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Software Piracy Will Get Worse
gollum123 writes "According to a study done by the Business Software Alliance (BSA) and research firm IDC, it is likely that software piracy will continue to expand as the Internet grows. Worldwide revenue loss due to software piracy was estimated at $33 billion for 2004 with about 1/3 of the software used being illegal. But within five years, that number could boom to two-thirds, with the value of pirated software nearing US$200 billion. Countries with the highest piracy rates were Vietnam, Ukraine, China, Zimbabwe and Indonesia while United States, New Zealand, Austria, Sweden and the United Kingdom had the lowest."
"software piracy will continue to expand as the Internet grows"
3 49249
In other news, the porn industry is getting larger as the Internet grows as well.
Web attacks are on the rise too.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=147388&cid=12
Increased Users = Increased Users (for good or bad)
Is this news?
The question should be "Has software piracy increased disproportionately to Internet User growth?
I don't know.
It could be worse, it could be Monday.
And I've got a shareware program thats been downloaded thousands of times but nobody has sent me $20. I have lost 100s of 1000s of dollars to this theft! I need legislation!!
"According to a study done by the Business Software Alliance (BSA) and research firm IDC, it is likely that software piracy will continue to expand as the Internet grows."
In other news, scientists established today that the bigger a container gets the more it can contain. Still no cure for cancer.
A computer makes it possible to do, in half an hour, tasks which were completely unnecessary to do before.
The BSA hopes to launch more education programs, policy initiatives and enforcement efforts in an attempt to lessen piracy.
So instead of "Yvan eht nioj" we will have "Yvan eht sab" so that children can rat out their Communist parents?
Bleh.
If this is the case,
why bother with serial
schemes, cracked in moments.
it can only get worse :(
Is it just me, or do the numbers not add up? On the one hand, this:
seems to suggest that the worldwide market is about $100 billion dollars per year. On the other hand, this:
says that they're expecting it to be worth about $300 billion in just five years. Are they really suggesting that the worldwide market is going to triple that quickly? There are really only two things that could cause the market value to grow that fast: increased hardware sales or increased prices. I don't see Intel or AMD planning on tripling sales over the next five years, so I have to assume that most of that growth is expected to come from massively increased prices. Is it any wonder that piracy would be likely to grow, too?
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
I'm guessing that's a percentage. I wonder what the actual number of pirated software users are for those countries compared to the ones mentioned as having the highest rates. I'd bet the US andother developed countries still have higher numbers.
SEO Firefox Extension
Would we ever expect an organization who profits from piracy to proclaim that the rate of piracy might be decreasing?
"Vietnam, Ukraine, China, Zimbabwe and Indonesia"
How much of the software they can claim is pirated there is actually available there?
...These numbers assume that if people didnt pirate, they would buy, while that is true for some, the vast majority would simply do without, because if they had the money to buy the software they probably would have.
I'm more than a little tired of hearing how much the recording and software industries THINK they're losing. They don't know.
Defecation occurs.
They have every reason to bias their estimates. And the $33B number undoubtedly uses the incorrect assumption that everyone who pirates a piece of software would have paid [full price] for it. There is plenty of software I would happily take a copy of, but would not be willing to pay retail for. Photoshop for example.
The porn industry gets larger and larger and then suddenly contracts, gets bored, and probably nips off for a quick nap.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
Damnit people! We have to TRY HARDER! C'mon we can't let countries like China and Vietnam beat us at everything!
And Ballmer is talking about Google disappering!
Living in a glasshouse, and throwing stones at your neighbor?
The countries where piracy is the lowest will pay the price for the countries that piracy is out of control.
Not just software, but movies, music, etc.
It is quite simple...people are tired of getting screwed for rediculously high prices for inferrior software. This is where I see Linux and Open Source being key. If we can convince people that rather than running the risk of getting caught, why not switch to a software package that will do what you want, and not put you at risk for licensing fines, etc.
I'm not a troll, but I play one on Slashdot.
With the continued spread of high speed internet, Linux and other FOSS products will have higher rates of adoption. Microsoft and the BSA will complain about the anti-competative behavior of such products & demand compensatin for missing revenue.
At what point does the cost of attempting to prevent piracy outweight the potential money not made from piracy?
If I download something without paying for it, It's something that I would NEVER pay for anyways. It's either free or nothing. That company will not get my money for that product. How is that a LOSS to them? They aren't gettign my money either way. I think the majority of illigal downloaders feel the same way. They don't do it to save money, it's to get something you would otherwise never pay for at all.
If I really like the CD or Software, I BUY it. Otherwise its a quick download to check it out, or use it once or twice.
I thought that computer companies had already taken this into account with their pricing, anyway. The argument I always heard for why Photoshop is $700 was because of all the piracy. So then, of course, that means that more people are going to pirate it.
How else is Photoshop so popular? If there were no piracy, people would all be using Paint Shop Pro or something, which is 1/5 the price.
Anyway, as long want software for uses that don't match the price, there's going to be piracy. There's not much we can do about it.
[insert witty quote here]
There will always be "piracy". It's just how we think of things. Our world is so cought up on what's mine and what's his, when it coems down to it. We are all dead. Give it a few hundred years, and your life won't mean anything. How much you bitched about piracy will be nonexisitant and the only people that will survive are the ones that: a) Get off this planet and learn to survive in space. b) Ones who steal Bill Gates money and refer to a). Our world is so selfish, we take so long deciding who's what's, that we slow progress down, and actually think we are civilized enough to legislate progress I love my pesimistic views at the moment.
$sig$
I think the United States is much lower probably because of companies like Dell. If everyone would put their computer together nobody would want to spend an extra $200 for an OS where that money could go for a new video card. I wonder how much smaller MS' revenue would be if the norm for purchasing computers would be through parts (just theoretical, I know that wouldn't happen because it'd be too much fo a hassle for joe sixpack).
:) Use Open Source! :D
Also, I know of one great way to battle piracy.
According to a study done by $IP_HOLDER_ASSOC, it is likely that theft of $THEIR_IP will continue to grow. $ASSOC estimates that $BIGNUM dollars were lost to piracy in $LAST_YEAR, up from $SMALLERNUM in $LAST_YEAR--. $ASSOC believes that unless draconian legislation is passed which empowers $ASSOC to hire bounty hunters to seek out and cut the thumbs off of people who steal $THEIR_IP, $THEIR_INDUSTRY will collapse.
Media that can be recorded and distributed can be recorded and distributed.
-kfg
Wow, as a sofware producer, I'm real scared. I'd better give lotsa cash to BSA so they can protect me.
Seriously though, this is not news, this is a marketing campaign. The BSA speculating that piracy will decrease, now that would be news.
I'd rather say that software piracy will continue to expand as the DRM becomes more and more indistinguishable from raping the rightful users.
