Piracy happened when the cost of software (including o/s's) was prohibitive. Remember when a copy of Wordstar for cp/m was priced at around $500? Same thing happened with 8 track tapes in the 60's and 70's, and videos in the early 80's. Video rentals were created to combat the high cost of movie ownership.
In the case of Micro$oft, their actual cost per copy (legitimate) is about $15 give or take a few clams. Then they charge $50-100 for the 'use' of that software. They're loosing not $15, but the retail value, and that being their cash cow, they prosecute hackers.
If they would price their product at less than 100% markup, maybe they wouldn't have the problem of piracy. Then it would be cheaper to buy the legitimate version instead of a pirated copy. This is what happened with home videos. In layman's terms, a fast $5 is beter than a slow $80.
Considering the D+ performance of Windows, and what you pay for it, I'd say $20 a copy is more than it is worth. Of course it is profitable to all those who have written spyware, virii, and trojans for Windows, making it emininantly simple for unknown people to electronically spy on your computer . . . where we store sensitive information, thinking it to be 'secure'.
My two bytes worth . . .
Gary Hildebrand St. Joseph, MO
On 10/1/07, [email protected] [email protected] wrote:
On 9/30/07, feba thatl [email protected] wrote:
I'm curious as to what some of you think of Windows piracy. Do you think it's alright if it's only done to run software that only works on
Windows
due to MS's monopolistic tactics?
I generally do not bother with any piracy which is not for profit.
Do you think it's alright if it replaces the purchase of a legit copy, as it hurt's MS's profit margin?
Not exactly the best rationale, but if that's what makes one feel better.
Do you think it's always bad? Do you think that software should always be free
anyway?
There are few cases where i think _use_ of software should be free.
Are your decisions about this based on law or morals?
I would say neither, more like my own personal conclusions.
Personally, I don't pirate software anymore, and it pisses me off to see
my
friends downloading *yet another copy of windows* to reinstall with
*again*,
instead of trying linux, but that's more about their lack of a brain
than it
is piracy.
Yah well, if Windows couldn't be pirated, it would have MUCH less popularity. I haven't had to pirate a copy of Windows in ages, most since I get free copies these days. Whenever I stop getting free copies, I doubt I'll be too bothered about downloading it myself. The bandwidth would be better used downloading the latest version of Fedora or CentOS