Software piracy - what's your view on this?

[Chintan Gohel]

There's been some uproar in my country over a decision made 3 years ago - my former university has made it mandatory for every new student to get their laptop. The laptop costs 400USD and is well priced for the specs being given - core i5, 15.6 inch screen, 4GB RAM etc. It also comes with windows 8.1 and office installed by default and licensed too.

So parents this year have just woken up and said why should they buy the college laptop (assembled locally) when they can get laptops at 200USD?

One of the underlying issues here is that those cheap laptops being sold don't have an OS installed and that will costs money to install. However, software piracy is very common. The gullible ones will pay 1-5USD for windows OS while the tech savvy will just scour the internet for a hack.

This leads me to my question: what's your view on software piracy? Or copyright infringement? Locally software like photoshop, lightroom, office, Antivirus, Windows OS, and many others get hacked a lot, both my students and average pc users. I can't remember seeing anyone actually buying photoshop or lightroom unless they are in a professional company

Certainly many users will say they cannot afford the software - Matlab can cost 1200USD while Autocad can cost 6000USD

a recent report said that more than 67% of users in the emerging countries use pirated software. So who loses out on this? Is it the big companies like MS and Adobe? Or is it the local government in lost revenue? Or is it the users of pirated software? And then there re reports that large corporations like Amazon or Apple don't pay tax in certain places - that doesn't inspire confidence, does it?

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[ven07]

How about giving us free software coupled with ads?

I mean utorrent does it (not that I know.. I just heard it somewhere...)

 

[Chintan Gohel]

How about giving us free software coupled with ads?

I mean utorrent does it (not that I know.. I just heard it somewhere...)

well, yes, there are app that have ads, not sure about software though.

 

[ven07]

Don't see why a program like photoshop couldn't have ads baked right into it. Want the uncluttered version, pay for it.. until then, eat ads

 

[MrWhiteman]

I used to but a lot of things are now free on Windows store such as video editors and such like. For photos I use paint.net

 

[MrWhiteman]

How about giving us free software coupled with ads?

I mean utorrent does it (not that I know.. I just heard it somewhere...)

Ironically if you pay for a dvd/Blu-ray you get hammered with ads, but if you bittorrent movies, ads are stripped.

 

[Bobvfr]

I really think using pirated copies of software is theft, if you want a copy of MS Office then pay for it, if it's too expensive use a free software package, there are plenty of them out there, sure they probably have limitations compared to full blown Office but they are free.

Having said that, I also think companies need to think seriously about pricing, if your software is so expensive you should expect competition and piracy and often the market will get taken away from you.

I do think MS have been bad at this is the past, but currently with offerings like 365 they have a package that should be affordable to most people, gives MS a steady income stream and also encourages users to use other MS services.

Currently MS offer 365 for ?80 in the UK for 5 people, that's full blown Office with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Publisher, Outlook and OneNote (The grown up version), 1 TB of cloud storage and 60 minutes landline calls with Skype, so ?80 - by 5 equals = about ?16 per year, divide that by 365 and you have all of that for less than 5p per day per person (OK it's dad who tends to pay, so 25p for full blown Office per day for your family). And 5p of that is tax............ (Which helps your country, or at least supports your local dictator in designer clothing)

When it comes to the OS on your PC, even there you can get free OS's if MS and other companies get pissed off by pirates its understandable.

And for one man bands and small workshop software companies, you are just stealing if you pirate their software.

I am sure we have all done it in the past, but with so many options now and software prices very low compared to in the past, its just not worth it.

 

[ven07]

I am sure we have all done it in the past, but with so many options now and software prices very low compared to in the past, its just not worth it.

But it will still happen, because emerging markets/students/no access to credit cards or other form of online payments etc

Keeping the pricing low doesn't necessarily help either. The cost could be $10 and people would still crack and upload it somewhere

 

[MrWhiteman]

But it will still happen, because emerging markets/students/no access to credit cards or other form of online payments etc

Keeping the pricing low doesn't necessarily help either. The cost could be $10 and people would still crack and upload it somewhere

Prices are higher than ever especially for games. I think BF4 was over ?100 with all the maps and stuff because they sell you incomplete or broken games and call it early access or DLC as a marketing gimmick.

 

[ven07]

call it early access or DLC as a marketing gimmick

Yup just another way to prolong making money

 

[Chintan Gohel]

But it will still happen, because emerging markets/students/no access to credit cards or other form of online payments etc

Keeping the pricing low doesn't necessarily help either. The cost could be $10 and people would still crack and upload it somewhere

that's one of the real problems - those who want to pay cannot because they have no way of paying for it. In Kenya - mobile money is king, not credit cards, not debit cards, but mobile money. Even the Facebook CEO was in Kenya last week just to learn about mobile money. Can you pay using mobile money for software? Maybe some

 

[Chintan Gohel]

I really think using pirated copies of software is theft, if you want a copy of MS Office then pay for it, if it's too expensive use a free software package, there are plenty of them out there, sure they probably have limitations compared to full blown Office but they are free.

Having said that, I also think companies need to think seriously about pricing, if your software is so expensive you should expect competition and piracy and often the market will get taken away from you.

I do think MS have been bad at this is the past, but currently with offerings like 365 they have a package that should be affordable to most people, gives MS a steady income stream and also encourages users to use other MS services.

Currently MS offer 365 for ?80 in the UK for 5 people, that's full blown Office with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Publisher, Outlook and OneNote (The grown up version), 1 TB of cloud storage and 60 minutes landline calls with Skype, so ?80 - by 5 equals = about ?16 per year, divide that by 365 and you have all of that for less than 5p per day per person (OK it's dad who tends to pay, so 25p for full blown Office per day for your family). And 5p of that is tax............ (Which helps your country, or at least supports your local dictator in designer clothing)

When it comes to the OS on your PC, even there you can get free OS's if MS and other companies get pissed off by pirates its understandable.

And for one man bands and small workshop software companies, you are just stealing if you pirate their software.

I am sure we have all done it in the past, but with so many options now and software prices very low compared to in the past, its just not worth it.

But the five people who get the office and storage, they bhave different email accounts, right? Or will their office be under the same account - yours?

 

[Bobvfr]

Different email addresses, when you take it out you have control so you can choose who to share it with, obviously you need to allow them and you can take it away from them at any time. For the person having a share it shows up in their Office account who is sharing with them.

As far as I can see the words Home and Family are fairly loose so in our case one of our daughters has a share who lives a hundred miles away so no ties to local networks and there is nothing to say it can't be a friend rather than family.

 

[anon(9668900)]

I have office 365 personal. The moment I'm able to earn my own money (I'm in graduate school right now) I'll switch my house over to 365. We already insist on having paid Windows at home. Other software... I don't buy. They're too expensive and usually available in labs.

 

[Chintan Gohel]

I have office 365 personal. The moment I'm able to earn my own money (I'm in graduate school right now) I'll switch my house over to 365. We already insist on having paid Windows at home. Other software... I don't buy. They're too expensive and usually available in labs.

if you mean computer labs, especially in college - the funny thing is the software at our local college could also be pirated - or it was bought but is really outdated, like 10 years old. Which makes ir pretty useless for the present use

 

[anon(9668900)]

Yes, I can understand that. A section of the labs in my college used to be on Windows 2000 before they recently upgraded all of them, hardware included.