Having NOT just acquired M$ Windows XP Professional Corporate Edition (sans registration) and M$ Office XP Professional (OH so happy they put FrontPage in that ) on Morpheus, I thought I might share my feelings on the matter.
There are a couple of arguments regarding software piracy that I feel merit some audience.
First, software publishers claim that piracy drives up the prices of their products for everyone. Essentially, the logic goes that developers are forced to have the people that actually pay for their software finance those that don't. They claim that if everyone were good little boys and girls that they wouldn't have to charge so much for their valuable product. In effect, this is an outright lie. M$, for example, has produced their last two major products in a way that is virtually un-piratable. If, indeed, Windows and Office XP were completely un-piratable, why is it that M$ has not only neglected to lower the prices on these two products, but actually raised them from their last release? Office XP Professional is available for $579 US for the full version and $329 US for the upgrade from Office 97/2000. Windows XP Professional goes for $299 US for the full version and $199 US for the upgrade from Windows 2000 Professional. Conversely, Office 2000 Professional sold for $499 US for the full version and $299 US for the upgrade from Office 97/95. Windows 2000 sold for $249 US for the full version and $149 US for the upgrade from Windows NT 3.5x Workstation. So, what gives!? Tell me, what justifies the increase in price for the product when M$ has virtually guaranteed that a MUCH larger percentage of their userbase will be using something other than a pirated version of the software? Additionally, any user that wants to run the new version who has more than one computer in their household has to pay for additional licenses for their household. That, to me, is dispicable, and more than justifies my NOT pirating M$ software.
Second, most software developers will say that they lose tons of money every year to piracy. That argument seems to knock their first argument in the head, doesn't it? If we're all paying to finance those who choose to pirate, why would the developer lose money? Hmmm... Taking that bit of information out of the picture, this argument is pretty flimsy, especially for an organization like M$. The core money makers for M$ are their OS and Office Productivity Suites products lines. 60% of that business is from large corporations on MOLP programs. Even though M$ gives volume discounts for these large purchases from these organizations, they still make about 50% of their PROFIT in this sector. An additional 30% of their revenue is derived through OEM distribution to PC manufacturers; furthermore, this accounts for another 20% of their overall profits. These two markets only account for about 1/6th of the total piracy that M$ sees when it does surveys, and it accounts for 70% of their profits. This is why the corporate editions of the XP products exist: M$ is not AT ALL concerned about piracy in this sector. Only 10% of their gross revenue comes from people plunkin down their personal fundage and buying the software retail for their home PCs. Only about 2 in 5 copies of these products (prior to XP, of course) in the home sector are actually legit, but M$ is only losing a token amount of business here. All it means is that instead of Billy G. lining his pockets with 2.5 billion dollars a year, he's only getting a paltry 2.4 billion dollars. Boo F-ing Hoo!
Now, before I get too terribly flamed, I am in no way endorsing stealing software from developers whose sole market is to the home consumer. Game developers would lose their shirts if piracy was much more widespread than it already is. This is one of the reasons why there's more developer focus on consoles these days over PCs: it's a lot tougher to pirate console games. But when it comes to guys that charge entirely too much money for the products they sell, especially those whose market is business/education-centric (M$, Adobe, Macromedia, etc.), I haven't a qualm in the world about NOT warezing the hell out of 'em.
But you shouldn't...warez is bad...