainly wouldn't go into it thinking that it'll make you somehow better at understanding the quran, as (If I recall correctly) it doesn't teach you rules of grammar, etc. It simply teaches you how to speak in everyday situations with natives.
I tried the Farsi RS (a language I speak fluently) for a bit, as a gauge. It didn't really impress me much.
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Stealing is theft. Theft is immoral. Denying someone their legal right to payment is theft.
It might be illegal but that has no bearing on whether it is right or wrong. The question is whether or not it is in fact theft. Since any definition of theft would have to involve the taking of someone else's property, you would have to redefine theft to mean controlling what others do with their own property, on the premise that it deprives the "originator" of future income. In that case any sharing of any kind should be illegal since it would deprive a producer of that good some future income. This whole argument comes down to the concept of "intellectual property"; the logical conclusion of "intellectual property" is that it dictates what someone can and cannot do with their own real property; in other words these two types of "properties" are mutually inconsistent. Moreover, why not take "IP" to its logical conclusions the man (and his descendants) who first decided to build his home out of wood should be receiving royalty payments from everyone else. Of course, "IP" advocates will never agree to this, since in order to keep their state granted criminal monopoly privileges they must "draw the line" at some arbitrary point. Finally, the reality of "IP" is definitely usurious, since it is equivalent to selling your shares in a company, but demanding to be paid the dividend, or selling your property but still demanding to receive rents from it. Selling anything is transferring ownership, once the buyer believes he owns the product in question, he is paying for a future stream of income (in the case of assets) or utility in general. The alternative is known as renting, and "IP" advocates purposely confuse these two ideas in order to reap the gains of selling their products, while demanding to have final say over its use. Well you cannot have it both ways, if you want to rent out the use of your products then do so, and you will receive a lower price for it. Don't hide behind implied legalisms and small print.
Go and provide your goods and services for free and then come back and moralise. And it is quite false to label something as usury just to justify your views. Usury is interest.
Actually usury just means making money off the use of money, so it is not simply about "interest". More to the point though, offer your products in an honest manner, don't act like you're selling something when in fact you are renting out its use. No one's forcing you to "provide" anything for free, this is like the drug companies using patents and the FDA to protect them from generics because it is "so costly" to develop these drugs....so don't develop them, if consumers really demand these pharmaceuticals they will be willing to pay a market premium for them, and the generics will be out of business; remember it's not in the consumer's interest for the producer of what he wants to stop producing.