hello,
why do people think its ok to pirate software?
a friend asked me on messenger about getting powerpoint for free so i said you can get a 60day trial from microsoft and since he is a student he can get it for £35. but he just refused and pirated it anyway...
I dont see why he couldnt of just used openoffice tbh. its just a slideshow for school he wants to use it for.
Last edited by lodore; 21-08-2009 at 09:00 PM.
2 words - "entitlement culture"
I've ranted enough about it elsewhere though, so I'll keep my blood pressure down...
I believe people should pay if they want the software and I am pleased that microsoft's enforcement is getting better. If its too expensive there are alternatives like Open Office. It annoys me when people are too cheap to pay and yet reject alternatives as not good enough. Another one I had was people who buy an expensive machines and leave nothing for the software, thinking they have payed so much for the machine they should get that bit for free.
Openoffice is fine, but the majority of windows OS's have been overpriced til they have been out AGES, and its so easy to pirate it and get away with it so people just do that.
Plus M$ are money grabbing monkies.
There is no real excuse not now that windows 7 looks like it will be quite well priced.
□ΞVΞ□
Was about to say, Windows 7 looks like it's going to hit the shelves at a price we can't really argue with. It will certainly cut piracy.
As for other software, like anything else - if you can't afford it, find a cheaper alternative or do without. And in software, we're very lucky to be able to have free alternatives for literally everything.
Moo.
Price isn't really the reason (and is counter productive - you hurt the competitor more than the company whose software you're pirating, enabling the company to increase prices).
Researchers reckon these are the main reasons:
- Denial of responsibility: factors apparently beyond individual's control come into play eg: urgent need for software
- Denial of injury or victim: no one suffers from one's actions
- Condemning the condemners: assuming those against a behaviour engage in their own kinds of unauthorised activities, or somehow deserve any damage they sustain eg: loss of earnings
- Appeal to higher loyalties: such as obtaining unauthorised material to help family member
I pay for software that is fairly priced, vista i got for £60 for ultimate, i jumped at it. With win 7 it was £45 i jumped at it again. Adobe photoshop? No i dont use it i can afford it, ive used the trial before and its good, not worth it though. Office? Worth £35? very much so.
Photoshop is hellishly expensive, but Photoshop Elements does everything that a home user could ever need and comes in at around £50. Also GIMP really ain't all that bad an alternative (though I still can't see the professionals moving to it as it is at the moment)Originally Posted by Blaineoliver
For Photoshop, you just have to be a bit clever. You can get CS4 and an online Photography course, plus other benefits for less than the cost of the full CS4 from Adobe.
Course: £299
CS4: £230
total: £529
Photoshop from adobe: £615.25
http://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk/spi/foundation/ - other courses are available too.
but back to the OP. yes I do find it annoying. I was listening into a conversation between a couple fo guys offshore the other day. They were speaking about a dodgy copy of photoshop (as it happens). I'm sure they could get away with the free and awesome Paint.NET. would probably be easier for them to use as well to be honest. And it wouldn't overload the older machines they have out here either.
I bought my Vista, and i bought my Windows 7.
But, like stated above, CS4 is stupidly expensive. I've used the trial lots of times and it's no way worth that much.
Music, i tend to buy all mine. Anything is don't comes from friends.
TV and Film, same again. I like to have an actual collection of movie boxes in the living room.
But, one thing i've always wondered is:
We have a Sky+ license, so we can record programs and movies (and put them on my computer), so if say House is on, should i be allowed to torrent the same episode at the same time it's on?
I don't find it strange or annoying that people steal software. Theft is a sad part of society. I do find it strange that otherwise law abiding people will pirate software though.
This http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001293.html is worth reading, particularly interesting are the figures from Valve when they reduced the price of games.
I agree that there are plenty of free alternatives to most commercial software, and they are mostly really good. I have Paint.NET installed on most of my home computers. (I also have ZERO artistic ability so standard paint is actually overkill for me). I am also a big fan of 7-zip.
I'm not such a fan of OpenOffice, what is there is good, but it lacks Outlook, that for me is a deal breaker and I have never found a good free alternative to Outlook (I'm sure there will be some suggestions now) I'm lucky and can use MS Office on the MS Home Use Program.
