How often do you use unlicensed software?

[yisk]

Photoshop, Maya, 3Ds max, Visual Studio, etc.
Do you actually pay for it all for home use?

жителям СНГ можно не отвечать, с вами всё ясно :р

[fazisi]

Depends. I used unlicensed things very frequently. Hard not to.

[gut]

I'm pretty sure my 30 free days of using zbrush have long since expired.
I, um, still use it. Never made any money with it though, and honestly
can't even use it for much other than playing. I somehow manage to
sleep at night.

[Elone]

The topic name has attracted me easily enough, but what draws my attention even more is... you do 3d? You use Photoshop, Max, Zbrush? I'm VERY interested.

[Angelus]

I don't see any reason to use pirates these days when you have stuff like Blender 3D, GIMP and Inkscape. Back in old days expensive commercial programs were the only option, so it was not a surprise that people were using cracked software.

[fazisi]

I can still see a reason. A pirated version of Autodesk Maya 2010 will give you much better tools, rendering engine, and results than using any "equivalent" version of Blender.

[Elone]

Note that they dont lose NEARLY as much money as they want you to think. A lot of people who cant afford this software use cracked versions, Photoshop is 700$, and Max is 3500$ for comparison. If you cant afford it, you'll download and crack it. But they dont LOSE any money on that, because you werent really a potential customer to begin with. Additionally, if you plan to use your programs in business, you'd BETTER licence them, or you'll be paying penalties quickly and surely; therefore, these software companies make enough money from companies who must licence them to use them. You know what's the only realistic loss they suffer? Thats when someone just HAPPENS to have 3500$ laying around, and just HAPPENS to want Max, but says "Hey, why not crack it, and keep the 3500$?" That was a potential customer who could have spent money to buy Max from Autodesk, but didnt. The rest are, for all practical purposes, irrelevant.

P.S. Let's face it. Cinema4D, Blender, Milkshape, they cant stand up to Max. They just cant. Max tops all of them, it has all the features you could want, and even those you couldnt think of, and is customisable to the last bit, so you get to adapt it to yourself, and not the other way around. Gimp doesnt stand up to Photoshop. Inkscape just cant compare with either Flash or Illustrator. I've tried them all. I had a paid program called Goldwave for the longest time, and I used it to edit audio for years. Then I started needing features that Goldwave didnt have. I was suggested free Audacity, I downloaded that. I felt all like "Oh wow, this is same as Goldwave, just in a new environment!" It was hard to use but I was sure that I just need to get used to it. It actually lacked a lot of features, and it was hard to use, and it felt like I was riding on rails, candyland all around me, but the program doesnt let me stray off. In the end, I switched back to Goldwave, updated it, and found that it has a new feature exactly how I wanted it, and before updating, I didnt know if there even existed a program that can do this for me!

These programs are often better than free versions, because they get a steady income of money. It is not so much the "Woo, money!" syndrome, as much as the fact that they can feed themselves with this money, and dont have to also have ANOTHER job to help them meet the ends, which would take hours of their programming time away.

Lastly, I respect these companies. They're not so much greedy, as much as they KNOW how much they're worth. I'd buy all of the software that I desire, each new version too, if I just could.

[gut]

I'll agree with the crazy pricetag annoyance. Are these companies really upset that
people are using their programs without paying, even if said user had zero chance
of ever buying said program? I happily use gimp (or even paint shop pro). I happily
use audacity. There is no equivelant of zbrush though.

[Elone]

Gut, I still havent heard how you relate to all these programs, and I'm quite interested.

[gut]

These are how I relate to zbrush. The other programs aren't as intuitive,
so I can't stay interested enough to watch the tutorials.