----- Original Message ----- From: "Alex Denissov" <denissov@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> > > People! I have one question! > In Russia most of people buy illegal soft! The reason is simple - > usual wages in Russia is about 200-300 dollars a month - for our low > prices - is enough for livivng normally - apartment, car, food, clubs, > music etc. But for soft - NO. Of cause a man better buys Win XP + tweakers+ > MS office on one CD for $2. Anyway i do not care cause i usually use > SuSeLinux, and this soft is not such expensive. So my question is for > all - Will you buy legal for $200 or will you buy illegal for $2? > mailto:denissov@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > It is a hard question to answer Alex-I doubt there are many on here who can honestly say every piece of software they have ever used has been 100% legal..I know I can't!! I've often borrowed software I was interested in to see if it was right for me-if it was, I'll buy it, if not, I don't The problem comes when piracy overtakes legal sales..A pay TV company has recently gone bust over here, partly because of a lack of subscriber numbers-They had about 1.5 million people paying for their services, but estimates put the number of 'pirate' smartcards at double that number!!! A person using his or her copy of Windows on two or three PC's they own is not going to bankrupt Microsoft, but the trouble is, if EVERYONE used only pirate software, then the makers will end up going bust.. I understand exactly the position you are in, and it is up to the software makers to price their software according to the pockets of the country or mass piracy will happen. I'm sure I remember seeing an article about Microsoft offering some of their product for free in areas like Russia to combat the piracy issue. Cheers Andy To unsub or change your email settings: //www.freelists.org/webpage/pctechtalk To access our Archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PCTechTalk/messages/ //www.freelists.org/archives/pctechtalk/