The Freeloaders

[Stitchawl]

R&D costs money. A large corporate headquarters cost money. Company cars for top execs cost money. Printing fancy packaging costs money. Somebody has to pay for the corporate jet!

$500 for a copy of PhotoShop... (and that's the cheap version!) Really, just how many individuals can afford to pay a price like that? Especially individuals who live in countries were the average weekly salary for an office worker is under $50. In many countries it's under $25... In countries such as Thailand with the average weekly salary between $15-$30 USD even for a bank clerk or secratary, it's almost impossible to even FIND a legitimate copy of PhotoShop being sold, but you can find its pirated CD in every street market and in every computer mall, selling for a dollar or two.

Certainly Adobe wants to recoup the money it spends in R&D. Certainly it wants to make a profit. But didn't it already recoup it's expenses and make a profit? Now it want's more? It won't get it from people who can't afford $500 for software.

To print a book requires an outlay of cash for paper, ink, printing presses, wages for printers, binders, truck drivers, secretaries, etc., etc., etc. To keep printing, these companies must keep receiving cash. A lot of cash. The authors deserve royalties too. I think it's fair to charge the prices that paper books cost. A lot goes into them.

But an e-book doesn't have such continuing expenses. If an author is only getting a few cents per edition, and the edition already exists in a computer, how much does it really cost to maintain that computer web site? $10 per edition sold? I don't believe it. It's easy enough to set up a web-based business that will allow people to log into a site and download a product, still pay the author due royalties, still make a profit, but NOT need to charge $10 per file.

As long as software companies continue to charge high prices for their goods, as long as book companies continue to charge unrealistic prices for their files, as long a people try to make their business operate in the black in the first month of operation by charging excessively high prices for goods, many, many people will continue to deal with pirated files, P2P, torrents, etc. Not everybody thinks it's stealing. No more than most folks think taking an extra 15 minutes at lunch hour is stealing from the boss, taking home a ream of paper from the office is stealing, or shaving points of their taxes. If you take even a pencil from work, it is, in fact, STEALING.

All that changes is how we as individuals set our own personal bar for the crime. And that's called 'justification.'


Stitchawl

[kennyc]

Well there are alternatives in many cases Gimp is pretty much as good a Photoshop and is free....Open Office does everything Microsoft Office does for free!

[Stitchawl]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Well there are alternatives in many cases Gimp is pretty much as good a Photoshop and is free

I know that, and you know that, but there are a heck of a lot of folks who only know the Photoshop name. Quite like "Is that a Kindle you're using?" "No, it is an e-reader but it's made by Sony." "Oh! I didn't know there were others."

....Open Office does everything Microsoft Office does for free!

True, and Microsoft doesn't penalize private individuals for using unauthorized copies of its software, only businesses and organizations using multiple copies of it. I had the occasion to meet and chat with a Microsoft Lawyer based in Bangkok who's only job it was was to bring to court companies 'stealing' Microsoft usage. Interestingly enough, his own laptop had many different pieces of pirated software.


Stitchawl

[MovieBird]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Well there are alternatives in many cases Gimp is pretty much as good a Photoshop and is free....Open Office does everything Microsoft Office does for free!

No, they are NOT comparable products. GIMP doesn't do CMYK which is a necessity for real printing, nor does it do layered tifs or deal with psd files well. Oh, and it doesn't do lots of RAW formats from cameras, making it pretty useless for anybody that uses photography in any way. Not to mention that all those cool photoshop brushes and layers are not transferable to GIMP gradients.

Openoffice does not preserve formatting 100% in most Microsoft documents, which makes it useless for those that deal with corporate culture. Microsoft is the dominant office productivity package, like it or not. As long as Microsoft has this death grip over office productivity, anything that delivers less than 100% compatibility just doesn't cut it.

This just goes to show that proprietary formats work wonderfully for market leaders, while everyone else should use open standards.

[Ankh]

Originally Posted by MovieBird

Openoffice does not preserve formatting 100% in most Microsoft documents, which makes it useless for those that deal with corporate culture. Microsoft is the dominant office productivity package, like it or not. As long as Microsoft has this death grip over office productivity, anything that delivers less than 100% compatibility just doesn't cut it.

I seriously doubt that Microsoft's "death grip" still exists. And it is not OpenOffice that won that "format war". Adobe's PDF did. For every document that leaves the door of the corporation. Its been a long, long time that I've received word document or found one on a corporate web site.

Microsoft Office is still widely used, no doubt about it. But now it is somehow degraded to ... the internal choice of each and every corporation. PDF is Lingua franca, the "corporate format".

