I’m a sucker for irony.  When it’s irony that makes sense after the fact, but no one really expects beforehand, that’s even better.  That’s why this article, “How Piracy Opens Doors for Windows”, caught my attention.

http://msl1.mit.edu/furdlog/docs/latimes/2006-04-09_latimes_piracy_or_promotion.pdf

Apparently, piracy can sometimes benefit those who are pirated from.  Taking Microsoft for an example, it shows how people with little income, unable to afford retail versions of the product, pirated instead.  However, this helped increase the usage base enough that most people around the world used Microsoft products like Office and Windows, bringing to bear the power of the Network Effect.  With so many people using it, the products got the advantage of being familiar, a preferred medium, and having companies and businesses make themselves more compatible to them.  Therefore more people bought Microsoft products, and if the pirating folks ever got the money to buy, you can bet they’ll go with what they’re familiar with.  It’s a great way to get people interested in a product.

So in the end, even though the piracy resulted in theoretical losses for Microsoft, it probably gained even more.  Of course, that doesn’t mean it’s a right, or legal for that matter, thing to do.  And at some point, if the percentage of piracy is high enough, it will cause more harm than good.  If there was no risk for pirating in terms of fines or legal action, there would be far more otherwise potentially paying customers who would decide not to; greed is a powerful motivational factor, after all.  Therefore, Microsoft still puts in some effort to prevent piracy, though not near enough to eradicate it completely.

PS: This is not an excuse for you to go out and pirate software, in the name of doing the company a service.  Doing that is still illegal!