Why is it that the software, movie, and music industries never think "Hey, maybe if we lowered the price to something a little more reasonable, the sales will increase and the pirating will decrease."
Maybe my statistics and economics teachers were just full of crap, eh?
Vol~
It's kind of hard to pirate Linux, people.
In other news, bootleg copies of the popular KDE desktop environment are expected to decline as more sites install legal versions.
* note, I am not advocating software piracy. My intention is to counter this FUD. When will they do a study about all the revenue *gained* from software piracy? I'm sure there are many millions of people who would not have the skills they have today had they not pirated copies of Photoshop, Window 2000 Server, MS Office, etc. ... and yes, there are open source alternatives, but they aren't common in the business world today. If piracy totally stopped, its likely that all of these millions would be forced to use open source applications and all but the most specialized commercial software would cease to exist.
4 or 5 years ago, there were commercials on the radio from the BSA about turning in your employer for using pirated software...haven't heard these for quite a while now. Maybe their marketing budget has been reduced, but with piracy being touted as such a problem, why aren't they still making a stink? And where are the war stories about siezed equipment and audits?
I got an idea, lets make up some numbers ! " Worldwide revenue loss due to software piracy was estimated at $33 billion for 2004. " Ok ok .. the software is ILLEGAL, so um, how did you come up with this number ? Out of thin air ? Seriously does anyone question how they pretend to arrive at such statistics ?
Do they run some anony web site were all the illegal users can come click radio buttons and check boxes to indicate the amount of illegal software they have ? Because, without any REAL way to show how you did your fact finding, I think your FULL OF SHIT.
Plus, if these people had no other option how are we to know that they wouldn't go with a FREE alternative ?
But , this is not science - JUST GUESSING.
Have a stuper day,
me
"Freedom and Justice for All" is a registered trademark of The United States Govt Inc. Not available in all areas.
This must stop ! all the pirated software and stuff. Now i am asking every developer to release his software`s under the GPL and make it open source as well, and than nobody will ever use pirated software :)
I know it sounds stupid, but is it ?
SirXavier
Funny, the numbers finding that piracy is low in Sweden, that's not what we hear from our local BSA (and the media industry in the form of antipiratbyrån). Considering that Personal Computers are abundant, Broadband service (both fiber and *DSL) readily available, and that Marketing forces mark up stuff in the swedish market (you can easily find for example MS Office 30% off if you buy it from the US), I wonder if those numbers are correct.
"If it can be thought up, there exists at least one person trying to make it happen for real" - Phil
In most of those countries at the top of the list, the cost of windows is about a month's salary. Let's not talk about other 'useful' stuff, like office, photoshop, etc,etc... Those of you too happy to pay for the next version of anything, ask yourselves this... if an OS or office app cost $2,000, would you still buy it, or look to alternative means of aquisition?
The Digital Couture Collection
Oussamas? I'm not sure, are they a kind of pie?
How many pirated versions of Firefox will there be?
None, because its free.
How many pirated versions of some $10 will there be?
None because its so small as to be not worth bothering.
The only thing you can tell from a BSA sponsored survey is that they want to push a message. BSA is a discreted -5 troll organisation its not even worth deceminating anything they say.
job security, aka 'software companies - join us before it's too late! We'll protect you!'
Sort of like the Antivirus companies saying how there are "more viruses!!!!11!one!!' so they can try to sell antivirus systems to Linux users as Linux usage grows.
...Rob
The American Dream isn't an SUV and a house in the suburbs; it's Don't Tread On Me.
The most commonly copied software I hear about are.
1. Windos OS of the month
2. microsoft office
3. Adobe Photoshop
Why? because they are all way over priced, and have acceptable free alternatives. If software is priced properly then it is not worth searching through the virus and bug ridden back alleys of warez looking for the latest version. The free versions aren't used by as many people because there is a percieved lack of quality in them.
(I said percieved. I used open office in 2001 and it was good except the spread sheet program didn't do curve fits worth a damn. That feature is important to me so I bought Office)
I used to have a cool sig, back when I cared
Why do you guys keep putting up the patent pending icon when it isn't applicable?
Zimbabwe barely has food enough to feed it's populance, who number such a small amount ?
Well, I don't know what they are using the software for - possibly to figure out how to share 1 bag of maize between 5000 people ?
South Africa maybe definately, but please, Zimbabwe ?
Really, the Zim Dollar exchange is Z$15 000 to a US dollar !
If they are pirating software, it's because a copy of windows would cost them the equivalent of 20 years salary !
Surely this is a mistake in the article ?
A slashdotting - you get the stick first and then the carrot !
I wonder if their "loss estimates" already account for possible software sales lost to open source software. It'll get worst? Of course it will get worst, open source software gets better and better everyday.
I despise with the BSA's main argument that software piracy supposably costs jobs and the moral implications of such.
While such a cliam is largely assumed and unsubstanstiated (escpecially in today's healthy software market), it distracts attention from the amount of jobs that must be sacrificed around the world by companies forced to spend ever larger amounts on often over-priced business software.
Especially in the poorer and third world countries where the vast majority of software piracy occurs.
Is that in Oklahoma?
Go figure! In places where people don't make enough in a month to buy one software package, there is more "piracy". In places where income is higher, there is less. It must have taken the price of many software packages to dig that out!
Ladies, Gentelmen (and those who are undecided) of the UK.
We all must pull together and try harder. This is one table we must not be bottom of.
[humor]
Sure, they don't get $megabucks/license but the end-users couldn't afford to pay anyways.
Think of how much they are saving in CD-manufacturing-and-distribution and software-support costs.
[/humor]
Seriously, software piracy IS a problem just like any other piracy, but the "lost revenue" figures aren't very meaningful, what counts is lost profit in a world that is otherwise-equal but where those who pirate instead pay for a license or do without that particular product. If every third-world MS-Office pirate went legit, destroyed their bootleg copies of MS-Office, and switched to OpenOffice today, Microsoft's increased revenue would be $0, or perhaps negative as the Gospel of OpenOffice spread and existing customers Saw The Light.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Piracy is a confusing word you should avoid. The title of the story should read, "Software Sharing To Increase as the Internet Grows." Doesn't sound as bad, does it?
an ill wind that blows no good
"Countries with the highest piracy rates were Vietnam, Ukraine, China, Zimbabwe and Indonesia while United States, New Zealand, Austria, Sweden and the United Kingdom had the lowest."
;)
So, the BSA should back off of us and go attack the Ukraine and Zimbabwe now. I wonder if they consider the reasons that folks in Zimbabwe might pirate software.. perhaps because they want to learn how to use Office but cannot afford it? I'm not sure if the bSA is keeping track of pirated games or just the big commercial apps like Office & Photoshop.
Then again, this was a BSA study. Would they inflate the perceived value of the software? Oh, never!
