Kristen asked me recently, "Where can I get a cheap copy of Photoshop?" I suggested the open source photo-editing software, The Gimp, but she was determined to have Photoshop. "But it's $699!" she lamented. "That's not in my budget. There is a guy here in town selling pirated copies for $40. Why shouldn't I do that?"
Dare I even answer this one?
OK, skipping right over the "it's wrong" arguments, the possibility of getting caught and fined, and even dodging the impact that piracy has on the availability of high-tech jobs in the United States, there are some completely selfish reasons the average small-business consumer should think twice about buying software from Blackbeard the software pirate.
The biggest, I think, is quality control. I'm very careful about the software I install on my computers because I have to bypass my anti-virus protection to do it. My time is valuable to me, and I don't want to spend it dealing with a malware infection. So I like to know that the software I install is nice and shiny clean. (Feel free to start with the Microsoft jokes here.)
Pirated software is not usually a product created by some rebel geek in a clean environment; it's often manufactured and delivered by organized crime. So quality control is overseen by the same people who bring you drugs and prostitution. Are they also the same people bringing you malware? That's hard to know. At any rate, they won't be supporting the software they sell you, so they can do as they please.
Microsoft and IDC did a study into the risks users take when they install counterfeit software and found a significant risk of encountering malware by going this route. The study tested 348 counterfeit Windows XP CDs from 17 countries and found that 34 percent of the CDs couldn't be installed fully and 43 percent had spyware, malware, or other added code. The study also found 98 unique Web sites offering access to counterfeit product keys and pirated software; 25 percent of these attempted to install malicious or unwanted software, and 59 percent of the key generators and crack tools downloaded from peer-to-peer networks contained malicious or unwanted software.
So what's a bottom-line-watching computer user to do?
I, too, have a natural adverse reaction to the high price of software, but whenever possible, I turn to open source solutions and shareware. I think this builds a healthy competition and instead of aiding organized crime supports a cadre of noble coders out there who are doing innovative things.
What do you think? Should Kristen buy that $40 copy of Photoshop?
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