Piracy: Crime or Coercion?

I’m very interested in the question why the paid software industry is very poorly developed in Russia.

Asking this question to my friends, acquaintances, or simply looking for an answer on the Web, I came to disappointing conclusions.
Many said that this is due to the fact that in Russia the situation with copyright protection is very bad, someone referred to the fact that why spend money on developing anything, if this product is hacked in a few weeks and free networks appear on the network (hacked) analogues. And someone quite pessimistic said that in our country it is simply impossible to engage in high technology.

Partly they are right, but let's look at the problem more carefully and try to analyze it.

So what we have:

1. To create software (hereinafter, by this abbreviation, I will mean any product, from dextop programs and applications for mobile phones, to websites and games on a social network), specialists in programming and design and managers are needed to successfully manage the project.

2. Investments or own funds are needed to pay for the work of specialists and further promote the product on the market.

3. A platform is needed through which users could buy this software.

And what of this we currently have:

1. We learned how to educate programmers, poorly poorly (why, poorly poorly, because most programmers are only programmers, some of them cannot decide for themselves what color the links on the site should be made), but this does not happen because they cannot accept such a decision, but because they were beaten off by the desire to take responsibility for making decisions using incorrect management methods.

With artists and designers, things are a little better, but they also lack knowledge in the field of psychology (so that the design would evoke exactly those feelings and emotions that were supposed from consumers). And it’s not necessary to talk about managers, as it was not and never is. True, some companies have begun to grow and train their managers, but there are so few of them that it’s just a drop in the bucket.

2. Investment is generally a sore point for Russian business. In order for a business to invest in a day, it should not be afraid that this money will simply fly into the pipe by the adoption of some unnecessary law, that no one can guarantee in our country. And the simple problem of “throwing”, when money simply disappears along with the performers ...

3. Venues, this is actually the most scrupulous point: I can assume that before the gaming and other applications appeared on social networks, the Russians did not spend money on the Web at all or so scanty amounts that they were not interesting. Now with the advent of these applications and a more or less stable system that has developed in the system of the manufacturer - social network - the user, more and more free developers and companies begin to invest in the development and creation of these applications.

But in other areas, except for social networks, things are as before. I tried to find a site on which I could buy and download a book in .epub format (I prefer this format of books most of all) from the sphere of IT publications in Russian. The results are terrible - I could not find more than one site on which I could buy books and upload to my electronic reader. That is, the publishers themselves gave this niche into the hands of the so-called pirates.

With audio and video, almost the same thing happens, many users would be glad to watch high-quality films and listen to high-quality music, but there is a small problem, firstly, many users simply can not find resources that provide buying opportunities, and if they do, then often the process of buying and paying is organized in such a way that not even the most experienced user can always make all the unthinkable actions to buy.

As we can see, one of the main problems for the normal development of software is the development of platforms or resources that are indexed by purchase requests in search engines, I provide a normal product (verified), with a normal payment system. In social systems, these conditions are implemented, which led to the development of the industry for the development of social games and applications.

Even in the USA, before the advent of adequate purchase systems, such as iTunes, many users downloaded pirated music and films (provided that the laws prevented this to a greater extent than ours).

So, in my opinion, it’s not a change in legislation, but the development of services that will lead to the withering away of piracy in this manifestation.

At the moment, "pirates" work only in those areas where there are no official resources or they work so that the user simply can not use them.

So piracy is a compulsion to somehow respond to the needs of users, and not a crime to deprive copyright holders of their legitimate profits.

Buy programs, books and games and then development in these areas will occur more dynamically ...

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