October 10, 2007

Illegal Canadian Downloads Hurting PDA Gaming?

Tip! If you are using your PDA to access sensitive material like your bank account, you need to be extra careful and make sure both your communication and your PDA itself are secured. Don't rely only on the security measures that the bank's website have because they are rarely enough to stop a really good hacker.

A prominent study suggests that Canadians between the ages of 12 and 24 account for 78 percent of illegal MP3 downloads. As this only account for 21 percent of Canada's population, it seems painfully obvious where the blame lies.

The study was conducted by the Canadian Recording Industry Association.

CRIA President Graham Henderson issued the same tired verbose rhetoric about file-swapping harming artists, referring to an "…erosion of respect for intellectual property."

It seems as if that same erosion is occurring on the PDA game download level.

Pocket PC game warez is out in abundance, despite encryption algorithms coded from PDA owner names in an endeavour to pair the game with a specific device.

Being a Canadian (or more specifically, a Torontonian) doesn't mean that I belong to the illegal download subset.

I would sketch a crude Venn Diagram, but that would be insulting to my readership.

Tip! Save money - As technology progresses, most of us will upgrade our cell phone and our PDA. Having just one tool to worry about, your upgrades will be less frequent and at half the price.

Let's just say that I have a bookshelf full of some top rated desktop PC games.

Not to mention that I'm a bit out of the reach of the 12 to 24 age group anyway, provided that someone doesn't supply me with a DeLorean and some wide-eyed talk of heading back to the future.

Maybe a time-travelling Jaguar is a bit more contemporary.

What really irks me right now is Mike Lohsl, the self-touted Mobile Evangelist.

Tip! Full Internet and email capability. This is a standard feature among PDA's today, but it's worth mentioning.

His barbed comment in a forum cited statistics from the survey and made a sarcastic reference to Michael Moore findings of low crime and murder rates in Canada.

Too bad Mr. Moore was referring to the absence violent crime, not pansy MP3 download transgressions.

So, Mr. Lohsl, I strongly suggest that you do your homework.

Let me get one thing straight– downloading PDA game warez is definitely considered theft of intellectual property. Software licenses are a bit more cut and dried than MP3s.

PDA gaming is so much more affordable than desktop PC gaming at the moment, I shudder to think of what PDA warez may have already done to the industry.

Tip! The H6315 is an integrated PDA + cell phone. In the US, this device works perfectly along with the T-Mobile and Cingular networks.

I'm just not ready to shell out $80.00CDN for a new Pocket PC adventure game release five years from now.

I'm not into public service announcements, but rather supporting the best of our Pocket PC game makers and keeping the more creative of them in business.

Myst Pocket PC edition, anyone?

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Damian Julien is a Pocket PC gaming authority and long time general gaming hobbyist and reviewer.

He is an IT specialist by trade and has posted numerous articles on Pocket PC emulators, gaming and trends in the industry.

Tip! Make sure what brand of PDA you want. If you already own a PDA - that is easy.

http://www.pdagameguide.com/

Filed under PDA by John