client come to render in the render farm and wonder about wrong output
he send me a print screen of the rendersettings - here is a cut out with a note for him
oh my. They are always smarter than the artists…that’s why they’re the clients.
It’s one thing using a cracked copy to learn from, but to do professional work and (presumably) charge for it…
He’s not using a cracked copy, look at what forum this is.
not I use the crack - “he” do and send me to render
if “he” can spend $ for render i assue @cubiclegangster is right in his thinking
Expensive
The expensive comment is probably subjective. It might take an artist years to pay for v-ray. For me it is a couple jobs, but the exchange rate for some countries would surprise you. $1,000.00 for me might be $10,000.00 for someone else. It doesn’t justify stealing software, but it might not be cheap to operate in certain parts of the world.
I send some of my work to a friend who’s in a different country. I pay him what I get paid for the same job (no profit). When I send him $500.00, for a couple days of work, it pays for his living expenses for month’s. For me it doesn’t even cover one of my car payments. Heck, lately it might cover my gas for the month on one of the cars.
It is all subjective.
Yes, but if you compare it to the cost of Max, its pretty insignificant. And, the way the dollar is devaluing, soon it may not seem that foreign of an idea.
I am really looking forward to hitting the malls in LA this year at Siggraph. High-end clothing is so cheap in the US. And petrol (gas) is cheap as well compared to here. Of course, one reason I moved to this country is I don’t have to drive…
He isn’t, but he runs a renderfarm and someone who sent him something to render is.
Costs
I am sure he does not pay for MAX either. It is probably like shop lifting, insurance, and medical. Those that do it by the book pay for those that do not. I wonder if everyone who runs v-ray actually bought it would make the price of v-ray go down?
In my opinion, that’s a myth.
*I* think Chaos decided in advance what the VALUE of the VRay IP would be when converted to simpler MONEY.
Market comes in, probably, but only in a marginal way, as an adjuster.
In other words, I don’t think they should lower the price for it had they sold many more copies.
What’s unjust, independently from specific laws, is that someone who profits from it many times its value shouldn’t pay for the IP value.
That, imho, is a no-no.
Well i am with Lele…makes me actually wonder if price wouldnt go up if there is more demand 
BUT if there were more copies sold development might get quicker as there’s more money to be spent on developers and qa 
Regards,
Thorsten
Perhaps the development would go slower since there’d be more money for beer. 
Price
But, wouldn’t price be determined by fair market value. I am sure v-ray’s price was based on other similar products. If the price was lower would more people buy it, or would the same people steal no mater what is costs?
The price would have to come down dramatically for people to stop pirating it, to maybe a tenth of what it is now (even then, there’d still be people who won’t buy it so what’s the point). They’d have to lower it so much to the point of chaos not being able to fund it’s development unless they sold exponentially more copies. Vray is already priced at the fair market value, based on units sold vs. available customers, competition, r&d, features vs. wishlist items, etc. Dropping the price drastically would only serve to lower chaos’ bottom line and would not boost sales.
Price
Their has to be a way to stop stolen software from being distributed. I wonder if software vendors look the other way knowing that if people learn it they’ll eventually buy it. Or maybe they are not even worried about the one man shop. I worked for a place that was owned by a very wealthy man. He bought one copy of AutoCad educational and had installed on all the workstations. Wrong on so may levels!
I worked for a place that was owned by a very wealthy man. He bought one copy of AutoCad educational and had installed on all the workstations. Wrong on so may levels!
Yeah, well how do you think he got so wealthy…
There is no simple solution to software piracy. When a new DRM technology is released, its hacked within hours. And look at the MPAA and RIAA and their battles with the likes of Piratebay. These agencies represent huge corporations and spend hundreds of millions on anti-piracy measures, and p2p piracy continues to grow.
Piracy
What if you leased software and the license was controlled on a remote server? I would love that… I hate bringing my dongle back and forth. If my machines communicated to a server over at v-ray then no matter where I was I can use it. I would assume in the 21st century we have a way to fix this so there must be a reason why we don’t. Would it cost to much to prevent piracy? Is that cost already raising the price of software, which brings us back around to would software be cheaper if everyone payed for the software they use? If the developers are not spending 20% to protect code would that 20% bring down the price? A $1000.00 piece of application would be $800.00.
…and the license was controlled on a remote server?
You already can. Just put all your licenses on one dongle, and put that dongle on the node where you are running the license server. Anyone with access to the network with Vray installed can pull a license, either in the office, or from remote sites.
If the developers are not spending 20% to protect code would that 20% bring down the price?
No, I don’t think it works that way. You are assuming that the company would pass that savings on to you. That’s a big no-no in a corporate model. You charge as much as you can get away with, within the constraints of the market.
But this argument doesn’t really apply to a small company like chaosgroup. AFAIK, they are not spending money on anti-piracy litigation, and as such, piracy would not be impacting the price.
Also dropping prices will not stop piracy. Warez kids will download a cracked version of a game that only costs a few quid to actually purchase.
Piracy
What do you do when a company is offering services that you can’t compete with because you are paying for software and they are not? What if we had some kind of badge to display showing that we pay for our software? Like being MSCE certified. I can display my MSCE certification on my website, which authenticates me as being certified by Microsoft. If I get caught displaying a badge that I didn’t earn they lock me up. Same with being an architect (I am not either by the say). If I call myself an architect I can get sued big time. How many people would stop using services knowing they had stolen their software? Click the on-line badge and it goes to the offical site showing you indeed payed for your software and are legit.
I don’t know, just thinking.