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BSA Creates Piracy Statistics
JakiChan writes "According to this story on Yahoo! news the BSA commissioned a study that decided that 39% of all business software is pirated, down from 40%. The decline is attributed to the BSA's enforcement techniques. 'The piracy rate was calculated by comparing the researchers' estimates on demand with data on actual software sales.'" In other words, some guys sat in a room and decided that people probably wanted to buy ten copies of software, but only five were sold, so the piracy rate must therefore be 50%. By a similar process we can calculate that 99% of all ocean-front homes are pirated.
A meaningless statistic or the (Government/Big Business/Your Boss) believing it?
__________
Love conquers all... except CANCER
Who's smoking crack here? There's no way to calculate how many times I downloaded Bryce off Kazaa or something like that, piracy is un-measurable!
Sig & Below
Yuck Fou
Otherwise the BSA is a worthless entity. Notice that they didn't say it decreased a lot, there's still much more work in the Fight Against Piracy, so please keep funding us, Mr. Gates. Eventually they'll stamp out piracy, honest, so can they please have another 100 million USD?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
All companies should pirate more software, to increase profit margins by keeping overhead costs down. Soon, all companies will be as successful as other honest firms such as Enron.
Dude, where's my packet?
Wouldn't 1% be within the margin of error? Especially since 39% is only an estimate[1]. For all we know, it actually went up 1%.
[1] The article says: "The study estimates that 39 percent of business software products in use last year were not legally obtained"
I've come to believe that you can learn a lot about a person or organization based upon their treatment of others. If one's mind is a world of sexual perversion, one sees child pornography in the innocent bathtime photos parents take of their kids. If one's mind is a prime example of a money-grubbing, to-hell-with-everyone-else attitude, one sees piracy in every PC.
In this case, it's apparent that the BSA and it's leaders are rapacious, greedy, amoral takers of other people's goods. They should be put away for their own safety and ours.
It was a joke! When you give me that look it was a joke.
What of software that is released in the free software market? Wouldn't increased free software usage also decrease the overall percentage? Oh wait, I'm sure they didn't bother checking free software usage so they can keep piracy percentages at a relatively similar number to before the inception and mass utilization of free software. When someone downloads an average linux distribution, how many packages of free software do they get? That's certainly got to be adding to the numbers and decreasing the overall true number of piracy (i.e. pirated copies of software/all copies of software used). I'm sure they consider the usage of single-license software on more than one machine pirating, so this falls under "all copies of software used".
---- The geek shall inherit the Earth.
So with all the activation technology they've introduced, amnesties and what not, all they could manage was a 1% reduction? Is it just me, or does this seem to suggest that their efforts are pointless, and are probably a huge waste of effort and money for both the developers and the end users?
If I seem short sighted, it is because I stand on the shoulders of midgets
is that US congress will use this kind of stuff to make policies.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
First of all... Look everyone its down 1%!!!! Whoopdi-do-da-day..... Second.... My company (Verizon) uses about 99% non-pirated software. Only about 80% desktops are Windows and the servers are running Linux and Unix and we are using mostly Java-based software. We have a few MS servers running around but they are only for test purposes. Every single piece of software in our company has a licence. We are very strick on that. In fact, every company I've ever worked for has been the same way. These stats are blouted.... I can see maybe your mom and pop ISP might have a few unlicenced copies of Office installed on a few machines, but I'm sure no one really cares.
No.
Interesting that they came up with a piracy rate of 95% in Vietnam - given their probable margin of error, it's entirely possible that MORE THAN 100% of software in Vietnam is pirated. People in Vietnam WRITE software, just so they can steal it from THEMSELVES.
Kudos to the writer of the story, though, for NOT passing along the hugely overinflated "lost profits" number the report obviously included:
-=Best Viewed Using [INLINE]=-
And In this case, you are probably right. However, this is not really a person-specific trait, but rather an organizational culture thing.
