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I bought iLife ’ 04 this weekend. I was excited to get the new features for iPhoto such as photo sharing, ratings, and smart groups. I was also excited to try out garage band. The truth is I have no idea how to play any instruments, and I have no musical talent whatsoever. I had heard that a garage band made it really easy to create music. So I thought it would be fun to experiment with it. Generally speaking, I’ve been very pleased with what I’ve got.

I am amazed at how it simple software tool enables me and my family to be so much more creative than we might be without it. With iLife, we’re able to pursue many interests that would normally be outside of our reach. Things like digital photography, music, movie making, etc.. I’ll write more about this in another article after I had an opportunity to contemplate the impact that this is having on of lives. For now, I just wanted to point out an interesting thought that I had while I was standing in line at the Apple Store.

After I paid my money for the software, the checker at the counter read off my rights as a user. The gist of which were, that once I’d opened the package I could no longer return the software. So in other words if, once I opened the package I determined that the software was so buggy or so horrible that it was completely unusable, I would have no opportunity to take the software back and get my money back. For a simple $50 piece of software, this isn’t that big a deal. But really the same policies apply whether I’m purchasing iLife for $50, or Photoshop for $500.

So it occurred to me, why on earth do people buy software under those kinds of conditions?

Now I know that part of the reason that the software companies do this is to cut down on the impact of piracy. A user could purchase the software, get the serial number, make a copy of the CD, and then return it, and continue to use the software using the copied CD and the serial number. A user could just as easily do this with DeVoeSquared Software. And I imagine, there are some people who have done that. However, I would like to think there are more honest people out there than there are dishonest people. The ability to return software that you decide you don’t want should reduce the barrier to purchasing that software.

What’s the conclusion here? I don’t know. Still noodling on this one.