Piracy, warez and You.

[Malatesta]

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

Feel free to discuss. --Mal
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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

[CozBoogie]

What we have here is a discussion between hard goods and services versus soft goods and services. Most of us would never try to stiff the plumber that just spent an hour snaking out our filthy clogged pipes. The plumber is providing a hard service. It’s tangible. You can see it. You can see the results. You can interact with the plumber, etc.

Compare that against soft services and goods such as video files, audio files, and software that you get online. Most of us do not recognize these are as being tangible goods or services. Indeed, most of us just see the latest U2 song that we find online as a file worthy of being downloaded. It is lacking as a tangible good. It is essentially not real to us except when we play it on our computer, iPod, etc.

Ironically, we wouldn’t go into a music store and steal the U2 compact disc. So what is the difference then between buying the cd at a brick and mortar music store versus finding it via LimeWire, etc.? The difference is the perception of what it represents. The difference is the perception of what the medium is.

I freely admit that I have downloaded a boatload of songs off the internet. Now would I go to a music store and steal all of those cd’s? No. So what’s the difference? Again the difference is perception. I don’t see it as “stealing” when I download songs. To me it’s just a file. It’s not a tangible good. I have no association with it being real.

I think software obviously falls into to that non-tangible category. It’s something that just goes on our phone/computer. Would we go to BestBuy and steal the latest version of PhotoShop? No. But if we can get a free upgrade or get the program essentially for free online why wouldn’t we do it?

I’m not saying that we should “steal” from or “stiff” developers. What I am saying is that selling soft goods and services is fraught with its own limitations, etc. It’s the chance you take.

Again…it’s all linked, I believe, to perception.

late,
Coz

[2sa]

Wonder what site he was referencing? You know, for research purposes.

[Malatesta]

Originally Posted by cozboogie

Again…it’s all linked, I believe, to perception.

late,
Coz

Nice analysis and I agree.

My problem is that companies like Handango and their "download protection" do not aid in the matter. Say you bought a program and for whatever reason (hard reset) lost the code, Handango makes you jump through hoops to get that information (Pocketgear.com seems a lot better in this regard).

Even I frequent those warez groups but mostly because I'm a "tester" of eveything. More often than not I try to buy it, especially when they have those "sales" like for Newsbreak at $7.95.

It's pervassive, that's for sure and I can understand Alex's frustration.

OTOH, I remember the developer of VGSMail (who abandoned that wonderful app and it's users, including those who paid... ) after I informed him his program had been cracked/is in warez groups that he was "glad" b/c maybe now people will learn about his software e.g. it was free promotion. And it's funny, b/c indeed warez groups tend to be great bastions of cataloged software.

I tell you, also interacting with developers via email and posts makes you think twice--because of perception--you now "know" this person somewhat.

[CozBoogie]

Well here's a timely situation that I just ran into. My son wanted to play Sim Coaster on the pc at home. Since it was no longer installed he proceeded to put the cd in and install it. Well soon up pops the screen that requires you to enter in the serial from the packaging in order to continue with installation. Well the packaging had long since been lost so what was I to do? Well I did what any good parent does...he goes on-line and finds the serial. Do I feel bad? Not really. We had already purchased the game. I wasn't about to try to figure out how to get the code through normal channels as looking on-line took about 30 seconds.

Now if my son had asked me to go out to the web and get a cracked version of Sim Coaster I wouldn't have done.

late,
Coz

[C_H_A]

If it weren't for Bittorrent, I wouldn't have found many of the programs I have purchased.
Many of the programs reviewed here, and reviewed favorably I might add, have been useless to me and I'm glad I didn't have to pay for them. As a matter of fact, I only have 2 "pay" programs on my Treo 700wx.
My iMate Jam is a different story. I have paid for approximately 8 programs on that phone. All of them were tried via BT downloads prior to purchasing.

[Pibe38]

Originally Posted by C_H_A

If it weren't for Bittorrent, I wouldn't have found many of the programs I have purchased.
Many of the programs reviewed here, and reviewed favorably I might add, have been useless to me and I'm glad I didn't have to pay for them. As a matter of fact, I only have 2 "pay" programs on my Treo 700wx.
My iMate Jam is a different story. I have paid for approximately 8 programs on that phone. All of them were tried via BT downloads prior to purchasing.

No offense, but that statement does not make sense since most, if not all, developers offer a free trial period.

[PerfectHybrid]

Pibe, I agree wiht you and with a little of him, the con with trials is sometimes they dont offer you full access to the program (at least with pc programs, i havent really tried tooo many trials for ppc) So I'm not here to judge but try to stay neutral on it, but one could argue that trials do not offer complete use of the program. That being said keep in mind if you do NOT pay for the program you should only consider it a trial and if you like it then buy it.

PH

Pibe, in that case I rescind my comment about ppc apps but maintain it for PC purposes lol and if I've already purchased a game and lost the serial yes I would look one up online lol

[Pibe38]

IIRC, the only trial PPC version I have encountered that limits the amount of access is SK Tools. All the other ones give you full access for a set period of time.

[Trident]

I've got some mixed feelings about this.
And as I read Alex's letter and the following thread, it got me thinking.
I'll admit that I've only paid for a few of the retail programs that are on my device. I usually rationalized that "this should have been part of a device like this anyway" or "that's way more expensive than it should be". If the developer seemed reasonable and offered a good product w/good support, I paid. Upgrades were another catch (in my mind)~ if a reasonable upgrade price wasn't part of the deal, then I'd find the upgrade for free.

Now I'm reconsidering what is reasonable. And considering paying for a few of the programs that I've been using that I haven't used regularly or have used past the trial period.
I also realize that it's not the developers' fault that MS didn't include some of this functionality in their devices.

Now I need to go and add up how much all this software will cost to register legally and how much I can actually afford.

Grrr.

UPDATE: Holy crap. To pay for all the retail software that I use (or sometimes use) on my PPC would cost $221.46. And that doesn't include some of the "add-on" stuff like some themes/skins (although I don't use many of those) & some games that I wouldn't even know how to find the prices for (and would probably not install if I had to pay for them).
I'm going to start paying for some, but I'll probably pay for different ones over time as upgrades come out...
Geez. I had no idea I had so much stuff.