There is a great tendency for organizations to develop a certain mindset (either positive or negative), and then they hire in people that exhibit that mindset in some way, and fire/get rid of those that dont "fit in". In the HR world, its known as hiring "right types", and you can usually determine the companies opinion on this by looking at how they operate.
Over the course of time, people in the organization start to believe everything that their co-workers and bosses are saying to them, and hence, they develop views in sync with the company/organization. In this case, I would bet that the BSA, since one of its primary goals is to destroy piracy, they only hired in, and then hightened/enhanced this strange, rapacious behavior. I can almost guarantee you, however, that inside the company this is the norm.
Ok. Have to remember, in reading future BSA press releases that
"It is welcoming news to learn that the worldwide software piracy problem has improved significantly..."
and
"However, it's critical to recognise that the industry is facing a spiralling Internet piracy problem."
are not mutually exclusive statements. I wonder if that trick would work in board meetings. "Cost projections have improved significantly" sure sounds a lot better than "Costs are spiralling out of control"!
High-speed Road Trip (18.000KPH)
You're quite right, but there is an answer to this--even a respectably fair one too. (shock!)
If someone uses software without paying for/licensing it, then they are pirating it in one way or another. The point isn't that the company is necessarily losing money, it's that the person doesn't have the right (legal or arguably moral) to use the software. Probably 60% of the software pirated in North America (and here I'm just pulling numbers out of a hat) is NOT revenue lost for the companies who create it, but 100% of pirated software anywhere is used by someone who doesn't have the right to do so.[1]
The BSA would win a lot of hearts and minds if they pushed this aspect, but they're preaching to the CEOs and CFOs out there, and so they talk dollars. The result is that they loudly, aggressively, and constantly remind us that Every Single Pirated Copy Of Software Is Lost Revenue.(tm) Utter bullshit, but effective.
[1] This is a very grey area morally, and to some extent, legally. Say I bought a copy of Office95, and am now using a pirated copy of Office2000, because MS no longer supports Office95. I don't feel too bad about that, especially since I haven't used any features that have been added to Word or Excel or whatever since 95. On the other hand, if I use a pirated version of Office2k because I NEED some new feature, then it's a bit nastier.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
It's largely a matter of who you want to believe. The BSA stats aren't any more inaccurate than the RIAA stats on music piracy, Symantec stats on virus/worm damage, or ISP/pundit stats on the cost of spam.
For a group of people eager to believe that the "spam plague" allegedly costs us all billions, it is more than a bit hypocritical to summarily dismiss whatever numbers the BSA or the RIAA come up with.
It's all a matter of what you love to hate. When you're decided on that, the numbers will follow.
Though I'm guilty of using that argument myself, I only attribute it to my MP3 collection. I just don't have the cash lying around to purchase $5,000 worth of CDs, and right now I don't have the space to store all of them (half the time, the liner notes are more interesting than the CD, but I digress).
The difference being; I'm not making a product / money off of my MP3 collection. I use it for my personal enjoyment, period. When people download high-end image / video / audio editing applications, there's a good chance that they've got monetary interests. If that's the case, why should they have the right to make money using pirated (not duly paid for) tools?
I'll grant you it's a case of bad versus worse, but there is a legitimacy to the piracy claims and certainly people making money freely off somebody elses hard work has to be a limit.
BD Phone Home!
Shameless plug. Like you weren't expecting it.
So software ISN'T only expensive because of rampant piracy then? Must be profiteering after all.
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
Not only with that statement, but the very means they use to 'calcuate' the piracy rate. They're assuming a 39% piracy rate basically because 39% of people who demand (stated that they want to or will buy or who actually buy) software didn't buy a copy. They're assuming that EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE is a pirate.
;)
There's lots of stuff I want that I don't buy. For instance, I really, really want a decked-out 2 processor G4 Macintosh with all the goodies, 4 GB of RAM and 300 GB of Hard Drive space. But I haven't bought one. By their logic, I'm PIRATING that Macintosh right now.
