Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Open Letter to Warez Sites from Alex Kac Regarding Software Piracy
Posted by Ekkie Tepsupornchai in "THOUGHT" @ 12:00 PM
"Myself and a band of software devs here have found a *very* large pirate warez site which I will not link to. They have cracks for almost everything imaginable. They have our software on there with download ratios in the TENS of THOUSANDS. In many cases I find more downloads of our software on the warez site than I see on our own download servers. I've calculated that even if we only lost 10% of those downloads that could have been sales its a pretty major hit... The fact is that piracy hurts those who pirate. They want our software obviously. Some just use it for a "test", but we offer a two week trial and with a bit of work you can probably get 2-3 months free usage of our products a year. And we don't sell for a large amount of money. Just wait and you can usually get our software for a steal - without actually stealing. I don't think paying $9.95 is such a huge issue if you need an app like VoiceMinder. Its barely a lunch and drink. But the reason piracy hurts those who pirate is because they are like vampires slowly killing the company that they are sucking the applications off of."
If any of you have been with us long enough, you know that we roll our eyes constantly at all the DRM / anti-piracy actions taken by entities such as the RIAA and MPAA that infringe upon the rights of real customers. The flipside though is that piracy cuts into the "bottom-line" of all companies. In the case of the Windows Mobile community and awesome third-party developers such as WebIS, it can be especially painful, particulary if they have to shut down, which helps no one (personally, I can't even imagine life without such great solutions such as Pocket Informant or FlexWallet).
Now, we know the vast majority of us here appreciate great software and are willing to pay for whatever we use. However, for the minority of people out there that have taken advantage of software pirating opportunities, we here at Pocket PC Thoughts and the entire family of Thoughts Media would humbly request that you provide the monetary support necessary to help sustain these wonderful companies and individuals.
Please feel free to visit the provided link to understand the ramifications piracy has on companies such as WebIS.
If any of you have been with us long enough, you know that we roll our eyes constantly at all the DRM / anti-piracy actions taken by entities such as the RIAA and MPAA that infringe upon the rights of real customers. The flipside though is that piracy cuts into the "bottom-line" of all companies. In the case of the Windows Mobile community and awesome third-party developers such as WebIS, it can be especially painful, particulary if they have to shut down, which helps no one (personally, I can't even imagine life without such great solutions such as Pocket Informant or FlexWallet).
Now, we know the vast majority of us here appreciate great software and are willing to pay for whatever we use. However, for the minority of people out there that have taken advantage of software pirating opportunities, we here at Pocket PC Thoughts and the entire family of Thoughts Media would humbly request that you provide the monetary support necessary to help sustain these wonderful companies and individuals.
Please feel free to visit the provided link to understand the ramifications piracy has on companies such as WebIS.
