Do You Pay for Your Shareware?

geddes writes: "Ambrosia Software, an independent Macintosh shareware developer, has just published an article about the effect Piracy has on thier small business. They recently implemented a new serial number scheme where the software connected to thier server to verify reigistration, and found that in two days, of the 197 of the users trying to verify thier codes, 107 were using pirated ones. Crime always hurts the little guy more."

Yawn

[Anonymous Coward]

tell us something we don't know...

Re:Is this really suprising?

[Deanasc]

.75 euros for a coke is cheap compared to what I'm paying. That's less than a dollar today and I get ripped $1.25 for the same thing. Also you get your coke with real sugar and I have to make due with high fructose corn syrup.

And to make matters worse lately every coke I buy calls me a looser or at least a "sorry not a winner". I wish I could pirate cokes as easily as I could pirate software.

It's all how you look at it.

[Anonymous Coward]

The label says Shareware but what I see is Freeware

It's a classic Farside cartoon.

Can't clone if a patent or visual art is involved

[yerricde]

Instead of pirating (rather cheap) shareware, why don't you just program it yourself

I can see your point for programs like Tetris, but that's not possible if somebody has a patent on a necessary and irreplaceable algorithm for the program in question in your jurisdiction, and it's too expensive to move elsewhere. It's also not possible if a developer doesn't have both coding and drawing skills.

Extreme Optimist Ware

[Alioth]

I don't call shareware shareware, I call it EOW - Extreme Optimist Ware, because whoever's supplying it is an extreme optimist if they think they are going to get paid! Out of the millions of people who use mIRC, how many do you think have paid K. Mardam Bey anything? Probably not more than a handful.

Having said that I have registered shareware that I was a regular user of (most notably Remote Access BBS software), but then I discovered Unix and opensource software.

Re:Paying for Shareware?!?

[fprefect]

Speaking of which, I recently heard of a bordello in Paris where they keep a list displayed outside the store of any clients with delinquent accounts.

I wonder how well that works. =)

Matt Slot / Bitwise Operator / Ambrosia Software, Inc.

Re:Software piracy is bad. (Mmmkay)

[Anonymous Coward]

Whaaaat? You don't see the value in a piece of software that can generate a password? I mean, that's really tough to generate a password.

I mean, imagine having to come up with

Wdtr3Dk

HEY! You stole that! You owe me $30! Don't you know I won't create another if you use that password?