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Old 01-07-2007, 09:04 PM   #75
Snappy!
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Just a thought ... this thread is like quite off-topic by now. Maybe we should come back to why, or why else you think iLiad will fail. We all know DRM is a *potential* show-stopper, so what else?

On DRM & piracy, think of piracy as marketing fund. Today's businesses spend a good chunk of their money on marketing. Without marketing, the product will function just fine, except that the mass market may not get to know this product and hence not get a chance to be enticed into buying it.

Piracy does that in a sense. Shareware does that too. So does the radio and TV. They all allow you to get a trial of the product, be it music, video or apps in some cases, and if you are happy with the product, you can choose to buy it. I know that many people just use winzip in trial mode and don't bother paying for it. They are still in business. The potential profit loss due to perpetual shareware users is offset by the wide-spread usage and familiarity of it, which in turn leads to corporations and some users purchasing the product.

It's a fine line between "piracy as marketing" vs "content should be free". The former acknowledges that content should be paid for, but one chooses to try it out, and potentially purchase the goods if it is worth the money. The latter assumes that one should not need to pay for it.
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