Bottom line is that 99% users of pirated graphics design software are not professionals. And there are not many non professionals out there that would pay $1000 bucks or more for 3D software. Professionals are by far the majority customers of high end 3D applications and when you are making money with the tools you can afford to pay for them.

Think that graphics tinkerers are the majority customers of $8,000 apps like Maya and the like? No companies buy software at those prices so any pirated copies out there are being used by people who would have never paid that kind of money for the product anyways.

No lost sales there. Operating systems games and other sw designed mainly to be used at home or the novice are a different story and piracy there can lead to big losses. But the conversation here is about graphics packages that typically start at $500 and go up from there. Professionals can not afford to use pirated software first because the lack of support costs them money and second their reputation would be toast in the indusrty if they ever were caught. Imagine the impact if say ILM was caught with pirated copies of some software.

So as everyone agrees that antipiracy measures are completely ineffective, and that high end graphical tools are not really suffering any losses due to some pirated copies out there, I can not see the often laborious schemes in place to thwart piracy. Another person that posted here is correct, in some cases it is easier to install the pirated version of a SW than the actual legal copy of the product. 2 years ago I was working on a time critical project, and Wham in the middle the dongle decided to drop dead. The manufacturer said it would be a week to 10 days to get a new one, which would have completely blown the deadline. A temporary install of a copy found on the internet saved the day. To my surprise the dongle actually arrived on day 4 but that was still two days past deadline.

We have always had at least two spare dongles on hand after that incident. I gues I am lucky the company I work for insists that I have a copy on my home machine so I can do some last minute work. (Actually I talked them into that one) so I have someone else paying for the versions I use at home. Otherwise I certainly would not be able to afford dropping the price of a car on graphics software.

So as far a professional graphics SW goes anti piracy protection schemes are a solution for a non issue. It is enough that you are denied any access to updates, support or other content from the manufacturers web site unless you register with a valid SN or CD key.

Message edited on: 01/03/2006 02:29

Message edited on: 01/03/2006 02:32

Message edited on: 01/03/2006 02:38