College Students Are Buying More, Warez-ing Less

Keefesis writes: "This story from a researcher at the University of Florida states that software piracy among college students dropped between the 1996-97 school year and the 2000-01 school year. One reason cited is that software makers have found 'creative' ways to entice students to purchase software(rather than the heavy-handed and largely unsuccessful tactics of the RIAA)."

Comments

Book Expenses

[C. Mattix]

A lot of students that I know consider software perchase just like a book expense. If they are taking a Flash course, they buy the software. If they are taking a design course, they buy Photoshop, both at Educational prices. Other things like Matlab or AutoCad or Pro/E are definitly educational purchases as well.

Re:Book Expenses

[C. Mattix]

Check out Micromaster. Flash is $99.00. From thier site:

QUALIFIED EDUCATION USERS
Educational Institutions: Defined as an accredited school organized and operated exclusively for educational purposes. An accredited school must be: A Public or Private K-12, Vocational School, Correspondence School, Junior College, College, University, Scientific or Technical Institutions accredited by associations recognized by the U.S. Department of Education and/or the State Board of Education and located in the United States.

Administrative Offices or Boards of Education of Educational Institutions including district, regional, and state administrative offices of the Educational Institutions defined above.

Full and Part Time Faculty and Staff of Educational Institutions must reside in and work at schools located in the United States.

Full and Part Time Matriculated Students of Higher Education Institutions. College, Jr. College and Career School Students qualify. A few manufacturers require a minimum course hour enrollment. High School and K-12 Students may purchase most software in our store, with the exception of Microsoft, Corel, and Lotus. Graduating seniors, accepted to college, may order Microsoft products. Students must reside in and attend school located in the United States.

Training Centers, it's Students, and Teachers, are NOT eligible for academic discounts.

The academic software program also defines public Museums and Libraries as Educational Institutions, for certain products. Hospitals that are 100% wholly owned and operated by Educational Institutions as defined above are also qualified Academic customers for certain products.

If you get a Student ID or some other proof of enrollment for you kid, then you can get the prices you want.

Re:Book Expenses

[issachar]

that is quite common on books in which only a few chapters are used. it's a whole lot cheaper, and if you do that photocopying at the University it's often legal. University Libraries (or at least Canadian ones), generally charge more for photocopying because they have a CanCopy deal that pays publishers part of the revenue from photocopying. Since you are now paying for the copyright, it's now legal to copy.

Re:Book Expenses

[buffy]

Yeah. ..tell me about it. At least the books that my dept. liked were old standbys: Dragon book (compilers), Comer books for networking (since the course was taught by comer) etc.., so you could usually find them used for good prices.

And, more importantly, useful in your professional career if you stick with it.

My college text books fell into one of two categories--those worth keeping, and those not. Funny, the courses whose text books fell into the former category were, almost without exception, the classes that I learned the most, and actually retained the knowledge.

Operating Systems, Hardware Design, Networking, Programming Languages, etc...

Funnier yet still, is that the same applied to a number of courses outside the CS cirriculum--there was an English for Writers course which had a number of excellent books, which are still on my shelf. Same for two Physics courses.

Most of the math books I used actually kind-of sucked, so I don't have a single text book from any of those courses. Instead I've supplemented my collection with books that have much more useful content, like a couple of Linear Algebra texts, and a Statistics Analysis Process book that have proven helpful in the CG projects I've worked on.

So, unless you really need the cash, take a second look at some of your text. You will probably intuitively know which will be useful down the road a bit.

Piracy at uni

[cybergibbons]

I can't actually think of a single person I know who has a legal copy of anything above windows 95. No one bothers. Same with application software.

There isn't a bit of guilt about it either. You don't even contemplate buying it. If it's obscure software, then you have to ask around a little, but it's no hassle.

Your payment - you copy it and pass it round more.

"Edu" Versions are the real thing, just cheaper!

[MattRog]

Here at our college Microsoft has done a ton to get their software into more and more PCs. In the next couple of weeks Windows XP Professional which typically retails for what $199 or $299 will be on sale for under $20. It's not crippled or marked as "Academic" or anything. All you have to show is a valid student ID. Same thing with Visual Studio .NET (although we were one of the launch partners so I picked up a copy of XP Professional and .NET for free anyway).

Makes a ton of sense; there's also Photoshop, OS X, etc. all at great prices. Personally, if I can purchase the software for a wallet-friendly price I'm going to do so. It's awesome software that I don't mind shelling out $15 to help out in their efforts. $15 is greater than zero! :)

Re:Flawed

[TeknoHog]

PLEASE explain to me how 53-25=40. Something is HORRIBLY wrong with this story!

0.53*148 students = 78 students
0.40*148 students = 59 students
(78 - 59) / 78 = 0.24

and you get the same ratio from (0.53 - 0.40) / 0.53. So this is actually correct. Just like 50% of 50% is 25%, you have to remember that percentages are always relative, even when taken of percentages themselves.

