
"You're stealing from people who count on your honesty to make a living." - makimaki
http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/9763/codersgu6.jpg
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sh1mmer
This is great.

I think "shameware" is much more compelling than DRMware. If you remind people
that they are costing a small developer business and then let them pirate
anyway then you are going to catch the people who might pay. The people who
are going to pirate will do it whatever.

Also USB Overdrive is a great product. So I'm glad to see them trying
something to keep their business viable.

~~~
mattmaroon
They won't pay due to shame. Not at all. People steal music from indie artists
just as readily as they do Madonna. They're not out to get someone by stealing
from them, they just want stuff for free.

They rationalize it largely as they wouldn't have paid for it anyway.

~~~
fallentimes
That's stealing more (in terms of dollars) from the labels than it is from the
artists/talent.

Personally, I would pay for more music if the artists saw more than 5% of the
proceeds. If you really want to support an artist: go to the concerts, donate
directly or tell your friends about them.

~~~
lux
Indie artists listed on iTunes (for example) make more than 60% on each
song/album sale. It's way higher since there are no middle men involved. And
it's easy to get listed through services like cdbaby.com. So "stealing" music
from indies does hurt more in those terms.

But even with being a musician, I lean on the side of piracy myself because
it's a virtual loss not an actual one, and it's natural for people to want to
share the music and things they appreciate. Any long-term successful solution
will have to account for and will likely encourage that. Copyright is becoming
less and less relevant, and artists (including software developers) will
continue to forge an existence in a post-copyright world too.

Funny story, I was playing a show the other day and some kids came up after to
tell me they liked the show. One of them bought a CD and the others said
they'd "totally buy one" but had no cash. So I told the first kid to just rip
it for his friends, and the look on their faces was priceless. They were like
"wow, awesome!" but you know he was probably going to do it anyway so why not
acknowledge it? :)

~~~
mattmaroon
Theoretically some piracy replaces sales. A pirated CD is not one less you'll
sell, but it's more than 0.

But yeah, might as well except reality and just use the extra exposure to sell
more concert tickets. If you can't beat em...

~~~
weavejester
It could be less than 0, as a pirated CD can be seen as a form of advertising,
and could potentially gain customers who would not have discovered you without
it. I'm not saying this is always the case, but it's a possibility that makes
it even more difficult to calculate the economic harm of piracy.

~~~
mattmaroon
It seems unlikely it's negative in terms of CD sales. The amount of people who
pirate a CD and then buy has to be pretty close to 0.

~~~
weavejester
Well, a commercial soundtrack on a catchy flash animation is also copyright
infringement unless royalties were paid, but there have been a couple of times
when this has lead me to investigate a particular artist.

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greyman
I don't endorse pirating software and I don't use one myself, but I never
agreed with the notion that using pirated software is _stealing_ money.
Because in most cases, the people using pirated software would not pay for it
if it would be not be possible to use it without buying. Maybe a few would,
but this amount is compensated by the marketing value the pirating provides.
To sum it up, the company would not make more money if pirating would not be
possible.

Again, I am against pirating, but don't agree fully with the text in that
popup dialog.

~~~
gaius
_Because in most cases, the people using pirated software would not pay for it
if it_

That is a fallacy. If it were not of some value to them, why would they even
want it? It's more a case that they simply feel entitled to it.

~~~
Herring
Have you ever walked through a department store? Try it sometime & see if you
pay for everything you'd take for free.

~~~
lbrandy
Ok I'll bite. By the very fact that you'd take it, it means it has some value
to you. Of course you are going to take something for free that you believe
has non-zero value. If you are taking something for free that has value to
you, you are profiting. How is that not stealing?

~~~
DougBTX
Stealing is when someone has something that they value, and you take it from
them. It doesn't matter how much you value the object. What matters is that
they value the object, and that after it is stolen, they no longer have it.

Are you really saying that if you profit without paying for something, then
you must be stealing? What if you have some wood, and you make a table out of
it. You've profited by the difference in price of a table and a pile of wood,
but you've not paid anyone for anything. Who have you stolen from?

~~~
gaius
What if this wood was a tree in someone's garden? They have a sign up that
says "help yourself to apples", they must mean it's OK to take the whole tree,
right?

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thomasmallen
And it's only $20...I can understand why people steal Microsoft Office and the
Adobe Suite, but I can't understand the incentive in stealing something like
Transmit or TextMate. It seems that some people can't accept that some
software costs money.

And while we're on the topic of small Mac software shops, can we safely call
ShapeShifter abandonware yet?

~~~
tdavis
I don't think it has anything to do with accepting software costs money. When
I was younger and had basically no money, I would pirate software that I
needed to improve a skill or something along those lines. Once I got older and
started having disposable income, I started buying software. Hell, I even
legitimately _own_ Adobe CS3 Web Premium.

Nowadays, if I use a piece of donationware that provided a useful service, I
donate. I donate to Open Source projects which have been particularly useful
to me. The oddity here is, I'm far from fiscally well-off; I have about $3,500
to my name.

So, it seems to me at least, that these things become habit. There were times
I used to pirate software (or anything, really) just because I didn't _feel_
like paying for it. Once I became accustomed to paying for software, I _kept
paying_ and even started _donating_. Now, I don't have a single piece of
pirated software on my computer.

Although, I do have some paid-for software which I no longer use. For
instance, I have a license for SteerMouse
(<http://plentycom.jp/en/steermouse/>) which I no longer use, but am also
barred from transferring it (I was going to give it away just now) per the
license agreement. This is just silly. The less restrictive a piece of
licensed software is, the more likely I am to buy it.

~~~
gaius
Companies could definitely be smarter about non-commercial licenses.

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ardell
Great strategy, just be honest with your "customers"...

"Hey, we built this awesome piece of software that will help you do [x]. We
love building software for our customers. Help us continue building great
software by paying $[y]."

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axod
I think websites should start popping up a similar message when adblock is
detected.

I realise this is an unpopular view around these parts, but it's a bit of a
"jerk" thing to do.

~~~
sethg
Is the proportion of adblock users actually high enough for the ad-buyers to
care about their impact?

~~~
axod
I'm not sure... as a single data point I measured usage on the Mibbit main
client for a while (Mainly early adopter fx3 tech types), and it was 8% or
something for the main client.

Of course it isn't too important as adblock is useless in blocking all but the
most simple adverts.

In the general population the % is probably much much lower though, so you're
right - probably not worth worry about until you're a very big site.

It's more the antisocial attitude I disagree with.

~~~
Herring
Looking at ads is social? Only on HN, I suppose. :)

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petercooper
You could only improve on this by having a picture of the developer with his
kid or something :)

Shame is a good motivator in this case. Shame works as a motivator for people
who probably could pay, but aren't (or just want to "test" the software).
Shame does not work as a motivator for criminals or heartless freeloaders, and
they'd never pay anyway.

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jmtame
Ouch. I would not feel interested in writing a keygen for that app.

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illumen
To hackers: please don't look through our code for GPL violations, because
surely you'll find some. Hopefully no one finds all the code I copy/pasted
from, or the documentation I learnt from.

To hackers: I used GPL software to compile this program, but I won't give you
the same pleasure... you are not free to use my programs.

~~~
delackner
"or the documentation I learnt from..."

Because of course, whoever teaches you owns all the ideas you build
thereafter.

~~~
illume
No one ever owns ideas. It's true, look it up.

