Software worth the $$?: Piracy Discussion

[echootje]

I was reading an article about how The Canadian Association Aganst Software Theft (CAAST) has just settled it's largest suit against 8 Canadian companies in the amount of $330,300 for software piracy. That's Last year they hadn't settled more than a dozen cases for the year!!

Forgetting about the issue of a corporate piracy, on an individual level, they threw out a stat that ~39% of software in Canada is pirated. Why is that? Is it simply a matter of price, are users balking at the $900 cost of the latest versions of Photoshop, or Illustrator? Would we buy more software if the prices were more of a percieved bargain? Personally if I could afford it I'd love an original copy of the software I need to use along with the perks that come, like free tech support, but the prohibitive cost of MS Office for instance ($199 - 700 depending on verison) makes it impossible for a home user like me to stay current. At $700 am I getting value for my money? Is it worth $700?

Discuss...

Rob

 

[Ditto Much]

Originally posted by echootje
I was reading an article about how The Canadian Association Aganst Software Theft (CAAST) has just settled it's largest suit against 8 Canadian companies in the amount of $330,300 for software piracy. That's Last year they hadn't settled more than a dozen cases for the year!!

Forgetting about the issue of a corporate piracy, on an individual level, they threw out a stat that ~39% of software in Canada is pirated. Why is that? Is it simply a matter of price, are users balking at the $900 cost of the latest versions of Photoshop, or Illustrator? Would we buy more software if the prices were more of a percieved bargain? Personally if I could afford it I'd love an original copy of the software I need to use along with the perks that come, like free tech support, but the prohibitive cost of MS Office for instance ($199 - 700 depending on verison) makes it impossible for a home user like me to stay current. At $700 am I getting value for my money? Is it worth $700?

Discuss...

Rob

Its worth $700 if it’s a tax write off anyway. If I can't write it off it now depends on the claue the software produces for me. Gran Turismo 3 was well worth the 50 bucks for the enjoyment it provided. C&C RedAlert2 was well worth the $70 it costed. For the twice a year I need to open an access or excel file at home MS Office is worth about $25 per year to me. For the 10 cd's I burnt last week Nero is well worth the $50 sticker price, however for the 2 DVD's I ripped SuperDVDRipper will never be worth it.

Software is a strange thing in that I have never "paid" for it. I've bought some along the way and I have bought some expensive ones along the way. But in every case where I bought the software it was either a tax write off for business purposes (ie our government and tax payers really paid for it!!) or it was a video game for the sake of pleasure. I don't buy business software or pay business software rates for home non commercial uses. I never have!

 

[pr0nstar]

The one piece of software back in the day I would of paid for was PCBoard which ran my pir8 BBS... it was the only thing I found very customizable, useful and actually did what I wanted it to do.

These days, I would probably pay for CounterStrike.

pr0nstar

 

[lok]

The problem is really simple.

Im a gamer. I demolish most games in like three or four days. Buying them would be pointless, and if they werent available for free, I probably wouldnt bother with them at all.

the only things I invest in are products I know im going to be using over and over and get the benefit of support.

Last games I bought :
Warcraft 3
Dark Age of Camelot


As for larger software, there are usually cheaper and just as effective equivalents hanging out on the interweb. Just a matter of finding them. I worked at a big firm for years so they always had liscences, but then again, they even had their own inhouse software, so once you get big enough its really not a big deal.

 

[Preroller]

Ya, I'll buy games for under 75 bucks, and feel like I've got value from them, but I refuse to buy XP for 299 or whatever it is, They should be paying me for having to use ME for all this time and give me a free upgrade.

 

[pr0nstar]

See personally, I think gaming companies should be teaming up.
And offering some sort of subscription for the year or whatever.

And you pay a flat fee and you can use their games. Until your time is up.

pr0nstar

 

[Soundstream]

Originally posted by Preroller
but I refuse to buy XP for 299 or whatever it is

That's why you need a friend at Microsoft. XP Pro is $27.

Cheers ... Ian

 

[gollum]

In my opinion software is like most products in the corporate capitalist driven society, normally more money than they are worth.

I find that if people paid a reasonable amount for good products then the garbage products would cease to exist.

For example I would have no problem paying 300$ for windows XP if it worked. The number of problems found in most software make the actual monetary cost not worth it.

This is why I like the idea of shareware and alot of good products out there began as shareware and still offer their products in this form: cuteFTP, WinZip, winamp, ICQ (although I haven't used it in years). All of these products sold well because they were well made, and proved themselves to their customer base before they asked for any payment.

I also have issues with people that play video games all the time but also pirate them all. If you like something and got enjoyment out of them then you should be obligated to compensate the people that made the product.

The same goes for downloaded music. I personally download alot of music, but I will go out and support an artist who's work I enjoy. But I do not go and buy CD's on a regular basis (part of the problem being the music I tend to enjoy is not normally available on CD).

</rant>

 

[Ditto Much]

Originally posted by gollum


This is why I like the idea of shareware and alot of good products out there began as shareware and still offer their products in this form: cuteFTP, WinZip, winamp, ICQ (although I haven't used it in years). All of these products sold well because they were well made, and proved themselves to their customer base before they asked for any payment.

actually none of these products have sold well. Compared to Mario Kart or Doom for that matter not one of these has done anything.

Nobody outside of the corporate world (tax write off anyway) has ever actually purchased a copy of cuteFTP or WinZip for that matter. I didn't even know you could pay for ICQ.

 

[OTIS]

Most software is priced to be targeted for corporate level useage.. this is clearly evident in their marketing targets & sales models.

This is the same reason why Micro$oft creates 'bundled' packages for home PC's because it allows them to retain a foothold in a market that wouldn't normally never pay and extra $500 for an OS, and also retain the dolalr value of their software for corproate sales because the consumer level bundles are not sold at a deflated price.

So when you ask yourself this question, you need to really assess it as a case by case situation, and also factor in what angle you're coming from.

 

[Stan]

I buy 95% of my games. I'm not poor, and I like to support the industry. If I don't support them, they'll stop making the games that I enjoy, and in the end we'll get stuck with boring crap like 200 world war 2 fps shooter clones or shitty games based on movie licenses like The Matrix.