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Opinion on Piracy

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<< IF companies were truely making HUGE profits on Software you would would see many more titles availible. ALOT MORE. >>


Amazing how open source does it. With no profit margin.
 


<< eh, well i was talking about music 😛

as far as 500 dollar software goes, i don't think the companies are losing that much money, if at all by software pirates. if piracy didn't exist, the only people who would use the software would be the people who are purchasing it now anyways. those who are downloading cracks for photoshop are probably not the ones who have a great enough need to justify spending 500 bucks for it.

edit: i think this is basically what you said earlier 😱

i pretty much agree with you on all major points. >>



lol glad you agree with my major points. 😉 What I said applies to CDs too though. A popular band with a major record label can probably make money selling CDs at $4.99, but an independent local artist ain't getting rich even when they sell their CDs at $15/pop, and they're not going to sell many more if the price is lower.
 
Music cds should cost $5.95, dvds $9.95, Operating Systems 69.95, Office Suite 99.95, winzips etc. 14.95. The software, in short, shouldn't cost more than your computer.
 
lol glad you agree with my major points. 😉 What I said applies to CDs too though. A popular band with a major record label can probably make money selling CDs at $4.99, but an independent local artist ain't getting rich even when they sell their CDs at $15/pop, and they're not going to sell many more if the price is lower.

that's true, the 4.99 does only apply to major artists, but that's really who's losing the most money anyways. i doubt small fry artists get pirated that much... because as a direct result of them being virtually unheard of, there are usually very few mp3s of their songs being shared.

and i do think that small time artists benefit from piracy way more than major ones do. the major ones are already known, so all that is happening is loss of sales. the small ones... sometimes piracy can lead to more fans, and ultimately more money. for example, afroman was discovered on napster.
 


<< as far as 500 dollar software goes, i don't think the companies are losing that much money, if at all by software pirates. if piracy didn't exist, the only people who would use the software would be the people who are purchasing it now anyways. those who are downloading cracks for photoshop are probably not the ones who have a great enough need to justify spending 500 bucks for it. >>



Accually lets take a look at adobe here (photshop to be precise). Now I know I wouldn't pay 500 bones for photoshop I have no use for it, I don't need a program that powerful so I use MS Photoeditor that came bundled with my Frontpage 2002 I bought a while back. I also have Adobe PHOTO DELUXE which basically comes bundled with about every thing that might get close to a picture. Very few people can justify the cost for what they use it for BUT you can get photoshop essentials Elements for just 80 bucks (not bad) Poor student? the academic version is only $33.49 SHIPPED! SO you aren't stealing 500 you only are taking 30-80 bucks.

It isn't like adobe hasn't givin you any options on buying only what you need, but still many people use the "I would never pay 500 dollars for this so i'm not really stealing" logic when in fact you still are. Just Not as much.

Lets stay with this theme and see how this really effects adobe.

I decide I want to get into graphic arts, Now I order up Adobe Essentials (for 80 bucks I'm not a student) After messing with it for a while and learning the way it works I continue to get better and need more powerful software, so THEN i buy the full version. By Stealing it in the first place Adobe Loses that 80 bucks EVEN IF I BUY THE FULL VERSION AFTER A FEW YEARS. That fact is most photoshop users are using Illegal copies.

Unsure if photoshop will do what you want it to? They offer you a demo for FREE to try it out!

I have grown tired of Front Page and I am looking at either Go Live or Dreamweaver, I will download the demos check them out for 30 days and decide which one I like (if either) and then purchase the one I choose. (adobe offers a competive upgrade and I have front page so I can get Go Live for about 130)

If Adobe was to drop the price of photoshop to say 50 dollars the people who onlyu use it for fun and would buy it any way STILL wouldn't buy it bercause "if i couldn't pirate it I wouldn't use it" mentality.

And we haven't even gotten into the fact that there aren't a great deal of smaller cheaper options because there isn't a market for it. (why pay when it's free)

My pay is directly proportional to the amount of revenue I generate for the company, If some one was able to STEAL my work I would starve UNLESS I charged thoose that did pay a much higher rate.

There was a thread a few months back titled Software piracy .......... your take. In that thread I showed the way that develpoment based companies make profit and how sales accually bring the price down. This is do to the fact that the main expense is development not production. If it costs a million to develop a piece of software that cost is the same if I sell one or a billion.


