QotD: Piracy
Posted June 26th, 2005 @ 09:22am by Erik J. Barzeski
Question: How much pirated software do you have on your computer right now?
My Answer: One piece, but it's on a .dmg and I have not used it in months (Adobe Illustrator - I own version 8, but this is CS).
Incidentally, Freshly Squeezed Software's approach to piracy mirrors that of Wil Shipley, who has somehow managed to post two interesting entries in a row. That stance is, basically, to ignore piracy. We always tried, at FSS, to make sure honest people paid up, but nothing more. None of our software even blocked pirated codes - it wasn't worth the effort to maintain such a list. The pirates would simply generate a new code, and we'd add that to the list, and it'd become a vicious cycle that took development time away from actual features - the things that sell software to honest folks.
You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.
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Posted 26 Jun 2005 at 9:44am #
I hope you relax your usual policy on fake email addresses, but here goes:
2 items,
MS Office
Adobe Photoshop
Posted 26 Jun 2005 at 11:14am #
I have 1 piece of "pirated" software. As soon as I get a credit card I will purchase a license for it since I use this software quite often.
Posted 26 Jun 2005 at 1:02pm #
I haven't heard of any technique to break Ambrosia Software's licensing system, which is why I would call them as soon as I have a useful product. Even though you don't really try to worry about it, you might as well do yourself a favor and see if their time-lock based software is worth it.
As for me, I kind of grew out of pirating software since I now have the means to pay.
Posted 26 Jun 2005 at 2:37pm #
So far as I know, I have no actual pirated software on my actual production computers - I generally purchased products or just don't use them.
That said, I do have multiple computers, and I install the software I buy onto those multiple computers. I'm not going to buy multiple copies of, say, iLife or Quicken just because I might happen to use this computer or that one.
But I don't trade software or license keys with others.
Posted 26 Jun 2005 at 7:40pm #
afaik i don't use any pirated software that i might have on my computers. I too grew out of pirating, software, mostly because the stuff i've got i use in a routine, that i haven't changed in a while, also, having put some sweat and blood into software of my own, i can understand the POV of a piracy "victimized" developer.
Overall, my ethics say "piracy is only wrong if you use the pirated software in a production environment"
or you can move from the normal definition of piracy "downloading commercial software" to "violating the EULA" in which case i'm in violation on a few counts... but only technically (I have iWork installed on a few computers, but i only ever use it on one computer at a time, and nobody else ever uses the software)
Posted 27 Jun 2005 at 1:43am #
None on this computer, but I still have a lot of songs on my desktop that I downloaded for my wife years ago. Songs aren't software though, so... none! Yea!
Posted 27 Jun 2005 at 5:17pm #
I have some software that came with me when I left my last company, but as they hadn't paid me for a few months(or more), I felt that it was a severance of sorts. I have worked hard to go through my software and delete or buy anything I may have downloaded and used without paying. I think the last holdout is SubEthaEdit that is free, but I have used it commercially. Oh, well. I only use it now through Transmit, but as soon as skEdit gets on that list, It will be gone.
Mostly the only time I pirate is when the trial is ridiculously short or when I install on multiple computers I own. In the case of movies or songs, if I can borrow them from the library, i will download, watch or listen, then delete. If I like it that much, I will buy.
Posted 17 Apr 2007 at 11:42pm #
[...] said this two years ago and I still believe it: Incidentally, Freshly Squeezed Software's approach to piracy [...]
Posted 22 Dec 2008 at 5:35pm #
[...] P.S. ffmpegX seems to be a bit long in the tooth, and VisualHub is now gone. What's the preferred tool to create .flv files if that's the way to go? FootnotesMy normal amount stems from the fact that I've never cared to expend a bunch of energy to thwart hackers, thiefs, crackers, etc. People can generally be trusted, and so if I can spend only a little time to come up with a solution that works for 95% of people, that's the one I go with. Engaging in a never-ending arms race against the aforementioned groups wastes too much time. I've written more about this topic here and here.↩ [...]