Software Sucks

[usayit]

I agree with JClishe...

"Those who will never pay... they'll never pay"... that's been said since the beginning of the software industry.

Its a generalization that cannot be applied... and in most cases.. simply not true.

For one, you have the student who needs/wants some commercial product for the purpose of study. (in my case, "Xilinx") Many of these products are way out of the reach financially. Yes... these students may have fallen into the category of "never pay..". BUT the software industry has acknowledged this group and addressed it by offering student editions and discounted products. They in turn get exposure in the marketplace once these students graduate and enter into the workforce.

Another group are gamers....

Another group are governments...

Another group are corporations...

Another group are photographers (remember 1/3 Adobe reports)


The last four... have no excuse. In fact, most don't.


Since this is the TPF... let's take photographers. I bet of those 1/3 pirated software has some $1000+ invested in cameras. Let's not forget that GIMP exists for free and many/most cameras come with their own software as part of the deal. Heck, one of my cameras came with Phase One, Capture 1 and another came with Adobe's Lightroom 3. Its not like there are no other options to leverage..... but they don't.

Don't kid yourself, if photographers could instantly duplicate a Canon 1ds Mark III or a Nikon D3x for free... they would.





and I haven't even touched on games and music which are two of the most pirated products out there. Its not like they are way out of reach cost wise.... If there was a magic DRM that kept everyone happy, I highly doubt that either group would suddenly just stop spending $$$ on the products. Simply put... everyone wants free for only selfish reasons.

 

[usayit]

PS> How many of us that worked photo processing have had to explained to a customer why I can't scan and reprint 100 copies of some photographer's work? How many of those customers get irate AT YOU for informing them?

 

[clarinetJWD]

I'm not totally sure what exactly you're disagreeing with, because both of you said a lot of the same things I did.

JClishe: you said 'These corporations aren't in the "they'll never pay" camp. They're in the "we've learned how to get something for nothing, but our business would fail without software so we would be forced to pay if we had to become honest citizens" camp.'

That's pretty much the same thing, because in the history of copy protection, a very mature field by this point, not a single scheme has thwarted pirates. Cracked software will always be available, and so they will never be forced to become 'honest citizens'. A person who would have to be forced into something is a person who, given a choice, will always choose the other. I'm just saying that history has shown again and again that that choice is going to exist.

"Corporations, software vendors in particular, have an obligation to their shareholders and employees to invoke measures to protect their intellectual property." And there it is. The only reason these DRM schemes exist is to try and show stockholders, directors, anyone who doesn't really know what's going on under the hood, that you're doing something. It's a show. The developers know it's not going to work, but they have to put something out to look good in front of the people who don't understand that. Just because that's how it's done doesn't mean it's the right way.

usayit: "Don't kid yourself, if photographers could instantly duplicate a Canon 1ds Mark III or a Nikon D3x for free... they would."

That's...actually more evidence to the fact that give a choice, some people will never pay, not evidence against it.

The student example, where a group that would once be non-payers is converted into legitimate customers is an example of what I said, as well. That if the pricing is completely out of line with the perceived value, it makes people less likely to buy it. Their pricing was way out of line to students who don't have a lot of money, so they adjusted, and won some customers. Those were the 'bubble' customers, the ones who were simply priced out of it. Many students, however, in light of the price decrease, still choose to steal the software. The price that people will pay is at a different point for everyone. If we split students into 2 groups, A and B, one group paying, and the other stealing, we can modify the size by changing the price. TO move more people into group A, lower the price. To move more people into B, raise it. The trick is finding a price, P, where A*(P+1) < A*P > A*(P-1).

And finally: music and games. Years ago, nearly every digital music seller switched to a DRM free, higher quality audio model. They're selling more tracks now than ever, and it was fantastic PR for them when they did it. Two very successful upstarts in the game publishing world are making money hand over fist with two different models. Steam used the value added model, and out-preforms every other game DRM besides possibly the MMO market because of it. (The MMO market has a great ratio as well because only legitimate players with accounts in good standing can connect to official servers.) Good Old Games sells games that are, well, old, and they're doing quite well on the "Do what you say, do it well, and don't punish your customers" model. They modify the old games to work on modern systems, and sell them completely DRM free.

I'm not saying piracy isn't a problem, and I'm not saying it should be ignored. I'm just saying in the last 25 years, not a single heavy handed DRM scheme has kept a product safe from piracy. On the other hand, some of the lowest levels of piracy have been achieved through alternative incentives and other "out of the box" style thinking. Right now, this is obviously not for publicly traded companies on the whole, because they do have to put on the crazy song and dance for the stockholders, but I'm hoping that as more and more privately owned and small developers see success without awful DRM, it becomes a more viable option.

Side note: I'm not saying that DRM is a problem either. If it's used in a way that prevents mass piracy, but is pretty transparent to the legitimate user, go for it, but when it takes a customer a day's worth of phone support calls to get it to work, you've done something wrong. Whenever you take a customer and give them a bad experience, you run the risk of losing them to the bubble crowd. For example, Apple's App Store. Each account has 5 installs before it will no longer activate. At that point, they can revoke all 5 of the previous ones and get 5 more. This is done quickly, and doesn't bother the end user, but it prevents rampant copying of their product.

