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Comment by jamesbritt | Hacker News Reader

"However, if the pirate is actively using the product and deriving value from it in their work, they would have paid for the product (or another like it) to receive the same value."

Or done without. Or done with something different. But it's false to assume that anyone glomming a copy of some software would pay for it were it not free.

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I didn't see that assumption being made. The parent's point is that it is (likewise) false to assume that everyone "glomming a copy of some software" wouldn't pay any price other than free, were piracy not an option.

If a pirate is using a program, they're deriving value from it. They are not 'doing without' even though that option is available.

If the pirated option was not available, they would have made a purchase (yours or a competitors) or made do with freeware. That they've not chosen the free option indicates that they prefer your product -- one which they would have paid for.

Not true. I prefer Photoshop over GIMP. But I use it so rarely, that if I had to pay full price for Photoshop, I'd just use GIMP.

Given my infrequency of usage, I'd be willing to pay some amount for Photoshop: $30 or $49.99 or whatever, but I simply don't use it $699 worth.

I do pay for all the apps I use daily, and thankfully they're all "reasonably" priced: MyEclipse, Transmit, Parallels, OmniFocus, OmniGraffle, OmniOutliner, TextMate, and so on.

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