[bunderbunder]

There is a different philosophy of DRM, maybe less well-known because it doesn't tend to produce newsworthy examples, that says that the goal is to provide just enough of a nudge toward paying for the product that you're not operating completely on the honor system.

Under this approach, you really only want to make pirating the software just a little bit less convenient than paying for the software for most users. Because most potential pirates aren't determined attackers, they're just regular folks who are every bit as lazy and strapped for time as everyone else, and therefore won't bother to spend a few minutes keying in credit card information if they don't have to.

It's sort of analogous to turnstiles at train stations. Virtually anyone can go around or under them if they want to, but that's not the point. The point is that hopping a turnstile is just a bit more of a hassle than fishing your transit card out of your purse. Just enough more that most people would rather do that.

[taneq]

> The point is that hopping a turnstile is just a bit more of a hassle than fishing your transit card out of your purse. Just enough more that most people would rather do that.

I don't think it's even that it's more hassle, it's just a reminder of how things are meant to work. Most people will do the right thing voluntarily once their attention's been brought to it. Sort of like the courtesy lock on a bathroom stall - it's not to physically prevent entry, it's just to indicate that entry would be impolite.

[zelon88]

I wouldn't say that's necessarily true with software. Most of the time with software if I'm looking into pirating something it's because I want it. I don't need it, and therefore the cost is unjustified. Usually I try to go the open-source route, but let's talk hypothetically here. There is a commercial product that I want, but don't need.

I'm never going to buy it. Even if pirating it is unsuccessful, I'll just go a different route. So trying to prevent me from pirating the software isn't protecting profits. It's not persuading me to purchase anything. It's persuading me to look for a free alternative or a competing product. It's taking away it's own market share by pushing me away. I always laughed at Microsoft's efforts to combat pirates. From their perspective any machine running Windows, pirated or legit, is worth more to Microsoft than that same machine NOT running Windows, NOT supporting the Windows ecosystem, and supporting the competition instead. Even if they have to give the product away for free.

If there's a product I need, or a product I need to have licensed for business reasons, I will buy it regardless of whether or not I can pirate it easily or not.

So, at least for me, pirating something is less a question of whether or not I can get away with it than it is a factor of what I find that functionality to be worth. If a $100 piece of software is too much for me I'll pirate it or go somewhere else, but I'll never buy it.

Conversely, if the vendor saved themselves the development time and skipped the DRM to drop the price down to $75 I might consider buying it, even though I could easily pirate it.

It comes down to value. Just because a vendor wants to make $100/unit doesn't mean their product is worth $100/unit, and it doesn't mean I'll ever pay $100/unit. If another product can do the same task for $50/unit that's likely the route I'll take.