::scr (c)opyright

[David Cantrell]

On Tue, Nov 13, 2001 at 01:43:07PM +0000, Greg McCarroll wrote:
> * simon wistow (simon@thegestalt.org) wrote:
> > Except with software piracy they don't lose 1 product. But neither have=
 they
> > gained the money that you'd have given them.
> Their argument here is of course that they have invested X million
> dollars in creating the product as they their market research
> suggested there would be N thousand users, so they set it at price P
> accordingly. When you make it N-1 thousand users (after all your using
> their software), it means their budgets have to take a hit of P
> dollars.

Except that if I could never have afforded the product in the first place,
I was never in their projected N thousand users, and so they have not been
harmed one jot.  In fact, in that case, the manufacturer has BENEFITED as
they get yet another person who is not just using their proprietary format
(thus encouraging others to use their software) but that person has also
not bought a competitor's product and is pretty damned unlikely to do so
in the future.

--=20
David Cantrell | david@cantrell.org.uk | http://www.cantrell.org.uk/david

If you save all your money for three years, you'll be able to afford this
new computer.  If, however, you blow all your money on poker, booze and
loose women - you'll still be able to afford it in three years.
                                                      -- anon, on Usenet