skunk3 wrote:There is no profit lost if the person obtaining and using the software never intended to purchase it to begin with, either because they didn't have the money to, or had only the barest of interest in it.
skunk3 wrote:...most of the people who obtain certain bits of software download loads of stuff that they'd *never* purchase if not given the option to obtain bootlegs. This is why I said that there is no profit lost aside from potential sales.
It costs too much so f**k 'em, right? You deserve the best too and they must already be rich from all those professionals(suckers) shelling out for the mere prestige. Could all be true, but how do you know? What about the little guy who actually has real skills to independently make a quality product, can distribute privately and get paid with Paypal, and therefore doesn't need to charge much? These people are appearing with some frequency now and putting out good stuff, but if he starts getting ripped off right and left and has to drop out of the market, how can you ever expect there to consistently be affordable, quality software available?
If you use a non-demo version within a capacity beyond trying it out without ever paying, the developer lost profit, period. What consequences result from that for them vary.
That's why try before you buy demos are more prevalent now than, say the Radium days when you couldn't wait to log on with your DSL modem to the audio app channels of mIRC while everything was distributed legally solely as retail boxed. Now you just end up stealing it so you can get the uncrippled version out of convenience, or bypass the less professional products and only snag the top-of-the-line ones when the other would do fine, and you end up looking like a selfish, greedy asshole.
What can a freeloader demand from the author if the release is broken or incomplete? Not a goddamn thing. He gets to wait for Air or R2R to go back and rebuild from the developer's updates and hope it fixes his buggy software and doesn't also have a trojan attached. Meanwhile the paying customer downloaded his fix a month ago and finished his projects.
Now when the developer releases version 2 with the same rehashed engine with a few tweaks they should have offered for free, and some new search features and prettier graphics, and top it off with presets or expansion libraries that don't work in the previous version but don't really add anything new or interesting, and they want to charge some exorbitant upgrade fee for it so they can continue riding the money train, then yeah, by all means tell them to f**k off.
skunk3 wrote:If it were not possible to obtain pirated software, sales ostensibly would be up a bit, but not nearly to the point that actually reflects the true user base.
Doesn't take a MBA degree to figure that one out. Traditional supply and demand rules are not relevant here, but user base of paying customers reflects quality of existing and future products in most cases, early-adopters notwithstanding. Anyway, if the majority of the user base did not pay, how again is this not affecting profits?
skunk3 wrote:Whether or not the value of software lies in the data itself or the license to use it is pragmatically irrelevant here.
Says you, not the guy who has to live off weeks of work you just decided to take and use without compensating his efforts. You gotta draw the line somewhere if you're selling something that only takes up hard-drive space. Do you know how f**k hard it is to even get software to just work like you expect it to?
I'd say getting paid for his work is fairly pragmatic, wouldn't you? All the freeware developers are, if not generous, at the least are the idealists. I like to think it's their "training day" for the big future projects....that you aren't gonna pay for either. Either that or they are hobbyists typically releasing slow, buggy software, or if they have a brain bigger than Marvin the paranoid android, give us their gift to the world and move on to cure cancer or perfect solar energy or some s**t.
I agree the idiom "everything is worth what the buyer will pay" also isn't strictly relevant here. But in this case, it seems to be either pay what they ask or don't pay at all. If you show them it's quality by paying, while stealing it when it's not, you are still changing the game, albeit collecting alot of junk software at the same time. If you only steal the good stuff, and it's clear their prices are not marked up just for world-class professionals, then you're not helping at all, and progress is far slower, if not stagnant, in the PC and Mac music-making world.
skunk3 wrote:Terms of use are a joke, let's be honest. Who actually reads that c**p?
Read the part that says, "if you use this then pay for it". Skip the lawyer yada yada.
skunk3 wrote:let's just focus on the spirit of the matter
Not what I meant by intangibility, but nice try.
skunk3 wrote:expecting someone to pay for something when they can probably get it for free with virtually no risk whatsoever is just plain silly
No risk to you, sure. Certainly tempting and doesn't necessarily indicate a lack of moral restraint.
You just don't have to give a s**t.
All I'm sayin' is if you want quality product to continue to be offered, someone's gotta pay so the developers will continue to make those products, and in some cases, add new features to them free of charge.
If not, new and interesting and better software will never be as prevalent. They'll ultimately go make product less easy to steal(read not PC or Mac) and you'll end up with lots more mediocre, easy to develop recycled c**p, and only the leecher's attitude to blame for the extinction of the affordable DAW.
I am no longer in pursuit of vintage synths. The generally absurd inflation from demand versus practical use and maintenance costs is no longer viable. The internet has suffocated and vanquished yet another wonderful hobby. Too bad.
--Solderman no more.