Today my post is going to be a little off topic from my normal technical babble and ranting. With all the hype around the internet today about piracy, for example the Pirate Bay Trial: Peter's "Political Trial", and isp's now logging users internet usage. Is piracy really that bad? Or this just huge corporations continuing to be the money hungry people that they are!

Piracy is why good for industry and business. As we have heard over and over again since Napster was first sued by Metallica for copy right infringement PIRACY IS BAD. Let us flip this around... Why is Piracy Good? 

From a pirates point of view

Piracy allows the end user to sample, applications, music, videos and other pirated materials before purchasing. Why shell out $60+ for a computer game that sucks? Would it not be better to try it? Yes I know demos exist but they have limited content. This is a try before you buy approach. 

With music, why shell out $15+ for a new CD where you only like 1 of the 12 (yes only 12) songs on it? Sure you could purchase them from iTunes or another online store, but up until recently you could only play the music on one device thanks to DRM! Not a very good selling point! However with piracy you can pick and choose the songs you wish to listen too. We will cover how this benefits the artist later.

Piracy also allows small businesses to compete in a global market... How you ask?  Well its simple. Businesses can download the latest applications they require, build up business and then once the time comes around to purchase the next version they can. This is mainly for larger applications like Adobe CS3, Autocad and other larger applications which have large price tags. Everyone should be able to afford an OS :P  If you cant go use linux!

Artists and Others

We have all heard the "I am loosing money" argument, and I'm sure at some level this is happening. However the most important thing to any artist time and time again is exposure. If more people are listening to your music the more sales you are going to get. Same with software vendors and others who complain about piracy. One download/view does not translate into one lost sale. In fact some people might have only "sampled" your  product just to see what it is. If they like it they will purchase it.

Also, make prices more affordable, people do not like shelling out $60+ for one computer game. Or $200+ for an operating system. We need justification why we are paying this amount, where is the value to cost?

Conclusion

Yarrrrrr Piracy is good! :) Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!

But in all seriousness, I really do believe it is a good thing. Just imagine the world without it...

Questions? Comments? Let us know how you feel about this! Just post a comment below.

About the Author

Sean Habing is a web developer, project manager and general IT geek (B. Sc. Comp Sci, A+ Certified, Business Analyst Certificate). Sean currently works as a Client Support Analyst for a Canadian software company. He also runs his own company Oncall Software. It is his goal to inform people about technology while providing industry insight into common issues and problems. He also likes muscle cars. 

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