I thought I'd heard them all, but this week I was presented with yet more bullshit from someone trying to justify using cracked software.

A friend was looking to update their Pro Tools software so was asking questions on Facebook about the best way. During the discussion, one of his acquaintances posted a link to a Russian torrent site. This kind of stupidity is tantamount to throwing petrol on fire when talking to me. Many of my friends and clients are software developers; I know what it takes to create software, it takes a lot of time and money.

Furthermore, the notion that because software is not real like hardware that if someone takes it then they haven’t lost anything is plain dumb. If you think that then don’t complain when someone scams you out of all your savings online… after all it wasn’t real money was it?

I have just got off the phone with a developer that has left me feeling sad, angry, and depressed. 

It’s a small plug-in developer, just a few of them, all working out of a passion for music and great audio and at the same time trying to pay the rent, put the kids through school and take one holiday a year.

It was when he told me that one of their plug-ins has only 3% of the users who are legal owners. Perhaps like me you think ‘f*ck off, tell me that again’ which is exactly what I did, I asked him to repeat it. Yes I heard it right, just 3% of those using it have paid for it.

That means that most of the time the guys spent working on that plug-in, they are not getting paid. This is scary especially when you have family responsibilities and the average plug-in takes around a year for the team to develop.

There’s no such thing as a victimless crime - someone pays for it somewhere, be that developers who go bankrupt or give up trying or buyers who have to pay for the protection in the cost of the software. With figures like this it is no surprise that developers feel they have to invest in protection systems, the cost of which is passed on to the real consumers… the ones who actually pay for the software, so if you are one of the people who pays for your software, piracy is as much your problem as anyone elses.

We accept that there will be a hard core of people who will continue to share and download content they haven’t paid for and take no notice of this, as they say the scorpion will always sting you… it’s what they do.

However, some of you reading this don’t think you are criminals, you are just trying to get something for nothing. Can I suggest there’s no such thing.

I'm going to share the worst excuses I've heard used by those trying to justify using software they haven't paid for - in other words, acquired illegally.

A Lot Of Great Tracks Are Made With Cracked Software

This excuse was the one given to me this week. I have to say I'm not sure how that justifies software theft. 

"Hey, Dad, I won playing football today, I scored three goals."
"But son you don't have any football boots."
"It's OK Dad I stole some."
"Oh, that's OK then, well done!"

I think what they were trying to say was if the creator had not used the pirated software then it would never have existed. Good, so be it.

This excuse is saying the end justifies the means - it doesn't. 

There's A Difference Between Physical Property And Software

I’ve already mentioned this rationale above, the idea that physical things have value and things like software don’t, that there is a difference in the value. No there isn't, they both require effort to make. I think this kind of warped thinking comes from the idea that the only thing that costs money when creating a product is the physical components.

This thinking takes no account of the time it takes to create something. Being a creative and thinking like this shows either a staggering level of hypocrisy or an equally astonishing amount of stupidity. After all, what we charge for is our ideas, and they take time to develop and a great deal of effort.

Any creative suggesting that time and effort has no value shows a disregard for their most precious commodity and disrespect for any other person working with ideas.

Furthermore, if a hacker got onto you computer and stole all your music making software would you say you had lost nothing and were not a victim? Of course not, it’s a poor argument.

It's A Victimless Crime

Software theft is not a victimless crime. Developing software takes weeks, months and in many cases years. While an individual or team are doing this, they have to pay rent, eat, travel, put their kids through school, pay medical bills, taxes and a multitude of other business and personal expenses.

Software development is high risk, meaning months and years working on something hoping that at the end people will buy it and then you can recoup all the time and money spent developing it. If people steal it, then the chance of getting all those living and business expenses back is reduced, in some cases, it means closing and losing a lot of money you invested during your development time.

Far from being a victimless crime, software theft affects business owners, their partners and their kids; it can impact on everything from children's education to getting essential medical care. I'm not talking hypothetically here, I know a lot of software developers and see the risk they take to make great products and have seen first hand the cost of software theft to them and their families.

If it helps you to think that making software is a get rich quick scheme then dream on. In many ways it's a high stake get-poor scheme in the current climate, many developers create these products with a genuine passion for bringing something useful that will help people in our industry, not as a way to make a lot of money.

You may not know the victims, but software theft has real ones.

You Wouldn't Buy It Otherwise

OK, so don't. If developers have to choose between a few lost sales and the loss of thousands of dollars of revenue because a team of hackers decided to ‘liberate it’ for your use, then they’ll choose security every time.

You Would Give Your Things Away So Everyone Should

The final golden nugget in the book of excuses is the 'hey man, ownership is theft; I do this for love, everyone should just share.'

It's a sweet sentiment, but back on planet earth banks, mortgage companies, tax bodies, health professionals etc. want paying in cash, few are happy to be paid in ethereal bullshit.

Until that changes, I suggest you charge for your efforts and pay for the efforts of other people.

How You Can Help

Avoid Temptation

Don’t be tempted, to go hunting on sites looking for a cracked version of a plug-in. Many of these sites make their money by selling advertising, this relies on traffic, if traffic drops so does their ability to sell advertising. Go to the developer’s site, download the demo, try it out, and if you like it and want to continue to use it, buy it. If you cannot afford it then use one of the genuine free plug-ins out there. Check out our free plug-in database.

Educate Others About The Real Cost

Tell those who you meet the real cost of using cracked and pirated software, someone pays for it somewhere, even if they don’t. If you are a tutor in a college then you can do this when you teach, if you are in forums you can take a stand and explain that copy protection is there for a reason - of course we all wish we didn’t have to use it, but don’t blame developers, blame the people who steal, share and download the software.

Don’t Turn A Blind Eye

By choosing to ignore those around us using cracked software we unintentionally give tacit approval. So if you see people using cracked software, speak up. There is also an organisation FACT, you can find out more about software theft and report the use of pirated software, visit their website here.

You may think there is little you can do, even if you care, but in the words of Edmund Burke “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

If we can turn the prevailing wind, little by little, one person at a time, then we can sow good seeds, so when it comes to harvest time we reap a bumper crop.

After all, if we want people to pay for our creativity, we must be prepared to pay for the creativity of those who provide us with the tools to be creative.

Summary

Software theft is a scourge, and there are no arguments to justify it. We see on the news every day someone caught doing something wrong and then trying to explain it away with an excuse that doesn't hold water.

Bottom line, if you use the cracked software, you are making our industry worse not better. If you record tracks using it and then complain when people don't pay for your music, then you are a hypocrite. 

Buy the software you use, if you can't afford it then use free software, there's plenty about and plenty that ships with the DAW you use.

We asked a top engineer and mixer, grammy winning in fact, to mix the same track twice. First mix it with your favourite premium brand plugins and then mix the track again using just the plugins you get with a Pro Tools. You can hear both mixes here.

We then asked people to spot the difference, and many couldn’t.

Check out our free plug-ins database - if you can't make great music using these then it's not the software you lack but the talent.

Image TheDigitalWay - Pixabay