Let's reverse the metric a little bit, and talk about the value of some of these products versus the cost. What in the new version of photoshop or word is really worth paying the full price of the upgrade. I don't think that the consumer really finds most of this stuff worth it. People are pirating this software because it's the new version and it doesn't cost anything. In other words, the value of Office 2003 over Office 97 to regular customers is way below the cost.
Go ahead BSA combat piracy. I think you'll find that, at the end of the day, the same sales you're claiming to lose to piracy would have been lost at the cash register anyway.
A while ago I read an article about a legalized south-african anti-carjacking flame-thrower system. If you could wire these together.... Quick, anyone know the way to the patent office?
Its just baseball and apple pie! (well, maybe baseball is a bad example).
C'mon people, how can you argue when someone like Laura DiDio(t) is quoted. She has such high personal standards.
Looking for a job?
Want your resume written professionally?
DON'T USE TUNAREZ!!!
I disagree!
Since I switched fully over to Linux my use of pirated software ceased 100%. Since I helped my best friend switch over to Linux, his use of pirated software ceased 100%. And now the Cubans are heading that way too...
BSA, be happy!! You may just end up with less software piracy if everyone just migrates to Linux! Yaaaay!!!
Remember, people: if you are not using linux, you support software piracy and belong in Guantanamo Bay!
Akarsz Magyar Gentoo fórumot? Akkor
Let's grant them their figures.
So right now $33B is 1/3 of total "potential sales" of $100M, and total sales of $67B.
As a result of the Internet, over 5 years they expect to see "potential sales" of $300B (if $200B is 2/3), and actual sales of $100B... even assuming their worst case estimate (could boom to 2/3) of piracy levels are accurate. So, the worst case is a 50% increase in the market over 5 years.
This doesn't seem to me to be a problem. I'm certainly not expecting to get that kind of a raise over the next few years.
analysts estimate that the software industry has lost $50 billion last year due to buggy software, unappealing upgrades, draconic licenses, BSA raids against customers, and excessively high prices making people not want to buy their shit.
"Lost revenue" is such a weasel phrase. It's basically a lie -- that money was never headed in their direction, they just want to claim the possibility that someone might have bought their software but endeded up not as a "loss" so they can look like victims.
The enemies of Democracy are
Sorry, that would be GDP, not BNP which is a non-english version of the acronym.
- These characters were randomly selected.
Obviously, if 2/3 of the users are pirating the software, the asking price is too high. So the valuations of the losses are way over the top.
Edith Keeler Must Die
All 3 copies of GenToo Linux that I'm running are pirated from Gentoo.org. I'm about to pirate the gentoo software at work on my new workstation too
I take no responsibility for what I say. Even though I'm never wrong
Piracy exists:
-Bad quality programs...
-...that are overpriced
That's why piracy is big in underdeveloped countries...
Don't even start on how advanced microsoft's ie7 new tab browsing is...
LOST REVENUE to describe the retail value of pirated goods is completely bogus. That said, I'm against priracy in our own "empire" where most people have the money and the means to play the game, but is it so bad that some poor people in the third world benefit from our very rich coporations efforts without taking anything away from them?
Hey,
;-)
Send some of that pirated software over this way...
ogg
Black cat, searing pain, flames...? I must be in Heaven! - Homer Simpson
Better watch out, or what they are shoveling will get all over you. It makes good fertilizer, but poor facts.
Mike
The more we see articles of it, on websites, on tv, more people get interested and see just how easy it is to download a program, burn the ISO and boom you officially downloaded something illegal.
I hate comparing rap or any of that style in anything I post but...In 2000 Eminem sold more then a billion copies of his cd...why? was it because of the beats? because of his good marketing skills? NO. Its because he was on TV everyday, being bashed by the media for his lyrical content. And thats how he made his money, and this is how warez is getting more popular.
Seriously when the whole napster vs metallica thing happen in 2001 (or 2000?) napster saw a 50 percent increase of users using napster after lars ulrich first made a statement that people were downloading his music from there.
"software piracy will continue to expand as the Internet grows"
/different/ ways of getting revenues.
Sure, but, what about the IPv6? I guess when Internet 2 becomes broadly used (for whatever purposes you want) it will be really easy to download/distribute illegal software...
Software piracy came to stay, as long as software continues to be Information it WILL be copied and as long as people do not create different ways to use software there will be people get a free copy to use it.
That is why companies are trying to get into web services, or as Google, Opera and other companies are looking for
On the other side, if companies do not want their software to be pirated, they should opt to give it away... maybe there is still another way they can get money. *That* will make the next millionaire.
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
Because of the Internet more people are going to be exposed to your software and your market is growing but more people will pirate your software.
Doesn't this mean you are going to have a net increase in sales and not a net loss?
They are guessing that more people will pirate software but in order for BSA's numbers to be correct there has to be increase in sales because piracy is only a percentage loss of sales. This looks like a good thing.
-- Robert
Bet this
it in the first place. I use the gimp for example for my image manipulation (This is not an OSF ad), however I have meet people who use pirated copies of Photoshop, My thing is this, if I use the gimp, or if I used a pirated copy of photoshop they should not count that as a loss for some of us, as there is no way, come hell or high water, I could afford to buy photoshop.
Kosh: "Understanding is a 3 edged sword, your side, their side, the Truth."
a: nice work predicting trends that haven't started yet. kudos on drumming fear for a possible future based on no evidence at all! At 11, how terrorists COULD come into your house, tie you up in nylon, and use you as sock puppets without you knowing!
b: it really irritates me how all these groups are out there yelling for problems that might occur/get much worse and expecting that they be solved now. i should petition congress because my credit card bill next month MAY be higher than expected. is it just me or has the federal govt gotten far more involved in free trade as of late than before? perhaps all the crying and blame lately is a result of politicians in congress abusing powers they were never meant to have. from my understanding of the constitution the congress was meant to have federal jurisdiction over those matters that materially affect the welfare of the country, ie wars, taxation, interstate disputes. dictating the finer points of copywrite enforcement seems the job of an independent judiciary or even bureaucratic agency such as the fcc with limited congressional oversight.
just a thought, but this congress (both sides) is way the hell to influenced by outside interests for my tastes. even bush doesn't go on tv and read mpaa/riaa press releases verbatim.
The first rule of USENET is you do not talk about USENET.
What about people/companies that use free and open-sourced software. Won't this affect the number as well?
Here will be an old abusing of God's patience and the king's English.
How exactly do they know how much of the software being used has been pirated?
Technoli
With the way the economy is going here in the united states it wouldn't surprise me if piracy went up. This country is turning into a country that sells things and doesn't make things. But you can only sell so much stuff, so jobs are in the crapper and instead of making good wages people are making a lot less. Michigan is horrible at the moment. it's really quite sad. i love software companies that provide student discounts. I have a feeling that is a very large portion of software piracy right there. There's no way a student can afford the ever increasing price of tuition and buy a computer and buy software too.