 


<< Amazing how open source does it. With no profit margin. >>



The companies that make Open Source software CHOOSE to give it away as opposed to someone just taking it because they feel the price is to high.

I question whether companies like Red Hat will survive. Red Hat is giving the software away with hopes I will call and pay to get answers to my questions. While this idea may work it hasn't been proven yet.
 


<< If a person needs to learn Adobe Photoshop, but does not have the several hundred dollars that it costs, I'm not going to persecute them for pirating it. If a person pirates some Novell software and puts it on their 3 computer home network in order to learn Novell, I don't think that's a big deal. If people become familliar with these tools in their home, they are more likely to encourage their company to purchase and use those tools, whereas if they were not familliar with them they would be just as likely to choose something else. >>



Academic licenses cost a spit. I no nothing about Novell so I don't know about that. But The possibility to PERHAPS influnece the purchase of software for a company I may be employed with in the future doesn't give me the right to take something that I didn't pay for.

 


<< Academic licenses cost a spit. I no nothing about Novell so I don't know about that. But The possibility to PERHAPS influnece the purchase of software for a company I may be employed with in the future doesn't give me the right to take something that I didn't pay for. >>



Academic licensing is frequently still quite pricey for a poor college student who doesn't have money to buy his own food and is forced to eat at the cafeteria. 😉 Paying for software becomes a low priority in some situations.
No, nobody has the right to pirate, but they will do it anyway. Novell does not lose money if I use it for a home network to learn it
 


<< Music cds should cost $5.95, dvds $9.95, Operating Systems 69.95, Office Suite 99.95, winzips etc. 14.95. >>

And a quarterpounder at McDonald's should cost $.10, a game of bowling should cost $.25 and a paperback book should cost $1.00. Correspondingly, a burger flipper at McDonald's should only make $1 an hour, a desk worker at a bowling center $2 an hour and a bookstore employee only $4 an hour. Right?
 
tm37 - i disagree. i would be more than happy to pay $50 for photoshop for hobby use. however, until i make money on pictures theres no way ill shell out over $500 for it.

now in the case of mp3s. ive bought more cds since i began listening to mp3s. nearly all my purchases over the past two years have been because i liked the mp3s or the burnt cd i got from a friend. if i like several songs on a cd ill go out and buy it because mp3 isnt high enough quality and i want to support the band so that they will produce more music.

giving it away free has worked for many bands such as dave matthews and phish. both allow taping at their shows and fans are free to trade music but not sell it. i have around 30 dave matthews concerts. yet ive still bought the majority of his major releases.

however, i do believe piracy is wrong. its illegal, theres no way to argue around it.

ps - pirates are stimulating the economy by creating more jobs for programmers that write code to stop piracy 🙂 (slightly warped logic)
 
Accually lets take a look at adobe here (photshop to be precise). Now I know I wouldn't pay 500 bones for photoshop I have no use for it, I don't need a program that powerful so I use MS Photoeditor that came bundled with my Frontpage 2002 I bought a while back. I also have Adobe PHOTO DELUXE which basically comes bundled with about every thing that might get close to a picture. Very few people can justify the cost for what they use it for BUT you can get photoshop essentials Elements for just 80 bucks (not bad) Poor student? the academic version is only $33.49 SHIPPED! SO you aren't stealing 500 you only are taking 30-80 bucks.

i disagree, i can not speak for everybody, and i really don't know if my way of thinking is the same in this situation, but i would NEVER pay money for a graphics editor. i simply don't use any enough to warrant paying money for one, photoshop is a nice thing to have around, but not essential. i believe this is true for most people who pirate photoshop. if i really needed to use it, i would use it at school.

not only that, but to me, it is inconceivable to pay for a "simplified" product. it's almost insulting... i like power... that's why i have xp pro and not xp home. i would never pay for anything that i wasn't completely satisfied with, so it follows that i would never use elements, much less pay for it.

same holds true for dreamweaver, etc... i'm not about to pay for some watered down program that doesn't completely satisfy my needs just because it's cheap. i'd just use notepad... takes longer, but much less frustrating than paying for software that doesn't do exactly what you want it to.

If Adobe was to drop the price of photoshop to say 50 dollars the people who onlyu use it for fun and would buy it any way STILL wouldn't buy it bercause "if i couldn't pirate it I wouldn't use it" mentality.

this is exactly what i'm saying... they still wouldn't get it! so where is the loss occuring?
 