[sabredog]

Movie piracy has a lot lot do with the dismal run of second rate remakes that have appeared of late. Has Hollywood run out of ideas or do the latest crop of writers simply lack imagination like the music industry?

The latest remake I heard of is Arnies Commando....

With the poor crop of movies over that last few years coupled with the high cost of going to the cinema to see what amounts to be dross, one can see why punters "try before they buy".

[Ken Maltby]

Originally Posted by MovieBird

No, they are NOT comparable products. GIMP doesn't do CMYK which is a necessity for real printing, nor does it do layered tifs or deal with psd files well. Oh, and it doesn't do lots of RAW formats from cameras, making it pretty useless for anybody that uses photography in any way. Not to mention that all those cool photoshop brushes and layers are not transferable to GIMP gradients.

I very much disagree with your characterization of GIMP2 (the current
version). While it works for the most part in sRGB, it does have a CMYK
profile, in its color management function. It handles layers and channels
quite well in fact. I haven't had an occasion to try layered tifs, but have
very often used layered psds, created in GIMP2 for DVD authoring menu
components. I'm not sure what "RAW formats" you are referring to, but
GIMP2 has handled all the common formats that I've had any occasion to
feed it. It does work with files, so the photo needs to have been digitized,
if that is your complaint.

I am sure that there are some things that the very expensive Adobe
product can do that the free GIMP2 can't, but very few of them would
be things that the noncommercial user actually has a need for.

Luck;
Ken

[riemann42]

One of the largest costs of any publish house is the advances they give authors.

Take away these advances, and you take away quality, and hurt authors, whose art you are appreciating when you read (even a trashy) a novel or whose work and research you are getting the benefit of when you read non-fiction.

So in short, the stuff still has to cost at least 60% of what it costs today, if not more, just to cover this.

The culture of piracy says, "I don't want to pay some fat cat." In the end, the fat cat, at least in book publishing (and to a great extent in music production) improves the quality of the work significantly. This culture has to change.

Ideas:

1) Clear up definitions of ownership when it comes to IP. This would require some legal changes. Make it so IP ownership is for content, not media. This may hurt Blu-Ray sales, but it will help change the culture, which in the end will increase overall sales. This type of ownership may end up looking like a (transferable? I doubt it) license. That's OK. I "own" Microsoft Office, even though I technically "license" it.

2) Eliminate DRM. This doesn't deter piracy, and only hurts consumers. It's a stupid idea. Music figured this out. Movies and Books need to figure it out.

3) Make the legal ramifications for piracy severe. Enforce the criminal code. Through some torrent users in prison and that will shape up the college kids.

4) Make stuff cheaper. Separate pricing for media / content is one way to start (like ebooks). For example, I buy a Book. It is $15 for a license+hard back physical book, $10 for a license+softback, $8 for a license only, and I can download it. Selling the physical copy can only be done if the license to the content is sold (resell of license and content would be required to make DawnFalcon and other property rights advocates happy. I would be happy making resell illegal).

5) Encourage PARENTS to teach their children that theft of IP is wrong. Encourage teachers that it is wrong. Encourage Police, Fire, and Elected Officials to say it is wrong. And most importantly, encourage artists to say it is wrong.

[riemann42]

Originally Posted by Ken Maltby

I am sure that there are some things that the very expensive Adobe
product can do that the free GIMP2 can't, but very few of them would
be things that the noncommercial user actually has a need for.

Problems with Gimp:

* Gimp2 still does not work well as a verb.

* Gimp in fact, sounds kind-of lame.

* Gimp does not feel the same.

* Gimp costs less (Photoshop costs not-a-number times more), so I don't feel smug using it.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by MovieBird

No, they are NOT comparable products. GIMP doesn't do CMYK which is a necessity for real printing, nor does it do layered tifs or deal with psd files well. Oh, and it doesn't do lots of RAW formats from cameras, making it pretty useless for anybody that uses photography in any way. Not to mention that all those cool photoshop brushes and layers are not transferable to GIMP gradients.

Openoffice does not preserve formatting 100% in most Microsoft documents, which makes it useless for those that deal with corporate culture. Microsoft is the dominant office productivity package, like it or not. As long as Microsoft has this death grip over office productivity, anything that delivers less than 100% compatibility just doesn't cut it.

This just goes to show that proprietary formats work wonderfully for market leaders, while everyone else should use open standards.

Well sure there are some details that are different. I never said they were clones of each other, but for 95% of what the average user does they are perfect substitutes.

[NickSpalding]

Originally Posted by sabredog

Movie piracy has a lot lot do with the dismal run of second rate remakes that have appeared of late. Has Hollywood run out of ideas or do the latest crop of writers simply lack imagination like the music industry?

The latest remake I heard of is Arnies Commando....

