This is general piracy information, not Palm specific, but I thought it
might be of some interest.

According to the Business Software Alliance, for the year 2000 the
global piracy percentage was 37%.  However, the break down by country
varied dramatically, and the US was only the 20th worst pirates, at 23%.

The worst countries were Vietnam, at 98%, and China, at 96%.

Britain and Germany were at about 24%, France and Japan were near 30%.

There is a strong correlation between the amount of software a country
makes and the amount of piracy in that culture, so in time the Asian
piracy should decrease as Asian countries priduce more software and wish
to protect it.

But my point in all this is that as a Palm programmer, your real problem
isn't the guy who cracked your code which is now selling on eBay on a
25,000 Palm program CD.  On average, you'd lose less than a third of
your sales that way.

Your real problem is that the hand held market, in general, like light
quick apps - not deep involved ones.  Which means that most people's
"free trial" versions are nearly as deep as most Palm owners go.  And
with hundreds of new free trials coming out each week, if your code
expires because I didn't pay for it - well - gee - look at all the new
things to try.  :)

- Jeff



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