I understand it is illegal for commercial softwares to be downloaded free of charge and used in conjunction with a key generator or a patch that gives the user full functionality.
In Africa a lot of young and upcoming people have a strong interest for programming and building applications for both the web and stand alone programs, whiles they try hard enough to learn and understand complex programming language without any external assistance, when it comes to the point where they need to practice with IDE's like the "phpDesigner", use database tools like the "Navicat", dreamweaver and others, all they get is a free trial but with time it doesnt work anymore because it functionability is limited.
What i have realised from africans and am also faced with is that, they use p2p programs like the bitcomet and the utorrent to download programs that has been carcked by other intelligent programmers to give them all the functions. The funny aspect of it is that it sometimes takes a month to download a 30 mb software just because the internet down here is mostly slow and down. These guys dont use the programs for commercial purposes such as creating a web site with dreamweaver for interested people but instead they learn and make sure they know the ins and outs.
Some get the opportunity to buy these programs but then again they are faced with problems such as they not having a credit card on which to load their monies and make the purchase online.
My question is, should it be considered as an exception for Africans with these problems as not illegal when they download cracked softwares and use them but not for commercial purposes?
I am faced with the same problem and at times i feel guilty because i think its a crime but good people kindly share with me what you think on this subject.
Thank you.
