Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!pro-generic.cts.com!sysop
From: sysop@pro-generic.cts.com (Matthew Montano)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: Piracy
Message-ID: <8905142016.AA29682@crash.cts.com>
Date: 14 May 89 05:13:03 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: pnet01!pro-simasd!pro-generic!sysop@nosc.mil
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 46

jb103206@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu writes:

> Who pirates paperbacks when you can get an original for $4.00

  Paperbacks are slightly more than $4.00 at last check, but there are TWO
valid points made here. Cheaper software would NOT solve the piracy issue,
there is still the idea and market for "inflated products", i.e. $1300 for the
developers version of DBase IV for MS-DOS, or A/UX technical support from
Apple at $120 an hour (guessing here.. but EXPENSIVE).

  Look at products that are pirated! Video tapes (up until recently),
pornography, first run movies on pay per view satelitte on tape, expensive
software, sattelite descramblers and so on. Most of these products are limited
market items that just aren't availible like "paperbacks" are. Now seriously,
if person A sees product B advertised on magazine C, will he phone long
distance or travel a long distance, or spend mucho dineros on shipping charges
or otherwise inconvinience himself when he can sit at home and download it
from a pirate software BBS? In Toronto here we lack a good supply of Apple //
software through distributors and retailers, it just isn't here. The pirate
community must be large in a city like this. But IBM software can practically
be found in the local convinience store and a good supply of a large variety,
I am quite sure that the IBM pirate community is quite different than an Apple
one here. 

  If a person just can't get the product off a store shelf within a few miles
of his home and he doesn't want to risk Mail Order (like many of us), is he
going to refuse a pirated copy of the program he wants or NEEDS?

  If a pirated piece of software was placed in one hand, and the legit thing
was placed in the other, it is more likely that the average decent human will
take the legit piece of software. But if he/she just can't get that legit
piece of software, they have no choice, and therefore a sale is lost because
the product just isn't there.

  That is a harsh reality that software developers and distributors must face.
Especially being in the position of both salesperson and minor software
developer. The smaller selection of //gs software we have, the more gets
pirated, the more gets pirated, the less we can bring in and sell, the smaller
selection we have, the more... get it? It goes the reverse way to.

Matthew

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