I've always been rather dismayed by one response that our chronicles of various abuses on the part of software publishers will occasionally elicit. Someone will post a comment that the software company's objectionable practices provide justification for pirating their products. But one such comment recently prompted a reader to make a very persuasive argument as to why such thinking is totally off base.
"If you steal software from a company who uses deceptive marketing practices, then you are still indirectly supporting that company by not supporting its competition -- whether open source or closed source, whether free-as-in-beer or commercial," the reader wrote. "This is especially true if you are stealing from a company who has market dominance. Ultimately, that hurts you. If you steal software from a company who does not use deceptive marketing, then you are not only hurting a reputable dealer, but you are again hurting yourself by making it more difficult for a reputable company to make a profit."
Yes, deceptive marketing practices are wrong, the reader said. "No company should be allowed to get away with it, nor excused for doing so," the reader wrote. "However, I don't understand why people can justify stealing software as if two wrongs make a right. When you don't pay for software, you are really just trying to avoid inconvenience rather than do the right thing. Imagine the positive effect if we could teach people not to purchase from spam. If even a very small number of people purchase from spam, then it is profitable. Copyright violation has the same counter-productive effect, if not as directly so and not as obvious. I get the impression that a lot of people simply feel entitled to be able to do a certain thing on a computer and don't want to be inconvenienced into doing something themselves or using a less-finished product. Grow up."
If everyone voted with their wallets against the kind of practices we don't want software publishers to use, they would have to change their behavior. "If we support an honest vendor whose product is not as good, we help that vendor improve their product -- by giving them revenue -- and we send a very direct message to the dishonest vendor. When you steal, you only send the message that you want to use something without paying for it. That is the full extent of what you are telling the company whose product you are not using legally. One choice motivates companies to avoid practices that annoy the market; the other choice motivates companies to implement stupid, restrictive, and mostly counter-productive, let's-punish-the-honest-consumer DRM. This is why I get angry when people steal software. They are not only hurting themselves, they are hurting the rest of us."
Read and post comments about this story here, or write me directly at Foster@gripe2ed.com.
12:19:03 AM 
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