I was recently talking to someone who has to constantly reinstall Windows on his PC. After a bit of chatting it emerged that the root cause of his problems was the downloading of pirated copies of state of the art music production software. Something he wanted to learn but could not afford. The pirates had done the pirate thing and used the software installs to place their own nasties on his PC. The result was a system so unstable he wasn’t really getting any where with it.
I’m not going to talk about the fact that software piracy is wrong (it blatantly is) – but rather on the problem that comes with the perceived need that only the biggest and best software is worth having. That if you are going to be digitally creative you have to have to top of line software in order to succeed.
Here are the problems.
If you steal software you run the risk of your computer being attacked – stopping creativity.
If you go straight to the super pro software you run the risk of not learning the fundamentals and also – and this is the real kicker – you learn the risk of not learning how to creatively push software to get something really cool out of it. You see the power of top end software is not just the gee whiz features. It is the way in which you can combine functions to create something truly original. If you only use the features as are and do not learn how to push the software – what you create will be limited. Ultimately what you make will not be of the high standard needed to truly stand out.
So the message is – start by pushing consumer or open source software. Do great work, get it noticed and then upgrade and upgrade and upgrade. Each time you upgrade you do better work and you succeed.
So don’t pirate. Learn instead to be original.
Reasons Not To Steal Software
I was recently talking to someone who has to constantly reinstall Windows on his PC. After a bit of chatting it emerged that the root cause of his problems was the downloading of pirated copies of state of the art music production software. Something he wanted to learn but could not afford. The pirates had done the pirate thing and used the software installs to place their own nasties on his PC. The result was a system so unstable he wasn’t really getting any where with it.
I’m not going to talk about the fact that software piracy is wrong (it blatantly is) – but rather on the problem that comes with the perceived need that only the biggest and best software is worth having. That if you are going to be digitally creative you have to have to top of line software in order to succeed.
Here are the problems.
If you steal software you run the risk of your computer being attacked – stopping creativity.
If you go straight to the super pro software you run the risk of not learning the fundamentals and also – and this is the real kicker – you learn the risk of not learning how to creatively push software to get something really cool out of it. You see the power of top end software is not just the gee whiz features. It is the way in which you can combine functions to create something truly original. If you only use the features as are and do not learn how to push the software – what you create will be limited. Ultimately what you make will not be of the high standard needed to truly stand out.
So the message is – start by pushing consumer or open source software. Do great work, get it noticed and then upgrade and upgrade and upgrade. Each time you upgrade you do better work and you succeed.
So don’t pirate. Learn instead to be original.