Surrogate piracy

I learned a new term today, “Surrogate Piracy”. The term refers to the practise of licensing a cheaper priced application and then using  pirated copies of another (full-fledged) expensive application. An example of usage of the term is when some someone licenses “Star-Office” or “Open-Office” and then continues to use “MS-Office” or “Corel Office”; or licenses “GIMP” or “PaintShop Pro” and then uses pirated version of “Adobe PhotoShop”.

On a side note, while I am penning this, I noticed from JASC website (makers of PaintShop Pro) that they have been aquired by Corel. I always thought PaintShop Pro was a good photo editing product and with the support of a big company like Corel, I am sure we will start to see some healthy competition to Adobe Photoshop. What out the Photo Editing tool space in the coming months.