Article:

http://www.bityard.com/article.php?sid=805#Adds

Or, if you don't want to listen to the funked Star Wars banner ad baloney on that site, here's a copy of the article:

Ethics aside, piracy is among other things a type of free advertisement. Could piracy be exactly what Apple needs to make its upcoming Intel-based operating system a bigger hit than they expect?


Chris Seibold at Apple Matters recently published an article about how piracy is the path that Apple needs to follow. That certainly is an interesting idea, and one needs only to look at history to realize that piracy might actually be what could give Apple the bounce that it needs.

[edited by trog, article body removed]

that also brings up an interesting question. how much of your software would you have if piracy didnt' exist, i got - photoshop,
trillian pro,
3d studio max 5,
nearly half my installed games, (about 12 all up)

etc etc etc... my point is, they wouldn't loose $$ because i pirate, if i didn't get it through pirating, i wouln't have it at all. so obviously the $$ figures of how much companies loose from pirating would probably be a fraction of the amount of money value of pirated software thats out there.

yes i agree... unfortunatly if i threw out all of my pirated software i would b left with one programe... half-life :(

Aparently there is up to a $50,000 reward for dobbing in pirates. Wonder how much Scoobs and whitewolf are worth ?

millions my friend hahahaha

lol scoobs

Police dont care about piracy much.. my friends bro was caught lookin at kiddy porn apparently and a police watch dog thing came up and said the police are on their way to your house, he luaghed and thought it was a joke. 20minutes later a knock on the door and 2 police cars where there hahaha they confiscated 2 computers and a few hundred pirated cd's.

Both of the computers and the cd's where returned 2 weeks later with an apology for making a mistake.

ps. he didnt look at kiddy porn, it was a pop-up from some other site he was at

Welcome to the '1001 ways to justify piracy thread'

my point is, they wouldn't loose $$ because i pirate, if i didn't get it through pirating, i wouln't have it at all.

All idiots welcome.

Let's quit with the e-threats and keep it on topic. This article hits the spot and many of us will realise how true it is. I have previously played Half-Life on a friend's computer and when I realised how good it was, I decided to buy Half-Life 2 before trying it out. Same would go for programs like Alcohol and Flashget if I could buy them other than over the net, but looks like I'll have to miss out on using those programs :(

A lot of my decisions on whether to buy a game or not are based on the opinions of my mates who pirate as well, if they don't like the full version, I'm not going to buy it. This try-before-you-buy aspect should only threaten those with s***ty games, as I'm more than happy to buy a good product.

He isnt justifying piracy he is simply saying that the companies arent really losing money.

Personaly i wouldnt buy or even think of buying half the programs i have.

For example 3dsmax, is a program that i needed for tafe this year but there is no chance in hell i would go out and buy it for hundreds of dollars just so i can do an assignment.

Photoshop is nice, but there's no way I'd pay $700+ for it (student discount, normally like $5K). If they counted everyone who pirated it as a lost sale then they're dreaming and so are the rest of them. As sc00bs said, many of us wouldn't have half the software we do if we had to pay for it. Many users would switch to Linux in an instant if Windows was unpiratable. Many are already that way with Opera - that advert is annoying so they try Firefox and stick with it and support it.

EDIT: Can't type

last edited by Seven at 23:18:49 20/Jun/05

I stopped reading that article after the first paragraph, it bugged me too much when he kept calling Microsoft Mcft. What the f*** is up with that?

yeh i kept reading it as McFat

Welcome to the '1001 ways to justify piracy thread'

im not justifying it, alot of good companies loose out on alot of money because of it, and in the end go bankrupt. i am saying however that i can't afford there software at its prices.

When Doom was released under the same marketing tactic, millions of people paid for the full game just because of their experience with their pirated Wolf 3D.

IIRC Doom, DoomII and Quake also had a shareware component. I remember that you could purchase Doom from vending machines (how cool is that) (at least in America). I think this had at least as much impact on the popularity of doom/doomii as did pirated copies of wolf3d.

However, Tribes is a major success because of piracy. Tribes was a pretty fun game, and it only became popular by people downloading it and giving it ago. In fact, most people I know who did pirate it ended up purchasing it. If only because they felt guilty about playing it so long. IIRC Dynamix stated that they had larger profits after 1 year than they did on release (it went from a near washout to a sell out).

I think it is pretty retarded when game companies produce a game and they don't have a demo (be)for release. This has a lot of publicity effect that warez has, while being legal :)

For example 3dsmax, is a program that i needed for tafe this year but there is no chance in hell i would go out and buy it for hundreds of dollars just so i can do an assignment.

