As a software developer, I’ve dealt with the subject of piracy of my product long before it was hip for the RIAA and MPAA to demonstrate what dinosaurs they were with their business model.
What’s the bottom line?
Don’t treat your customers like criminals. Yes, you are going to have some loss to theft. But you only have so much time and energy, so how do you want to spend it? Fighting the people who spoil it? Or making the product better for everyone else?
Granted, with the rise of the Internet and a new “electronic-based” generation, the times have changed somewhat: digital piracy is easier because we’ve got more ways to share files, distribute files, and a whole generation that views things differently than us old folks. But in the end how a developer chooses to spend their time is still the developer’s choice.
I prefer to make better software.
Yes, I still think it’s worthwhile to put some restrictions and registrations in place. I still think some measure of anti-piracy prevention is necessary. If nothing else, it lets legitimate users know this software isn’t free and here’s an avenue through which they can properly obtain it. But it will always be an arms race between the good guys and the bad guys, and if you spend all your time fighting the pirates then you’ll spend none of your time making good and useful features — things that actually will sell your product and get people to use it.
Jeff Vogel is a games developer and he makes the case that yes, you should steal his software — to an extent.
Generally, I agree with him. Piracy is wrong and I won’t go out of my way to encourage it. I think Mr. Vogel rationalizes the behavior of pirates a little too much, but it’s refreshing to see developers trying to look at the situation from the other side.
And while I’m not sure his solution is truly the best solution, it’s an interesting one:
If you like PC games but you usually pirate them, I want you to start actually paying for one game a year. Just one. Please. You should do it because you need to do it to help something you like to continue to exist. Sure, you might find that doing the virtuous thing feels surprisingly good. But, in the end, you should do it for the reason anyone ever really does anything: Because it is in your best interests to do so.
In his bottom line, he’s right, and I’ve known this for years — especially when the whole Napster thing started. It is this point that folks need to be educated about and it is this point that needs to be driven home. After that, it’s up to the individual if they wish to continue to steal or not, and it’s their moral and ethical judgment call to make. There’s not much more we, as content producers, can do.
For you see, whether we make software, porn, music, movies, digital images, any sort of this media or anything other sort of product in this world… we do it because we like it. We do it because we’re good at it. And we do it because we need to make a living to feed, clothe, and house ourselves and our families. Consequently, we hope to get a return on our labor. The way our markets work, that means if you want our product, you buy it; you get our product, in exchange we get your money and can then use that money to buy food, clothing, shelter and whatever else we need or want in life. If we exert this effort to make a product or provide a service and this product/service does not make us any money (for whatever reason), we will not be able to spend our time on that product/service because it’s not being fruitful and we’ve got tummies to fill and backs to clothe. Thus, if there’s no return on the investment, then the investment will stop.
Why should you care if I can’t feed my family? Because if I can’t feed my family, then the thing I make that you love will disappear.
If you like the music I make but I’m unable to make it any more, no more new albums from me.
If you like the movies I make but they take weeks or months to make and I need to spend that time doing something else to pay my bills? Then I won’t be making any more movies for you to watch.
If the software I write is useful to you but you found a bug or the software is no longer compatible with your latest computer upgrade, don’t expect me to be able to fix and update my software unless I’ve got the time and money to do so.
In the end, if you like what I do and want to continue to enjoy what I do, you need to support what I do. If you support what I do, I can then continue to produce what it is that you find good, and we all live happily ever after. 🙂
So yes, there can be some interesting points about piracy, and it is a Sisyphean task to fight it. But only addressing symptoms will never make it stop nor even reduce it. Educating the consumer about how their theft only comes back to bite them and it’s in their own best interest to not steal, that’s what will truly help the cause.
Stuff From Hsoi 
I think that piracy is wrong and that software developers, authors, musicians, etc. have a right to have their property protected.
I also think that part of what drives piracy is price. Quite frankly, I can’t figure out why I should pay $250 for a single license use of Adobe Photoshop, I don’t feel it is worth that money as a product. (For the record, I don’t use photoshop, but instead use freeware Gimp). I can see why many people would pirate photoshop though. It’s a powerful resource that is very useful, but the price you pay borders on ridiculous. For the average user paying $70-100 for a single piece of software is bordering on ridiculous. If Adobe cut the price (which they claim is artificially high due to piracy), I think more people would actually pay for it.
The same thing is true for music. I am NOT going to pay $15 dollars for a digital album. I am simply not, I still buy CDs and rip them to my iPod, because I won’t pay that much money for a non tangible item. At least with CDs, I can trade them in later. It borders on ridiculous as a consumer, when a new digital album is $10-20 bucks, but you know that the necessary cost to produce that album was less than $2. Again, when you charge a fair market price, people in the fair market will pay for it. I would buy ten times as many digital albums, if they didn’t cost 3/4s to the full price of a new tangible one. A separate issue, but still a factor is “non piracy” encryptions being encoded. That’s a load of crap that upsets a lot of consumers, when I buy a product, if I want to use it, rip it, put it on an iPod, or play it on another computer, I should be able to, without an issue.
I don’t write software for a living, nor do I pretend to. I am just an end using consumer who pays for it. Quite frankly, I feel pretty ripped off on a lot of things I have to pay for. Especially in the software and digital music department.
-Rob
What it comes down to is, who is being served? The customer? or the folks making the product/service with greed in their eyes? Because well… look at most musicians… sure they might have a multi-platinum album, but at the end of it all they have no money to show for it because of how the music industry works (I worked in it for a few years). It’s dinosaurs and old business models trying to survive, using force of law instead of adapting and evolving.. .and so on.
So Photoshop. Well, it’s simple. There is a LOT that goes into making such software. It’s non-trvial and takes thousands upon thousands of man-hours to produce. I can understand why prices are as they are. Thing is, it’s not out to serve everyone.. it’s a particular market to be served with that level of a product. But since there’s other users that want similar well… that means there’s market opportunity for someone to produce something. Adobe could market another version of the product (e.g. slimmed down features, slimmed down price point), or another company could make a product. Or of course, there’s open source stuff.
Ripped off? Yeah I hear you. But hey, this is why it’s good to support those willing to evolve the business model. e.g. I dig it when artists tell the record companies to shove off and instead the artist sells direct. They can sell it cheap, there’s little overhead, all money supports the artist and well.. artist is back in control. Because in the end, it’s really the artist that matters.