<< tm37 - i disagree. i would be more than happy to pay $50 for photoshop for hobby use. however, until i make money on pictures theres no way ill shell out over $500 for it. >>


SO get essentials



<< i disagree, i can not speak for everybody, and i really don't know if my way of thinking is the same in this situation, but i would NEVER pay money for a graphics editor. i simply don't use any enough to warrant paying money for one, photoshop is a nice thing to have around, but not essential. i believe this is true for most people who pirate photoshop. if i really needed to use it, i would use it at school.
 >>



What exactly won't essentials do that you need?




<< same holds true for dreamweaver, etc... i'm not about to pay for some watered down program that doesn't completely satisfy my needs just because it's cheap. i'd just use notepad... takes longer, but much less frustrating than paying for software that doesn't do exactly what you want it to. >>



Then Use notepad





<< i disagree, i can not speak for everybody, and i really don't know if my way of thinking is the same in this situation, but i would NEVER pay money for a graphics editor. i simply don't use any enough to warrant paying money for one, photoshop is a nice thing to have around, but not essential. i believe this is true for most people who pirate photoshop. if i really needed to use it, i would use it at school. >>



You would never pay for it because you have never had to BUT if piracy wan't an option you would have to pay for something (or use paint)


Ask yourself this question, What if AFTER you worked for two weeks your boss said "You know you didn't do as much work as we expected, so we are only going to pay you 3 dollars an hour instead of 12. If we had to pay you twelve we wouldn't pay you at all."

Now using the logic presented here everyone hear should be able to say "Yeah ok." When the simple fact is If someone PAYS to develope software it is there CHOICE on how to distribute that software. I am constantly amazed at the way people will spend a grand on hardware and then pirate a 100 dollar OS. Tell me what critical features are left out of essentials. It was designed for the home user! What the heck are you guys doing in your home?


 


<< piracy is wrong
the companies suck >>




Yup. People who scratch by meeting their living cost probably wants games to play and thats fine with wanting it. They have no business playing the game on their workstation if they can't afford it just like ghetto schools should have no right feeding themselve off of district budget mostly coming off of people in prep school neighborhood.

Programs that utilize the most advanced CD copy protection are sub $50 games. I bet those who can't afford it but still wants to play the game represent large percentage of game piracy.

Why are expensive business programs usually not protected?
Firms that needs such program can usually ford it and there is not as much piracy problem with these as games.


 


<<
For games, they should be 20-30 dollars tops. >>



You aren't gonna get great games for that price then. It wasn't uncommon for my SNES games to cost $70-$100. My parents bought me all kinds of new releases back when it was popular.. Unfortunately SNES is losing popularity and I refuse to play on newer consoles. I just don't like them as much.




<< As for RTCW, I didn't buy that cause it really didn't deserve to pay 59.99 for only 15-20 hours of play. If that was 30 bucks I would have bought it the day it came out. >>


Hey nobody said you have to play.




<< If these companies were smart, they would lower the price to the point where the consumer doesn't feel ripped off, >>



Its their intellectural property and they can price it however they're pleased to. Because its too expensive... doesn't make it more okay to pirate something. Nobody said you have to buy it. If the company feel their products are too expensive, its their choice to lower it.

I don't think those who can't afford expensive games deserve to play the same games played by those who can afford them.

Why? If someone can afford it, they're entitled to it and if someone who can't afford it is automatically entitled to getting the samething for free, it is terribly unfair for the people that pays.



and they would sell twice as many copies, there by making the same profit. They have to make stuff cheap enuff so it doesn't make sense to pirate things. People will end up buying twice as many everything. I guarantee it. I find it pretty hard to throw down 19.99 for a cd, whether there are mp3's or not. Just my .02

I think many will agree with me.

