Software Piracy
Much of Generation Y has this idea in their heads that everything, from information to music, should be free. I attribute the propagation of this notion to an event from way back in 1999; the advent of Napster, which seeded the minds of so many with the ideology of that “Why should I pay for something I can get for free?” And to make a long story short, Napster got shutdown and a whole new breed of decentralized file sharing services sprouted up in it’s place.
Now, not only are people freely and quite liberally sharing music, they are also sharing pictures, movies, and software, which brings us to the topic of this article: software piracy has reached epidemic proportions particularly when it comes to “pro” applications such as Adobe’s Photoshop and Illustrator, Macromedia’s Flash, and Corel’s Painter. Now why are these few applications such hot items on the veritable software black market, you ask? Here are a few excuses from people that pirate software use to justify their actions:
1) “I just like to say I have it.”
2) “My friends thought my *whatever* looked cool, I guess that makes me a graphic designer so that means I should be using professional applications.”
3) “I’ll buy the program when it doesn’t cost a lot, until then, I’ll just download it.” This often goes along with excuse #2 and #3.
Most of these excuses stem from what I think are the main two reasons that people pirate: money (or lack thereof really) and the idea that pro apps somehow make them a better designer. Both of the previously stated points are pretty much moot because 1) there is an abundance of cheap and even free software out on the internet that is incredibly underestimated by the general populace, and 2) professional software does not make you a professional designer, in fact, it can make your designs look quite abominable (it seems a trend among novice to think that just because some particular software has all these wonderful features [read: filters] that they should employ every, single, hellacious, one of them). I guess what I’m trying to say here is that what software you use depends on your technical skill and intended use.
Now, back to the point about the copious amount of free and cheap software out there that’s fully capable of performing most of the same things professional level software does. First lets begin with the cheap(er) software and one of things things that most people overlook when searching for viable alternatives that don’t cost an arm and a leg; Educational versions of the “good stuff.” Yes, just about every major software company makes educational versions of their software for students and institutes, often at considerable discount. Adobe, Apple, Corel, and Macromedia offer such editions of their software. The only stipulation of using the educational version is that you cannot use the software for commercial purposes (ie. using the software to make money), but honestly, if you are planning to make a living using the software, paying full price isn’t that much to ask. Other than that, the educational versions are in no way crippled from the regular versions, everything is the same save for the license agreement.
Lastly, here is a short list of cheap, yet feature packed, alternatives for both image editing and web publishing software titles.
Image Editing
-Graphic Converter – Shareware – $30 (download) / $35 (CD)
-The GIMP – Open Source – Free
-Photoshop Elements – Retail – $90 (mac) / $100 (windows)
Web Publishing
-Freeway – Retail – $100 (express) / $250 (pro)
-BBEdit Lite – Freeware – Free
-SubEthaEdit – Shareware – Free (non commercial) / $35 (commercial)
Wednesday the 9th, 11:45 am
Well I agree with what you said but what should we do about it. I dont see a way of stopping people from downloading. It’s become such a big thing that I dont think anyone or anything can stop it. I guess the RIAA is doing there part but there is millions of people pirating. If they were to prosecute everyone that was pirating many of our friends and family would be sitting in jail or prison right now. So how is it that we would fix this problem without putting the majority of our general public behind bars?
Tuesday the 8th, 8:46 am
hey man. i dig your logo and your photography… very impressive. just thought you’d like to know that i found some typos/grammar, maybe just grammar, in your “about promethean” section of your site. other than that, everything looks great. let me know when you post more of your work. see you around. much love, Nadzy
Wednesday the 9th, 1:00 pm
Well Chris, the RIAA only really concerns itself with music, and as we all know, music pirating has so deeply ingrained itself into our culture that I see no hope for the RIAA’s current path of action for solving their problems. As for software piracy, the current steps being taken to solve that problem are namely more elaborate software registration processes and longer, more complicated, software keys.
The BSA itself seems to be doing pretty well to somewhat counter software piracy since it has teamed up with the major names (ie Adobe, Microsoft, Apple, Macromedia, Sun, etc.). The BSA’s current procedure to stop piracy lies within the registration of the software produced by it’s members particularly the “phone-home” part where the software checks the serial you have against their database. If they see you’re doing something you’re not supposed to be, they fire off a warning to your ISP and they contact you, or whomever your account is under and warns you that you have copyrighted material on your computer and if it is not removed that you could lose your internet service and be prosecuted. Granted, that doesn’t happen all the time with every pirate, but it does happen.
I guess what I was trying to say in my article is that education is really the solution to slowing and possibly reversing the rate of software piracy.
Saturday the 5th, 12:38 pm
It seems like your position on piracy has changed quite wholeheartedly from what it used to be. I’m just curious what curious; what prompted the change?
-Scott
Saturday the 5th, 1:01 pm
Well, over the past few years I’ve delved further into the design community and have made quite a few friends that are in the business and have built many of my opinions on their views of how certain things should be done from what they have shared with me. My position on piracy changed for a few reasons, one of which was respect for those that do design for a career, another would be that if I’m going to be making money with these applications I can at least do it completely legit, yet another would be that the initial investment into these applications further solidifies the idea I have for myself for life, and lastly, well, that little incident with the BSA, that kinda had something to do with it too.
Thursday the 1st, 3:47 pm
Oldest post ever.