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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.
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.
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)
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.
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
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
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.
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
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?
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?
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.
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