Oops wrong forum, plz move to off topic.[/i] >>

 
i totally agree.

i mean what the hell is up with charging 3k+ for 3D Studio Max and 500 for photoshop? are these people brain dead?

the complaint that they are losing money is so friggin hackneyed. I mean they complain about losing money to piracy and then they do nothing about lowering price... so they keep complaining about losing money and yet they still do not lower their price. if they were hurting so much they'd have gone out of business long ago.

something is wrong in this purchasing model. according to them they are losing massive aounts of cash yet they don't go bankrupt. you have companies like sun who give away solaris, their java IDE, and a pretty good office suite... and there is no complaint about losing money. oracle gives their software away for free... now you even have MSFT was gives away their OS and other packages to students of universities...

maybe if they decide to break this cycle by reducing the price significantly people might buy the product.

i always buy all of my games because all in all the games are pretty resonable compared to other software.

i'm sorry... but most private individuals do not have $3000 to spend on software... and this is a handicap... because if I wanna learn something like 3D studio max, I cannot learn it because I cannot afford the software. what does this do? this reduces their user base and it develops alot of consumer resentment towards to company.

it's not about a company being able to charge what they want... it's about that company not having the right to bitch and moan when their products get pirated. noone is arguing it's wrong... but it's going to continue to happen if they keep ripping the end user off with these outrageous prices. either make the software affordable or you put up and shutup.
 


<< Ask yourself this question, What if AFTER you worked for two weeks your boss said "You know you didn't do as much work as we expected, so we are only going to pay you 3 dollars an hour instead of 12. If we had to pay you twelve we wouldn't pay you at all." >>



This is exactly what people will be saying if people who were hired didn't get a hold of ultra-expensive software through piracy and learn how to use that package.

These software companies want everyone to buy their stuff... but noone can afford any of it.

They should pass a law that all students should be able to purchase any software for $10.
 


<<

They should pass a law that all students should be able to purchase any software for $10. >>



I don't think so. ALL students, thats quite broad. In other word, if the poor family wants Windows 2000, but can't afford it, they can purchase the software under their grade school kid's title and use it at home. Thats not right!
 
Well, if you have read this far you might as well read my breakdown of this topic, hopefully someone will find this agreeable.

First off, coining people as 'piraters' is a large group and, from my own experience, inaccurate to say the least. Let me break the usual groups of piraters down into smaller groups.

First, you've got people who steal. These people pirate because they do it everywhere else in life. If they weren't stealing software, they'd be stealing car parts, or your wallet. Lets face it, anything can be stolen. Although, the risk involved with stealing software is a lot lower than most things.

Second, you've got people who have a passion for computers but no money backing them. This is due to the fact that computers are something that are a lot easier to get into at a younger age. Lets face it, most of the best computer users get involved with computers at like the age of 9-12. These people have absolutely no means of affording the tools they wish to learn and find it hard enough to trick their parents into buying them a 2,000 dollar computer, much less 5,000 more in software.

Third, you've got people who have bought software in the past but also warez when they deem a product not 'worthy' of its price tag. These are people that, if they couldn't pirate, still wouldn't buy your product. You arn't really losing money on them, no matter how you look at it.

Now lemme put down some info on different types of warez and why they arn't even all they are cracked up to be. Lets face it, for the most part it has gotten to the point where it is less painful and a lot more intelligent to buy what you want.

Mp3s? Low quality and often the ends of the songs are cut or you get jitters. Even with a perfect mp3 you still need to decompress them and burn them to a CD if you want any sort of backup/retention. We are talking a lot more time than just buying the CD in the first place.

DiVX/Other video rips? They take TONS of space on your hard drive and unless you like burning tons of CDs or have scsi raid mirroring, you will lose a lot of work with a disk crash. Plus, again, the quality is lower than a real DVD and you have the possibility of jitters or random spots of degredation. Much nicer to own the DVD to a show you really like than trying to download every episode in great quality then ripping them all to CDs.

Games? Games are the best use of warez IMO. Because the game community is starting to combat warez in the best manner. For the intelligent games what ends up happening is that you can warez the game and play it single player, but to go multiplayer you must buy it and get a key. So it ends up being a try before you buy type of deal. Granted I'm not saying warezing games is good, but I've just seen more instances where someone warezes a game and then ends up buying, then any other software.

Apps? No huge drawback from warezing an app aside from the occasional program that checks for illegal use.

I think in the end, I've learned that people who used to warez, but that now have full time jobs, are buying the software they need. But I also don't think a product not being worth its price is a good excuse for warez, because you can say a bmw isn't worth its price but that doesn't allow you to steal it. I know this will continue to happen, just because people can get it risk free. So, if you can understand this convaluted post, you may realize my end conclusion is that warez is a very mixed bag. I don't think it can be summarized in 1 line but I still realize and accept that it isn't right.

BTW:
Piracy is the buying/selling of illegal copies of software
Warez is the term for freely distributed illegal software

The difference is the fact that with piracy the intention is to make money off something you didn't make. I assume your original post, by its content, was about warez and not piracy.
 