... they are still typically very expensive. with the exception of Maya who offers the free educational version. i'd like to give those guys at alias a big thank you for that one. They really understand that their product is one that needs to be out there for people to learn on. if only more companies did this or sold their educational versions for a reasonable price... ie.. less than $100.. anything more and most of us cannot afford it.
now factor in the part where businesses what you to have experience in something, but you can't get experience without the education, or the tools to even learn. ok so products that have a high learning curve
just my opinion obviously.. i wouldn't know half of what i know now without piracy.
Kyle
http://www.unlogikal.net/
When the third world finally gets phones, and discovers the weath of information on the internet, they're going to take any road that they have to travel to the promined land.
If they can't afford the tolls on the high (legal) road, theyre going to have to gow down the low (pirate) road.
Since there's no blood involved, they probably don't see the hard in 'sharing' an app that they otherwise could not afford.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
My product is an arrangement of bits that can be easily duplicated ad infinitum without detection.
Hmm, does anyone else sense a failing business model?
I, for one, welcome our new Antichrist overlord.
Countries with the highest piracy rates were Vietnam, Ukraine, China, Zimbabwe and Indonesia
If copy protection were perfect (i.e. impossible to pirate software), the software would simply NOT BE USED in these countries. The main reason for the piracy in the first place is that software is really expensive.
You think somebody in China is going to scrape up $200 to buy Windows if the copy protection was suddenly made perfect? Not a chance. To say the industry "lost" $33B is ridiculous.
Interesting that this story came out today also. According to that link, software piracy has not increased in certain areas. Also, note the main people backing this. Microsoft and Adobe. I would guess that Photoshop is probably one of the most pirated pieces out there. It is arguably the best product for image work, but has a price that prevents any average user from purchasing it.
They create a situation that milks corporate users for as much money as they can get, but alienates home users to the point where they can't afford the product. The same could be said of many MS products. Look at Visual Studio.net. Corporations will shell out $500/license for their developers, but most of those developers would also like a copy at home for use. How many of those people do you honestly think purchased the software? I bet most of them either took the disc home, or downloaded it.
In other words, these guys are crying about money they lost because of piracy, but that isn't accurate. What is happening is that they are essentially breaking even. Instead of allowing more home users to purchase their software, and get volume based profits, they jacked their prices to get price based profits. The corporations that use their software are fronting the bill for home pirates. Changing the sales price of their software would almost definitely shift the weight off corporations, and potentially even create more profit for the companies by reducing piracy.
/. ++
It's funny that they mention that the quantity of pirated software will grow, but not the quality.
Help a poor college student. Send a couple cents via paypal to chucks86@gmail.com
Those who can afford it pirate it less.
Those who can't begin to afford it supposedly pirate it more.
I think I see a correlation here...
It reminds me of a story a real estate attorney friend of mine told me about working at Tandy (Radio Shack).
In asking for a salary increase, he asked an upper level manager why Tandy's pay was so far below industry average.
Their response was: "why should we pay people more? They're just going to quit in two years anyway."
.sigs are for post^Hers.
Trust me, the US is a drop in the bucket compared to Asia-Pacific. I've been to Kuala Lumpur and they had multiple-level malls that were selling any and all software imaginable for roughly $1.25. And, it didn't matter how much the software package itself had cost, but how many CDs were used. So, it was 2 CDs, you paid $2.50. Of course, this doesn't even include the movies and music that were being sold.
a) Make software worth a crap b) Dont charge more than the cost of hardware for a frikin operating system c).... d) Profit!
No I didnt spell check this post...
I personally would love it if all pirated copies of Windows stopped working. It wouldn't affect me, and it might be the nudge that made people use Linux.
I also think that a very nasty virus that trashes/encrypts all the data files it can would have the same effect. (I am not suggesting that someone makes one however.)
Get your own free personal location tracker
1. Software companies must lower their prices
2. Software companies must improve the quality and functionality of their software to justify the cost
3. There always have been and always will be theives
The biggest cause of piracy (whether it's music, movies or software) is the cost of actually legitimately buying this stuff. $299-399 is too much for an operating system today. If Microsoft sold Windows at a more reasonable price, say $99 more people would go the honest route. The same can be said for applications. If I'm a home user and I am ambitious enough to want to clone my hard drive, the most popular option I have is Norton Ghost. But I have to pay nearly $70 for that. Again, too much for a product that will be used infrequently. If Norton Ghost was $10-20 it might be easier to consider as a one shot purchase.
Now, couple that with the reality that in order for Windows to be truly useful to a mainstream user they need to buy a LOT of applications... and those $70+ hits add up real fast. Throw in stuff that requires yearly subscriptions like Antivirus software and the cost of owning a computer is expensive. On the flipside, take the same average home user and put a CD in front of him at a flea market that contains about ten or twenty of the programs he's been looking for and charge him $50, he's going to bite. Even moreso when you consider how few people there are in the mainstream computer user community who understand, are aware of, or even care about EULAs. This is the main reason why piracy happens. Software makers seem to be out of touch with what people can afford when they're being nickled and dimed to death. Just like the college profs who pile on the homework never giving a second thought to how much homework you've got in other classes, the software vendors pile on the small charges here and there until it's unbearable.
The other factor, for slightly more intelligent users is that sometimes, the functionality of a program doesn't warrant the price. Photoshop is a good example (and Adobe has wised up some in that arena) of a program that many mainstream users want access to but can't afford. The price of Photoshop is clearly inflated based on how it's most often used (not for profession print work where the cost IS justifiable) by mainstream users to just edit photos on the web. But, at least, Adobe figure out that if they release a stripped down version of Photoshop, many people would be willing to pay a more reasonable price. I'd say they still need to adjust their pricing a bit ($50 is more realistic for a commercial photo editing app). Other companies should follow Adobe's lead if they want people to actually pay for software.
Finally, no matter what is done to try and stem the waves of piracy, there will always be people who are dishonest. There is no way to prevent this without severly impacting your legitimate users. Dongles suck. Access codes suck. Registration sucks. DRM sucks. All they do is mak products more difficult for honest users to work with. They do little to prevent the dishonest from finding ways around them. But the number of genuinely dishonest people is small. The people that the software vendors (and RIAA MPAA) should be concerned with are the people who can be kept honest by providing good products for a reasonable price. The software, music and movie industries fail at this. Instead of providing good products, they provide the lowest common denominator in terms of quality and they charge the highest allowable prices. This is what turns otherwise honest people to piracy. They WANT this stuff, but they can't afford it. What other options do they have. Avoidance is not an option...
