hp0p+@andrew.cmu.edu (Hokkun Pang) (12/23/90)
how do people feel about software piracy? i think it is a terrible idea to pirate reasonably priced (such as borland's) and personal-use oriented (such as procomm, pc tools, games, etc) softwares. my feeling is that these softwares truly reflect their worth, what you invest is what you enjoy. on the other hand, i probably wouldn't mind using an illegal copy of lotus 123/autocad if my usage is not profit-related. how do software houses feel about software piracy? do they really care if someone use an ilegal copy of lotus 123 to balance his personal checkbook? or dbase to manage his personal collection of wines? it seems to me that most software houses would care less about this, after all, spending $500+ dollars for a personal database is not affordable. in fact i even suspect they would wlecome to to do that, because chances are, your familarity with their softwares would encourage your employer to buy. should software houses start setting two different prices for their software? regular priced one for commercial use and heavily discounted one for personal use (perhaps with constraints such as no/limited support)? or is the current model (don't care if you pirate it for personal use) working as desired?
amichiel@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Allen J Michielsen) (12/24/90)
In article <QbRA3Yy00VpGMslmRB@andrew.cmu.edu> hp0p+@andrew.cmu.edu >i think it is a terrible idea to pirate reasonably priced (such as borland's) >and personal-use oriented (such as procomm, pc tools, games, etc) softwares. >my feeling is that these softwares truly reflect their worth, what you invest >is what you enjoy. on the other hand, i probably wouldn't mind using an ... >copy of lotus 123/autocad if my usage is not profit-related. . >do they really care if someone use an ilegal copy of lotus 123 to balance his >personal checkbook? or dbase to manage his personal collection of wines? This is exactly the same as saying it's wrong to steal gas from gas stations when I feel the gas is affordable, but just fine when or if I deceide that it's just too expensive. Try going into the software store, leaving what you feel is right on the counter and walking out the door... In the case of both examples you cites (lotus/123 & autocad) thare are several, PD, Shareware or Cheapware that do part/most/all of the job of the copy. There's a lotus 'clone' on simtel, and the twin advanced (another) runs about $ 40. Dan Cad is Share/Freeware and several cad texts come with generic cad or some other freeware. If the software is really overpriced, your better off helping your company researching and using a cloneware and save them money too. If the cloneware doesn't provide either the bells whistles, support, or upgrades and enhance- ments that 'the big boys' do, then isn't that one of the things your paying for ? I would buy lotus even if a driver for my device wasn;t available, because I'd only buy what I thought was reasonably common..., and that lotus will provide support for it in the next version. Neither the simtel or twin yet provide support for postscript devices, and the major reason is $$$. al -- Al. Michielsen, Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, Syracuse University InterNet: amichiel@rodan.acs.syr.edu amichiel@sunrise.acs.syr.edu Bitnet: AMICHIEL@SUNRISE
steven@pro-odyssey.cts.com (Steven Wells) (12/25/90)
In-Reply-To: message from hp0p+@andrew.cmu.edu
For a very interesting alternative view to software piracy, there is an
article in issue #1.03 of the Computer Underground Digest (April 8, 1990) that
discusses this.
As for personal views, as a student, I think most software is over-priced.
Much like the recording industry, computer software companies keep jacking up
prices or keeping them at outrageous ones in order to cover losses from piracy
and to make it 'profitable' for the programmers. Why do people copy? I would
love to own every piece of software I've ever used. If it was more reasonably
priced, I would gladly pay for them. However, $40-$50 for a game that takes a
week to play and is then erassed because it's been solved is a bit steep.
The idea of corporate and private prices has some allure. The shareware
concept also does. (Which is the same concept behind much piracy. Try it out
for a while and if it does the job, then purchase it).
Steven Wells
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