Living in the Land of Piracy

I'm sitting here at an internet cafe in north Kiev and I'm a little steamed. Here in my bag is a copy of Adobe Premier CS3, a $200 program for editing digital video. And I got it for 50 grevna, make that $11 or so. Give you two guesses about how I got it for so cheap.

I've been trying for months to get Adobe Premier. Annoyed that I left the States last spring with a new video camera but no Adobe software for editing. Another story entirely.

Next step to the Adobe site to purchase and download on line. No go even after numerous phone calls to Adobe and such. Have to get a real copy mailed from Moscow, was the bottom line.

Thought surely available locally in Rostov. Sergey SuperComputer Whiz who has been able to solve any computer problem I've managed to come up with (including a big saucepan falling off a top shelf, landing on my computer and cracking the motherboard - a feat not easily done but it is related to dragging the laptop into the kitchen to listen to programs in there. Trust me on this story.) could find me a copy. He said he could. He said he would. Oh but alas, in the end Sergey said no such program in Rostov, have to order it from . . . Moscow. He had lots of plans for getting that done. Alas, super hero is only human. Disappointed, of course, I am.

Left Rostov 2 wks ago, with no Adobe Premier software. Decided, hey - Kiev's a big city. Let's get it there. So here I am. Have checked several major computer retailers and. . . so far, no finding much licensed software at all. I'm starting to understand what brother Andrey was telling me last week, it's basically impossible to find licensed software here. . .

I asked the guy at the market, do you not have a licensed copy?

No. And that would cost you $1,000 anyway.

That's odd, I thought. According to the Adobe website, the price for Adobe Premier (home version) is around $200; the pro version is around $1,000 as I recall. So might be good to get your facts straight, Mr Pirate, I thought.

So, guess next time I'm in the US, or have a reliable way of getting a copy transported from there to here, I'll ge myself a real copy of Adobe Premier. In the meantime, I've got this flimsy copy for a song. And of course no documentation, printed instructions. Mr Pirate promised that there were no viruses and stuff on the disk. But I wonder. After all, if he can't keep the story straight about the cost of the licensed version, can he be trusted that no malicious virus-y stuff has been added for free too?

So does all this make me a pirate?

How about you dear blog readers. Your experiences with real, live pirates. No worries of course. It's just between the two of us here. And anybody else who happens along. =)