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
These folks have just predicted that they will be two to six times less effective in the next 5 years? [1/3 vs. 2/3 or $33B vs $200B]
...if the BSA stepped foot in Zimbabwe and tried to pull any shit, Mr Mugabe and his henchmen would likely have them executed on the spot. Let's hope the BSA try it ;o)
Now, I'm not for software piracy (heck, I make my money through writing software) I just think that the sonner the Gestapo-like tactics of the BSA are banished once and for all the better.
I am NaN
This study calculates losses poorly and doesn't take into account the loss of market share to free/libre open-source software. They don't distinguish between "pirated" software and free software. It's like the RIAA complaining about losses due to music "piracy" although the losses are partly due to indie music gaining market share.
It's the goddammed fucking yankees who are in the bubble.
Has any copyrighted or patented 'free' yet?
Sure you could say, but they lost money on every copy pirated. It might be true they lost some money but most of the people who pirated the software would not have bought it in the first place.
How about students and the younger userbase who cant afford PS and get a pirated copy. A lot of them who later on in life start their own business will pay for the software because they know how to use it. And the only way they could have learnt to use it is to get a pirated copy
http://www.babesonbass.com/
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
What do they expect when the price of a piece of software is an entire yearly salary for someone in the countries that they cite?
What I don't understand is why companies that are so concerned with their software being pirated don't go and develop some sort of crazy crypto scheme to deal with authorization/licensing. When you have a piece of software that you sell for hundreds or thousands of dollars, developing software crypto or providing crypto usb dongles might actually be worth the money. However, MS wouldn't be where they are today if it wasn't for piracy. They have a 90%+ market share, but according to the article, 1/3 of that is pirated. Assuming a good portion of those people can't afford to pay for it (students, third world countries, etc.), that would leave significantly less share for them.
Need Free Juniper/NetScreen Support? JuniperForum
The biggest revenue cash cow for software companies are other companies, schools, and government. Almost all of them generally follow the rules for fear of a BSA audit. Most individuals buy over-priced boxed sets.
The people that make illegal copies are people who wouldn't buy their products anyway--how is that considered to be revenue loss? I don't know anyone who has ever copied software and resold it or bought copied software. These are people who are CHEAP and don't spend money anyway.
What they mean to say is, "We would have made $33 billion more if we actually sold to the people who use it illegally."
I think, in reality, the actually piracy costs are minimal. They're really just eye-balling an untapped market.
As long as prices stay over-inflated for Photoshop, Office, etc., I think the piracy problem will, indeed, not abate.
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
This is probably going to start a flamewar, but I'm going to post anyway because it needs to be said: This is an example of why outsourcing jobs is not a bad thing.
Countries with the highest piracy rates were Vietnam, Ukraine, China, Zimbabwe and Indonesia while United States, New Zealand, Austria, Sweden and the United Kingdom had the lowest.
The pattern is pretty obvious: the lower the income per capita, the higher the piracy. And why are these countries' incomes so low? Because we won't let jobs out of our greedy paws. And now we're reaping what we've sown: they can't be paid to produce products, so they can't afford to pay for the products we're producing.
Round and round we go....
I've got more mod points and GMail invi
In Marketing!
Let me reboot my ship and away we'll be, matey!
Pirated Software for Debian on CD, and my online Pirated Apt-repository.
I'm from Poland. Let's say I've seen 50 private computers over the last few years (friends, family, etc). Vast majority is Win-based. One friend has legally purchased Win XP ("my dad wanted to buy it, I didn't oppose) and tones of pirated stuff.
Several of them have laptops that came bundled with (legal) Windows.
Average salary in Poland is ~500 Euro (~666 dolars) per month. Fresh university graduates usually earn around 250 Euro. MS Office costs ~250 Euros, Photoshop costs... I don't know, 600 Euro? And so on, and so on. People need that stuff - everybody gets pirated soft, otherwise they would have to spend their entire earnings on software or... turn to open source if the law was enforced.
Piracy helps software companies - that's a common wisdom that everybody knows. Those young people that use illegal stuff eventually get older, start earning better money, buy legal stuff.
If the law was properly enforced, people would move their asses to open source and discover that it ain't bad. I bet all those evil monsters would be very happy.
Worldwide revenue loss due to software piracy was estimated at $33 billion for 2004 with about 1/3 of the software used being illegal.
Given every illegal copy would be purchased... which obviously wouldn't. I can't imagine any of those 50 people I mentioned suddenly found even 200 Euro to pay for anything. Seriously.
But within five years, that number could boom to two-thirds, with the value of pirated software nearing US$200 billion.
What a bunch of crap. "Come on, governments, protect Microsoft and other nice companies from the 33% of world population, which is pure evil and will turn 33% of other people into beasts. Oh, and please nuke Zambia in Vietnam. More and more people get cheap computers over there, but they don't want to spend 200% of their salaries on our divine technology. And while you're listening to us, we'd like to support big pharmacy companies that sued African governments for buying generic anti-AIDS drugs. We strongly believe those little black beggers should die if they can't pay for legal, but 10x more expensive equivalents."
BS + BS = more BS, too bad the press (and slashdot) just pass the FUD along.
The article
Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education. Bertrand Russel
BSA is or will be correct. Just define Linux and OpenOffice as "IP infringing" and piracy - billions or trillions of microbucks 2010.
When everything is GPL'ed, there can be no piracy.
I'm sure there's a much more Zen way to express this....
Cheers,
Slak
Vietnam, Ukraine, China, Zimbabwe and Indonesia are poor countries.
United States, New Zealand, Austria, Sweden and the United Kingdom are rich countries.
Figure it out.
The problem with the idea of making your money by providing support for software, rather than the software itself, is that it creates perverse incentives. Ideally software would install easily, have an intuitive interface, be well documented, and have no bugs. Such software is very expensive to develop but doesn't need any support, so trying to fund it with fees for "support" is a losing proposition.
OTOH, make a complicated system with no documentation, a zillion peculiar configuration settings, and a propensity to crash, and you have a real cash cow in the "support" model.
I have always wanted more people to buy Sid Meiers Pirates! http://www.atari.com/pirates/pirates/index.php That's the only Software Piracy I know of. Or, did they mean copyright violators?
LeoPolus Web Design: http://www.leopolus.com
Do people ever refer to you as "special"?
- Be published
- Have discussed percentage of various software being pirated.
- Have weighed total cost of ownership versus economic means
Seriously, how much of this piracy is due to 150$+ software (Windows, Photoshop) vs the less than 150$ ones (Age of XX, Sims)? Are these estimates of people that were caught and therefore a selective [and biased sample set]. Also, it would be really handy to know what the per capita is for those countries that are the most offending.Lets look:
http://www.library.uu.nl/wesp/populstat/Asia/viet
http://www.library.uu.nl/wesp/populstat/Americas/
So for example, it takes a US citizen (22k $/yr) 11 hours of labour to get 1 copy of Windows XP (@125$) while someone in Vietnam (300$/yr), on average, has to work 1000 hours.
