Does Software Piracy Exist?(matthewbutterick.com)

8 pointsby pcaharrier7 months ago4 comments

https://matthewbutterick.com/chron/does-software-piracy-exist.html

4 comments

Provocative title notwithstanding, it seems like the author's core argument is correct: "to the extent that it doesn’t influence economic choices, piracy does not exist."

ed_mercer7 months ago

> But consider that there are only two foolproof ways to prevent software piracy

Does the author not know what SaaS is?

pcaharrier7 months ago

I don’t think Butterick is claiming SaaS doesn’t exist. He’s setting boundary cases for an economic argument about distributed software. SaaS isn’t an endpoint in that model; it sits in the middle, alongside subscriptions and licenses, where some form of leakage or unauthorized use still occurs.

charlie-837 months ago

I think they define selling software as selling a file that people download. Which is a pretty reasonable definition to me. With SaaS you are selling access to your servers.