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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.
79% of all statistics are made up on the spot. My math professor always said so, so it must be true.
Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.
A meaningless statistic or the (Government/Big Business/Your Boss) believing it?
__________
Love conquers all... except CANCER
By a similar process we can calculate that 99% of all ocean-front homes are pirated Yarrr. There be many a pirate on the high seas.
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
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.
I disagree - my statistics show that only 39% of /. trolls think that *BSD IS DYING, compared with 40% last year, therefore *BSD IS LESS DEAD that it was last year.
Oh, and for "statistics" read "numbers that I pulled out of my ass
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.
I think he means that a lot of people WANT ocean-front homes, but few are SOLD. He's just trying to apply his logic in a wierd way.
If they did their stats similar to the stats over at distributed.net I think it would be alot more accurate. And it would also spur competition amongst the piraters. I think it would be cool to see who could pirate the most.
-- Thou hast strayed far from the path of the Avatar.
I would like to apologise for the heinous crime of software copying. I promise to mend my ways and return to a good pirate lifestyle of murder, rape and pilage on the high seas
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
I don't steal things, I just borrow them from strangers for as long as I need them. The eyepatch is purely for aesthetic reasons....
Der Tod ist der einzige Weg hier raus!
In effect, their piracy statistic is more made-up than most statistics, since they're just making up a number of how much pirated software is out there based on what they *think* would have sold.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
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.
Because the houses are on the Ocean, Pirates have access to them for Pirating. You would think Pirates would like to Pirate all the homes they can, but they can only get to 1 out of every 100 homes to pirate. But because they wanted to get to 99 out of 100 homes, the piracy rate is 99%.
Excellent logic no?
Do you Gentoo!?
Read the slashdot title... "BSA Creates Piracy Statistics". No, they didn't gather, collect, or compile them... they "created" them.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
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.
At least we now know what the "BS" stands for in "BSA".
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
I guess I was slacking last year. I'll do my best to get that back up to 41% next year. I PROMISE!
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 actual white paper is here
It starts from the premise of looking at software industry growth rates from 1996 to 2001 and predicting that even without piracy reduction, the growth of the software industry would be *greater* (in percentage terms) from 2002 to 2006.
Obviously after the bubble burst the IDC guys spent the last of their stock earnings on crack.
Must be all those 12-17 yr old boys working on their computer merit badges...
"Obviously, I'm not an IBM computer any more than I'm an ashtray" (Bob Dylan)
Before the BSA starts talking about hijacking stuff, perhaps they need to talk to these people about infringing on names.
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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?
"And for software, because every PC is a software copying machine, since inception we have had a problem."
Yes, I'm sure their software sales would be way higher if no one had a PC.
A.
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?
Homer: Aw, people can come up with statistics to prove anything, Kent. Forfty percent of all people know that!
If you can't beat them, arrange to have them beaten. -George Carlin
They have to, since they don't actually go after larger businesses, only the tiny, five-or-six-person mom and pop shops.
When I was unfairly let go from my previous employer, I decided to hit 'em hard by contacting the BSA. As I was the Network Manager, I could tell them about pretty much every piece of pirated software, and I did. I went to the BSA site and filled out a report documenting hundreds of missing licenses for MS Office, MS Exchange, a number of Adobe products, and a few from Macromedia (all of their big vendor companies). I even documented how Lotus SmartSuite is installed on about 300 computers, yet we only had 4 legal copies, not to mention all the small shareware-type shit (like SnagIt and WinZip) that was installed on almost every PC without one legal license in the place.
I documented the "plan" we had in case of audit...it seems you can refuse them entry the first time they drop by for a visit, but they come back later that day with sherrifs and a warrant to force the issue. More than enough time for use to ghost a pirated-clean image on all the machines (using a pirated copy of ghost, of course). We even went to the trouble to compile a list of every machine that had pirated software so we could quicly decide which ones would need ghosting first.
Finally, I documented the little utility one of the members of the IT staff was forced to write ("it's written, or you're out of a job") to bypass the licensing restrictions of MS Terminal Services. I even gave them a link to the company's website where they could download it (it was up there so the salesmen could get it at home).
And, what happened? Nothing. For three months I called every week to see what the status was, and was told each time that there was nothing new to report. It was in the hands of the member companies. Finally, I was told that one of the member companies had decided not to pursue.
When I asked why, I was told they didn't have a reason, but it could be because: "the member company may already be investigating or negotiating with the company, the company may have some kind of site license, or the member company may have some other kind of relationship with the company in question." None of these were the case (I still have contacts in the IT department).
No, the truth is, the BSA simply can't walk into a large company and tell 500 people to get off their machines for a day while they're audited. It's logistically impossible. So, they advertise lots and lots of threats, send out "truce" notices, and make a lot of people worry about nothing.
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