I've recently been buying some music software (Reaktor 5, if you're interested !) and the whole question of piracy popped up. I've had some dodgy software on my laptop over time, but it's all either been replaced with kosher software (e.g. Apple's Logic Express, although I did upgrade to 8 !) or just been deleted because my kit isn't up to running it (step forward, various versions of Ableton Live !) All of which got me thinking, how would it be possible to get hold of this software, use it *sensibly* for a while (rather than the crippled versions some manufacturers distribute as try-and-buy options, although Live Intro 8 is an interesting step forward in this area) and decide whether to keep it or dump it ?
Abandon licencing. It's an out of date idea, and it never really worked anyway.
Instead, pay for support. Support is what makes software genuinely usable at anything other than a "start it up and look at it" level. Support can take many forms; email or phone problem support, or product extensions, or bugfixes, or additional content, or all of the above in some combination. Set up the software so that it calls home on a monthly basis to make sure the support fee has been paid - if it hasn't, the software stops working (with safeguards in place for pro users who are using their software on the road).
Further, abandon the big upfront fee, and pay the support fee on a monthly basis. The fee can be calculated so that you pay the box price for the software over some period of time (2 years ? 3 years ?) *Most* people, if the product is good enough, won't call on the company for support, but know it's there if needed, so this fee effectively becomes a smaller, but steadier, income stream for the company. If the fee is small enough, it could even drop to the "impulse purchase" level.
Where physical product is involved - whether it's a manual, or a boxed CD, or whatever - charge a fee that covers the production of the physical media, plus shipping, plus some reasonable markup for a distributor - but discourage this as a "non-Green" distribution method.
Users get the "try before you buy" option; use the software, pay for a couple of months of support, if you don't like it, stop paying the fee and the software stops working - everybody's happy.
The support fee could be graded, between high fee/high priority for pro users who need answers and fixes *now*, and low fee/low priority for home users who need answers and fixes *whenever, but soonish*.
In many ways, you could argue that software is currently acutally too *cheap*; the price doesn't really represent the cost to the companies who write it, and it doesn't really represent the value of the software to pro users who make their living using it. The "one size fits all" fee structure also charges the pro and the hobbyist the same fee, but each derives wildly different value from it, helping to bolster the piracy inclined hobbyist's argument that "it's way too expensive for me".
I think this approach would be a win all around; for software companies, for pro users and for hobbyists.
So here's a challenge to the software companies: pick a piece of software that you're about to launch, and consider trying this approach to paying for it. Don't do it with some uninteresting, dull library or same-old same-old sample playback synth, but something a bit new and out of the ordinary. Give it a serious go and a reasonable chance and see how/if it works.
I'd be at the front of the queue !
