PhotoShop Piracy

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 6. March 2008 - 0:00

Adobe claims that Photoshop is the single most pirated software. Microsoft claims that it's Windows and Office, mostly from reseller preloading it on the computers. Software piracy is big business. Software piracy is the equivalent the photographer's copyright infringement.

Companies have lot to do the piracy of their software! Even now with the stronger dollar against the UK Sterling Pound, it still cheaper to fly to New York and stay a couple of nights in New York, weekend packages through http://lastminute.com and the like, than buying Photoshop in London, UK.

Different countries, different prices for the same software.

Adobe claims, falsely, that it's more expensive to make a Russian version than an English version. Not true, since all the menus and prompts are internationalized. The only extra expense is the manual, but wait a second, there is no manual! So why does Adobe charge 7 times more in Russia than in the US, where the income is a third of the US?

It's like charging a different price according to your religion, or a different price according to the color of your skin. It's pure and simple discrimination.

I'd rather people pirate WordPerfect than Microsoft's Word.

— Michael Cowpland — Ex-owner and ex-CEO of Corel/WordPerfect

As a photographer, are you doing the equivalent?

  • What about charging different prices for the same work?
  • What about 2 different prices to 2 different customers and hoping: "What that the odds they will talk to each other?"
  • Selling a photo to a customer and then placing it on a microstock site?

People, customers want to do the right thing if they feel they are "not getting screwed". See: For RadioHeads free = success: Total sales figures of more than three million copies for the free album.

  • After being made available for free for 3 months the album was no.1 in the UK and in the US.
  • 1st Radiohead album on iTunes — no.1 album selling 30,000 units in the US in the first week.
  • The physical CD has sold 1.75 million copies to date and is still in the top 200 both in the UK & US.
  • They sold 100k box sets via W.A.S.T.E.
  • Nearing 17 million plays on last.fm.
  • 1.2 million fans will see the tour.
  • The digital income from the experiment made a material difference to WCM's UK digital revenue this year.