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From: jwwalden@miavx1.acs.muohio.edu (James Walden)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Pirates and swapware
Message-ID: <1650.26876720@miavx1.acs.muohio.edu>
Date: 26 Jun 90 18:46:08 GMT
References: <1990Jun24.075559.13459@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> <90U702Unb2ZK01@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> <18721@well.sf.ca.us> <25535@usc.edu>
Lines: 58

In article <25535@usc.edu>, papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa) writes:
> In article <18721@well.sf.ca.us> farren@well.sf.ca.us (Mike Farren) writes:
>>
>>Only in the most convoluted of computations.  The difference is that shop-
>>lifting results in real, physical loss - some merchandise is gone, which
>>must be paid for.  Piracy does NOT result in any comparable loss.  All of
>>the losses are theoretical, a sort of "well, if there weren't any piracy,
>>we'd have sold X% more than we actually did".  This is a rather hazy sort
>>of loss to put on a balance sheet.
> 
> Losses are NOT theoretical. They are quite practical.  The fact that these
> losses cannot be put on a balance sheet, doesn't mean that they are not there.
> It simply says that they cannot be easily computed.  The fact that losses
> are real is really simple to prove.

I hate to tell you this, but theoretical does not mean not real.  I would hate
to think that my work is non-real physics.  You're too eager to flame on this
topic, despite the many smileys after each flame.

Certainly piracy causes losses, but certainly not losses equal to the total
price of all pirated copies in existence.  Many people pirate many things that
they couldn't or wouldn't buy.  (Note that I am not saying 'all' before you
start flaming as you usually do).
> 
> Wake up, dude. You must have been sleeping :-)
> I've seen quite a number of studies that have quantified, foe example, the
> lost sales that Micropro had of their Wordstar program.  The numbers are
> staggering. A one point Micropro had 100,000 registered users and an
> approximate user base of 500,000.  No lost sales?  Give me a break, man :-)
> 

Once again, this doesn't mean that all those people would have purchased the
product, although obviously there are some losses.

>>In fact, of the few
>>examples I've actually seen, dropping copy protection has resulted in a
>>net INCREASE in sales, not the decrease you would expect.  This has been
>>true of games and applications as well.  
> 
> Wake up on this one too, Mike.  Take a look at the computer games that
> are on the shelves of Amiga software.  You'll find it VERY HARD to find one
> that is NOT copy protected.  If your theory were true, they'll all be NOT
> copy protected, "because dropping copy protection would result in net
> increase in sales".  I guess few people in the industry subscribe to your
> "theory" :-) Gee, they really must not have your "13 years of experience
> in the industry". :-) 

I think that he is primarily talking about productivity software where this
is definitely true, although he did not say so.  Many users refuse to purchase
copy protected productivity software, myself among them.  Copy protection for
games does stop many kids from pirating them, although of course it will be
cracked and up on all the pirate BBS's within a week or less.

If you don't want to attack people, don't do it.  The smileys don't help.

James Walden
jwwalden@miavx1.acs.muohio.edu
"Objective truth is a social disease" - Nietzsche