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Law Enforcement Fails To Combat Software Piracy
from the try-competition dept
Last week, the software industry made some predictable noises about wanting China to enforce piracy laws. The problem with this approach is that software piracy isn't a legal issue, it's an economic one. No amount of legal pressure will convince someone to spend a couple months' salary on upgrading their operating system. Trying to crack down on sales will only push software more into the black market, hurting the legitimate partners within the country. If the industry actually wants to do something about piracy, it needs to look at ways of competing with pirates. Since additional copies of a program hardly cost anything to produce, why not give them out for free, or next to it. This helps to create a relationship with the user, while increasing the likelihood that they'll come back for more software or support in the future. Eventually, as China becomes wealthier the economics will favor legitimate software, as it has everywhere else in the world. When that happens, it will really pay off to have some goodwill in the market.
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and first!
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Re:
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well
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Mike wrote up that story last week...
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20060407/174244.shtml
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re: free is for free
LOL - You sound like Red Foreman.
Free is just another way of doing business, as stated, you can have software for free, and then you might sell your services regarding that software, etc. You also have the right to charge for it if you want.
Just thought it was such a funny comment. Very well thought out. Americans actually I believe have traditionally stolen and pillaged, but I could be wrong. :)
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This is an extremely misinformed statement, in general. If you are talking about newly released software, then the creator requires 'n' number of copies to be sold in order to make back the investment that went in to the product. I highly doubt anyone is pirating software where the company has already made their ROI ... like who is pirating Windows 98?
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Re:
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Re: Who's pirating Win98?
As far as windows 98 goes, I have seen pirate copies in Third World countries who are using ten year old computers (many of them cast off from New World and Old World nations). Which brings up a good question, why isn't Microsoft giving away Windows 98 for free? I would never have purchased XP if I didn't own 2000 (and would not have bought that without owning 98). Why isn't MS giving away old razors so they can eventually sell new blades?
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Notepad
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Re: Notepad
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Hacking programs is 31337
ROFLMAO
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Actually, if you're smart, you can outfit your whole pc for free, down to the OS.
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Did you pay for your Web browser...
Hypocrite.
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