We had a course at work recently, the labs in the course were all done using virtual PC's which came zipped over several DVDs. They could have been zipped with 7-zip, or zipped with Winzip and made into a self-extracting archive, but no. Ordinary zip file with the Winzip installer supplied. Why!?
Yep, that is exactly why they exist. They are a commercial software house whose sole purpose is to turn caffine into money via programmers.MS are money grabbing
Having said that, I personally think that Windows and MS Office are still overpriced and that someone in MS Marketing should read the blog I linked to earlier.
I wouldn't use pirate software and I won't install it for anyone else, but when other people *genuinely* believe they're doing nothing wrong, or at the least committing a very minor infringement, I think it pays to tread carefully - the situation isn't helped by the all-too-frequent use of inflammatory language, legally meaningless terms such as "copyright thief", and outright insults. I can think of one forum in particular (not this one) which is haunted by a handful of people who seem to spend all their spare time scouring threads looking for opportunities to scream "thief" and "scumbag" on the slightest pretext.
When the situation arises (eg I'm asked to install a hookey copy of MS Office, Photoshop or whatever), I'll simply explain the possible security and functionality implications in terms of the initial installation and subsequent updates, suggest something appropriate from the wealth of very capable free software that's available these days, and (if asked) briefly explain the legal position as I understand it. If they take it on board, well and good, but if not, it's their choice and I'll just leave them to get on with it in their own time - I don't have the energy or inclination for sermonising, and coming across as a self-righteous knob would just get me ignored anyway...
Oh no, this reminds me of the thing at the beginning of films. Would you steal a car etc..
People pirate software for the same reason some people shoplift, or breaking speeding laws .... they think they stand a good chance of getting away with it. And at least for software piracy, they're usually right.
That's why companies price things as they do ... because they think, in the real world, that's how they maximise profits. Photoshop, at least in the UK (though much less so in the US), is a rip-off IMHO. But I still use legit versions. Why? Because I've been using it since v3, when they were few alternatives (like Picture Publisher, which I also have), none of them free and none of them priced at a Elements level, And, because as a legit user, the cost of upgrading (around £170) is worth it, usually every alternate version, averaging out at £170-ish every three years or so. It keeps me more or less up to date, for less than £1.50/week.
But what would happen if Adobe cut the price in half .... £300 instead of £600? The vast majority of people that will pirate it at £600 will still do so at £300, and probably most would at £100. This will be because they still can, and because most of them don't really need a heavyweight, pro image editing tool in the first place, and wouldn't know what to do with 90% of it's capabilities. I struggle with it, and I've been using it since before Noah built the Ark.
And if Adobe cut prices, they'd lose a LOT of revenue from those they do sell at full price. Suppose, hypothetically, that it costs Adobe £50 to develop, per unit, at current sales levels. That means £550 profit per unit sold. If they cut price to £300, they now make £250 per unit, so have to more than double sales that way just to break even. And if they cut to £100, now they only make £50 instead of £550, so need sales to increase eleven-fold just to make what they were making before. Will sales increase that much? In my opinion, not a hope in hell.
All figures are, of course, spurious as I've no idea what their cost structure is, but it illustrates the point. While I think CS4 pricing in the UK is a rip-off compared to US pricing, I've no doubt that Adobe don't set their pricing at that level because they're stoopid and missing out by not selling it cheaper, but because that's what works for them. If they could maximise profits by price cutting, my bet is they would have done it. Oh, and has been pointed out already, that's what Elements is .... Photoshop Light for the home user. For most users, Elements is every bit capable and powerful enough, and quite sufficient.
But a lot of people still pirate CS4 because they want the best, and can get it at relatively little risk. Which brings me full circle .... people pirate software because they can, and because they think (probably correctly ***) that they can get away with it.
*** Though you DO have to be careful to avoid viruses, trojans, etc., that being a favourite method of disturbing such items, by getting people's greed to install your nasty little surprise for you, so maybe many of them don't quite get away with it.
I don't claim to know why some pirate software, but I know why I don't; virrai, trojans and the like just arn't worth it.
If I cann't afford it, I choose something close to it that is either free or cheaper (if the latter software is too much of a stepdown I save up for a few months until I can afford what I want).
There's the embarassment/stupidity factor as well, in getting caught out. I would rather pay full freight for decent sw, than have to pay some fine for pirating. It's just not worth my reputation to be caught out for such a silly thing.
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