Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!decwrl!labrea!rutgers!bellcore!texbell!sugar!ficc!peter
From: peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Software Development And Piracy (Spurred By FTL replies)
Message-ID: <2460@ficc.uu.net>
Date: 16 Dec 88 11:25:14 GMT
References: <555@icus.islp.ny.us> <2363@ddsw1.MCS.COM> <1334@leah.Albany.Edu> <6432@killer.DALLAS.TX.US>
Organization: SCADA
Lines: 45

If you could copy Porsches (and other tangible goods) as easily as you can
copy software, we would be living in an economy of such abundance that such
details as software copyrights would be irrelevant. It certainly wouldn't
be anything like what we have now.

Unfortunately, we don't. Discussions as to who would be harmed in such an
economy might serve a useful purpose to Science Fiction writers, but in the
present situation it's not really relevant. Software authors need to acquire
money to purchase Porsches... or even Hyundais....

The free market has disadvantages, I admit, but as a reward and incentive
system it's about the only one that's workable in a society larger than a
Mediaeval feifdom. People who do good work should be rewarded for it. This
is the basic factor controlling software prices, quality, and availability.
If the market is distorted, for example by piracy, then two things will
happen.

First, there will not appear to be demand for a product. If you've ever heard
of a company not producing a product due to piracy, that's what this means...
due to piracy the demand for that product is artificially lowered. This is
not good for you, as a consumer, or for the authors. This is also not good
for you as a pirate... you can't steal what's not been written.

Secondly, if the product is produced, the market for the product (which is
possibly small to begin with) is smaller than it would be. To recover their
costs and make a profit companies have to take this into account when they
set thir prices. This means that the cost of the product goes up, possibly
further reducing demand. This is not good for you, as a consumer, or for the
authors. This may be good for reluctant pirates, since they have a rationale
for stealing software... prices are too high.

Some packages may be priced higher than they're worth to you, but they must
be worth that much to someone or they wouldn't sell. You are perfectly free
to not pay that sort of price for them, just as you're free to not pay
$80,000 for a Porsche 928S4. Just don't buy them. By and large prices are
what they are because the market is small. If they were any lower there
wouldn't be any incentive to write new software.

If you want lower prices, get as many people as you can to buy computers and
buy... not steal... software. As the size of the market goes up, prices will
fall. Trust me.
-- 
Peter da Silva, Xenix Support, Ferranti International Controls Corporation.
Work: uunet.uu.net!ficc!peter, peter@ficc.uu.net, +1 713 274 5180.
Home: bigtex!texbell!sugar!peter, peter@sugar.uu.net.