quote:Original post by tobymurray
If I understnad you correctly, you''re saying that pirating has helped both Microsoft and the games industry.

I don''t see how, although I''d be interested to year you explain.

Toby

<A HREF="http://www.tobymurray.com">Gobsmacked - by Toby Murray</A>

When done in the original sense, ''warez'' is a good thing for most companies. The way it is meant to be, it is no simply getting a free copy of an expensive program to use without paying, but to try it out without spending a large sum of money to find out the software doesn''s suit your needs. While some programs offer demos, too much does not. When done ''properly'', warze isnt such a bad thing. If you like the software, you buy it, and if not, you stop using it. Blizzard got a few more customers because of warez done right. My friends and I would not have bought Warcraft 3 if we weren''t able to check it out first and find it was fun even though we dont normally like RTS. The same goes for my purchase of Visual Studio. Had I never tried it, I wouldn''t have found out I liked the IDE and would have definitely not spent the $100(for VS.Net Academic Pro) I did on it.

I don''t know how true some of these claims about the DMCA are, but I don''t think they''re really important. It simply doesn''t matter whether or not it is legal to crack your own copy of a game because no-one will ever know.

It''s technology that circumvents this right that disturbs me. I don''t want "the Software Trust" interfering with my own property, as it (and the recording industry) seem to be trying to do.

I understand, however, that software is pirated, and the companies lose money as a result. However, in most cases I believe that those losses are overstated. Low piracy figures, after all, aren''t in companies'' best interests.