January 25, 2004
Tool Piracy
Today in a back issue of Wired that has been sitting in my inbox (an actual basket with papers in it... remember those?) for weeks, I saw a tidbit, little more than a glossary entry, about tool piracy:
"Coined by tool supplier Stots to describe the illegal sharing of woodwoorking jig tempates. Stots sells a template with a license agreement glued to it."
A few people have talked about the copyright implications of this license, but there is also an important marketing and consumer behavior lesson here.
Woodworking jig tempates are decidedly unsexy, but tool piracy illustrates the fact that people, by nature, want to share. Depending on the basis of your business model, sometimes you call this viral and sometimes you call it piracy. Develop your product with sharing in mind and yours will be a ubiquitous product. Develop it for exclusive use, and you'll have a big fight on your hands, trying to stop human nature.