id CEO Claims PC Hardware Manufacturers Love Piracy

arcticstoat sends a link to an interview with the CEO of id Software, Todd Hollenshead, in which he suggests that hardware manufacturers count on piracy to help drive profits, rather than doing something to prevent it. Quoting: "...I think that there's been this dirty little secret among hardware manufacturers, which is that the perception of free content — even if you're supposed to pay for it on PCs — is some sort hidden benefit that you get when you buy a PC, like a right to download music for free or a right to download pirated movies and games. ...And I think that just based on their actions...what they say is one thing, but what they do is another. When it comes into debates about whether peer-to-peer file-sharing networks that by-and-large have the vast majority, I'm talking 99 per cent of the content is illicitly trading copyrighted property, they'll come out on the side of the 1 per cent of the user doing it for legitimate benefit."

Comments

Re:Simplest solution to stopping "piracy"

[nurb432]

What's next? We keep paying doctors every few years for prior services rendered?

If you use a chiropractor, you are doing that now :)

Re:Time to update your worldview.

[KGIII]

I have been saying, for a while now, that Microsoft should pull all business and development out of EU countries. They'd still have the presense with their third party sales and not have the hassles of having to deal with the EU's idea of seeing them as a cash cow.

Having said that... I suspect that if Microsoft pulled Office out of the Mac environment the niche would be filled immediately by another product. People buy a Mac for a reason and, as near as I can tell, Office ain't it.