The what? There isn't any value in piracy. Price isn't going to affect piracy rates one iota either.Originally Posted by aidanjt
*edited by Agent - This is a split from http://forums.hexus.net/operating-sy...s-7-rc-14.html. Kalniel is not going crazy*
Last edited by Agent; 10-06-2009 at 05:23 PM.
Economically speaking, there is.
Why wouldn't it?
Huh?
Its a cost ecnomically surely? Lost sale, but also lets not include the 'at least its not *' benefit. Piracy may count as a lost sale, but if they weren't going to buy it at £10, in economic theory terminology its no more of a loss to price the product at £1,000,000, you would still only discount the lost £10 opertunity.
piracy accounts for a tiny fraction of sales really, most corperations don't ever mean to pirate, those that do its often a mistake.
Most people aren't capable of installing their own OS, they will faithfully use what ever was loaded on the PC. The question is how much can MS squeeze their OEM partners, i wouldn't be surprised to see a rise in netbook price, MS have pretty much shown that consumers are willing to pay that £30 extra even on £200 device, if what they have is familiar and has that it just works factor.
throw new ArgumentException (String, String, Exception)
Because the vast majority of people who pirate are either doing so by mistake or would pirate no matter the cost. If cost is a concern then you buy a cheaper product from a competitor or go without, which has the effect of driving down price or adding value for money - if you pirate the product instead of using a competitor then you decrease competition and are more likely to end up pushing up costs, and no-one who is intelligent enough to be concerned with value for money would be that stupid.
Given that you accept it's only (only?!) the "vast majority" that pirate unwittingly or unrepentantly you must also therefore accept that a small number of witting pirates might be swayed by price. So price *would* affect piracy rates (just not very much).
It's easy to see how - suppose I can get access to my work's VLK and media. Practically, there's nothing to stop me using it on my own personal machine, but I would be committing piracy as use of that VLK is restricted to work-owned machines. I have to make a choice - do I commit piracy, or do I pay up for my license like a good boy. The price of a Windows license will *clearly* affect my decision at that point.
The question then becomes "Are there enough people who would buy a copy at a lower price rather than engage in piracy to make up the revenue lost by cutting the price in the first place?". It's quite possible that there aren't, but it does indicate that Microsoft are more concerned about their profit margin than piracy rates...
The group I meant by the minority not covered were those who pirated to bypass DRM (ie still bought a game/software, but then pirated it).
Only if you are stupid enough to ignore the effect that would have on competition, which I don't think you are - if the price of a Windows license is too much then you'd go for linux or a cheaper version of Windows.It's easy to see how - suppose I can get access to my work's VLK and media. Practically, there's nothing to stop me using it on my own personal machine, but I would be committing piracy as use of that VLK is restricted to work-owned machines. I have to make a choice - do I commit piracy, or do I pay up for my license like a good boy. The price of a Windows license will *clearly* affect my decision at that point.
Of course, because as I've been saying, price doesn't affect piracy, so pricing is all about maintaining going concern/shareholder confidence/remaining competative, which you'd expect as MS is a business, not a charity.The question then becomes "Are there enough people who would buy a copy at a lower price rather than engage in piracy to make up the revenue lost by cutting the price in the first place?". It's quite possible that there aren't, but it does indicate that Microsoft are more concerned about their profit margin than piracy rates...
You're missing the point. If there isn't a viable competitor product (or no product at all), and you still need it. Then what's your other option?.. Pay more than you think the product is worth?.. or duplicate it yourself (or indeed from knock-off nigel). Further more, if the price is reasonable, you'll easily find that 'by mistake' and 'no matter what the cost' copyright theft would still go down considerably.
Just look at the 'dodgy' fag market. Every time the government increases the tobacco tax, the dodgy fag peddlers get more custom.
The black market is simply a counter balance to excessive greed in the open market. Hence why piracy has value.
That's a question of how much you need it - if you can't live without it then the product must be worth really quite a lot. If however you think it's not worth it then you can't have needed it that badly and can go without.
However there are plenty of viable competitors products in this area for most intents and purposes.
No you wouldn't. There isn't a single shred of evidence that lowering prices has ever resulted in a decrease of copyright theft as far as I know.Further more, if the price is reasonable, you'll easily find that 'by mistake' and 'no matter what the cost' copyright theft would still go down considerably.
Probably because the only significant direction software prices have taken is up. And you also know full well that piracy rates are next to impossible to quantify with any kind of accuracy.
Quite the opposite. PC games used to cost up to £40-45 back in the 90s, now they're routinely £25-30, which is a vast reduction without even accounting for inflation. Yet PC game piracy has soared in the same period - so much that you don't need any kind of accurate measure.
Perhaps, but there is plenty of evidence to show that lower prices can lead to a vast increase in sales.
While piracy will never be stopped, I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that some of these sales may be pirate converts.
Indeed, but the number of home computers since the 90's has shot up too.
A lot of PC games are simply console ports too, where the majority of work has been done for another market with less piracy.
Conversion in this case is a minimal process compared to writing the entire game.
It really is difficult to directly compare between different decades and markets.
Last edited by Agent; 10-06-2009 at 03:35 PM.
Correction, open downloading has soared. We have no idea what the state of Black Market piracy is like. Also, as my memory goes, PC games where ~£35 in the late 90's as well. That's why I started buying more powerful graphics cards, because I was saving £10-15 on each game over consoles by doing so.
There's nothing to support the (bolded) view though - more reasonable would be to assume more non-pirates think that a product of greater value for money is worth buying when they wouldn't buy it before - as that's the behaviour that has been demonstrated to be followed in trials. As far as I know the increase in sales for a pirated product is not significantly higher than the increase in sales for a non-pirated product (soft toys for example) when the price is reduced.
Likewise, there's nothing at all to support your viewpoint. Not even a viable hypothesis. On the other hand, there are economic theories which factor in the black market effect when open market prices become excessive.
Yes there is, I just gave an example - if the increase in sales for lowering price is no more than the increase in sales for a non-pirated product then it's reasonable to assume that the increase is due to non-pirates buying it when they wouldn't otherwise.
Software piracy doesn't fit any economic models for traditional black market effects.
steam sells hl for 99p.. they made a hefty profit from that
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
LinkBack URL
About LinkBacks
Reply With Quote