ChessBase Light

[Nick Murphy]

I recommend downloading for free chess programs.
SURELY there is some freedom of speech here!
What I'm about to say is not hateful, racist ... yada, yada, yada ...
but it is considered a bit of a curse word on other chess forums... (why?)
here goes...

"Torrents".

Let's be clear - downloading free chess programs via torrents is NOT illegal. Downloading commercial programs without paying for them via torrents IS.

There's some good freeware stuff out there, so not really any need to download illegally.

[Ljubica Lazarevic]

But I am just worried for a unsuccessful person (with therefore not much money), who plays chess - there are many, many, many such people. What if this chess player starts spending such large amounts of money (£30 per FritzTrainer DVD)? Perhaps his obsession with chess study goes too far, and his finances are in trouble? I would feel very sorry for such a person who cannot afford a luxury like this DVD (I believe that all ChessBase DVDs are vastly overpriced).

This is a throughly rediculous reason for stealing. It would concern me that someone would stoop as low as to use that to justify their reasoning for this underhanded behaviour.

Stealing is stealing, even if you don't have the physical object in your hand to prove your lose morals.

[Ian Thompson]

But I am just worried for a unsuccessful person (with therefore not much money), who plays chess - there are many, many, many such people. What if this chess player starts spending such large amounts of money (£30 per FritzTrainer DVD)? Perhaps his obsession with chess study goes too far, and his finances are in trouble? I would feel very sorry for such a person who cannot afford a luxury like this DVD (I believe that all ChessBase DVDs are vastly overpriced). If there is a way to download the product, why not inform people? It pains me to think of people spending good money for improvement at a board game, like Scrabble, Snakes and Ladders or Chess (of course I exaggerate).

If its OK for someone to download pirated DVDs because they can't afford to buy them, would you say it is also alright for someone who cannot afford it to shoplift them? If not, what's the difference (other than the risk of getting caught)?

[Peter Lalic]

This is a throughly rediculous reason for stealing.

You do not understand. Let me clear this up... I have not yet given my reason for "stealing" (a.k.a. downloading via torrents). But I am not going to lie about my reason, and here it is: I do not want to waste money on something I can get for free. I am insulted that you insinuated I am a liar. I am not; I just told you the truth.

But when you quoted me on this:

But I am just worried for a unsuccessful person (with therefore not much money), who plays chess - there are many, many, many such people. What if this chess player starts spending such large amounts of money (£30 per FritzTrainer DVD)? Perhaps his obsession with chess study goes too far, and his finances are in trouble? I would feel very sorry for such a person who cannot afford a luxury like this DVD (I believe that all ChessBase DVDs are vastly overpriced).

You thought this was my explanation for stealing. Of course it is not!
This is my explanation for informing people (poorer people) of the ability to download things for free!
I do not want these people to waste money, so I just mention that they can save themselves from poverty by not wasting £30 on a single chess DVD. Instead, I suggest - merely suggest - downloading via torrents. That is all.

[IM Jack Rudd]

But I am just worried for a unsuccessful person (with therefore not much money), who plays chess - there are many, many, many such people. What if this chess player starts spending such large amounts of money (£30 per FritzTrainer DVD)? Perhaps his obsession with chess study goes too far, and his finances are in trouble? I would feel very sorry for such a person who cannot afford a luxury like this DVD (I believe that all ChessBase DVDs are vastly overpriced). If there is a way to download the product, why not inform people? It pains me to think of people spending good money for improvement at a board game, like Scrabble, Snakes and Ladders or Chess (of course I exaggerate).

If its OK for someone to download pirated DVDs because they can't afford to buy them, would you say it is also alright for someone who cannot afford it to shoplift them? If not, what's the difference (other than the risk of getting caught)?

The difference is that if you shoplift, the original owner no longer has his DVD. If you pirate, he does. And the law recognises the difference to the extent that copyright infringement is not part of the Theft Act.

[Ljubica Lazarevic]

The difference is that if you shoplift, the original owner no longer has his DVD. If you pirate, he does.

I think the key difference between pirating and theft is that theft directly affects the stockist of the physical item. Pirating affects the originator/producer of the good. If the item that has been pirated in question would have been bought if it could not be copied/downloaded, it is stealing from the person who produced the good.

[Ian Thompson]

The difference is that if you shoplift, the original owner no longer has his DVD. If you pirate, he does.

I think the key difference between pirating and theft is that theft directly affects the stockist of the physical item. Pirating affects the originator/producer of the good. If the item that has been pirated in question would have been bought if it could not be copied/downloaded, it is stealing from the person who produced the good.

I think there's a more important difference than this. The risk of piracy is a disincentive to produce a DVD in the first place. Where feasible, it results in material being produced in other formats that are uneconomic to pirate (e.g. printed books). It is a lot easier to go through game analysis on a board on a computer screen than it is to follow it in a book. All chess players lose out because publishers choose not to publish DVDs due to the piracy losses they think they would suffer.

[Brian Towers]

Too late to help the original poster but this is my approach to the problem.

I have Chessbase 7 and Fritz 8, both paid for many years ago. The original computer I had them installed on was passed on to one of my kids (after uninstalling stuff they weren't interested in like Fritz, Chessbase, Visual Studio, SQL Server, Eclipse, Netbeans etc., etc) and then no doubt later on thrown away. Something similar has happened to several computers inbetween, however I still have these programs running on my latest laptop. I didn't reinstall them each time because I suspect they may phone home and disable reinstallation and as the original poster pointed out Chessbase appear to be unhelpful money-grabbing barstewards. Whether they are or not I assumed they would be and my reinstallation process consists of copying the Chessbase directory and updating the registry accordingly.

To update the registry I first copied the registry entries / hives containing "Chessbase" to several .reg files. Then I edited these files to reflect where I was going to copy the files to, e.g. my last but one computer had them installed on G:\Program Files\ because it had 3 different operating systems installed and the Windows version was 32 bit. My laptop just has one humungous hard drive (more or less) so this becomes C:\ProgramFiles\ (separate from "Program Files" and "Program Files (x86) because I have my own directory for programs I "install" by just copying files like PFE32, Notepad2, etc.) Finally I execute the .reg files which updates the registry.

Of course the programs sometimes ask to "see" the original CDs but since I bought them this isn't a problem. When I can be bothered I will create a couple of virtual partitions with the contents of the CDs and then I can just point the programs to these.

[Brian Towers]

Wanted to ask some other people their opinion on what should I do. Give up on Chessbase and try another program; Take their offer of a reduced ChessBase Light 2009 Premium; or fight for a free replacement of Chess Base Light Premium.

Again, I'm rather late with this, but if anybody really does want the old Chessbase light you can get it here - http://web.archive.org/web/200908221305 ... ewsid=5654. Note that web.archive.org is a very useful site which basically seems to have archived large useful chunks of the web over time. So, for instance, if you want access to old ChessCafe.com articles which have now disappeared behind a paywall, the old free versions are available here - https://web.archive.org/web/20141028184 ... chives.htm

I suspect that unless you must have cbv compatibility you would be better served by downloading ChessDB which is free and probably better than the latest Chessbase lite, not least because you are not limited as to number of games. Available here - http://chessdb.sourceforge.net/