Maybe there is a discount price in other countries....
The intelligence of any discussion diminishes with the square of the number of participants.-- Adam Walinsky
What exactly does this have to do with Patents???
What is the mission of anti-piracy group that takes other people's (ie. the industry's) money? To reduce piracy. I don't think its as simple as saying they have a vested increase in emphasising the scale of the problem, one might argue that they have an equal vested interest in suggesting that their activities have actually done some good. As noted in another comment above, they've basically hedged their bets by not reporting on the relative increase in software piracy relative to the growth in internet usage (and a more sophisticated analysis might consider the extent of bandwidth growth and the nature of anti-piracy steps being taken, either in terms of copy protection or legislation/punishment in different localities).
In general I'm wary of the general wisdom that suggests that any advocacy organisation is automatically lying by the nature of who they are. Its a standard internet commentator kneejerk response thats as bad as blindly believing whatever you read.
Plays violent online games as: Nerfherder76
When we get to see a legitimate code audit of all MS products we will see who the real pirates are. It is well known that Microsoft is the world's largest pirate and that it hates competition. Well the end is near for that dinosaur who will be the next challenger? Why do you think they will not show you the code?
They are assuming people would buy the software if they couldn't get it for free.
It's the battle of the minds, and everyone's unarmed.
I would like to point out that it is rather difficult (if not impossible) to get even a remotely accurate idea of how much is lost due to piracy. You have to consider it on an individual level - what would happen if piracy did not exist?
We take a person who pirated say Adobe Photoshop to use to design art for his personal website. That's considered a loss for the Adobe. But the question is, if this person was not able to find a single illegal copy of Photoshop to download, is there a possibility of purchasing the software legally? From here there are two points - either yes, in which case we conclude that piracy cancelled out the possibility of obtaining the product legally causing the company to lose money. Or, if the answer is no, then the company lost absolutely nothing. If the possibility of purchasing a product does not exist, with or without piracy, then it is impossible to conclude that piracy is responsible for lost income. In this situation, the company looses nothing, but the individual gains a benefit he would not have had without piracy.
I am by no means trying to justify what is going on, but all I'm saying is that it's not so simple to say that when someone downloads software worth a few thousand dollars, that the company making that software lost a lot of money. Far more complicated than that.
Consumers have saved 33 billion in software expenses for 2004!
How does one even begin to measure this? Extrapolate from those convicted of software piracy? The article doesn't bother to mention any of IDC's methods.
1. Abandon proprietary software completely -
2. Move to a total open-source environment.
3. Softare Piracy & BSA irrelevant (Missing option found). 4. Profit!
There is not nearly enough love in the world, but there is far too much trust.
15,000 to 1 doesn't mean anything by itself. It's 105 Yen to the dollar, but the average salary in Japan is between 5 and 6 million yen (~$52,000) which is ~$20,000 better than our national average (2002) of $36,764.
Of course, it costs between 200 and 500 yen for a cup of coffee in Tokyo, so...
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Come on. NEWS. As in, new shit. Things that are neither common sense, nor an excercise of logic. Here, lemme give you some real headlines:
Berkeley engineers develop hyperwave broadcasters! Broadband in Montana, "just a step away from reality," says Zoe Litchner.
George Lucas orders revamp of original trilogy. "My original vision was Meow Skywalker, and through the new developments in CGI, we can finally make the film as I would have liked," says Lucas, 61.
Sorry, this is a free market.
The price depends only on what the seller and buyer will agree on.
The fair price is not some fictional number non-buyers and non-sellers think it should be.
It's a dup!
United States, New Zealand, Austria, Sweden and the United Kingdom had the lowest.
I could list those same countries as most friendly to the USA and least friendly, and be equally accurate.
And while you can say that the AoE (Axis of Evil) countries are even less friendly to the USA, piracy rates are probably down there because AoE countries prevent many citizens from having computers as well -- not to mention that the BSA isn't particularly welcome there either.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
When software is 'bought' its really licensed but when its 'Stolen' its somehow taken. No wonder there are so many copies to be stolen nobody who buys them legally can take them home.
And which countries have been on the 'net longest?
--dave
davecb@spamcop.net
Willie Sutton famously observed that banks store money too.
If you are too chicken of the bank security, you can always sell a kidney, or your sister, or just do without food for a while.
The point being that where you get the money is not really the vendor's concern.
There is not nearly enough love in the world, but there is far too much trust.
Good to see the moderators today have a sense of humor...
Not surprisingly, Indonesia also has a high piracy rate. Indonesia does have a large Chinese population and is heavily influenced by Chinese culture.
This is where the (free) market jumps in. If I wish to pay someone to maintain a certain piece of software, I will look at the potental costs of ownership of that software before I select in the first place. If one software product appears to have poor documentation and a propensity to crash, I would have an incentive to look for a "cheaper" alternative. Acceptance/adoption of any software package would necessarily depend on how easily it can be supported.
stealing it!
Maybe thats why their numbers are so borked. They came up with some mathematical model based on computer usage and population and then did some math
on that prediction.
Not surprisingly, Indonesia also has a high piracy rate. Indonesia does have a large Chinese population and is heavily influenced by Chinese culture.
This just in - the sky is blue!!
Of course piracy will get worse. Why would it improve?
It's like saying it's going to rain in Seattle sometime in the next month or it's hot in Florida during July. Duh. Of course piracy is going to increase, did anyone actually think it would go down?
According to an article on Techworld, "More than a third of all packaged software loaded on PCs in the world is now pirated, a new study conducted by analysts IDC for the Business Software Alliance (BSA) has concluded."
A computer makes it possible to do, in half an hour, tasks which were completely unnecessary to do before.
Why do we HAVE to look at the world the way media and other people want us to look at it. I would rather see it as:
1. People in some countries might just be able to afford to have a computer and not the software. I would see priorities in such country much different from ours, yet we have to impose our way of priorities, as we deplete their natural resources by ways of government that we(our CIA) has installed, or manipulated into being.
2. Actual software piracy is low. People who use software for their professional work, do usually pay for software. People who play with software for less then a day and distribute it to their friends, don't usually buy such software. Leisure software is being bought, more often then not. People can still afford 50$ for a game that will be entertainment for couple hundred hours compared to 2 hour movie that costs 20-30$.
Another thing is: statistics can be made up to prove anything. One is data, second is analysis and third is Interpretation, each stage introducing irregularities(or manufactured vision, lies) into final outlook, data provides...
As market for computing grows, possible amount of unauthorized software installations grows.
But its all really just greedy BSA making hysteria, like hollywood top management. Fix those corporations good, like McCarthy did in Hollywood in 50s.
Cause Ubuntu costs just way too much and I much prefer copying than having to pay... oh wait!
