Software Piracy: The Untold Tales [Infographic]

When it comes to torrents and illegal software and music downloads, there are two sides of the story. One is of course about the companies who lose money on this at any given time of the day. The other side is the “freeware community” that is constantly debating that software should be free like aspirin. Sure, you can pay money for it, but it shouldn’t be copyrighted. It’s a complicated thing really, and when you start looking into the details of it, it’s hard to keep focused on the main issue. I have seen my songs around the Internet and even included in karaoke machines from which I don’t receive any royalties, so the piracy is more widespread than you could ever imagine.

StarMedia Communications put together a detailed riddled infographic that will take you from the very first software patent to where we are today. If you only knew what goes on behind the scenes, you would quickly know that it’s a game played using millions of dollars every year. Some companies, like Adobe for example, actually like their software being spread through illegal downloads, to some extent that is. Why? Because that makes their software the top choice for many people, and it keeps them at the top constantly.

I think I have mentioned it before, but music labels around the world actually asked Napster (when it was the hottest thing around) to seed their songs in order to spread the word about them. That no doubt kicked up sales by a whole lot, and I wouldn’t be surprised if software companies around the world are doing the very same thing. I know that Apple for example dropped the dongle for Logic (music sequencer software) only to allow people to be able to spread the software making it the number one used in studios around the world. Surprisingly it worked, and Apple is now developing the software that super producers use for making their music. A close second is of course Pro Tools which is used by top producers as well. The only difference is the price, and to some extent, the quality. So, what do you think? Should software be free?

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