
This is why people pirate software - marcamillion
http://marcgayle.com/2010/07/19/this-is-why-people-pirate-software/
======
Groxx
To summarize (correctly) for this situation: because one-license-per-machine
only makes sense for _operating systems_. What about the more normal situation
where person A has computers X, Y, and Z? (and phone Q and iPad M and iPod V
and PDA W and PocketPC T)

This use of piracy honestly makes perfect sense to me. One license per _user_
is perfectly understandable, if impossible to accurately enforce, and expands
to future developments in hardware. One license per _device_ does not: define
"device" in a world which has emulation / virtualization / clusters.

~~~
kolektiv
Don't know that it's that simple. You could look at this as a server farm for
encoding. If I bought a rendering engine, would the company allow me to use
one license for all seats in the farm? No, I'd be buying bundles.

It's not an exact analogy I know, but it's the world that Sorenson live in.
They're almost certainly unused to selling $800 software to consumers, and
they are used to the world where you buy seats for production farms. It makes
sense in that world. Is it worth their while to try and cater for a tiny
number of potential customers who don't fit it? I doubt it.

~~~
Groxx
In that situation, you'd probably be buying concurrent-users/-seats. As many
server-farm software does (haven't seen any CPU-limited ones for a while, as
what's a CPU? A core? Hyperthreaded?).

------
jseifer
"Oh, and Sorenson, I know that when I bought your software I ‘agreed’ to these
terms in the EULA. No need to throw it in my face when I am inquiring about
them with your customer support."

He kind of has a point there.

------
tptacek
To summarize: because they don't want to pay what the vendor says it costs.

~~~
joe_the_user
And what the vendor says it costs seems rather ridiculous...

~~~
tptacek
If everything cost what people on Hacker News thought it should cost, we would
all make a lot less money, and there would be a lot less cool stuff in the
world for us to play with.

~~~
marcamillion
I couldn't disagree with you more. I can't tell you the amount of times I have
seen 'Show HN' posts where people are showing off their new web app, or new
downloadable app, and the vast majority of the recommendations are to raise
prices.

I am sure those hackers would disagree with your sentiment.

~~~
tptacek
The fact that every time someone on HN builds something they clearly
underprice it tells you we're _good_ at valuing things?

------
WildUtah
The free x264 codec didn't have enough settings? Handbrake isn't simple
enough? So you paid $600? Really? Why?

~~~
marcamillion
The output from Handbrake was either not small enough (in file size) or too
pixelated for my tastes.

I spent a few days messing with Handbrake, and it just didn't work out for me.

~~~
kierank
Then you've done it wrong because Handbrake uses x264 which seriously
outclasses anything Sorenson could produce.

~~~
marcamillion
Perhaps I did do it wrong. All I know is, I tried for a few days and couldn't
get good output in all the formats I needed (.flv, xvid avi, wmv, etc.) and
Sorenson allowed me to do so in a few hours (this includes trying a few
different options and tweaking it to my liking.

As a matter of fact, I am now resizing my entire library and I am able to
reduce some of my file sizes by as much as 90% in some cases.

I had some HD files with bitrate of 97,000 kbps (ridiculous, I know), with
some ridiculous 'time to MB' ratio. E.g. a 13second file was 1.4GB. I re-
encoded that down to 8000kbps, for a whopping file size of 100MB. Still
'ginormous', I know, but nothing on the same scale.

~~~
patrickk
I've never done it personally, buy did you ever consider outsourcing this
task? Odesk etc? Not only would you avoid the hassle of doing this task
yourself, you would probably save a fortune because of the cost saving of
outsourcing over buying an expensive piece of software. You could get one or
two videos converted, see if it were to your taste, and then ask the person to
continue once the output was satisfactory. You might have to mail the videos
though. Sounds like a massive amount of data. I'd stil guess this would be
cheaper.

------
dman
The modern dilemna of digital goods - customers think that cost of replication
solely determines what a good should be worth.

------
ErrantX
I agree, actually, that this sort of thing is a silly restriction. Or, rather,
single machine licenses are counter-productive and silly (I'd be happy to see
2-5 machine licenses etc. but I can understand limiting above that).

But is this why people pirate?

Generally speaking I would suggest not.

~~~
johngunderman
I think the point he is trying to make is a bit more general than the number
of licenses. I read it more as "People pirate because of poorly implemented
DRM that negatively impacts the legitimate user."

~~~
marcamillion
Less 'poorly implemented' DRM, rather any 'feature' that restricts natural use
cases by legitimate users.

The equivalent in the real world would be, buying a fork and being told you
can only eat rice with it. Suppose you wanted to eat ice cream, or soup ? It
would not be a good use case, but it's your fork. If you want to eat ice cream
or soup with it, then you should be able to do whatever you want with it.

That's the point.

If I want to install the software on all of my computers to improve my
workflow, I should be able to do that.

~~~
anthonyb
Except that that's likely to cannibalise sales, ie. in the case where people
or businesses would have bought multiple licences.

------
io
I want to toast three slices of bread simultaneously, but this absurd toaster
vendor sold me a 2-slice model! So I think it's perfectly within my right to
steal as many toasters as I'd like.

------
d0m
Because it's too easy without risk.

Oh my, I'm happy you can't get less than -4!

Sent from m'y new iPad.

~~~
d0m
I still think it's true. Why my little cousin download mp3s of his favorite
artists?

Is it because the 1$ song is too much?

It might be because it's hard to buy something without credit card and when
you're wrong you don't necessary have one. However, his parents will happily
buy him any songs he wants.

So, what is it? It's because it's easy to do (my little cousin does it) and
there are no risk for him.. I mean, who could accuse a little boy to download
a few mp3s?

I feel it's the same for software. Why would my girlfriend pay for Windows
when she can __easily __gets it without any risks of being caught?

And, you guys think whatever you want, I _know_ you've downloaded illegal
software, mp3s and movies. And, it's not because they cost too much. It's just
easy and without risks.

Imagine all download were tracked (forget the technical details) and it would
cost you 500k if you're caugh downloading winzip illegaly. Would you have done
it?

