Tag Archives: Piracy

Why Autodesk’s rental won’t make big money from pirates

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One argument I’ve seen in support of the all-rental software model is that it will rake in lots of cash from those users who aren’t currently customers, i.e. pirates. Here’s an example (Carl Bass, November 2016):

We believe some of these people were previously pirating the software and now have a much more affordable option with product subscriptions. This is consistent with the fact that emerging countries are some of the fastest growing areas for product subscriptions. In other cases, these new users have been using an alternative design tool and could now afford software from Autodesk.

Putting aside the correlation-does-not-imply-causation thing, rental simply isn’t a much more affordable option than perpetual licenses. On the contrary, it’s much more expensive (except for short term use). Repeating an #AlternativeFact doesn’t make it any more true.

The idea that people who had been using non-Autodesk software have switched over to Autodesk in bulk because of rental is silly for that very reason; it’s much more expensive now than before. The fact that Autodesk’s previous attempts at rental both failed miserably will tell you all you need to know about its effectiveness at attracting new customers from the competition.

There’s an unspoken assumption that Autodesk software is the best available, therefore everybody would be paying for it if they could. Having spent some time examining AutoCAD-competing products recently, I can assure Carl that such an assumption is not remotely justified.

Back to the anti-piracy theme. The idea that rental will win significant amounts of business from pirates is unlikely for the following reasons:

  1. Pirates are largely cheapskates. They want to pay nothing at all; only a minority will be attracted by software with any  cost associated with it.
  2. The cost of Autodesk’s rental is way too high to attract pirates. It’s too high for most of us who were used to paying Autodesk’s already-high maintenance fees, let alone those who are accustomed to paying nothing at all. Adobe’s rental prices may be low enough to tempt some pirates; Autodesk’s aren’t.
  3. There’s another unspoken assumption here: that rental software won’t/can’t be pirated. The best that can be said about that is that it is charmingly optimistic. Try a Google search on, say, Adobe Cloud Cracked  for a reality check on that score.

Even if it’s impossible to pirate Autodesk’s rental software (it won’t be), it still doesn’t follow that pirates will rush cash-in-hand to Autodesk. Here’s what they would be much more likely to do:

  1. Pirate non-rental releases of Autodesk software.
  2. Pirate non-Autodesk software.
  3. Use free non-Autodesk software.
  4. Pay for low-cost non-Autodesk software.

There might be a small trickle of ex-pirates among Autodesk’s new renters. More than that? Dreaming.

What is a reasonable amount of time to wait for license codes?

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Software companies use a variety of differerent methods in their attempts to prevent piracy and restrict use of their software to legitimate paying customers. Yes, these attempts are generally futile. Yes, they can end up inconveniencing legitimate users and providing pirate users with advantages over paying customers. Yes, they add to development costs and detract from the main development aims. Despite all that, I still support the right of software companies to do this. Lots of companies spend money doing futile, counter-productive things; it’s their money, their software, their customer base, their choice.

That doesn’t mean we customers have to like it, and many of us don’t. Some of us happily accept it as part of the price of using our tools, some of us tolerate it with varying degrees of grace, and some of us fume about it but do it anyway because we have no choice. Beyond that point, there are those who won’t put up with it at all, and who find various ways around it.

Where a given user fits within that spectrum of views depends partly on that person’s personality, but also on the amount of inconvenience that the software throws up. I’ve started a new poll because I’m interested to discover what level of inconvenience people are prepared to put up with. What is a reasonable level of tolerance?

The poll question refers to a scenario where you have the need to use a piece of software, and before you can do so, you need to obtain codes. The question is not specific to AutoCAD or Autodesk, it applies to any software that needs magic numbers before it will work. Software often allows grace periods before a code is needed, but there are also circumstances where such grace does not apply, so for the sake of this poll please assume that you need the codes before you can get on with your job. How long would you be content to wait for the codes and still remain a satisfied customer?