Well, we are if you listen to what the Business Software Alliance is saying about illegal software usage in the world from this article. Here is the important part to me:
“We know, for instance, that new PCs going to consumers in the U.S. generally have eight pieces of software, four of which are free like Adobe Reader and the other four should be paid for,” said John Gatz, chief research officer at IDC. “So if you know how many pieces of hardware have software and how many pieces of software were paid for, the difference is the pirate.”
So I am a pirate. Not because I have illegal software, but because I don’t have 4 applications loaded on this computer that I paid for. Let’s look at my laptop for just a moment (my desktop has a few additional web browsers and a stone cold legal copy of Photoshop 7 along with a bunch of other free or open source software) as that is what I have with me just now to see what is installed.
- ExpressDigital Darkroom Professional. Bought and paid for.
- ExpressDigital Darkroom Web Edition. Freeware.
- iTunes. Freeware. Loaded with my classic rock and classical CD’s.
- Firefox web browser. Open source freeware.
- Thunderbird email client. Open source freeware.
- Notepad ++. Open source freeware.
- Open Office 2. Open source freeware.
- Google Talk. Freeware.
- Pidgin Instant Messenger. Open source freeware.
- Filezilla FTP client. Open source freeware.
- X1 desktop search. Freeware.
- Zoundry blog editor. Freeware.
- UltraExplorer. Freeware.
- Nero. Came with the computer.
- ZipGenius. Freeware.
- Picasa. Freeware.
- Google Earth. Freeware.
- FoxIt Reader. Freeware.
- idImager Lite. Freeware.
- How could I leave off Microsoft Windows XP Professional. Came with the pig.
Now, I do have some things not listed there like Adobe Reader and a few free applications for listening to Sirius and XM online. I also have a free Internet radio application that I never use and a trial copy of ACDSee Pro that expired some time ago and is awaiting an uninstall. A free application for reading the online version of the PMA show daily magazine and other free little goodies like Google Video Player and Winamp. There is also the standard Windows stuff like Outlook Express and IE along with Windows Media Player and some other Microsoft junk. That’s it.
You can see a trend developing from my list. I am a heavy user of open source and free software. Why? Well, for much the same reason that I don’t buy very many music CD’s any more. The music sucks. A lot of commercial software sucks.
The BSA has been playing this thief game for a lot longer than RIAA has. In the past they just assumed that everyone using a pirated copy of some application would have actually bought it if they hadn’t stolen it. Alright. I don’t agree with that, but let them have it. It is their product that is being stolen. Now they have pushed the envelope even further to state that if you don’t have four applications on your computer that are bought and paid for commercial applications then “that is the pirate”. Please.
If I couldn’t do my job without some commercial application I would not hesitate to buy it today. The one application that you don’t see on my list that might stand out is Photoshop. I have it on my desktop workstation, but not my laptop because I just don’t need it here. I am sure that the BSA assumes that I stole CS2 because the last version that I bought was Photoshop 7. No, I didn’t steal it. I took a pass because CS and CS2 both suck to me. CS2 is a memory hog that offers me no advantage over Photoshop 7. If I “needed” CS2 I would “have” CS2 in a bought and paid for >legal< manner.
The simple fact of the matter is that there are open source or free versions of most anything that you want. You aren’t stealing it. You aren’t a pirate. Even if the BSA (Microsoft, Adobe, Apple and all the other big software companies) wants to lump me in with the thieves that is fine. They know better, and more importantly I know better.
The one sure way to drive your customers to find free and open source alternatives to your product (music or software) is to assume that they are all thieves and then do everything in your power to make things as difficult for them as you can. Activations that don’t stick and require another attempt when you don’t have an Internet connection, DRM that says you didn’t actually buy that song even though you are trying to listen to it seconds after you paid for and downloaded the track, rootkits installed by ordinary music CD’s, software that attempts to dial home every time you run it to verify whatever it verifies and any other method of back handed restrictions that you force on your paying customers that gets in the way of work to be done will drive people from you.
Then after they drive you away they will call you a thief. Nice.
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