Peeve Farm

g r o t t o 1 1

Peeve Farm
Breeding peeves for show, not just to keep as pets

  Blog \Blôg\, n. [Jrg, fr. Jrg. "Web-log".
     See {Blogger, BlogSpot, LiveJournal}.]
     A stream-of-consciousness Web journal, containing
     links, commentary, and pointless drivel.

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Saturday, December 22, 2001
20:41 - Software Piracy	(top)
What is it with people? "Oh, the company prices the software too high, so I should be able to just install it and use it for free if I can't pay for it." Hel-LO? By that logic, you could go and steal a car because you feel Ford shouldn't be charging $20,000 for one. I am so sick of this stupid-ass double standard that everyone espouses about software piracy. People who wouldn't steal a candy cane are happily burning copies of MS Office and giving them away as Christmas presents. Doesn't that seem a little sickening? What is wrong with these people? I'm not one of those people who thinks giving someone an MP3 of a song is a heinous act punishable by death. It isn't. That's a low-volume duplication. That's Fair Use-- and besides, the music industry is heading for a major shakeup anyway, now that they know digital music is not going away. But I do have a problem with people hosting thousands of MP3s and trading them back and forth to the exclusion of ever buying any CDs. It doesn't take a genius to see that by that model, $15 paid by one person can distribute a new CD to the entire world. Beautiful in its information-wants-to-be-free simplicity, but surely anyone can see that it doesn't fill an artist with a powerful sense of confidence and purpose. "So Mr. Record Producer, you're saying that if I sign this contract, you're promising me... $15?" "Well, yes, but we take about 85% of that." But software is a fair bit different. It's a tool that you use. It's not a consumable. Every piece of software has its own price, determined by how the company sees the supply and demand of the market shaping up. It's any company's right to price the software where it leaves the least money on the table. The stockholders would demand no less. Now, a socially conscious company might want to produce a "Lite" version of an expensive software package-- you know, like Microsoft Works used to be. But just because they don't doesn't give someone the right to install and use it for free off a warez board just because sitting in his darkened basement, he decided that the company's pricing schedules were inappropriate to the real market (or, more appropriately, to HIM). Expensive CAD or 3D rendering packages-- the ones in the $35,000 range-- are priced that way because they are intended for use in the corporate or higher-ed market. Art schools and technical colleges provide courses in these software packages, to prepare people for jobs involving them. It is NOT acceptable for someone to install a pirated copy of Maya just because he wants to learn it and get a job. By that logic, it's okay to steal an animation table in order to get a job at Disney without going to CalArts. Breaking the law with noble intentions is still breaking the law. And people who don't understand that are just forcing them to pass more laws like the DMCA, ruining it for the rest of us. I flat-out refuse to give any money to Microsoft. But I'd much rather give money to Microsoft than use Office or Windows illegally.