Most people agree that piracy would not be as rife if it weren`t for the exorbitant prices charged by CD and DVD distributors and many software vendors. But that doesn`t mean anything is going to change.
For one thing, vendors aren`t changing their pricing behaviour. While there are isolated, mostly insignificant instances of competitive pricing in entertainment and software, piracy is not the reason. As one small part of the total consumer revolts against prices (which also includes open source software, file-sharing and per-song downloads), it has made only the smallest advances in helping to bring this about.
A far more likely motivation to drop prices is plain old merchant trickery, where retailers slap cuts on unpopular titles, basically passing the margin around.
But not even this formidable array of factors is causing prices to drop across the board. The general reality is still that the DVDs you want cost way too much, or the ones you can afford tend to be the ones you never wanted.
Stubborn
Why is this so? You`d think if customers were turning to ripping off the business, vendors would get it. They would look to piracy and other forms of illicit copying as civil disobedience. They would see the writing on the wall.
But the truth is that vendors still call the shots. As long as they have buying customers who don`t mind getting fleeced, they won`t see the need to change selling tactics in an effort to remain relevant. Might is right and relevance is the dying utterance of the weak.
Harsh
Am I being too harsh? You decide. Ask yourself - why are we still being sold over-priced software and entertainment on outmoded media when nobody with a PC wants to buy whole CDs or movies anymore? When they would rather pay per use?
Software vendors are not the victims of piracy. Their cost can simply be passed down to paying customers.
Carel Alberts, special editions editor, Brainstorm
Why, if communications ministers and telco monopolies got it, do they still deliver just enough bandwidth and services to keep whole geographies in the dark ages?
The answer, I think, is that either these functionaries and entities don`t see that the fault really lies with them, or they don`t care. All they know is they don`t bargain with anarchists who don`t want to pay, instead using networks and hard drives as their media. Rather than give in to the forces of change, they play to the fears of the fools who pay dearly for commodity software when others are investigating the alternatives.
How dumb is that? Not dumb at all, actually.
Victim schmictim
Software vendors are not the victims of piracy. Their cost can simply be passed down to paying customers. Paying customers are the real victims, though not just at the hands of the pirates. The vendors must at least also be called to the dock if there is to be blame apportionment.
I would guess that the graphs that show income from software by year and the total number of customers paying for it are beginning to show an alarming thing. Instead of steadily increasing numbers of customers per year, the rate of increase is probably slowing down. And while this is happening, income from software is probably chugging along quite happily, year-on-year.
And although that`s just a guess, it would seem to me a very unfair situation. Who is really responsible? Is it the pirate or pro-open source activist in the developing country who cannot afford over-priced software at dollar rates? Or the vendor who concedes defeat by offering sweet deals to those cities and countries that break free of the pricing tyranny, meanwhile selling at the same old price to those who lack the bargaining power?
As I say, you`re the one with the money. Make the call.
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