Your TAFE doesn’t have the software that it requires for its assignments? That’s unpossible!!!

No, really, I get what you are saying here. Most organisations (adobe for instance) realise that students will steal their products. They don’t really mind because if that student has talent and gets a job in that industry they will eventually have to pay for a licence (or multiple copies will need to get licensed).

Many users would switch to Linux in an instant if Windows was unpiratable.

Assuming that Windows was totally un-piratable most people would either use the original version of windows that was already on their computer when they purchased it. Most being of course … n00bs.

Which leads me to my next rant: Your post assumes that most users (i.e. noobs) would be able to set up and use linux as their day to day desktop replacement, as if linux is ready for the general desktop market.

Now, I like using *nix to develop/serve on. It is stable, reliable and I can carve out all the s*** I don’t want, but as a desktop replacement it is a poor substitute. The only people who believe otherwise are *nix nerds, and quite frankly they are as worse than mac hags.

So many awesome things in *nix, but most of them are unfinished. As a developer I can even understand why they remain unfinished; the original developer did all the fun bits (the stuff he wanted to do), and then stops. All of the things that users want (ie polish) is just hard boring s***, that the developer can probably throw together given enough time.

Which of course is the problem, most OSS projects have 0 funding and who wants to spend their free time writing polish on something, when they could be making something else that is fun.

*read: I just changed my PC to linux and I am regretting it ;p

many

Somehow becomes

most

Way to earn your name.

Way to earn your name.

You should see me after a whole day of writing c ... oh wait!

If windows became unpiratable I would end up buying it. Or finding a way to get a legit copy without having to pay like I do now. Cost is not the major issue with what OS I choose, compatability is.

last edited by shad at 00:40:11 21/Jun/05

when winxp came out it was around 1k wasnt it?

no way in hell i would fork out 1k of my hard earned money for the new version of windows. f*** that Billy G

i would still be running windows 98 if windows was un-piratable... i think winxp is still around 300 isnt it? f*** paying 300 for it

i never payed for windows til i got xp prof oem on my last comp. i dont like paying for things when i can get them for free. i like piracy. it makes me happy.

Anything over 50 quid I wouldn't even consider buying. A working class man cannot afford 100+ pound pieces of software for a f***ing computer.

If Microsoft's software wasn't as successfull as it is, it might open the door for a more popular competitor, or MS's products would simply be cheaper...

My mum works for the education department - and they gave out XP prof, office xp, norton antivirus....so i have legit copies of all! :D

My mum works for the education department - and they gave out XP prof, office xp, norton antivirus....so i have legit copies of all! :D

whoop-dee-doo tarantula town

Another issue, like with the movie industry, is release times.

The temptation to download BF2 after loving the demo so much has been huge. But I just keep telling myself, it'll be out on the 23rd or the 27th (the two dates stores have told me), I can wait.

i can.

If Microsoft's software wasn't as successfull as it is, it might open the door for a more popular competitor, or MS's products would simply be cheaper...

That was my implication; I'm assuming the ranting in the article has some merit and the unpiratability would mean less publicity and thus less users. This would then (in many users' minds) force the move from Windows, elsewhere. Now, while Macs are a close desktop alternative, they are just absolutely horrible in my books. However, many of the features of Linux distributions are so nice that Windows alternatives have been created - multiple desktops, startmenu on right-click, that sort of thing.

If MS don't do enough to counter the move away from them, it is likely one or many of the distributions will be improved due to demand. This could mean better apps (or more polished ones), more compatibility for windows extensions, office software (such as open office), and most importantly games.

Already Linux distributions are given to those who serve games - Battlefield 2; the linux server versions were given out because we know Linux is a better server of the game, the next step is to release the full game in linux-compatible code. If I saw a lot of computer users flocking to a different OS and those users played games more than others, I'd certainly try to let those guys play on their new OS.

It hasn't happened yet, but it may well happen in the future if Linux get a decent distro that entices new users (read: compatibility, easy to install and comes with lots of support for problem-solving) and they get the same publicity Firefox did in the New York Times, we could well be looking at a move from an MS-dominated market to one where the majority of Home users prefer Open Source programs.

Then it only takes a few IT managers to calculate the cost of using Linux over Windows (if most of his employees know how to use Linux, then the cost is significantly reduced) and many of the others will move over too. Like I said, it's a long way off, but once the ball starts rolling, it's hard to stop - see Firefox as the main example. Open Source Software (OSS) can succeed.