Ultra side note: I hope that neither of you take this as combative, or rude, or hurtful. I did my best to make sure I kept it polite and well written, but I do have strong feelings about this kind of thing, so it may come across stronger than intended. Really, though, I'm having a blast in the debate

 

[johnh2005]

I have and do use pirated games. However, ALL of the games I have bought in the last two years I have been sorely disappointed in. If, however, I pirated a game I liked I would actually go ahead and buy. I bought two games, Crysis 2 and Homefront. Crysis 2 was a TERRIBLE DOWNGRADE to the original. Homefront's "single player" game was a tutorial for online play. I wasted $120 on two games, had I pirated first, I would not have even finished. Well excepting Homefront. Homefront was done before it was started. The game lasted all of like two hours... I do SOMETIMES enjoy Multiplayer, but I buy games for the singleplayer experience.

I have no idea where that was going but, I have been drinking, which I HARDLY ever do, and I am not sure I even explained anything correctly...

 

[clarinetJWD]

Working for a game dev, games were the firs on my list of"go legit" a few years back. I just end to wait for sales. I agree about Crysis 2, though, but it could nearly be fixed completely with quicksave, IMO. The suit gives you so many crazy options to try, but the fact that if you die, you lose another 15 or so minutes means that you never try anything but cloak, shoot, cloak, shoot. (Actually, I bought Crysis 2 a long, long time ago. Online preorder for $30)

 

[spacefuzz]

Another group are photographers (remember 1/3 Adobe reports)


The last four... have no excuse. In fact, most don't.


Since this is the TPF... let's take photographers. I bet of those 1/3 pirated software has some $1000+ invested in cameras. Let's not forget that GIMP exists for free and many/most cameras come with their own software as part of the deal. Heck, one of my cameras came with Phase One, Capture 1 and another came with Adobe's Lightroom 3. Its not like there are no other options to leverage..... but they don't.

Don't kid yourself, if photographers could instantly duplicate a Canon 1ds Mark III or a Nikon D3x for free... they would.

I went to a class and one of the other participants was an amateur photographer who brought along his D3 for a main camera, and a D700 for his spare. (and all the lenses etc). During the class he offered pirated copies of photoshop to the group as he was complaining about how much it cost. I was speechless.

 

[molested_cow]

When I asked the question why old people tend to like to buy old cadillacs, Lincoln towncars and big honking road boats, the answer is, they feel that for the same amount of money, they are getting more metal, literally.

We are in the transition where we are learning to understand value beyond physical objects. When the guy pays tens of thousands to buy a D3, D700 and a bunch of top class lens, he's getting a bunch of hardward that he can touch, feel and show off. When he spends a few hundred or thousand on a software package, all he gets is a thin and light DVD plus a user manual. In many cases, you can just download the software right off from Adobe website after you pay.

IMO, 70% of photography happens after you click the shutter button. That means the adobe software is contributing to 70% of the value of his photos. If he is selling his work for a living, he owes 70% of his income to the software he stole.

Then again, you are talking about an amateur who has equipped himself with top class gear just because he can. I don't really see a point of trying to reason with that kind of logic.

 

[2WheelPhoto]

Adobe research indicates 1/3 of their software is pirated.

most people act shocked when they hear I paid for my adobe software

 

[mayhem7]

I completely agree. It's not right, that people who pay for their software, get a worse product than people who download it. I have also personally bought SW that didn't work because of DRM incompatibility with my HW, so I needed to download cracks to make it work. Companies that uses StarForce to protect their programs, or any other DRM-sh*t that makes it a pain for their buying customers, deserve to get their products cracked.

 

[mayhem7]

Fair enough that developers want to protect there SW, so people don't just steal.. But when they make it a pain running there legal copies with dongles and activation and HW blocks and cr*p that doesn't work, they are encouraging it. Who would want to pay a lot of money for getting huge problems, when you can download a free crack that just works? ..Same goes for the music industry. You can either buy music files online, that are protected so you can't play them on on the devices you want, or you can download it for free, and get whatever format you need, and you can play it anywhere. The companies need to turn this around, and make it a nice experience to buy their stuff. That's the 1st step in stopping piracy.

 

[flea77]

Let me start by saying that if people would not steal, then software would be cheaper and easier to install etc, unfortunately that will never happen because people don't mind being thieves right up until it is their personal things being stolen, which I find hysterical.

Next, it is all a balancing act. The harder they make the software to steal, the less is stolen. There are those hard core people who can get anything cracked, but they are the minority. The majority try installing more than one copy, next is the disc copy people, then it gets more difficult from there. As the company makes it harder to copy the hard core people still get the cracked version but the theft is limited to them. The trick is to make it as hard as possible to illegally copy while not making it too difficult for the person who legally purchased it. That can be a tough one sometimes.

Personally I think society has just stopped equating not paying for software (or music, etc) as theft, which is sad. It is theft, just the same as if you broke into someone's home and took their possessions, no difference to me at all.

Allan