The "value" of pirated software is much lower than that. If you talk about "value" you kind of assume you'd be able to sell the same software to the same people for your MSRP. This just ain't so. The populace some of the listed countries is ridiculously poor. They aren't going to pay half a year's salary for office after spending their life's savings on a low-end PC.
There's no excuse for the Western countries, though. As ridiculous as it sounds, by pirating software made by large corporations you're helping those corporations to stay in the business. You see, you could have used alternatives and supported the people behind those alternatives. This would in turn generate competition and drive the prices down and quality up.
and if they make it cheaper more and more people will buy the programs instead of pirating. There are some programs people are willing to shell out money for and some that are not worth the cost. If it is worth the cost, people will pay for it. There will always be the aberrant users - but even at a price of 1 cent people will still steal.
In other words - next time you think that your software is worth $200 and it does crap - don't be surprised when someone hacks it.
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
Very close to none of those kids who downloaded your software use it for a profitable cause and ever would have payed for the software?
Since when was an imaginary -non sale- equal to a loss in money?
This is the same fucked up logic the music industry is harming its consumer base with.
If someone is going to start using your software in a professional environment or for a serious use they are going to have a lisenced, payed for version.
I bet so many professional graphical artists work on pirated photoshop.. and so many kids would have payed for their experimenting with photoshop if there wasnt a warez version available. Grow up and stop imagining these 'losses'.
...is simply that 9 times out of 10, to make use of something, regardless of quality, the user must possess at least rudimentary programming skills. 50 years from now, the vast majority of computer users will probably be mildly proficient at scripting and things of that nature (similar to how a wide range of the population can understand and perform basic car maintenance)... but that time is not today, nor is it the near future, and that prevents folks from being able to install, maintain and use various open source programs / scripts / etc.
Most of the time it's not even an issue of "can I get this installed" either; there's often an appalling lack of documentation (or readable, organized, aesthetically pleasing documentation) for these projects and you have to sit there either tearing through code or google to figure out how to use the software in the first place. It's very counter-intuitive.
Also, and I don't know about you guys, but almost every time I end up looking for open source software, I'm trying to find out if something exists already to solve a problem I'm currently trying to avoid coding myself.. then when I find the solution, it's either not exactly what I want (and I have to code something for it anyways), or I have to figure out how to write a middle layer (I'm coding again) to integrate it into my solution. Either way, there's extra work involved. It's fine for my purposes, but not for regular users.
Shrug, just a couple points to think about.
-Rylfaeth
I'm waiting for the headline that shows that people are using FOSS more and more and because of that the "piracy" rate is decreasing. Except for my OS, everything is use now is FOSS.
The main flaw here is that they assume that every pirated copy in a third/second world country is equivalent to its price in the US et al. Let's do some analogies. Let's look at the Ukraine and how much they make per month: http://www.ukraine-gateway.org.ua/gateway/gateway. nsf/basicv/0401020002?OpenDocument&Click= Its roughly $30 a month or 360 a month.
The median US income is around 43000 dollars.
http://www.census.gov/hhes/income/income03/statemh i.html
Let's assume that Win xp pro is THE item to pirate. It costs retail in the US 300 dollars.
In the Ukraine that would be roughly 90 percent of their income before taxes. If MS thinks that they are really losing money on these people then they are mistaken because these people could not buy it anyway so those numbers are rocky at best.
In the US on the other hand its more like 1 percent of family income after taxes so it's not quite as major a purchase and they could make an argument that they are losing money here, but as said the piracy rate is lower here.
NJ Local Music Scene
Would we ever expect an organization who profits from piracy to proclaim that the rate of piracy might be decreasing?
Well, I agree with you in spirit, but in all fairness, piracy is where one boards a ship to beat, rape, pillage, and murder people. I think the term everyone here intends to use is "illegal copying".
Why should we accept their categorisations of us and use their descriptions to define us? Descriptions for us like "copy monopoly busters", or "information liberators" and terms like the "information plantation masters" for them would be much more fair and accurate.
Not to claim that the majority of Slashdot readers are pirates, but how many of us have had or have pirated software on our computers? Now, how many of those pirated programs would have been bought if they were not illegally available? Yes, I am sure that this has all been said before, but my guess is that the majority of pirated software would not have been purchased in the first place, making the supposed billions of dollars in losses very misleading. Likewise, the majority of people who would buy the software have bought the software. Architectural design offices have purchased their copies of Autocad, photo studios have purchased their copies of Photoshop, and the majority of computers out there are running licensed OEM copies of a Microsoft OS that came preinstalled on their computer. Who's getting hurt then? Most of the software companies citing losses are not having their target markets eaten away at by piracy. Yet, the companies getting hurt by piracy aren't complaining much at all. Products such as Paintshop Pro is definitely losing sales to pirated copies of Photoshop, and the the OSS community lacks support for certain projects, because pirated commercial alternatives are available. Crying like like the world's ending won't garner much support. There are many valid arguements to be made against piracy on many levels, but lying to support the fight is just a lawyer's pay bonus.
The point I am making is that the value of stolen software is not based on the actual value of the software, (Windows vs Linux, or MS Office vs Open office) but on the value a company wants to sell it for.
If you have a laptop and a desktop, should you have to pay for two copies or the software, even though you only use one at a time?
If your computer is too slow and you purchase a new one, you can't get your money back for the OS you paid for already, and if you use it on the new computer, you suddenly have a pirated copy. If you have an old car, you can trade it in for a discount on the new one.
If you have 4 computers at home, and one of them has a legitimate copy and the other three have "copies" of the legitimate one, then you can be said to have 3 pirated copies. The industry then can claim that they are losing money on you, even though you only use one at a time and would never have purchased more than one copy otherwise.
In my opinion, one of the major causes of pirating is that companies want users to purchase a new copy of software for each computer you own, and they do not offer discounts for your multiple copies.
That is similar to the problem we are seeing in the music/video industries. They would like you to purchase a separate copy for each player you have, instead of being able to make a copy to take with you while leaving the other in a safe place. (By the way, how many times have you had to buy a CD to replace that audio tape music since the tape will no longer play?) And did you know that each blank tape you ever bought included an industry "rebate tax" to offset the cost of music copies?
Yes, there are a lot of pirated copies of software that really meet the true definition of pirated, but there are many others that are just part of system upgrades or multiple computers at home.
Until the industry comes up with a business model that does not leave the consumer feeling like they were ripped off by having to pay twice or too much, there will always be copying. If Open Office can be distributed for free (plus shipping), then there is a strong feeling that one is a rip-off.
Before the FOSS people get all defensive about what I posted, I am a Linux user. I prefer to use Fedora Core because it does what I need it to. I hate KDE because I don't like to be spoonfed (no offense to anyone meant, it's just my opinion). I, personally, prefer to download and compile all my apps myself because that's the only way I trust things. I don't like package managers. With all that out of the way...
