Piracy, warez and You.

[tbhausen]

Open Office wasn't available all the years your brother needed, and thus stole, Office. And if you were a developer seeing your work stolen rather than purchased, you wouldn't believe pirates have "very little impact on the market"... Weak rationalization all around.

Todd/Indy

Originally Posted by badutahboy

You're totally wrong. Piracy has very little impact on the market, because most "pirates" would use a different program or go without if they couldn't pirate it... Just as an example, my brother used a pirated version of office for years and years, until he was put in a position where he needed a legit copy. Rather than buy it, he simply switched to open office.

Obviously there are people who'd still buy something, but pirate because it's free, but those people are a relatively small minority. Since pirates are a significant minority of the overall computer population, you're now talking about a minority of a minority who are actually "hurting" the software companies.

[badutahboy]

Originally Posted by tbhausen

Open Office wasn't available all the years your brother needed, and thus stole, Office. And if you were a developer seeing your work stolen rather than purchased, you wouldn't believe pirates have "very little impact on the market"... Weak rationalization all around.

Todd/Indy

Actually, openoffice, or it's predecessor staroffice WERE available for most of the time he was pirating microsoft office. Additionally, there have always been other alternatives..

As for your comments about "if I was a developer"... EVERYONE, in every industry has had their work stolen, copied, or used without permission. I've had far worse happen to me than someone who wouldn't pay for my software anyway downloading a stolen version. That's just part of life.

Again, Piracy is a simple part of a developer's life, just like theft is part of a storeowner's life. There's no use complaining about it, because there's no way to stop it. The people who are "victimizing" you most likely would never buy your product in the first place.

I do like the fact that you never remotely addressed the meat of my post.. That being that pirates are a minority of the computing public, and only a very small minority of pirates are people who do it because they're too cheap to buy a program that they actually NEED.. the only people who are hurting the developers are a minority of the minority of computer owners.

[[sammich]]

Originally Posted by badutahboy

only a very small minority of pirates are people who do it because they're too cheap to buy a program that they actually NEED.. the only people who are hurting the developers are a minority of the minority of computer owners.

Exactly! If you think about it, how many people know how to use a computer well? How many know how to use one well enough to be familiar with torrents, trackers, and P2P, .nfo's, keygens, risks that come with piracy (viruses, hackers etc)?

Photoshop is an excellent example. People are NOT going to spend $1500 on software that they don't need. They might use it once or twice, but they aren't going to pay that price in the first place! Only those who truly know the potential of the program and need it for their hobby/field of work will pay for it.

[tbhausen]

Originally Posted by badutahboy

I do like the fact that you never remotely addressed the meat of my post.. That being that pirates are a minority of the computing public, and only a very small minority of pirates are people who do it because they're too cheap to buy a program that they actually NEED.. the only people who are hurting the developers are a minority of the minority of computer owners.

Murderers are a minority of the population, too. That justification was too weak, on its face, to merit response--but since you asked...

Todd/Indy

[SomeGuyMMS]

Originally Posted by badutahboy

Again, Piracy is a simple part of a developer's life, just like theft is part of a storeowner's life. There's no use complaining about it, because there's no way to stop it. The people who are "victimizing" you most likely would never buy your product in the first place.

All software developers have to right to complain and will continue to complain. Thats hard earned money you are taking from their children. Soon all apps will be web-based, this will help prevent users from pirating.

Originally Posted by badutahboy

I do like the fact that you never remotely addressed the meat of my post.. That being that pirates are a minority of the computing public, and only a very small minority of pirates are people who do it because they're too cheap to buy a program that they actually NEED.. the only people who are hurting the developers are a minority of the minority of computer owners.

This maybe the case with large companies like Microsoft and Adobe, but us small guys need every sale that we can get. Companies that develop apps for PDAs are generally small in size and only charge $5-$10 for their apps. This is because that is what the market can bare. I'm sure companies like Resco can not survive off of selling applications alone. And I'm sure it is because you can go to the Newsgroups and download every Apllication that sell.

Take Arcsoft's MMS for example, it was not licensed to Sprint users, but it was still installed on every Windows Mobile device Sprint users had. That is well more than a minority of users.

[badutahboy]

Originally Posted by tbhausen

Murderers are a minority of the population, too. That justification was too weak, on its face, to merit response--but since you asked...

Todd/Indy

I wasn't justifying piracy.. I was belittling the complaints that piracy kills developers.

[badutahboy]

Originally Posted by SomeGuyMMS

All software developers have to right to complain and will continue to complain. Thats hard earned money you are taking from their children. Soon all apps will be web-based, this will help prevent users from pirating.

I never said they don't have the right to complain, I just said that it's futile. As hard as people try to protect their software, there will always be someone smart enough to crack it... Unless you require web validation every launch, it's pretty impossible to protect yourself, and if you require that kind of web validation, you're going to alienate your client base because of privacy issues, system resource demands, validation glitches, etc.

Again, I'm not condoning piracy for the most part. I'm simply stating that it's not nearly the problem some people try to make it out to be. Most developers would like you to believe that 1 out of 3 computers is LOADED with pirated software, when the real numbers are probably more like 1 out of 100 or even fewer.

Originally Posted by SomeGuyMMS

This maybe the case with large companies like Microsoft and Adobe, but us small guys need every sale that we can get. Companies that develop apps for PDAs are generally small in size and only charge $5-$10 for their apps. This is because that is what the market can bare. I'm sure companies like Resco can not survive off of selling applications alone. And I'm sure it is because you can go to the Newsgroups and download every Apllication that sell.

