#1-3
01 января 1987 |
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Shoutburst - piracy: good or bad?
PIRACY - GOOD OR BAD? by Brian Cavers --------------------- I hold a rather controversial view of software piracy - I DON'T BELIEVE COPYING SOFTWARE, OF ITSELF, IS NECESSARILY HARMFUL AND MAY EVEN HAVE HELPED THE SPECTRUM SOFTWARE INDUSTRY! Now hold on, before you reach for the poison pen! The key words in my statement are: 'OF ITSELF'. Let me explain... Imagine two people on a desert island, cut off from civilization and with no hope of rescue. Sensible people that they are, they've got their priorities right and, having been on a survival course, the first thing they do is to get the generator working so they can plug in their Spectrums. Now, Mr X notices that Mr. Y has a rather interesting game running on his Spectrum. He borrows it, duplicates it on his ghetto blaster and returns the original tape to Mr. Y. Meanwhile, Z Software Company, who produce the game are happily counting their profits back in London, blissfully unaware of what has taken place - that someone has just stolen something from them and that they have been deprived of `7.99. Or have they? If Mr. X made a hundred duplicates would Z Software be `799 worse off? If Mr. X did not make ANY duplicate would Z Software be BETTER off? It seems clear to me THAT IN THIS SITUATION the Software house is completely untouched by the duplication of their game. WHY? Now imagine another two people: Mr. A and Mr. B. The latter rarely buys games. He has a casual interest and buys little software. Like our Mr. X, he notices a game on Mr. A's Spectrum, borrows it and makes a duplicate. He thinks the program is 'not baddish' but wouldn't dream of paying `9.99 for it! If Mr. A protests and stops him from making the copy, Mr. B has no intention of going out and buying a copy. He's not that bothered. It seems clear to me THAT IN THIS SITUATION the Software house is completely untouched by the duplication of their game. WHY? In a third example, Little Johnny has about `10 a month to spend on games. He can buy a couple of budget games or a full-priced game. However, each month, on average, he not only buys the one or two games he can afford he also 'borrows', 'swaps' or copies one or two from his mates. It seems clear to me THAT IN THIS SITUATION the Software house is completely untouched by the duplication of their game. WHY? Surely the answer in all three cases is that the duplication only harms the software house IF THE DUPLICATION TAKES THE PLACE OF A SALE. IF THERE WOULD HAVE BEEN NO SALE WHETHER COPYING TOOK PLACE OR NOT THEN HOW COULD THE SOFTWARE HOUSE LOSE ANYTHING? Let me hastily add that nothing in this article is intended to encourage piracy but rather to encourage people to think! - particularly those reactionary people who have been claiming for the last five years that the software industry will grind to a halt if piracy doesn't stop - IT HASN'T DONE YET HAS IT? I find it annoying to read claims by representatives of the software industry that x million pounds is lost to pirates every year. What they really mean is that they estimate (we don't know how) that a certain amount of copying goes on each year but if the copiers were to BUY every copied program instead of copying, then these sales would produce x million pounds. Clearly this isn't the same thing at all as genuine loss of profits. This brings me to the second theme of this article. Let's go back to little Johnny. He makes a new friend who hasn't got a computer called Billy. (The friend is called Billy, silly!). Billy notices that Johnny has no more pocket money than himself and yet gets 3 or 4 new games every month for his Spectrum. Billy remembers another mate of his with one of these new game consoles. Games cost about 20 quid so he can only afford one new game every other month AND HASN'T GOT A HOPE IN HELL OF DUPLICATING THE CARTRIDGES. What does Billy persuade his dad to buy him for Christmas? - That's right, a Commodore 64 (ONLY JOKING!). Anyway, doesn't that illustrate the notion that IT IS HIGHLY LIKELY THAT SALES OF THE SPECTRUM AND THEREBY SOFTWARE SALES, HAVE BEEN ENHANCED BECAUSE OF THE ATTRACTION OF BEING ABLE TO 'SUBSIDISE' SOFTWARE PURCHASES WITH 'FREEBIES'. Couple that last principle with my earlier claim that great numbers of duplications, i.e. the ones that DO NOT REPLACE A SALE, do not harm the software companies and you can see that the overall market may be far more lucrative to the industry in a curious way than if copying were not possible. Let me finish by saying that none of this is proven and only represents one possible point of view. Quite frankly, I'd love to really know - but how could anyone accumulate sufficient information about such a tricky subject? There is also the difficulty of deciding whether a person WOULD have bought a piece of software if they had not been able to copy it. It's highly subjective... We may never know for sure! - Brian Cavers Just one more page!... POSTSCRIPT I would just like to add to the above that I do, of course, recognize and believe that any duplicating done with the DELIBERATE intention of avoiding paying and any organized activity involving actual sales of pirated material is OUTRIGHT THEFT.
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