A pirate who is expert in your product may serve as a valuable second-tier support mechanism, answering questions about your product in forums or chat. A pirate who is enough of a fan might even sell enough copies of your product to in some sense make up for the theft. The pirating user may serve all of the functions of a regular user, short of actually giving us the hard-earned money. A pirating user is better than no user at all. Pirates give us a lot less than their law-abiding counterparts, but let’s be realistic. But are the pirates getting something for nothing? I’m not so sure. Does our working late hours day after day, handling development, marketing, quality, and support, all on hardware we had to purchase ourselves, warrant a $25 payback from a customer who reaps the benefits? Absolutely. Pirates either have no conception of how hard we work, or else they choose to ignore it and rationalize their theft.
The last thing I want to do is legitimize piracy. It’s not about money so much as the principle of the matter! They shouldn’t be getting something for nothing! At the sight of one illegal code making its way around the net, they envision thousands of hard-earned dollars funnelling out of their bank account and into the the pirate’s filthy chest. On the other end, the developer can’t help but fume at the thought of illegal copies of their software being used by pirates.
I hover dangerously close to that mode of thinking.
So they do believe it, even if it’s not true. The nonchalant type would rather believe that people are honest and that things will work out in the end. I believe the two extremes are driven more by psychology than pragmatism. I was talking to Stephan Cleaves about this earlier today, and it started me thinking. Attitudes toward piracy cover a wide spectrum, ranging from nonchalant to obsessive.
Developers, having their entire livelihood invested in the hope that people will actually pay for their products, are naturally concerned with the problem of software piracy.
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