The Big City

People sometimes carry on as if software piracy were just a question of clicking a few buttons. OK, sometimes it is, but it’s often really hard work. I wanted to watch some mpeg-2 coded video on my Mac today and it turned out that I had to buy a small plug-in, called a component, for Quicktime to be able to do that. The price is $19, but it’s £19 if you live in the UK. Well, that’s just a rip-off. It ought to be about £10.50. It’s not as if Apple have to actually send it to me, it’s just a download. So I started up my p2p file sharing software and went looking for a copy I could download. Hours later and I know an awful lot more about the various versions of the component that Apple have released over the last year, with no documentation it’s been a hard slog, and I still haven’t got hold of the software I wanted. I’ve downloaded several versions but none of them worked, at one point I was convinced I’d downloaded a trojan instead so I had to scan my hard-drive for viruses. I’ve installed various other players and converters that claimed to be able to handle mpeg-2s, with no success. And I’ve got back-ache from sitting in this uncomfortable chair all day. So when you hear the suits complaining about people stealing software and getting a free ride don’t forget that it’s not all milk and honey out here in piracy land.