My journal has hot
The increasingly powerul anti-piracy measures being taken (BSA 'military-strike style' audits, WinXP activation etc.) can only be a good thing for Free software, surely? By increasing the effective cost of using non-free software, they make free software more attractive.
The only useful purpose the BSA serve is to provide silly stories like this to make me laugh on a dull mid-week afternoon. Thanks!
Ok. Some facts.
1. The economy is/was in a downturn.
2. BIG corps can more easily afford to ride this out.
3. BIG corps usually can afford licensing of software etc etc...
Now, assuming a lot of tiny tiny companies haven't sprouted that would pirate software, wouldn't it be somewhat obvious that software piracy would be down?
Just playing devil's advocate.
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
> Nice try, but the end result is the same: you are using software that you haven't paid for.
...
> Whether or not you could have afforded what you have stolen is irrelevant.
It is in terms of whether it's illegal what you do. Where it is relevant is where companies asses the damage caused by the copying.
The assumption is that every student who downloads $20 000 worth of software would have boought it otherwise, which is not true. In reality the student would have most likely used free tools (possibly switching to linux in the process) or simly not bothered making that really cool picture where he did that really cool thing
Anyway. point is that it *is* a relevant argument in terms of damage, though not for reasons of legality.
The difference between illegal copying and stealing is that the only loss in copying is the sale which did not take place, there is no physical loss as there would be if you stole a car...
Ponxx
The point is you can't figure it out. Demand for a product is some function of its 'desirability' and its price. Pirated software is free, so demand for pirated versions is high. If you took away the pirate option and instead offered only the expensive 'real thing', demand would fall away. That's what makes all these estimates so ridiculous - nobody can provide a real answer,so the BSA say whatever they want in order to guarantee themselves continued funding
Any statistic not accompanied by a margin of error is worthless, my math professor always said.
The last US presidential exit polls said the same thing.
Yet Socrates himself is particularly missed.
A lovely little thinker but a bugger when he's pissed.
Out of every 100 people who want to buy an ocean front home, only 1 actually bought an ocean front home, therefore the other 99% must have pirated their ocean front homes.
What he is pointing out is that sometimes people want things but don't (or aren't able to) obtain them at all.
In the software arena, if 100 people want a word processor, and 60 buy a word processor, that does not necessarily imply that 40 people stole a word processor. They might not have obtained a word processor at all.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Okay BSA, here's a tip:
When the fruit of your efforts is less than the margin of error, it's time to rethink your strategy.
The difference being; I'm not making a product / money off of my MP3 collection. I use it for my personal enjoyment, period. When people download high-end image / video / audio editing applications, there's a good chance that they've got monetary interests. If that's the case, why should they have the right to make money using pirated (not duly paid for) tools?
:)
There are lots of people who *do* use some of those programs for personal enjoyment. Photoshop is one of them -- some serious amateur photographers/desktop publishers want to be able to edit their photos digitally 'just like the pros do.'
What about people who are pirating the software to learn? I know...ermmm...some people... who pirated professional software development packages when they were younger in order to learn software development to obtain employment skills, and later when he became employed as a developer he PAID for those tools by buying a full copy of the latest version. What about that guy?
My journal has hot
We can assume by this that the BSA will be disolved in 39 years. Its really not a bad business plan for the lawyers, in 39 years most will be retired by then with nice hefty stacks of cash. They just have to say each year that they are being successful by 1% and that way the group corporations will keep paying them. When they finally get 39 years from now they'll be rich and really haven't done anything.
Or put another way in more slashdot terms:
1. Get corporations to pay lawyers to do stuff.
2. Lawyers harass legitimate purchasers of software.
3. Lawyers claim 1% success a year.
4. ??? (loop back to #2)
5. Profit! (and retire when no more %'s to go)
Now isn't that cynical.
