[OT] - does IP exist?

[downs]

Jb wrote:
> "downs" <default_357-line at yahoo.de> wrote in message 
> news:g86h0t$2dur$1 at digitalmars.com...
>> I wouldn't pay for the stuff I pirate. I pirate english movies because I 
>> don't
>> like watching German movies. Take Dark Knight. I want to watch it. But I
>> don't want to watch it enough to see the German version, or enough to go
>> and import a DVD. If there were no P2P networks, I would _never_ watch it.
>>
>> So the fact that I'm probably going to pirate it in half a year or so does
>>  _not_ equate to a lost sale.
> 
> It may not result in a lost sale directly. But if you couldnt get the Dark 
> Knight for free, or couldnt download Photoshop for free, you would probably 
> be more inclined to pay for other things.
> 
> I mean sure most people who pirate Photoshop wouldn't pay the $200 (or 
> whatever it is) to buy the legit version. But by pirating photoshop they are 
> satisfying a need they have that would likely have to be satisfied by 
> cheaper alternatives.
> 
> So Adobe may not have lost a sale but someone else has.
> 

Indeed. GIMP has.

Oh wait, they're open-source.

> 
>> FWIW, I pay for many of the games I play. And I have a legitimate reason 
>> to
>> download them first - Linux :) There's a high chance that the game won't 
>> work
>> anyway.
> 
> Well to be honest I do download pirate software / music. But if i use / 
> listen to somthing I generaly pay for a legit version.
> 
> 
>>> Well there's still some percentage of what they pirate that they probably
>>> would have paid for. So it does still hurt developers / producers.
>>>
>> But less than is commonly claimed.
> 
> I'm sure people on both sides exagerate the figures.
> 
> 
>>> I know quite a few developers in the pro audio industry who have seen 
>>> their
>>> sales fall through the floor as soon as their software turns up on bit
>>> torrent / rapidshare ect. And I really mean dropped by 80%. It's why so 
>>> many
>>> pro audio companies are adopting hardware dongles.
>>>
>>> I offer an open challenge to any of freeloaders to put a possitive 
>>> communist
>>> spin on that.
>>>
>> I'd like to see the numbers on that.
>>
>> Specifically, number of IPs that downloaded the software, as compared
>> to precise sales figures.
>>
>> It sounds like somebody saw their sales going down, and went out to find a 
>> reason.
> 
> Well I dont have sales figures, but i've heard the same story from 3 
> different developers. Ok 80% was the worst case scenario.
> 
> That said, it's got to be bad or why would so many pro audio developers, 
> (and some of these are small developers, 1 or 2 employees), go to the 
> trouble of using hardware dongles, which chop 20-30% off their profits? Not 
> only do users have to buy the dongle themselves, developers have to licence 
> the drm software, and the hassle of building it into their apps.
> 
> And on top off that they loose a fair percentage of existing customers 
> because many people simply wont use dongled products.
> 

So .. is it actually worth it for them?

Numbers would be nice :)

> I guess the point is that even if only 10% of pirate copies equate to a lost 
> sale, or money not spent in the industry, that could very well be 50% of 
> sales for *some* developers.
> 
> Whether this is just somthing that's particulary bad in the audio software 
> industry I dont know, but of all my musician freinds I cant think of any who 
> would pay for software when they can get it for free. I can remember getting 
> "huh.. you piad for it??" quite a few times when telling them about some new 
> plugin / app i bought.
> 
> They are happy to spend $4000 on a custom bass, or an electonic kit, or a 
> sampler, but software.. well they dont need to so they dont.

I admit that appears weird. I'd certainly pay for any software I'd intend to use in anything like commercial or public circumstances.

I do hope that I'm not the exception.