ArticleI view piracy like I view downloading music illegally off the internet. The large groups are making a massive amount of money selling and distributing the same software to multiple people. It's not like stealing a product. It takes 5 cents to manufacture a cd with their product and another 15 for packaging it. They sell it for $30-$800 each and can sell the same product thousands of times.
The main objectives is to please the stock holders with an ever increasing number. People are not satisfied. Making the best possible products does not insure getting the most money. For example Microsoft. It is in no way efficient. It's coding is bulky and it comes with plenty of glitches to keep you hoping for a newer version. When windows 98 came out they introduced windows 98 SE which had less bugs and mess. The update was like $100. They keep introducing more versions using up more Ram and space, fixing old errors, but adding all new ones to look forward to on a next release.
In some countries they don't have to obey US copyright laws. For example in India they'll sell you any cd for $2 US or less in the open market. Computer already come bundled with thousands of dollars worth of software. In Mexico, it's illegal but you often still see it in every fleemarket you go to. Why should US citizens and other people pay, when half the world is trading it for nearly free? Technology provides education and possibilities for a better life. I'm all for open source and donations, rather than ever increasing bean counters.
Photoshop is a good example. Gimp is a similar open source program that's free. It does all the things photoshop does, except photoshop is 800$. Perhaps if photoshop was $5-15 dollars, everyone would buy it and feel good about their decision. Instead they're greedy and push their monopoly in corruption. I do not feel a bit sorry for them when I see their program free on new nova, emule, and other peer to peer networks.
Piracy also deters smaller groups that are starting out from even getting started. Even with the amount of people making keygens and cracks for programs, there's plenty of honest people to buy the product especially if they like it, even when the option to get it free exists. Then again, many dont do it for the safety of their computer, and rightfully so. Anyone who can crack an anti-virus program probably knows how to make a virus that cannot be detected ;).
Blame the corporations for inflating the prices to unaffordable ridiculous levels for why the evil programmers came about making programs free on a large scale. Call them robin hoods, not theives. Their greed to hoard money made them come about. Had they made their products reasonably priced, and not become money stock monsters, they would have likely earned more, and not had the problem of large scale losses due to piracy.
There are so many conditionals to why it is bad or good. In some cases it's very damaging, like in the instance of a new programmer that becomes popular. For most cases, I still make the conclusion piracy is a good thing, and should continue.
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