In reality I'd say software piracy is a problem. I don't know how many times here I've seen folks claim that they pirate software because its so darn expensive. Well, sometimes there is a reason that software is expensive, it takes time and money to do right. Then folks will say that software is buggy and not done right so they shouldn't have to pay for it. Well, don't use it! Novel idea huh? It sickens me how often folks think that deserve stuff without paying for it.
Its really a simple idea folks. If you are unwilling to pay the price for something, you don't get to have it. It doesn't matter if you don't like the rules, they are the rules.
Which brings me to another point. OSS or free software. Use it if you don't want to pay for commercial software. No one is forcing you to use commercial software. Simpley owning a computer does not give you the right to use commercial software without paying for it. However, there are a lot of folks out there that write software that you can use for free. Use that.
Whining that your favorite game only runs on a certain platform isn't an excuse to pirate the software. There are many emulators, use those if you absolutely need to run the software. Otherwise tell the company that you want a version that runs on your platform.
Quit whining that life gets hard when you have to use OpenOffice.org to read word files and it isn't perfect. You look like a fool when you whine that something isn't up to your standards because its buggy so you won't pay for it then use it anyways.
Norris/Palin 2012
Fact: We deserve leaders who can kick your ass and field dress your carcass.
The human body is 50 - 65% water depending on age and weight. Children's bodies can be as much as 75%. 2/3 = 66.6666666%, so this statistic is incorrect.
Regular dice have six sides with one through six spots. That means that each regular die (singular for dice) has one side with 2 spots, which is 1 out of 6, or 1/6 or 16.66666666% - not 17% - you were close, but incorrect.
That's two of the four statistics which works out to 50%, which means your final statistic is also incorrect (it's not 25% of your 'factual' statistics are incorrect) which means that in reality 75% of your statistics are incorrect.
Thanks for playing, we have some lovely parting gifts for you.
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing -- Emo Phillips
Before reading this I would like to say that I am not recommending pirating or know anyone that pirates.
Having said that,
The BSA's reviews are misleading for several reasons, but one that I never see mentioned is that pirating actually results in MORE software sales, not less.
How is this?
I've 'heard' of the following happening fairly regularly.
1. Person decides they want to try out a particular piece of software who has no knowledge (high school, hacker, middle age, etc - anyone).
2. Person sees what software they can get for free over the various channels.
3. Person downloads several different types of software to try them all out.
4. Person decides on a favorite.
5. Person proceeds to use software.
6. Person decides to use software for a business related function where revenue will be generated or their work checked.
7. Person buys software.
Note, in many cases, a lot of software purchases come from people who would not have otherwise had the desire to learn a piece of software (say music creating warez), or the funds to buy a professional piece of software (say windows 2k server, or office etc) but was able to develop the skills to use them. Once they can use them, then it isn't a stretch to purchase the software because you have the skills.
Pirating, in some cases may deprive software companies of revenue. But in many others pirating actually helps distribute knowledge about the software and increases the computer knowledge of the software in questions.
One of Microsofts chief marketing advantages is that their software is easily cracked. Why? Because everyone uses it - I would think that most students would especially fall into this category since they can't afford the products or are too young to have the means (high school/junior high) but kids who grow up using Microsoft products will buy microsoft products.
In fact, if fewer people pirated software, the market for software would be much smaller because fewer people would know how to use the software, and who pays $100 + to buy something they don't know how to use?
In fact, we should all pay an extra 10% when we buy a car as 'possible killer charge', just like the bogus charges we have to pay for VHS tapes and recordable CD's and DVD's...
We do. Every Lawsuit, every judgement, every award against an insurance company or Car Manufacturer get paid for ultimately by the people buying the cars and purchasing insurance. Every time some lawsuit "Sticks it to the corporation" they laugh and stick everyone else with the burden of paying it.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
No.
See? I can make unsubtantiated assertions just like you.
