[INTERESTING ARTICLE; See Page 8] Discussion: Thoughts on Piracy

[Your Computer]

Like I said in my previous post, as long as people have a proper mindset, piracy can help a product. Most people, especially if they're low on money, will be very careful about what they buy, and want to make sure that it isn't a bad purchase. Without piracy, all they have will be reviews, which in my opinion is no where near motivating enough to buy a product as much as personal experience.

With the existence of piracy though, people can have a first hand chance at seeing if a product is actually worth their money, which in turn would make a person buy a product when in contrast they originally wouldn't have if it wasn't worth their money.

Most people even if what they are pirating costs them $1 otherwise, would pirate the item anyway. As i said, don't entertain possibilities that rarely, if at all, happen. Most pirated mediums are those which the "pirate" knows they will like or at least has a similar assumption (e.g. "worth their time").

Concerning reviews, for games and movies i find user reviews generally helpful (though i also rely on Youtube footage for games). For desktop applications that aren't games, it normally does not require much research before purchase, since most applications provide demos anyway. If the demo, which is normally the full program without a saving feature or with a watermark or some other minor restriction, and reviews are not enough to convince you whether or not you should purchase the product, then i would argue the "pirate for testing purposes" argument is a lie and would consider placing you within the majority of "pirates."

Let's, for the sake of argument, assume that there was no demo. Let's also go as far as to say there are no reviews. Would you say demanding for a demo is counter productive for a company and the consumer? So you pirate the software in order to provide yourself with a "demo." Behold, you have just relieved said company of risk. After all, what does a demo imply against a company? A demo implies risk. This means if they don't do a good job on the demo and therefore the finished product, they'll lose out on sales. A company without any risks is a company that doesn't care about their consumers.

And why can't you at least take on the assumption, "If no demo, then none of my time"? Both sides would be better off that way.