Disclaimer: I do not currently use a distribution of Linux, but I fancy giving a few a try. I use Windows XPSP2, MS Office 2003 and MSN Messenger. I love the XBox and plan to buy an XBox 360. I have nothing personal against Microsoft, but I believe competition is the spice of life.

Without any real noticable threat to MS by OSS, they have already released campaigns in order to stifle its progress. This alone is inspiration to me that MS do not want competition in this marketplace. Already Linux is free, what price can Windows come to match or beat that? Are they willing to go that low? I think as long as OSS stays hot on the heels of MS heading towards the release of Longhorn, they can provide opportunities for the customer to make a choice of the OS they want. They were forced to download SP2 and upgrade then, what's the big deal with downloading a linux distribution? If they're getting a new OS, why not give the little guy a go?

It's happened with Firefox - and IE6 was free as well. Look, already Microsoft are going to release a new, feature-packed IE7 just to compete. The possibilities are endless.

/extremely long post

Photoshop is nice, but there's no way I'd pay $700+ for it (student discount, normally like $5K). If they counted everyone who pirated it as a lost sale then they're dreaming and so are the rest of them. As sc00bs said, many of us wouldn't have half the software we do if we had to pay for it. Many users would switch to Linux in an instant if Windows was unpiratable. Many are already that way with Opera - that advert is annoying so they try Firefox and stick with it and support it.

say what?

I have a legal copy of CS2 Pro, I can safely tell you it doesnt cost $5000, I bought it for $1750 odd... (not academic of course) Academic, its like $580

Clicky
Clicky

Photoshop CS2, well it is less than $1000 (and thats not academic, thats retail) Academic, its less than $500.

Clicky
Clicky

Best software... IT rocks my panties.

edit: Oh, yeah, Also, I get a lot of MS software from training... and reps... MS Office 2003 Pro + Windows XP Pro + Encarta 2003 (LOL) for doing a stupid online training thing that took about 30 seconds... win

last edited by mongie at 09:53:42 21/Jun/05

I thought I rocked your panties Mongie?? Well, at least made them damp.

http://www.journeymalaysia.com/pics_elephant centre/DERAILED.JPG
Nice work Rev, look what you did.

you got a s***house camera Seven

companies ARE loosing money, it depends on the product, your right by saying the actual figure of lost money is defenitnly lower than they claim, but it varies depending on the industry. Until china introduced anything close to piracy laws, microsoft introduced windows into china (i think 1995 or 97), in its first year it made around (cant remember exact figures, did a presentation on it at uni) 3-5% of its projected sales target. Around 95% of all copies were pirated. that is piracy at its worse. This is a while ago now, but its an example. The first place shut down was an actual huge factory producing copies of windows for sale on the streets. Actual money lost is hard to tell, but they are loosing money and its worth worrying about. Imagine if you worked for a company, programmed some software, which upon trying to sell, everyone stole. how would you feel.

its not the rep of the company (although we all know MS) its the principle.



last edited by Tiny at 22:45:17 21/Jun/05

Like I said, it's a long way off, but once the ball starts rolling, it's hard to stop - see Firefox as the main example.

Hasn't the growth of Firefox slowed down (like by a metric f***ton)?

Open Source Software (OSS) can succeed.

Open Sourcec Software has succeeded, just not often on the desk top. OSS really comes home for high end technical people who need a lot of grunt, and not a lot of help to do it. I am thinking of APIs as probably the biggest example of OS software having major successes (Python anybody?).

Until the majority of OSS found on distros have some real $$s behind them to produce not only quality marketing, but real quality for end users it will stay in the realms of the technically minded.

How about people in this thread learn the difference between lose and loose?

How about people in this thread learn the difference between lose and loose?

have a winge grammar police. this is QGL not oxford.

Yes, piracy is illegal. Yes, piracy denies profits to businesses. No, I don't and never will, give a s***. If a company just cannot deal with the amount of profits that will be lost due to piracy, move the f*** over and let someone else cash in the profits that actually exist. If, due to excessive piracy, a company goes bust, so what? Looks like some fatcat is going to have to sink his money into a different product. Am I suppose to feel sorry for these companies? Someone tell me when my conscience should start giving a s*** because I am really at a loss.

The people who think companies would produce better quality products, or mark down the price of products, if only piracy stopped and the profits were theirs is kidding themselves and should promptly end their life.

Tiny QGL shouldn't try and be at Oxford-level, but it should try to at least have a basic level.

Imagine if you worked for a company, programmed some software, which upon trying to sell, everyone stole. how would you feel.

Wouldn't programmers for larger companies be paid a fixed rate, rather than getting a cut of the total sales?

I'd probably be delighted