This, I think you'll find, is one of the first signs of the coming apocalypse.

Commando is un-remakeable (is that a word?). It is totally a product of it's time. You can make another film called Commando, but it won't be Commando.

It has Schwarzenegger feeding a bloody deer, for crying out loud.

The entertainment industry is massively hypocritical (as if we didn't know). On the one hand it bleats and moans about people downloading stuff for free and then on the other keeps upping the price of going to the cinema or buying a CD...complaining that they have to do it to off set all that money they're losing through piracy.

What a load of old codswallop.

The truth is, lower prices and offer a good product and people do pay.

Ask me to pay out £8 ($12) to go see a po-faced, boring re-tread of a film that was pretty much crap in the first place (Clash of the Titans) and you bet I'll be surfing uTorrent before you can say 'this cinema uses night vision technology'.

And as for the claim piracy effects sales of popular movies, I invite those who claim this to look at the box office for The Dark Knight. It made a billion, even though it got pirated to high heaven, because it was a brilliant movie.

[MovieBird]

Originally Posted by Ankh

I seriously doubt that Microsoft's "death grip" still exists. And it is not OpenOffice that won that "format war". Adobe's PDF did. For every document that leaves the door of the corporation. Its been a long, long time that I've received word document or found one on a corporate web site.

Microsoft Office is still widely used, no doubt about it. But now it is somehow degraded to ... the internal choice of each and every corporation. PDF is Lingua franca, the "corporate format".

I often receive Word documents from clients to work with, but what about PowerPoint? I was actually referring more to what is used internally, as that is what you do your work on. Are you going to fight crappy formatting for years on those days when you have to take work home, just to save (your company) a hundred dollars? Do you expect a large amount of others to perform the same?

Originally Posted by Ken Maltby

I very much disagree with your characterization of GIMP2 (the current
version). While it works for the most part in sRGB, it does have a CMYK
profile, in its color management function. It handles layers and channels
quite well in fact. I haven't had an occasion to try layered tifs, but have
very often used layered psds, created in GIMP2 for DVD authoring menu
components. I'm not sure what "RAW formats" you are referring to, but
GIMP2 has handled all the common formats that I've had any occasion to
feed it. It does work with files, so the photo needs to have been digitized,
if that is your complaint.

I am sure that there are some things that the very expensive Adobe
product can do that the free GIMP2 can't, but very few of them would
be things that the noncommercial user actually has a need for.

Luck;
Ken

The CMYK in the GIMP is still rudimentary, and not acceptable for professional printing. I still have PSDs from PS/CS2 that don't show up correctly in the GIMP, mainly because of screwed up filters and gradients. RAW formats are the native file format that a camera shoots in, which almost all professional photographers use until they get into Photoshop, so as not to lose any bits. Seeing as GIMP is opensource and free, they can't support every iteration of RAW for each and every camera, but this also means they're pretty useless for those that shoot for a living.

I want to clarify that I run Linux and use the GIMP and OpenOffice for home use, but I am not blinded to the fact that these are hobby quality programs. If I need professional output in the least amount of time, I use Microsoft products because of interoperability.

[Ankh]

Originally Posted by MovieBird

I often receive Word documents from clients to work with, but what about PowerPoint? I was actually referring more to what is used internally, as that is what you do your work on. Are you going to fight crappy formatting for years on those days when you have to take work home, just to save (your company) a hundred dollars? Do you expect a large amount of others to perform the same?

No, I don't.

But I wouldn't be surprised to see a startup based on OpenOffice for everything. The time has come when that is not only possible, but probable.

There is no "death grip" as it existed a couple of years (or decade) before, when sending MS office documents out of the company was the norm.

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by riemann42

5) Encourage PARENTS to teach their children that theft of IP is wrong. Encourage teachers that it is wrong. Encourage Police, Fire, and Elected Officials to say it is wrong.

Because when parents, teachers, and "the man" tell kids something is wrong, that never makes it instantly super-sexy.

[queentess]

Originally Posted by MovieBird

I want to clarify that I run Linux and use the GIMP and OpenOffice for home use, but I am not blinded to the fact that these are hobby quality programs. If I need professional output in the least amount of time, I use Microsoft products because of interoperability.

[emp mine]

I use MS Office daily, both at work and at home, but also have to use Open Office when receiving files from some of our overseas offices who don't have MSO. And I have to say, OO is NOTHING like MSO. The capabilities simply aren't there. I regularly use MSO to cut down on the time it takes me to analyze something, which usually involves making a table, feeding the data into a pivot table and feeding that into a pivot chart in Excel 2007. Try to recreate something like that in OO. It's unpossible! I'm more than willing to pay for these capabilities, and so is my employer.