3 ms·

The marginal cost of a digital copy of a piece of software is almost 0$ The negative consequences of just stealing it are pretty low Unfortunately so much sof

The marginal cost of a digital copy of a piece of software is almost 0$ The negative consequences of just stealing it are pretty low Unfortunately so much software has become a thin client for a fat backend, so it’s a little harder, but all said are definitely industries that pay 10,000$ a seat for software that was mostly written 20 years ago and is patched to keep it hobbling along They’re not really going to besides waging larger and larger wars on copyright and forcing DRM The thing is, I don’t really “shame” anyone, but I understand when “normal people” steal movies and shows When technologists do it, it’s the biggest WTF for me.

imgabe 7y ago
I've used some of that $10k per seat software (AutoCAD and Revit). While that is expensive, businesses pay it because 10k is the revenue from one project using it. A very small project at that. It is also much easier to track down and sue a business compared to someone watching a movie alone in their room. Companies that sell that software like Autodesk and Adobe also have the sense not to worry too much about individuals pirating it because more people who know how to use it means more customers later. DRM will always fail because the content has to get decrypted at some point if anyone is going to see it.
- BoorishBears 7y ago
  I’m not commenting on the efficacy of DRM. For movies and shows, to me it’s a speed bump to try and keep people who don’t really mean to steal, but would gladly copy the disk and give it to all their friends as a favor. Gaming and software is also pretty similar, it’s a speed bump. Maybe keep you from casually copying the software onto everyone’s machine. Denuvo showed the game industry DRM can buy you some freedom from piracy in the most critical sales period, even if only for a few days, but yeah it’s not infallible (and is sold with that caveat) I actually feel like on commercial software part of it is it let’s the nail you with DCMA if you circumvent their DRM directly, but I’m not a lawyer and that’s just my musings... - The thing is, they pay 10k a seat because it makes them revenue. Bur entertainment isn’t about revenue, it’s about enjoyment. People pay 400$ to get their family into an amusement park for one day of entertainment. Netflix is what? 13$ a month for access to 3,000+ movies, and how many shows? Entertainment value is not a fungible good or anything, but to me that’s a very favorable comparison. I’ve never felt I wasn’t getting my money’s worth for the 30$ I pay to literally always have something to watch on TV...
  - skinkestek 7y ago
    I happily pay for Spotify. I've done for years. I also, less happily, pay for Netflix. I refuse to pay monthly fees for the rest of them but I'll pay to rent a movie online sometimes. My issues with this whole thing: - things I buy (i.e. not rent) aren't really mine and can disappear at any time if the publisher decides so (or just fail to keep their DRM servers alive.) - massive abuse of copyright for something it wasn't meant for. - the idea that it is OK to keep Europeans away from huge parts of the collection for no good reason. As I've said multiple times: I'll happily pay more for media, but there is one rule - no more subscriptions: anything subscription-based must replace one of my existing subscriptions. - reasonable prices
  - imgabe 7y ago
    I also happily pay for Netflix. And Amazon. And HBO. and Disney+. So, if something isn't on one of those services, yeah, I'm going to pirate it. I've already tithed more than enough to the entertainment industry. Most of the time the thing I want to watch isn't available on the services yet, but will be in 3-6 months. Like movies that just came out on video and they want to milk people who will pay $20 to watch it right away before it goes to all the streaming services. Nuts to that.
    - BoorishBears 7y ago
      It’s your choice. If we were on any other forum I would get this mentality a little more but a tech forum of all places. “I paid this one developer and this other developer and all of them are selling copies of the binaries so it’s not like each copy is worth anything anyways, and it’s ok if I steal a copy of this third developer's software because paying these developers means I deserve all the software that isn’t made by them too because developers in general want way more money than I think their software is worth” ??? It’s kind of like, most of us get to see how the bacon is made, and should get all of this nonsense about “the marginal cost of a movie” is silly. A lot of people here make very good money because 1000 hrs of development can become 1,000,000 dollars of revenue because the output of that 1000 hrs can be sold again and again and again ad nauseum. To me the movie industry and the software industry are two sides of the same coin, if anything we have the more extreme version of their setup with much better margins. If you want to steal a movie because you can’t afford it or you feel entitled to have “all the stuff I wanna see right now immediately how dare they make me wait for my movie that I deserve or give me the choice to pay more for earlier access so they can squeeze all the profit from the multi million dollar investment they made” and tell other people what they have the right to price their creative product go right ahead. That entitlement coming from technologists will still get me though.

