Piracy, warez and You.

[MannyPR]

I have visited, downloaded and installed software from warez sites.

But every single program that is installed on my device has been registered(PocketInformant included), and many more that are not installed as well because they either bog down my system or over the years they have become pure junk. Good product development requires time and time is money that's the end of it. Support your developers! =D>

I stopped buying from Handango though, got tired of their software download crap especially after they keep 40% of the software sale. I buy from developer website if possible, better for them, better for me.

[prox]

Im guilty.. of downloading software, that should be paid for but can you really afford to keep paying for upgrades why would you pay for the same program twice ? i know its and up grade but if i paid for it once im not paying for the up grade thats just how i feel...

[neilson]

I believe that if warez are popular enough on a program, then it ought to be on the users to compete headon with said program by creating an open source project that will compete with it.

Do this enough times with enough programs and you will see those popular warez featured programs become cheaper, free, or handed off from companies to the open source domain.

Food for thought, why rely on 1 developer to work on a program when you can rely on anyone and everyone to have the ability to download and tweak a program with no harm?

[alabij]

I like it how a lot of people are trying or have tried to rationalize why they don't pay(steal0 software. It's repulsive and sickening, sorry to say. If you don't pay for something you are stealing it. I don't care whether MS didn't add it to their OS or not. Someone worked hard for that product. They can charge whatever price they deem fit.

Don't get me wrong. I've downloaded songs in the past without paying during the napstar days. Now I barley buy or download music since its all crap out there.

However, lets just be honest. Call a spade a spade. We are stealing and it is wrong.

[neilson]

Originally Posted by alabij

I like it how a lot of people are trying or have tried to rationalize why they don't pay(steal0 software. It's repulsive and sickening, sorry to say. If you don't pay for something you are stealing it. I don't care whether MS didn't add it to their OS or not. Someone worked hard for that product. They can charge whatever price they deem fit.

Don't get me wrong. I've downloaded songs in the past without paying during the napstar days. Now I barley buy or download music since its all crap out there.

However, lets just be honest. Call a spade a spade. We are stealing and it is wrong.

Which is why if we like a program so much but don't want to pay for it, figure out the guts of the program, post the source code online, and let everyone work on it to build the program as FREE open source software.

That'll put a dent in the overpricing of certain software.

[michaelj1981]

seriously i think piracy does alot of good to then just bad, example i used to download software all the time but decided to stop doing that know i try to buy the software i've downloaded but better and more effient same with music. But i feel in this digital age of digitial download example for a software for my phone cost me 50.00 is stupid over priced, or 300. or even 20.00 just to download a program. Im more luckly to buy something at 5.95, 10.95 or 19.95 for a digital download, now if i order it and requires a box, and cd and instructions, mailing then the price jumps. I think these companys do get what they deserve for being overly greedy, but i understand that people work hard at this and deserve to get paid, but like i said before paying 50.00 for a software that u download were really nothing is exchange is kinda out there. Now if i can't find it for free legally or at a decent price i dont buy it and i wont download it either. And these people lost my business and im sure im not the only person that feels this way.

[SomeoneE1se]

Originally Posted by Malatesta

Just b/c I think it's important and it's been posted everywhere. Support your developers!

Feel free to discuss. --Mal
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Open Letter from Alex Kac, CEO/Founder WebIS


We thought we should post this plea in the entire original version to our readers:

Myself and a band of software devs here have found a *very* large pirate warez site which I will not link to. They have cracks for almost everything imaginable. They have our software on there with download ratios in the TENS of THOUSANDS. In many cases I find more downloads of our software on the warez site than I see on our own download servers. I’ve calculated that even if we only lost 10% of those downloads that could have been sales its a pretty major hit.

The fact is that companies like ours and most other WinMobile devs operate on a shoestring budget. Most of our software sells at a break-even point, some at a loss until it breaks even 2-4 years after introduction. For the amount of money I’ve “lost” I could have *easily* created a Pocket Informant for Desktop or BlackBerry or heck other major applications or improvements. I could have hired an extremely high paid developer for a year or two averagely paid ones. For a company that has only 3 full time developers that’s a fairly major loss.

The fact is that piracy hurts those who pirate. They want our software obviously. Some just use it for a “test”, but we offer a two week trial and with a bit of work you can probably get 2-3 months free usage of our products a year. And we don’t sell for a large amount of money. Just wait and you can usually get our software for a steal - without actually stealing. I don’t think paying $9.95 is such a huge issue if you need an app like VoiceMinder. Its barely a lunch and drink. But the reason piracy hurts those who pirate is because they are like vampires slowly killing the company that they are sucking the applications off of.

Who here would care if there was never a VoiceMinder, FlexWallet, FlexMail, or Pocket Informant upgrade again? I have personally had fleeting thoughts of selling WebIS or just closing it down because even as this market has grown the software market has not and while I’m not naive enough to think its *all* about piracy, I know that it just makes me depressed. And no, we’re not closing down and yes there will be major upgrades of everything. And yes, piracy has been part of the software business from the very beginning but that doesn’t mean I can’t ask you to stop.

And therein lies my plea to you. If you actually use our software please pay for it. When you don’t you personally are contributing to the financial downfall of a bunch of people who are working hard to make good quality software for you. If you don’t want to think of piracy as theft, think of it as stiffing us. Would you stiff the waiter of a tip? How about the guy who built your house? How about the plumber or the electrician? Or the Taxi cab driver? And yes, software does cost money to make. I pay electric bills, Microsoft dues, travel expenses to meet with MS devs, trade shows, advertising, not to mention salaries. So if you wouldn’t stiff the waiter at your favorite restaurant his 15% (or 10% if you’re money concious) tip, why stiff us the few bucks we ask?

WebIS has always been extremely liberal in our licensing as well. We don’t use activation (we’ve thought about it), we don’t lock our license to your username, we don’t do anything to make licensing hard. We let you run our software on as many devices that you personally use and we use the honor system. Heck, we even make 2-3 versions of our software in most cases and let you pay for one and get them all.

So that’s all. Hope you guys have a great day!

Alex Kac, CEO/Founder Web IS

may I quote you on another forum?

[Pibe38]

Originally Posted by SomeoneE1se

may I quote you on another forum?

Malatesta was quoting that developer from somewhere else, I guess it shouldn't be a problem, but if you want to be sure you should contact Alex Kac from Web IS.

[Perasite]

On this issue, my stuff is freeware. The code is even written in plain text files when you do the installation. I would still be offended if someone took my stuff and claimed it to be their's. In the same way, if I charged a fair amount for a product that I had poured my time and effort into and then some schmuck decided to warez it instead of supporting my efforts, then I'd be pissed. The stuff I've written so far is small and uses a lot of other peoples help (with their permission and credit given) so I don't charge. When it grows and begins to require more time, I would hope that people are willing to pay a small charge for the use of the software.

[PatrickS]

As someone else has said, the rationalization is rampant... and totally wrong. If, in your opinion, the developer is charging too much for a piece of software, then you have a great option: you don't buy it and you don't use it. Basically, a vendor asks you to make a decision: Is it more valuable to you to use my item, or is it more valuable to you to keep the money I'm asking? If it is the former, you buy it. If the latter, you walk away. Until people start believing that stealing that GPS from Best Buy and stealing software is actually the same, those of us who believe intellectual property is, in fact, property , will continue to be ed by those who don't.