Date: Mon, 10 Aug 92 13:46:35 -0500 From: Neil W Rickert Subject: File 10--Re: Overstated? (Chic Tribune summary) >Computer underground Digest Sun Aug 9, 1992 Volume 4 : Issue 35 >Sunday Tribune computer columnists Reid and Hume challenged what they >call one of the software industry's "periodic public relations >campaigns to get people to believe it's being robbed blind by software >pirates." I too was glad to see this column. I remember an interview I heard on NPR ("All Things Considered") a few years ago. The industry representative asked the rhetorical question "What would it be like if, for every car an auto dealer sells, two are stolen?" At the time, I thought the analogy was wonderful, except that the industry rep had it slightly wrong. He should have asked "What would it be like if, for every car an auto dealer sells, two are taken for test drives?" And of course the answer would be "That already happens." The software piracy problem is, to a considerable extent, the natural consequence of industry policies. The software industry would have you purchase software sight unseen, in shrink wrapped packaging, without any knowledge of whether it will adequately serve your purposes, and with no chance of a refund if the product proves unsuitable or defective. They exacerbate this problem further by setting prices which bear little relation to their costs. They justify their costs on a "perceived value" basis, whereby they argue about the financial value of say a spreadsheet package to an accountancy firm. This "perceived value" pricing might make sense if they charged a much lower "perceived value" to the treasurer of a small church who wished use the spreadsheet once per month to manage the church books; but they don't. In the book publishing industry, the price of a book is much closer to the manufacturing cost, except for special topic books with limited markets. Natural market forces require this. If publishers charged too much other authors would write books of a somewhat similar nature, and capture much of the market. But, in an obvious attempt to defeat such natural market forces, the software publishing industry uses its "look and feel" lawsuits in an attempt to defeat the law of supply and demand, and thereby maintain monopoly privileges for their products. Downloaded From P-80 International Information Systems 304-744-2253