You may think all software companies are huge corporations with insanely-paid executives who live on palacious islands on America's northwestern coasts. While this may be true for at least one company (maybe more), many of the companies releasing today's truly innovative computer software are small-to-medium businesses who base their livelihood on the revenue from their product (as most companies do.) For companies that *only* produce software, the money they have lost from your pirated copy is money that could have been invested in research and development, better equipment to write and test programs on, and maybe a vacation for a programmer's poor, overtaxed brain. :) Sure, some programs *are* overpriced and some huge corporations *are* making a lot of money because of this. You may rather help a friend out than have them support a TNC, but please realize that most software is slaved over by programmers and publishers who love what they do and who try to release the best code possible. You may think your pirated copy of Microsoft Word or Windows '95 means nothing in terms of Microsoft's bottom line, and it probably doesn't. But there are tradeoffs: if your pirated software is from a small company or you are using unpaid shareware, your one copy makes a lot of difference to the little guy or gal toiling away in front of a monitor while you're out getting a tan. The money you save by not paying for commercial software is money that could have been used to bring you a better product down the line.
There are also some key advantages to paying for software. When you pay for a copy of any program, the software company registers you as a paid user of the software and will give you a serial number to identify your copy with. (Yes, in the software world we are all reduced to numbers. :) ) Registering your copy will allow you to receive technical support for the program in case things go wrong, upgrades to the program when a company updates the product, manuals and user guides to the program to assist you in using the software to its fullest capacities, and rest for your nagging conscience
Yes, there are some things software companies could improve on. Most software licenses allow for two copies to be made of the master software: a machine copy and a backup copy in case the master disk fails. This becomes a dilemma for anyone who uses more than one computer, or for people who use both the computer at home and the computer at their place of employment for work. It may seem a bit ridiculous to ask someone in this situation to buy two copies of the same software, doesn't it? And yet with most current software licenses, we are breaking the law by sharing a copy between computers (even if they are only using one computer/copy of the software at a time!) However, what if a big organization buys one copy of a software application and then makes illegal copies of it on ALL of its computers? Where do we draw the line between reasonable use and theft?
Also, commercial software companies could learn something about
serving the consumer from a long-standing shareware standard,
that of trial software. Someone considering buying a $500 piece
of software should be allowed to try the software for a period
of time before deciding if they want to make such an investment
for a handful of disks. This would allow users to try out all
types of software to see if they are worth keeping, and would
also save parents of precocious children money if their kids beat
a game within days of purchase. :) Of course, the negative side
for the software companies is that after an evaluation a user
might *not* want to buy their software, but software companies
could combat that by releasing the best and most appealing software
possible.
I'm not trying to champion the little guy or say, "down with
big business." I am trying to give you, as computer user
and consumer, reasons why you should buy a program instead of
copying it. Copying software is ultimately your decision to make,
but before you do, at least read some quick background information
on the important issue of software piracy and realize that you
may be breaking the law when you copy that floppy: