@Nigel Watson said:
. . . The price was fair and it was a major update. Miroslav Vitous, on the other hand -(which I would probably like to buy too) is an example of a great library which needs a price drop and a reworking IMHO. Dan Dean is very cool, takes care of his customers. Steinberg don't endear themselves to me - The Grand will probably never appear as Audio Unit! VSL are tops in support, and their prices are (mostly) very fair I think . . .
Who's to say what's "fair"? The software is the property of the developer. They can do whatever they want with it. Whether that means setting the price at a marketable level, or jacking it up and pricing themselves out of business. In the end, it is their stuff. In a free market economy, competition ensures that developers can price things at a level that will bring them income but also at a level that the average professional will be able to afford it.
Piracy (at least the kind that makes a profit on the stolen software) throws a cog in the wheel and forces the devs to collectively raise prices based on their estimations of how much will be lost through piracy. Now, I do not believe that products like VSL are ripped off to the extent that has been estimated, but that's not really the point. The point is that they have to estimate these things.
Commercial piracy is a vicious cycle. Pros rip off software because it's "too expensive," developers raise the price tag because they are losing money to pirates, and the pirates feel more justified in ripping of the developers, who will raise prices . . . etc. The developers are not doing anything wrong here. They are simply responding to the demands of a glitch in the free market and attempting to remain in business. This is why new PC games are running at $60 right now when they were $40 only a couple years ago. It is piracy-driven inflation.
Now, I still stand by what I said earlier about how a certain kind of "borrowing" can have the effect of helping all parties involved. Which does not make the means right, of course. But I can say with certainty that there are several developers who have me as their loyal customer now that would not have had me had I not had access to pirated software. Cakewalk SONAR, for instance. I "borrowed" it off a file-share site, used it for a few months, got used to the interface, etc. I finally decided I couldn't live without it, and went and purchased a fully licensed copy. That's just one case.
There are ways for a developer to take this idea and use it to advantage. Such as Softimage 3D. The nearly complete version is freely available for download at the website. The only limitations are that that the file format it saves will not open on the professional version, and the render resolution is locked to just below broadcast quality. Otherwise it is fully funcional. This takes away the temptation for people to illigitimately acquire software, while at the same time ensuring that it cannot be used for commercial applications.
~Chris
