While it may seem given that piracy hurts software companies’ revenue, that may not necessarily be the case.  A paper written by Ariel Katz a few years ago discusses software piracy in the context of networks.  Surprisingly, she makes some very good arguments for leaving piracy protection weak.  Mainly, easy piracy lowers the barrier for adoption, thereby making it much easier for the software to gain a majority market share.  In class and in the readings we have learned about network effects and how they affect a supply and demand curve.  In this context, software pirates add value to the software simply through increasing its user base.   A larger user base makes it easier to find help with a specific product.  With a product that is more valuable, users who do pay for the product are willing to pay more.   Certain graphic design tools follow this model closely.  Some people pay for it, others do not, but both those who do pay and those who do not write tutorials for how to use the programs.  The software suite has become a pervasive standard for professionals, and they are willing to pay a premium for it.  The software suite is clearly powerful, but the universal acceptance and knowledgeable community of users are what makes it so valuable.  Katz’s paper provokes other thoughts, namely in regards to how donation-ware, free-ware, and open source software fit into this network effect model.   While I am not saying that it is a good idea to pirate software, for that is illegal, but piracy’s impacts on a network effect economic model are intriguing.