Leveraging Piracy for Viral Marketing
If it weren’t for IRC, FTPs and our favorite — KaZaA, would we know about how great Adobe Photoshop is? The $700 professional photo-editing application was (and is) widely available on piracy networks. Same for the beta copies of Windows Vista and formerly XP. What if software companies embraced early adopters instead of fighting them?
I know I used Photoshop when I was younger, and I assure you I couldn’t afford it at the time. Since I became “hooked” on the Adobe and Macromedia series of software applications, I used it all the time and recommend it to friends and family. In turn, my momentary loss of a sale turned into prospects and sales simply because I used the software.
What if a software company released their software to the seeders on a pirate network? No cracks or keygens needed, just a private release for that network. For example, a special copy of that favorite graphics program just for The Pirate Bay. Allow the folks to spread it, use it will in turn recommend it. This can potentially spread the buzz about that product by enabling the influencers to use it, without them paying a dime.
The business folk might ask how to monetize it. This can be a tough choice, but you can limit certain features of the software and prompt them to upgrade to a full license. This can lead to potential sales as people require more heavy duty uses of the program. Another option is embedding an optional advertisement window into the software. Nothing intrusive or would upset a user, but something balance the “free” user out so you can churn some dough.
This might not be feasible for large software corporations like Microsoft or Adobe, but perhaps the lower-tiered ones have a chance to get their software out there, in front of the people to spread the word. I know that I’d try a program that was meant to be free versus one that isn’t.
A very timely blog entry from CrunchGear explains the history and the aspects of piracy in simple terms. Is this something that the “elite” lost their domination of? Are simple users (aka, n00bs) getting into it? This is probably the biggest fear the RIAA and MPAA have is when the average person is ripping, seeding, and burning seamlessly. Oh, wait — that was years ago.
That said, I discourage software piracy, but I do support companies embracing their “threats” and finding innovative solutions for them. This can happen with software, music, games or even movies. Just think if that hot new movie you downloaded was sponsored by Verizon? 
What do you think? Leave your thoughts in the comments.
[tags]warez, software, appz, gamez, movies, solutions, business, piracy, consumers[/tags]
Downloading unbranded/misbranded code is not a very prudent thing to do. Do a search on “botnet warez” to get the current context.
Adobe Photoshop and similar tools are priced for professional usage, and sell well at those prices.
For people who are not yet professional, there’s tons of ways to bootstrap in… the Elements line, timed trial versions, freeware offerings, and soon online versions. If you’re a student there are significant academic subsidies.
You have to know and trust the code you run on your machine. We’ve got too many zombies on the network already. Get your code directly from the person who wrote it, and who can back it up if it’s not what it claims…!
jd/adobe