imgabe 7y ago

I've used some of that $10k per seat software (AutoCAD and Revit). While that is expensive, businesses pay it because 10k is the revenue from one project using it. A very small project at that. It is also much easier to track down and sue a business compared to someone watching a movie alone in their room. Companies that sell that software like Autodesk and Adobe also have the sense not to worry too much about individuals pirating it because more people who know how to use it means more customers later. DRM will always fail because the content has to get decrypted at some point if anyone is going to see it.

BoorishBears 7y ago
I’m not commenting on the efficacy of DRM. For movies and shows, to me it’s a speed bump to try and keep people who don’t really mean to steal, but would gladly copy the disk and give it to all their friends as a favor. Gaming and software is also pretty similar, it’s a speed bump. Maybe keep you from casually copying the software onto everyone’s machine. Denuvo showed the game industry DRM can buy you some freedom from piracy in the most critical sales period, even if only for a few days, but yeah it’s not infallible (and is sold with that caveat) I actually feel like on commercial software part of it is it let’s the nail you with DCMA if you circumvent their DRM directly, but I’m not a lawyer and that’s just my musings... - The thing is, they pay 10k a seat because it makes them revenue. Bur entertainment isn’t about revenue, it’s about enjoyment. People pay 400$ to get their family into an amusement park for one day of entertainment. Netflix is what? 13$ a month for access to 3,000+ movies, and how many shows? Entertainment value is not a fungible good or anything, but to me that’s a very favorable comparison. I’ve never felt I wasn’t getting my money’s worth for the 30$ I pay to literally always have something to watch on TV...
- skinkestek 7y ago
  I happily pay for Spotify. I've done for years. I also, less happily, pay for Netflix. I refuse to pay monthly fees for the rest of them but I'll pay to rent a movie online sometimes. My issues with this whole thing: - things I buy (i.e. not rent) aren't really mine and can disappear at any time if the publisher decides so (or just fail to keep their DRM servers alive.) - massive abuse of copyright for something it wasn't meant for. - the idea that it is OK to keep Europeans away from huge parts of the collection for no good reason. As I've said multiple times: I'll happily pay more for media, but there is one rule - no more subscriptions: anything subscription-based must replace one of my existing subscriptions. - reasonable prices
- imgabe 7y ago
  I also happily pay for Netflix. And Amazon. And HBO. and Disney+. So, if something isn't on one of those services, yeah, I'm going to pirate it. I've already tithed more than enough to the entertainment industry. Most of the time the thing I want to watch isn't available on the services yet, but will be in 3-6 months. Like movies that just came out on video and they want to milk people who will pay $20 to watch it right away before it goes to all the streaming services. Nuts to that.
  - BoorishBears 7y ago
    It’s your choice. If we were on any other forum I would get this mentality a little more but a tech forum of all places. “I paid this one developer and this other developer and all of them are selling copies of the binaries so it’s not like each copy is worth anything anyways, and it’s ok if I steal a copy of this third developer's software because paying these developers means I deserve all the software that isn’t made by them too because developers in general want way more money than I think their software is worth” ??? It’s kind of like, most of us get to see how the bacon is made, and should get all of this nonsense about “the marginal cost of a movie” is silly. A lot of people here make very good money because 1000 hrs of development can become 1,000,000 dollars of revenue because the output of that 1000 hrs can be sold again and again and again ad nauseum. To me the movie industry and the software industry are two sides of the same coin, if anything we have the more extreme version of their setup with much better margins. If you want to steal a movie because you can’t afford it or you feel entitled to have “all the stuff I wanna see right now immediately how dare they make me wait for my movie that I deserve or give me the choice to pay more for earlier access so they can squeeze all the profit from the multi million dollar investment they made” and tell other people what they have the right to price their creative product go right ahead. That entitlement coming from technologists will still get me though.