Lack of funds doesn't change that fact the nearly 1 Million users are personally benefiting from someone else effort - for free. The creator of the product realizes 0 benefit. Where I grew up in Robbinsdale they used to call that stealing. However...as I wrote to Jack...if the developer chooses to market their software in that manner then more power to them. Thanks you guys for an interesting debate! Mark Ring > On Tue, 5 Sep 2006, Mike Miller wrote: > >> On Tue, 5 Sep 2006, Jack Ungerleider wrote: >> >>> On Mon, September 4, 2006 10:58 pm, markring40 at ippimail.com wrote: >>> >>>>> Mike Miller wrote: >>> >>>>> The thing I want to address is the notion that such distribution >>>>> damages the company that produces the software. That isn't clear. >>>>> When a program that usually costs $500, say, is being distributed for >>>>> free on the internet in violation of the license, many people will >>>>> download the program for free who would never have paid $500 for a >>>>> properly-licensed copy. So, a company that might have expected to >>>>> sell 2,000 copies at $500 apiece might find that 1,000,000 copies >>>>> were >>>>> freely downloaded on the web against their wishes. But that means >>>>> that 998,000 more people are using their program than would have used >>>>> it otherwise. Are they worse off? Well that depends on how much they >>>>> sell. It could hurt them, but it also could help them. It depends. >>>> >>>> Mike I think you've answered your own question. The company in your >>>> example has lost $499 Million dollars!! That would definately hurt >>>> them. It would not help them. >> >> >> Jack-- >> >> Read it a little more carefully. I said that the 998,000 users couldn't >> afford the program and would never have bought it. > > > Oops. Sorry -- "markring" not Jack!! Jack had it right. > > Mike > > _______________________________________________ > TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota > tclug-list at mn-linux.org > http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Get a free email address at http://www.ippimail.com and support your favorite charity without it costing you a penny. Now with 200mb storage and Google-powered search! Feelgood email!