I disagree.
Go into a shop and stuff a CD down your pants, the shop has paid out actual
money for that actual CD, right down the chain (packaging, CD pressing,
transport etc) and a lot of people are out of pocket.
Yes, a lot of people are out of pocket.
A teenager buying a CD and his mate copying a few tracks from it, is a
completely different thing altogether. No one is out of pocket and no one
has lost anything. You could argue that the record company/artist has lost
royalities, but this would only be true if the teenager that copied the
tracks, would have brought the CD if he couldn't copy it.
The record company, the artist, the store that could have sold the CD, (The
paackaging/transport, the people that mop the floors, have all lost money, 15
dollars may not seem like a lot, but for a store clerk, that is nearly 2
hours work. Not to mention, you and I have lost money, because since that kid
didn't spend the money for the CD, all these people have lost money, and who
picks up the losses? You as I do, even if it is just a couple pennies at a
time.
I really don't understand people who cant see this obvious difference and
say it's all the same type of theft.
What difference? The software or CD is for sale, and instead of going out
and honestly buying the CD or software, they download it and use it for free.
Using it, and didn't pay for it.. Lets see. Sounds a lot like theft to me.
Let me see if I can go to a car dealership and use a car for a while without
paying for it.
When I was young we had cassette tapes. I would tape off the radio as I
couldn't afford the LP's, was I a thief? (One UK radio presenter, John Peel
even used to wait until the record had ended so that we wouldn't get talking
over our recordings). I would save up for an album, my friends would tape
it. I would tape my friends albums. We only had a finite amount of money
between us, no one lost out, we wern't going into shops and stealing LP's we
were doing what the majority of kids did.
Now, don't get me wrong, I see your point, but things are different now. The
internet isn't liek "Borrowing my buddies LP and taping it"
Some numbers have claimed that music, movies, and software downloads are up
to millions a day in transfer. If you copy your buddies album, that is a
minimal loss. But when you take that into the millions, it becomes a business
killer
Think about it even in less numbers. Say 100,000 copies of one album
downloaded. 100,000 times the average of say $12 for the album. You are
looking at 1.2 million in lost money for the production.
Back to Windows
I brought Win95. It didn't live up to what it was advertised to do. I then
brought Win 98 followed by Win98 2nd edition. Again they didn't do what they
claimed. They did crash a lot. Along comes windows XP. All I wanted was an
operating system that didn't crash. I'd paid out money numerous times in the
past and had been let down. I wasn't going to do the same thing again. I
pirated XP, used it for about 4 months, was happy that it did what it said
pretty well and went out and brought legit copies for my 3 home PC's.
That is all good, however you are one of the few, sure pirates say "This is
full version, if you like it buy it! But lest be honest, why bother buying
the program if you are already getting it for free? Most using pirated
software aren't going to be that honest.
It's easy to give your 3 step advice for buying Vista (or any other
software) but things aren't as clear cut as that in the real world. I can
afford to buy software and always buy software if I like it and regulally use
it (often pirate it first to give it a good try out), but then theres things
like schools. The schools (my kids schools in the UK do anyway) use a certain
version of office. The kids have to do some work at home. They get in a right
mess when they are using different versions to the school. yes I could
install openoffice, but it wouldn't help my kids do their work. I have
brought various legit versions of office, but did I go out and buy yet
another version of office? No I didn't, I got hold of a pirated version.
Again, and understand, I am not trying to be mean about this, but it is
against the law. It is still theft. If you aren't paying for it, it is
stealing.
What about the huge amount of people I know on low income that have jjust
managed to afford a basic home comouter yet their kids need MS Access to do
their schoolwork on.
It's alright to label people thieves etc. But at some point, rightousness
comes into it. I have installed my legitamet purchased version of access on
a few friends PC's in order for their kids to be able to do their homework as
they have absolutely NO other means of being able to do so.
I can understand your issues, I really can. I am not innocent, for a long
time i ran a pirated copy of XP on my old computer. But what happened, was I
never bought a copy of it, I just kept using it until I finally got rid of
the computer. Was it that I couldn't afford to go buy an honest copy? No, not
really, But as long as I was getting it for free, why bother spending the
extra money.
And I do feel for those who may not be able to afford this new operating
system, or other computer products, for that matter. And you know what, I can
even understand stealing, if there is an honest need. But lets be honest, A
computer isn't really a "NEED." Even though many will argue about it, I don't
need to have a computer, i don't NEED to have the internet. Granted, it makes
my life much easier, but I will not die without it.
And I know I sound like a hardass. But I have since learned the values of
honesty.
And I also feel for those who are losing money. One more example, and I will
leave it alone.
Looking at E-mule searching under "XP Pro"
Microsoft Office XP Pro has over 5075 copies up for grabs. that is 5,075
copies. Microsoft office XP, taking Amazon's price (the average) is about
$400 per copy. So we take that 5075 and multiply it by $400. The final number
is $2.030,000. That's right, over 2 million dollars. Well the Company didn't
get payed for that, therefore, that is a 2 million dollar loss for them...
Wait, or is it? Big companies like Microsoft don't take losses, no, they just
raise prices to cover the loss.
So, now, if you divide the 2 million dollars by the number of honest users,
It may be about $5, to $20 a piece they will raise prices, but then add the
losses from Windows XP, which I am sure is much more, but for ths example
lets keep it the same area, say 5000. Multiply that by the going Price on
Amazon ($269.99, or $270), and you have another $1,345,000 in lost revenue
that the consumer who actually buys the product has to cover. There is
another $5 or $20 per honest user. But it keeps going through the spectrum of
software, not only Microsoft, but Symantec, and Mcaffee, or any video game
manufacturer.
Looking at those basic numbers. And we, who are having to shell out the
money keep on asking "Why is Vista going to cost so much?"
The pirates are driving the prices up to where the only way someone can get
their hands on quality software is to use pirated software.
Don't take my word for it look it up yourself.
http://www.bsa.org/usa/antipiracy/
http://nick.typepad.com/blog/2004/01/on_piracy.html
http://informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=174907620
http://www.hejndorf.dk/persistent/?p=10
http://mag.awn.com/index.php?ltype=pageone&article_no=1520&page=1
And the list goes on. Piracy is not a victimless crime. Someone pays the
price, and usually that someone is you or me.