But how about this? Had I not been able to pirate your s/w product Foo, I would not have it to to use, and you would not have my cash. But, if use a "stolen" copy, I may, in the future, decide it is valuable enough to purchase. I will likely speak about your product to friends, who may decide to buy it. And then you'll make some money.
The issue for anyine selling s/w is not so much whther I do or don't copy it, it's whether I (or anyone else) can or cannot copy it. That's what creates the illusion of scarcity. Sadly for IP selllers, copy prevention is damn hard, and chosing to base a business model on a now next-to-impossible condition is a Bad Idea.
Comparisons between IP and physical property fail because the notion of exclusive use and scarcity is not a natural condition for IP.
The supply/demand economics of private IP is largely based on providing value for your money; if you have to rely on artifical exclusion then you're willingly assuming a big risk.
Java is the blue pill
Choose the red pill
The question has nothing to do with morality but with damages. These are two entirely separate issues.
What the college student has done, in this example, may be immoral or illegal. But given the assumption that the student wouldn't purchase the software whether it was available for copying or not, it is quite reasonable to state that the actual damages to the companies in question amount to - nothing.
Any fines applied to the student will be punitive in nature, and the proceeds will go to the state for violating the law - not the 'wronged' businesses. Which is as it should be since the businesses suffered no harm.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
The false argument that "I can pirate this because I would not have purchased it" is a rationalization to attempt to justify a crimal act, pure and simple.
Copyright violation is neither piracy nor theft. It is a civil matter, not a criminal one. If you have a problem with this I'm sure you can either a) change the law to make copyright violation a criminal offense, or b) move to some other country, one where your blather actually makes some sense.
"Dilution of the value of the product", my ass. Time to take some economics courses, boy.
Oh, and by the way - *there is no such thing as intellectual property*. It's just another buzzword brought to you by our friends in Corporate America. In fact, according to the Constitution, it's an oxymoron - neither a copyright nor a patent is every treated, in any way, like actual physical property.
Which should be obvious to you. Stealing your couch is a criminal offense called 'theft'; violating your copyright is a civil matter, one I'll never go to jail for.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
0% is correct.
There is an infinite number of primes.
There is only one even prime: 2.
1 (or any finite number, for that matter) divided by infinity is 0.
I believe the poster knew this would be missed by some readers which
is probably why he wrote "(tricky)".
*sigh* back to work...
Woah - thought crime. Lock me up now.
You're right, I hadn't thought of that. Their method is _so_ nonsensical and immeasurable that it should be disregarded outright. Producing a number out of that process is being disrespectful to numbers.
Esteem isn't a zero sum game
He rounded correctly, just with a lower precision. You on the other hand chose to be more precise, but rounded incorrectly.
The bottom line is that these guys are claiming to have discerned a 1% drop in an area of the piracy chart that must inherently be extrapolated from real world data. Given that even the interpolated statistics based on the real world data would already have a margin of error of more than 1%, there's no F-ing way that you can discern a 1% variance in data they haven't even measured.
How convenient that the first two letters of the association's acronym are BS.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
"Copyright violation is neither piracy nor theft. It is a civil matter, not a criminal one."
For the first 200 years of US Copyright law, you would be correct. I urge you to look carefully at the recent changes, particularly the DMCA of 1998, HR 2281. That law *replaced* and *superseded* the existing copyright law, and fully criminalized things that were either legal before, or else were only civil matters before.
Since 1998, copyright violation has been a criminal offense, and that's why so many people have been opposed to the DMCA.
You *can* go to jail for copyright violation. You don't even have to commit copyright violation if the work is in a digital format with any encryption... Merly making a tool to read the content can land you in jail.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
First, you leave out that most software packages have demos. You can try out most software packages without piratng them.
