Software Piracy... Who is kidding who?

Australia
April 12, 2007 5:32am CST
We... the people are made to feel like criminals for using pirate software... But who are the real criminals? Lets start with Microsoft... Who bought Win95, Win98, Win2000, Win Me, Win XP and Win Vista? Scary is it not? You pay good money for a Windows OS and just because Bill Gates decides to make a new version... you are expected to go back to the shop to buy that new version. Same goes with Microsoft Office... 94, 97, 2000, 2003 and 2007. Most of us at home only use Word to type the odd letter. Is it justify for any of us to cough up 500 bucks each time Bill Gates decides to bring a new version out? The company I work for has an office with 50 computers. We have to pay for 50 copies of Windows and 50 copies of Microsoft Office... But Microsoft only give us one copy of each. After paying Microsoft thousand of dollars... we are still forced to break the law by making copies of that one CD so that we can update several computers at the same time. It is not only Microsoft. I use programs like PaintShop Pro and Dreamweaver... and those companies bring out new versions of their program every 18 months. How are we supposed to keep up? We are looking at spending $1000 a year just to keep our programs up to date. Who can afford to do that? The people who are screaming the most about pirate software are the one who are ripping us off the most. After all... how do you think Bill Gates made his billions? Do you really think he will go broke if a few of us decides to use an illegal copy of Vista? I'll let you make up your own mind about this...
1 person likes this
2 responses
kathy77
@kathy77 (7486)
• Australia
12 Apr 07
Yes we are often made to feel like criminals for using pirate software. Yes we do pay good money for these items and it makes you mad when we they do not last long and that have problems with them. Yes it is ridiculous the amount of money we are suppose to spend even as an individual it cost a lot of money to have everything up to date. Of course Bill Gates would not go broke for the people that need to copy these programs.
tommy408
@tommy408 (361)
• Malaysia
12 Apr 07
I could not agree with you more. I have thought about this sometimes back. If there know there will come up with newer version in 2 or 3 years, I would to the very least that they have enough common sense to sell it at a much-much lower price, since the same person would most likely than not, be coming back for upgrade, as soon as the newer version comes out. I personally never voluntarily bought any "original" software (except for PC Games). I paid for winXP once because it came together with my ACER Travelmate, and I paid for Windows Mobile 5.0 which was bundled with my DOPOD900.