Based on a true experience.
The way they sell pirated stuffs in Hong Kong has changed dramatically, stepping just one step ahead of our custom's effort to do their job. If you want to (and you don't want to. Legal software and music aren't THAT expensive), you'd go to one of these pirated CD stores. They never really move, which is amazing because everyone knows where they are. How hard is it for the custom to send a few men to these spots everyday right?
So where was I? ok. You go to these stores and see all these software / music / movie covers on the wall, each tagged with a number. you grab a pencil and paper (courtesy of the pirates), copy down the numbers for the stuffs you want. Go to the "counter", which is usually a middle aged guy smoking in the middle of the room with a lot of money on his hand. You give him the paper, pay for the stuffs, and he tells you to come back in 2 hours.
Two hours? Yes you read that right. What they do is gather a certain number of purchase, bring them up to another location where they have their machines, and start copying the CD / DVD for the customers. It taks a while.
And they do this so that they don't have any live inventory on site even if the police come running in for a bust.
It's been a while since I'd done any illegal purchase, after I bought my ibook. But I was craving to try visual studio .net, didn't feel like buying a copy, so I was down there shopping.
Everything went well, and I was waiting to get my copy of VS.net and Half Life 2 (yeah, a little bit of entertainment can't hurt), when they have to close down because the police are apparently on their way.
Another half an hour or so, they openned up. But they told me to reselect what I purchased and the wait is for another 2 hours.
Fvck that. My time is more valuable than that. So I went upstairs to get myself a legal copy of Half life 2, gave up the HK$50 dollars I spent on the lesson, and swore never to do that again. Visual Studio .net isn't THAT important.
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