Why is it people feel it is there right to learn A software Package?

Is it your right to learn photoshop or 3D Studio? Don't colleges offer Classes and cut rate pricing to students who want to learn these technologies? Did I miss a meeting somewhere?

Just because you want to learn something and the only way you can afford it is to steal you shouldn't have the right to learn it. UNLESS the company offers it free for you to learn.

I want to take a class at the local college. I can't afford tution should I be allowed to go sit in if they have an empty seat? Of course not. They would tell me to beat it until I pay the bill. Have you checked the prices on the 1 and 2 day workshops to learn how to use different software packages? these can run into the thousands of dollars. Shouldn't I get to attend these free? I meen I would go If I had to pay.

I want to know how I get this entitlement to a higher education. I think I missed the boat on this one.
 
tm37, I'm not sure if you were responding to my large post or not but I never said people had a RIGHT to learn any software illegaly. I'm just saying thats how it gets done. If people weren't warezing products, I bet you there would be less programmers, since thats how most of them start out (believe it or not) 😉.

A script kiddy is just a young aspiring programmer. Those that warez are the ones that someday will create. That is their experience, that is their opening and chance in life. No child has 7,000 dollars to spair unless they deliver gold newspapers or robbed a bank. That doesn't make it right, but it makes it logical if you want it bad enough.

And no offense, but I'd rather see you get taught at college for free then not at all. The more educated the better. So if you figure out a way to get a few free classes at your local college and you take that opportunity over your other choice of not at all, then I applaud you for doing anything within your grasps to attain more knowledge, we could use more people like you.

On top of that, I'd like to draw some parallels between the OH-SO-BAD warez and so things that have been happening for MANY YEARS.

Mp3s are to CDs as recording your favorite radio station was to casettes. This happened for many years and everyone I knew did it. We copied songs off our radio station. The similarities are perfect too. The radio station rips were decent but the quality was hurting compared to buying the casette yourself, which most people would do. Plus it took a lot of work to get a good copy of a song off the radio, much like mp3s off morpheus. The only difference is the mp3 is better than the casette, due to the increases in standards, but it is still not better than the CD.

Ok NEXT! Divx are to DVD as VHS copies are to VHS movies. Everyone and their GRANDMA used to record their favorite television shows, movies, whatever on VHS. Was the quality worse? Of course. Is Divx quality worse? Of course. Whats the difference? none. The fact is this has been going on for a long time and never stopped people from wanting to buy a copy of their favorite VHS.

I don't have any good parellels for video games/ applications. The only thing I can think of is the fact that most people have grown comfortable over the years with borrowing lawn mowers/power tools/anything from their neighbors if they don't think they need one long enough to justify buying their own. I think this mentality drags over to their PC as well.

Does any of this make warez right? of course not. But it does make it expected, predictable and logical.
 
The comparison to recording TV shows is bogus. Many of the movies, etc. may be duplicated as long as they are kept for personal use only. If you taped a movie and then made it available to the public, inviting them to make as many copies as they wanted, you would be breaking the law. That's basically what you're doing with 0-day ftp sites, warez, etc.

Regardless of how you categorize yourself or justify it, if you intentionally obtain licensed software, copyrighted MP3s, etc. without paying for them - you are breaking the law.

The listed prices for these items are based on simple economics - supply and demand. You may not be willing to pay hundreds of dollars for Photoshop or whatever, but there are other individuals and corporations that are willing to. If there wasn't a demand at a given price, the price would be lowered to what the market would bear.

There are no ethics to piracy or warez. You are stealing, whether you're doing it to make a profit, or just for your own personal benefit without paying for it.
 


<< The companies that make Open Source software CHOOSE to give it away as opposed to someone just taking it because they feel the price is to high. >>


That does not relate to how they can make equal, if not superior software, with no profit.



<< I want to know how I get this entitlement to a higher education. I think I missed the boat on this one. >>


Yup, you are just foolish enough to follow everything The Man tells you.

You can't really make analogies to piracy, or warezing.

Pretend that you have a gun that clones anything you shoot it at. If you clone a car, is it wrong?
😉
 


<< Pretend that you have a gun that clones anything you shoot it at. If you clone a car, is it wrong?
😉 >>



Remember, if you outlaw clone guns, only outlaw clones will have guns.

🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂
 
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