From: chris <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>I think it would have a statistically-measurable effect, because we've seen that happen with companies I worked for that implemented anti-piracy strategies. Sales go up noticeably (but of course not the "billions" that the industry talks about, which is pure PR nonsense).
I never said piracy isn't a problem, what I said was, piracy is NOT the
root problem of the software industry (in particular high prices). What I
said was, stopping piracy is unlikely to have a significant impact on
software sales.
But to say that Adobe charges $600 bucks for Photoshop BECAUSE photoshop is pirated, well that just simply isn't true.
Absolutely correct.
Adobe charges $600 for Photoshop because the people who really USE Photoshop use it to MAKE MONEY, and compared to what they make, the cost is trivial. I made back the cost of my latest upgrade with ONE JOB that took all of an afternoon to do.
You'd just get a bunch of people purchasing it who really shouldn't and then flooding Adobe's tech support line with stupid questions like "how do i hook up my camera to photoshop?". That stuff costs companies BIG BIG MONEY, as I'm sure you know.Drop the price to $150, and sales would probably increase dramatically (the question becomes, will it increase enough to off set the difference to the lower price).
Part of this is old school thought. Apple used to give away the OS, and
even starting with System 7 that went commercial, they turned a blind eye
to piracy of it. Because they honestly didn't care.
Having worked for Apple at one point in my life, I can honestly say that if reality didn't intrude, they would love to not care again. Such a move really helped the platform grow and would do so again today, but the R&D costs are just too much to absorb. Apple already works miracles on their relatively small (compared to, say, MS -- who has little to show for the billions they've spent) R&D budget. They MUST charge for the OS.
Now they have a business plan that involves sale of the OS. Now they care if it is pirated.
Well, not to the point that they've put anti-piracy features in it ...
(in the windows world, people just don't think that much, and don't really care about theft at all).
True dat.
That's fine. There is nothing wrong with that assumption in itself. Everyone has their opinions. But when Tim tells me that I should not be answering a support question, and that I'm encouraging piracy by doing so, simply because ONE POSSIBLE explanation is that the software is stolen... then he is simply wrong in my opinion.
I concur with this statement, even though I defended Tim's original statement. I didn't agree with his follow-up to you.
_Chas_
There is only ONE WAY to get through the hype for and against the new film "Farenheit 9/11" -- see it for yourself and make up your own mind. Everybody else, please shut up.
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