I recently recieved a check (last year) for $14 for a class action
lawsuit against music CD makers that sued for assuming that the
purchasers were automatically breaking the law and incorporating
inflated prices in all the CD's they sold, they being Sony (I believe).
Hell, I didn't even know I was part of it. I almost threw the check
out as junk mail. It seems they tracked my purchases with
my favorite record store and my amex card. I was offended of
course, $14 isn't worth giving up my privacy for. The implicit
assumption is that I will make copies for all my friends, so
I must pay for their recuperation costs up front.
There has yet to be a similar software suit as people have come
to expect crappy software and feel completely justified in
making illegal copies of it. 'After all, Bill Gates already
has all that money right?'
This is my prediction after watching the sofware copyright congress and
various software companies trying to enforce copyright laws in Asia.
As soon as these companies start trying to call US citzens on software
copyright violations is the day US citizens start calling the software
companies on their crappy software and demand remuneration for
all the lost work and data in addition to recouping costs based
on the assumption that they automatically will violate the law.
Greg
> Hmmm... I can't recall when the marginal cost of even large software
> products, in terms of media, was anywhere near $100.00, but software
> is routinely sold for far more. Some of this is the cost of support
> services --- but then again, it isn't hard to find software packages
> distributed over the net for four-figure sums for which support will
> set you back even more.
>
> I suppose one could argue that the market simply hasn't had time to
> equilibrate...
>
> rst