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"When thinking differently just isn't different enough."

Just Buy It
By Kirk Hiner
February 6, 2001

Back when I was in college and still cared about such things, a roommate and I had a big debate about whether or not one can truly have a free lunch. It wasn't odd for us to debate topics such as this, we debated everything; truth, religion, whether it's more important to first put out the oven fire or to first save the fish sticks...it's just what we did.

I can't remember my friend's argument, and I can't even really recall which side I took. Most of my opinions at the time were formulated on the spot, vehemently supported by a complete and total lack of any sort of foundation. I was the guy with whom people hated to debate the issues because I mostly only participated to aggravate them. The best part of arguing anything is tricking people into thinking you're a moron. Don't believe me? Find an avid Led Zeppelin fan and get him to think you really believe Led Zeppelin's only song was "Stairway to Heaven" and that it was the theme from Heaven Can Wait. Just watch those temples throb!

Anyway, back to the free lunch. I love one, to be quite honest. Most people do, I'd assume. But what I can't get over are the lengths to which some will go to get theirs. And it's not just lunches, it's everything. Is it just me, or does no one really want to pay for anything more? Is it the global economy, or is the world peopled with cheapskates?

This thought stems from an e-mail I received in January. Some guy who has never contacted me before, who I've never met and most likely never will, who has never once asked how my family's doing or offered to help me move, sent me an e-mail asking for the serial number for Galactic Patrol. Galactic Patrol is a fairly entertaining shareware game from Monkey Byte Development I reviewed back when the world was young. The request left me bewildered. Asking a total stranger, a semi-professional critic, to pirate software over the internet? Wouldn't that be like me e-mailing Roger Ebert and asking him to send me a VHS copy of Brotherhood of the Wolf?

I politely refused to help this guy out, although I did send him to Monkey Byte's website where Galactic Patrol still sells for $15. That's right, $15; barely even a free lunch for two at the local China Buffet, and yet this guy didn't want to pay it. He wanted me to pay for it for him.

Sadly enough, this doesn't end with total strangers. Friends, family, co-workers and such are always hitting me up for free software. "What's it matter to you?" they ask. "You get it for free!" That's only partly true. Yes, as a reviewer, I do get a lot of complimentary software. But do you know why? Because I review it! It's because I went to college for four years and graduated with a degree in English. It's because I spend far too much time on the computer pushing software to its limits so our readers will know those limits. It's because I spend days, weeks and sometimes even months using software that is of no use to me because chances are it's going to be of use to someone else. It's because I don't have time to sit back and actually enjoy playing a game because there are usually two or three right behind it awaiting their review.

I'm not complaining, here, just explaining. I love messing around on my Mac, I love learning new software, and I love writing. This is work I enjoy, but it's work nonetheless.

Anyway, people asking me for handouts is not what bothers me. I've always been blessed with the rare ability to tell people, "No." I don't even mind when the telemarketers call to offer free vacation packages, credit card protection or The New York Times (the most relentless of them all). I just view this as practice for refusing to give my brother-in-law a pirated copy of Virtual PC.

No, the point here is that so many people are willing to cheat developers out of their livelihood. Going back to Galactic Patrol, I can't imagine that Monkey Byte is so well off that they couldn't use that $15. I mean, it's not like they're Microsoft or Adobe who's products are so ridiculously priced to begin with that you get that Robin Hood sense of morality by handing over a pirated copy. It's Monkey Byte. How many of you have even heard of them? They're only asking for $15 to keep gamers entertained. Even if we grow tired of the game after three days of playing, we've still received our money's worth.

Tangent: I had a friend in New York who though I was a fool for paying $40 or $50 for some computer game I'd only play for about a month. I then asked her how much she paid for the last Broadway show she saw that only lasted about three hours. It's all just a matter of what entertains you, people.

There's a line around here I'd like to find so I can be sure not to cross it. I'm thinking mainly of Microsoft's ridiculous new registration methods to make sure no one pirates their software. See, they can charge a ridiculous amount of money for Office because it's mostly offices buying it. This is the same principal behind overpriced airfares during the work week, I suppose. Businessmen and women fly during the week, so jack up the prices because corporate American can afford it. Lower it with a Saturday night stay because vacationers stay over a Saturday night. Raise the phone rates during the day because that's when businesses do their businesses. Lower them at night when families are reaching out to touch someone.

Yet, oddly, the businesses are the ones who get the savings with computer software. They need to buy a lot of copies of Word, so they're given a discount. However, a guy like me would have to pay the premium price for one copy, because that's all I need. Does this make sense? If you ask me, they should just lower the premium price and stop offering the site license discount, then let everyone buy it at that lower price. Help a guy out, you know?

Or maybe reduce the price if we use the software on Saturday.

So, I don't know. I guess if you want to rip off Microsoft or Adobe, that's your prerogative. To me, people who pirate from major corporations are like people who hand out free condoms at high schools. I'm not convinced it's the right thing to do, but I'm not reaching for my picket signs, either.

Maybe we should set a limit. We can put a cap on the amount a program can cost before it's considered legal for individuals to give copies to friends. Say, $200. This way, you can't pirate most upgrades, yet starving artists will still be able to get their hands on copies of PhotoShop, Quark and Maya. Corporations, however, still have to pay. In fact, maybe they have to pay more. Raise their prices to compensate for all the free copies floating around down in the streets.

On the other hand, pirating software from shareware developers and smaller companies should be punishable by public flogging. I'm not sure exactly what flogging entails, but I'm sure it's not something one would want done to him in public. It's like, if my brother asks me to burn my collection of Metallica CDs for him (something not likely to happen because neither of currently owns or ever will own any Metallica music), I wouldn't hesitate to do so. But if he asks me to burn my Muckafurgason CDs, I'm afraid that won't happen. One look at these guys and you just know they could really use that $14. In fact, next time I'm in New York for the Macworld Expo, guys, I'm treating you all to pizza at John's down on Bleecker St. See, a free lunch!

I'd now bring us back to Galactic Patrol and Monkey Byte, but my point goes beyond them. It covers all of the smaller developing houses, whether they write the code that makes our software zing, they write the code of games and special things, or they write the code that makes our graphics fly--they write the code, they write the code. They work hard so we can work less hard...or play harder. If a company's asking for $15 for a game, $45 for a system utility or $99 for a word processor, that seems pretty fair to me. I mean, as Mac users, we're buying pretty much the most expensive computers around. Surely we can also afford to pay for shareware and our own copies of Toast 5 Titanium. Do people buy computers thinking they won't have to buy software as well? Do they think it just magically materializes on their desktop in the morning? Sure, and chances are their shoes are being mended by gnomes while they sleep.

So people...friends...brothers...stop asking me to pirate software for you. If you want free games, go develop your own website, learn all about back-end database and Perl programming, find yourself some writers who'll work for nothing (or at least next to nothing), buy some software and put up some reviews, grow your readership into the hundreds of thousands, then foster relationships with game developers and publishers. At that point, they'll happily send you your NFR (Not for Resale, which also translates to Not for Giving Away) copies of their software for review. If this seems like too much work, you can always just buy it.

Now, would anyone out there care to burn me a copy of that Led Zeppelin song? You know, the one from that Heaven Can Wait movie? That was such a good song, I'm surprised they never did anything else.