I don't endorse pirating software and I don't use one myself, but I never agreed with the notion that using pirated software is stealing money. Because in most cases, the people using pirated software would not pay for it if it would be not be possible to use it without buying. Maybe a few would, but this amount is compensated by the marketing value the pirating provides. To sum it up, the company would not make more money if pirating would not be possible.
Again, I am against pirating, but don't agree fully with the text in that popup dialog.
I always think its odd - the one thing, really the only one thing that computers do really really well, flawlessly, better then any other tech in history is copy information without error. And yet the primary business model of successful software is (or was) charging people for the copying of those bits (allowing, rightly so, the creators of those bits to get paid for the content creation).
I am not saying its wrong, not at all, it just feels like a kind of arbitrage, and can't last. Well I guess that's one business reason why software is increasingly moving online.
I guess the same is true of any content creator. I am happy to pay for content and software, and do, but kids these days....
I am not saying its wrong, not at all, it just feels like a kind of arbitrage, and can't last. Well I guess that's one business reason why software is increasingly moving online.
Well said. Software is moving from "making computers do something" to "making computers do something together". This changes the economics of software completely.
Sure, if the pirate just stored the file in their collection as a trophy (as many do). However, if the pirate is actively using the product and deriving value from it in their work, they would have paid for the product (or another like it) to receive the same value.
Having a thief (sorry, 'copyright infringer') take your software rather than pay for it may eventually provide some word-of-mouth advertising, but they're likely to tell other pirates and repeat the cycle of revenue loss rather than become vocal advocates for a purchase.
Outside of edge-cases like Microsoft (whose Windows dominance was arguably helped by piracy) it seems that 'piracy is good advertising' is a fallacy used by pirates to make themselves feel better about denying income to people they otherwise like.
Can you name three small software producers whose revenue grew stronger as a result of piracy?
"However, if the pirate is actively using the product and deriving value from it in their work, they would have paid for the product (or another like it) to receive the same value."
Or done without. Or done with something different. But it's false to assume that anyone glomming a copy of some software would pay for it were it not free.
I didn't see that assumption being made. The parent's point is that it is (likewise) false to assume that everyone "glomming a copy of some software" wouldn't pay any price other than free, were piracy not an option.
If a pirate is using a program, they're deriving value from it. They are not 'doing without' even though that option is available.
If the pirated option was not available, they would have made a purchase (yours or a competitors) or made do with freeware. That they've not chosen the free option indicates that they prefer your product -- one which they would have paid for.
Not true. I prefer Photoshop over GIMP. But I use it so rarely, that if I had to pay full price for Photoshop, I'd just use GIMP.
Given my infrequency of usage, I'd be willing to pay some amount for Photoshop: $30 or $49.99 or whatever, but I simply don't use it $699 worth.
I do pay for all the apps I use daily, and thankfully they're all "reasonably" priced: MyEclipse, Transmit, Parallels, OmniFocus, OmniGraffle, OmniOutliner, TextMate, and so on.
Ok I'll bite. By the very fact that you'd take it, it means it has some value to you. Of course you are going to take something for free that you believe has non-zero value. If you are taking something for free that has value to you, you are profiting. How is that not stealing?
Stealing is when someone has something that they value, and you take it from them. It doesn't matter how much you value the object. What matters is that they value the object, and that after it is stolen, they no longer have it.
Are you really saying that if you profit without paying for something, then you must be stealing? What if you have some wood, and you make a table out of it. You've profited by the difference in price of a table and a pile of wood, but you've not paid anyone for anything. Who have you stolen from?
What if this wood was a tree in someone's garden? They have a sign up that says "help yourself to apples", they must mean it's OK to take the whole tree, right?
There is a gap between what an item costs and what it's worth to you. I have a copy of Vista Home that came bundled with my machine, I would pay 20$ for a copy of Vista Ultimate 64 bit, but that's about it.
"... in most cases, the people using pirated software would not pay for it if it would be not be possible to use it without buying."
In economic theory, the demand curve is (basically) constructed from the willingness-to-pay (WTP) of people. It is assumed that people with a WTP > Price (P) buy the good, and those with a WTP < P don't.
Your statement would be true if we could determine that only people in the WTP < P group use illegal copies. They would not affect a supplier's sales when they use illegal copies.
But there's no causal relation between one's WTP and one's ability to use an illegal copy. Thus, people in the WTP > P group are just as likely to do so as people in the WTP < P group.
Well, this is not quite right, for we may ask: Who's more likely to be motivated to make or search for illegal copies? Who's gaining the most profit by investing time and effort to search file sharing networks? Those with a rather high WTP or those with a rather low WTP?
If this sounds uncommon to you, ask yourself: What software is more likely to be found in any file sharing network: The popular ones -- that is: those with many people having a high WTP -- or the unpopular ones? According to my observations, the popular ones are more likely to be found. The same holds true for other products such as movies and music.
Whether these losses are compensated by advertising effects, is a matter of the circumstances: To make this reasonable, a supplier needs to sell (more) copies. People with illegal copies may advertise a product, but they are also likely to distribute illegal copies: What good is advertising if it does not increase sales?
Even if we assume that -- in the beginning -- only people in the WTP < P group distribute illegal copies and advertise them, it should be clear that it will also spread to people in the WTP > P group. The longer illegal copies are around, the more likely it will affect the sales of the suppliers.
Overall: Yes, it's possible that illegal copies do no harm to suppliers and may even help them to sell more legal copies. But these are likely to be exceptions to the rule. In general, using illegal copies decreases the wealth of suppliers.
In the long run, it also decrease the wealth of users who want or need software, for it decreases the incentive of suppliers to improve their products or invest money to make new ones.
Well put. If price were the only determinant of software success, free/open-source software would have long ago crushed its competitors. It's free without needing to be pirated, so it gets all that free "advertising", right? :)
No, you are correct that software largely gets pirated because it's popular rather than the other way around. Pirates who think they are doing software authors a favor through "advertising" are fooling themselves -- and ignoring the systemic damage done by piracy. (Where are all the big Chinese consumer software companies?)
Again, I am against pirating, but don't agree fully with the text in that popup dialog.