Second, you also neglect that even if the situation works as you portray it, many smaller companies and OSS are hurt by this very pirating. Pirate A wants to edit an image. HE goes and gets a pirated copy of Photoshop and uses it. He would never buy Photoshop, because it is extrrmely expensive. But if he did not pirate PhotoShop, he may have used the Gimp, or Paint Shop Pro, or some other program that has similar function to PhotoShop, but is either much less expensive or free (as in beer and/or speech). Both smaller software companies and OSS are thus hurt by letting this person pirate a copy of PhotoShop, because they have lost a potential user.
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
OK, I admit to not reading ALL the comments but with the current signal to noise ...
...
I have a question, what was the estimated piracy last year? If they reduced the value by 1% and say the 'value' was Ohhhh 1 billion, then they 'saved' 10 million dollars. What did they spend? Is this justification to put them out of business, "Give us 100 Million and We'll save you 10 Million". So what was the ROI of those bankrolling the BSA? -- Just asking
1 divided by infinity is not zero. It approaches zero infinitely. It's what we'd call:
lim (x)
x -> 0
which can be, for all practical purposes, considered zero. But it is not.
Hey, what are you guys talking about?
:)
Dice have 5 sides with 2 spots on them...
Nobody said only 2 spots
I bought a copy of Windows 2000 Server in Palestine for about $2 last month. The guy in the computer shop told me that before the intifada, people did buy legit copies of MS software. (Unemployment is now 90% in some areas due to curfews, and priorities are not what they used to be.) Theft as such is surprisingly rare in such a messed up place. People really look out for eachother.
Software piracy is seen not as theft but more as sharing. It's scary how little OSS software gets used. Occasionally you'll see a foreign NGO introduce it, or some of the people who study CS in university will know about it. A lot of the ISP infrastructure runs OSS. Running traceroute is always an experience. There ought to be an ICMP flag for "soldiers have cut off the power supply". Trying to enforce liscensing in Palestine would require a functioning police force, judicary and government, none of which actually exist. So people just copy.
What about 2? It's an even number, and prime. Look it up if you don't believe me.
I am pretty sure that is how they do it. I have seen statistics from them showing how there are 1.68 new computers sold each year for every copy of (Windows or Office, take your pick) and if you do a little magic math (1/1.68 = .595) you see a 59.5% legitimate purchase rate, or almost exactly the 40% piracy rate they claim.
... but hey, there are lies, there are damn lies, and there are statistics.
OSS, Linux, StarOffice or whatever, and folks that retire a machine and migrate the software they paid to use all skew that number
It would be a pretty easy way to boil up numbers for 3rd world countries, just figure out how many computers get sent there in a given year, figure out how many copies of legit software get purchased, simmer on high for 5 minutes and Voila! cooked books.
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
Therefore it will never stop, and there can be no given percentage. Like what percentage of 10 is 9.9 reoccurring? It's impossible, an irrational number.
I got laid off so I got a business license and started trying to make a little money on the side. (Any one want a Mexican Samuri Sword?)
About a week after I got my license I got a nasty letter from the BSA. It made a lot of threats. Said that they had the right to inspect my place of business (my home) and gave be a "chance" to get all my software license up to date before they came to tear my compters apart.
My reaction was fairly normal. I ignored them. A couple of weeks later I got another nasty letter. This time I made sure my door locks were solid. I made sure I could find my ammunition and guns in the dark. And, I took every bit of software that I had from BSA members and threw it out. I am now 100% pure open source software.
After reading through a couple of BSA letters and discussing them with a lawyer it becomes obvious that most small business can't afford to *own* software made by BSA members. The legal liability for missplacing a software license is greater than the value of the business. Misplace a license, lose your house, your savings, your kids college fund, your ability to buy perscription drugs...
Stonewolf
Presumably they have to justify their existence by showing that there is a lot of infringment out there - nobody would believe it if they said 99% of software was copied against the word of the licence, and vice versa, if they claimed that 1% was being illegally copied people would ask why they were bothering.
So I guess their chief of marketing said "hmmm, make it a small amount less than last year, to show we're having an effect, otherwise our customers will decide we are not worth it".