Take Arcsoft's MMS for example, it was not licensed to Sprint users, but it was still installed on every Windows Mobile device Sprint users had. That is well more than a minority of users.

Here's the problem i see with this logic... guys like you aren't developing apps which are intended for widespread distribution. You're writing apps which are aimed at a fairly small group of users. Clearly, anytime you enter into a niche marketplace, your risks go up, and in the case of computer programming, piracy is going to be a big problem when your niche is improving something for a group of people who are very tech smart. A great example of this is ultimatelauncher. It's too complicated for joe Schmuck to want to figure out, and it's core group of users are people who are smart enough to find a crack for it. I'll bet that developer has taken a beating on his product.

As for your arcsoft example, do you really think that a majority of Sprint PocketPC users had it installed? Again, I'd bet it was a fairly small minority of sprint Users who had it. Bear in mind, the people on these boards, and even the people on every pocketpc/sprint/pda forum on the net make up only a fraction of sprints pocketpc clientele. Just as a quick example, a few weeks ago I was in a sprint store for about an hour.. during that time, they sold 4 moguls, yet I have NEVER come across another sprint mogul user from Utah on any of the message boards I post on... Even if that hour was totally uncharacteristic, it still shows you how small of a percentage of their clientele frequent any of these boards.

Finally, one of the core complaints in this thread is that software (particularly WM software) is overpriced. Very few software items are priced under $15, and some of them are downright CRAZY, charging $40-50+ for pocketpc apps that really aren't anything special. As someone said, if a piece of software for their PDA is priced under $15, they don't even bother looking for a crack, because it's such a small amount of money that it's not worth risking a virus or a half hour search.. The problem comes from the people who think their software is worth far more than it's worth, and those are the folks who are the biggest victims of piracy (specifically the two companies you mentioned).

[ironliver316]

I'd have to agree with badutahboy. I haven't paid for any of the apps or games on my ppc, but if there weren't piracy and torrents or any other ways to get them for free, I still wouldn't buy them. It really wouldn't hurt me not to have them, and the devs still wouldn't have made any profit from me. And I'm sure most people who do it are the same. And like it's been mentioned plenty of times, there are free alternatives for most anyway.

In a perfect world, where everyone has plenty of extra cash, gas doesn't cost $4 plus a gallon, and the majority of the population isn't living paycheck to paycheck, then there wouldn't be a piracy issue. But it's not a perfect world. We live in a world where Keanu Reeves made $185 million off the last 2 Matrix films while the average visual effects person, who is just as responsible for the films' success, makes $53,000 a year. That's just the way it is.

So there's really only 3 things developers can do.

1. Just keep doing what there doing now.

2. Try lowering there prices. You drop a $35 program down to $5, I guarantee you'd get 10 times more sales. Do the math. Not only would most piraters see less reason to steal it, but it would also look a lot more appealing to the average joe who wouldn't give it a second look with the $35 price tag.

3. Invest more time and money into newer security technology, which will ALWAYS be defeated eventually. For every smart developer out there being paid to create new ways to stop piracy, there is a just as smart or even smarter pirate, cracking the security just for the passion of doing it.

[Balkar]

I think the problem arise from the free rider effect(economical term). People rely on the next person after them to do what should be done... IE donating money, purchasing stuff...

Because the notion of "fairness" is controversial, free riding is usually only considered to be an economic "problem" when it leads to the non-production or under-production of a public good, and thus to Pareto inefficiency, or when it leads to the excessive use of a common property resource. See also collective action problem.
A common example of a free rider problem is defense spending: no one person can be excluded from being defended by a state's military forces, and thus free riders may refuse or avoid paying for being defended, even though they are still as well guarded as those who contribute to the state's efforts. Therefore, it is usual for governments to avoid relying on volunteer donations, using taxes and, in some countries, conscription instead.

from wikipedia.org

I am pretty sure that a lot of people are using the following way of approaching the warez issue. Open hypothetical quote: Yeah, i wont buy that software, anyways, there must be a lot of people buying it so i dont need to buy it... THe guy must be making a lot of money out of it. end hypothetical quotes. I dont know if you see what i mean here...

Also, i worked during my studies at an hardware store(Futureshop, which is basicly a bestbuy) and people tend to have problem buying or spending money, even when its 50 bucks out of a purchase of 1000 dollar or more. I was always offering an antivirus software (not the most expensive) with evey customer that bought a computer, also same thing with microsoft office... People tend to always answer that they could get it for free and they knew a technician that could do something for them... I swear to god...(on a side note, technicians in that city where i was working must have had hard time finding a job cause there were so many of them :P)

With both arguement stated above, my own conclusion is that it is an heart breaking decision for a human being to buy something that he can have for free by warez ways. I can understand them, but i am doing my MBA right now and i am covering research cost of some companies.... I decided to buy all the apps on my touch after my first semester lol...

The only thing that remains unpaid is garmin(igo 2008 now). I guess the point is that i sold so many stand alone gps unit when i was working in the hardware store that i justify cracking for my effort (i know its wrong tought).

[neilson]

Open Source is the future. What's wrong with community development like on here?

Do the Google model in small scale. Make the product free(and go the extra step further and make it open source(GPL and all)) and sell Ad space on the download sites and forums. That's where the real money is at.