Re:Why warez in College? Its Free!

[Jon Shaft]

I checked my school's CIS web site and signed up for the MS introduction of .NET studio, when I go I will get a "gift pack" with Windows XP pro, Visual Studio and other assorted item "of value". I can't wait to see what I get... I'm taking my laptop so I try it all out while they are talking. Back to my point, my school (Georgia State BTW) hosts tons of these things, and if you know where to look you can get a bunch of free software... and no befor you ask it not usually criple ware.

Yes, at most big schools now they Universities have made deals with bigger software companies to get the software at discount prices. (So the students use the software in school, get sucked in and end up purchasing the software when they leave the University.) For example, Pennsylvania State University offers a "lending library" where students can stop by and borrow cds to install the software on their system. They get a week or so before they have to return it. Also, if you don't want to borrow the cd, you can download an installation file (Most of them are the entire cd in one huge exe file which you can directly install from)

Here anyone with a Penn State user access ID and the right privledges (student, etc) can download it. They offer Windows ME, Windows XP, Windows Visual Studio (plus Visual Java)... MacOS X licensces, Microsoft Office, and one REALLY useful product, Norton Corporate pro. (I work for a Residential Helpdesk at Penn State... and with all the virii sororites pass around..NO, NOT THAT KIND!!!, the computer kind, being able to install Norton Corporate pro on any machine in the University has made the job a thousand times smoother...)

The download system/lending library counts the liscense and tracks who downloaded what. I don't believe it's actually a bad system they have working here.

Re:Sometimes you have to warez

[donglekey]

They do have a lite version of it. It is called 3D Studio Max VIZ. They also have a free version that you can learn on and that can be distributed with games, but I am betting you didn't even look, and want to use that as an excuse.

Re:i don't want to brag....

[nlh]

Here here -- I feel the same way. I'll never forget the time when I was about 6 that I saved up my allowance for well over a months to buy this new Commodore 64 game "Robocop" -- the graphics looked amazing, the game looked fun and......it absolutley sucked. Toys R Us wouldn't take it back, and I was pissed. From that point on, I too have pirated games before I bought them.

I should also mention, however, that the industry has done a much better job in recent years of releasing playable demos, which in most cases is more than enough to get a good feel for the game and convince me to buy it.

--noah

Re:RIAA?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually it has a LOT to do with the RIAA. The software manufacturers own copyrighted material... so does the RIAA. People pirate the software... and people pirate MP3s. The software is overpriced.... so are albums produced by the RIAA. Both are trying to stamp out piracy. Apparently the software manufacturers have figured out a solution that seems to be working. The association is that maybe the RIAA can learn some lessons from this and start charging lower fees or bundling music to reduce their perceived problem with piracy.

Here's something creative

[The Cat]

How about some realistic pricing?

Macromedia Authorware 6: $3,084
Adobe Photoshop 6: $700
Adobe Premiere 6: $620
Adobe Illustrator 10: $470
MS Office XP: $580
MS VS.NET Professional: $570
Macromedia Director 8.5: $1,199

Now, I don't support warezzzzzzzzzzzzing
programs.

But the average student, developer, even small business cannot afford this. Period. When the
average cost of development tools, operating systems, graphics programs, etc. are $500 - $3000 EACH, and the market cannot support that kind of pricing, then potential customers will find another way: either they'll find a less expensive program that has much of the same capability, buy it second-hand, or do without.

This is one reason I think the market for second-hand software is increasing, as much as the publishers would like to have it otherwise.

One thing these publishers should realize is that not every potential customer is a cell-phone-flipping, white shirt and tie "IT Executive" with steel-rimmed glasses and access to a six-figure expense budget.

Where I come from...

[rosewood]

I got to Wichita State University, www.wichita.edu . The bookstore offers NO DISCOUNTED SOFTWARE. All of the windows stuff, etc. is supra expensive! My friends go to IaState and they gave me the lowdown that MS is trying to offer them cheap software if and only if the campus switches over to MS software for 'everything'. And then, rumor has it (aka prolly just forget about this sentance) that they will only get subscription based products that the fee of $10 a year goes up to full price when they graduate.

I know WSU run Unix/Linux for all of their systems. All the laptops that they use for freshman initiaition/enrollment all run Red Hat Linux. Remote campuses PCs are owned buy whoever is working there at the time, one guy owns a mac, the other guy has a windows box, and the other is running FreeBSD -- all use an SSH connection over the WSU WAN to get to the student information.

If wichita state switched to MS, offered me cheap software and the rest of our campus but then had to dump their current well working setup - I doubt it would ever happen. Would it decrease piracy? Hell yes it would. IMHO I would pay $10 a pop for WinXp - but not $200. Same goes for Office, Dev apps, Photoshop, etc.