The point is that there is still a lot of work for people to do compared with Windows (with the possible exception of that KDE thing someone posted). Not to mention migrating to a new platform. The reason I didn't meantion FOSS on Windows is that it's been my experience that it's pretty much pointless. Back when I used Windows, I tried useing the alternative FOSS stuff and it just never felt right. This is not because FOSS is inferior, it's because Windows isn't an open platform that allows for seamless integration. To really experience FOSS positively requires a FOSS operating system/desktop. Windows + Firefox + Thunderbird kind of sucks compared to FC3 + Firefox + Thunderbird.
The P2P stuff is just easier for Joe Average because it's written Joe Average. Think about it... searches in P2P apps don't need specialized syntax. You just basically grunt at it and it finds stuff. Again, I don't know about the KDE package manager but I highly doubt it will find every app a user is looking for and it probably only searches locally on a CD-ROM, not on the internet for the latest and greatest. After all, there is also the status symbol element of having the latest name brand stuff to keep up with the Jonses.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
If Microsoft managed to implement perfect copy protection, it would very likely start losing market share like there was no tomorrow
At E3, Microsoft has announced that the ease of modding the Xbox console to play unauthorized copies was a dumb engineering mistake. The Xbox 360 console will likely be cost-prohibitive to mod, in that it'll be cheaper to buy genuine games (if you want to copy) or to buy a Power Mac G5 (if you want to run Linux).
How much money have you spent on entertainment? Eating out when you could have cooked for yourself? Buying books? Buying hardware? Paying for DSL? Travelling? Are you sure that you couldn't afford it if you saved for it?
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Lets say someone pirates and use the $500 + Adobe Photoshop. Lets also say this person can't afford that price to begin with
Since when is Photoshop $500+? I see Photoshop (minus prepress output capability) for 100 USD. Or are you talking about another currency symbolized by '$'?
The big software companies are doing so poorly profit wise:
Profit Margin (ttm) (from finance.yahoo.com)
MSFT: 29%
ADBE: 28%
YHOO: 24%
INTL: 22%
IBM: 9%
XOM: 8% (Exxon)
CVX: 8% (ChevronTexaco)
TM: 6% (Toyota)
BA: 3% (Boeing)
COKE: 2%
I'm not saying people should pirate software because these companies are successfull. I'm saying that they're still very profitable even though piracy is going on.
Quem a paca cara compra, paca cara pagará.
Corel makes a wonderful graphics suite which I would say is comparable to Photoshop and costs much cheaper.
Bad example. Paint Shop Pro - 100 USD. Photoshop Elements - 100 USD. How again is Paint Shop Pro cheaper than Photoshop Elements?
You. Yes, you. You that reads this right now.
I bet you have "pirated" some software in the past, or at least you know someone that has done so.
To the best of your knowledge, would you or the ones you know having pirated software ever used any of it if you had to pay for it? Would you even had a chance to test it, even if never use it again, if you had to pay for it?
Didn't think so.
Let's turn it around. Have you (or someone you know) bought a (license to) a program after you (or someone you know) evaluated that program by "pirating" it? What, you even got your company to buy a number of copies you say?
With this in mind, could in your opinion anyone with even half a brain left truthfully claim to lose money from this? No? What's that you said? They *gain* customers due to "piracy"?
Case closed. A company claiming "losses" due to piracy should be forced by law to prove losses before making such accusations targeted at millions and millions of individuals, or face "hard time" for accusing these millions upon millions of people of some imaginary loss only due to the company's own failures.
Keep in mind that you're talking to someone who learned enough graphic design on a stolen copy of Photoshop while in high school
No longer an excuse. Adobe Photoshop Elements software is within birthday-present price range (100 USD).
"The system would require consumers to buy new DVD players with RFID readers." A security model dependant on client configurations; it will fail. Who cares.
Without one, he is incapable of sensing humor, as presented in the parent post!
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
If piracy continues to increase for years on end, companies are going to start wondering what they are getting for the money they pay the BSA. After all, their job is to combat piracy, and reports like this show that they are failing at their job. If piracy never turns down, software companies will take their anti-piracy dollars elsewhere (or change strategy entirely).
As the Internet (and indeed world population) expands, more and more lost revenue opportunities due to piracy, and the increasing amount of patented and copyrighted intellectual property of inestimable (but oh so high) value, will result in record losses in Fake Revenue. Every crappy movie that gets torrented will result in billions of projected revenue loses, resulting in a world where losses exceed total global production. At this point, the world will declare bankrupcy, go into receivership, and be auctioned off to Martian interests.
"Worldwide revenue loss due to software piracy was estimated at $33 billion for 2004 with about 1/3 of the software used being illegal. But within five years, that number could boom to two-thirds, with the value of pirated software nearing US$200 billion."
are you kidding me ? where the hell do you calculate these numbers from, this is worse than when Bush said social security would go bankrupt in the year 2045 (actually he said even earlier) but still to predict these stats off numbers of past performances is dumb. it just isnt accurate. 1/3 of software used is illegal ? does anyone honestly believe that? this tripe are reasons that people are hunted like animals. i dont condone piracy in any way, but i know it happens, but the feeling has always been , so what. the pirates have to buy the game to rls it anyhow, and if not its a security issue in the company. this type of stuff is always overblown, like the bullshit with halflife 2 being pushed back 4 months because it was leaked. why would a leak push back a game rls, if not in the game was actually changed ? if the game was close to final, who the hell cares. all the real fans of the game were buying it anyhow. and guess what ? they still did. most people who download the game from pirates dont bother to even finish the game. the real fans buy it, how its always been. if people think they are losing sales in games because of pirates, they are pretty wrong. "numbers dont lie" but they can be altered, as they were for movies when that was over dramatized, politicians even admitted the numbers were beefed up. most of the people who download the games arent really at fault, they would do the same, if say their friend bought the game and they copied it. however the people that run huge factories for the sole purpose to make exact replicas of the games and sell them to the public are in the wrong. thats the difference that should never be overlooked in this type of situation. just something for people to keep in mind when things like this are in the news.
May be the same except the "prepress output cabililty"(I dunno) but that difference will cost you $500 in price for the full version.
People who work in a professional prepress environment can afford to pay the extra $500 expense out of revenues. Contrapositive: people who cannot afford the extra $500 do not work in a professional prepress environment. For them, Photoshop Elements is an acceptable alternative to Photoshop full version, perfectly suitable for the "I just wanna learn Photoshop" crowd. Analogy to cars: why steal a Lexus when you can buy a Kia, which does what you want it to do?
The entire premise behind the "loss" of revenue reported by BSA and others is patently false. You have to make a gigantic assumption that those who "stole" your software would have purchased it. I offer this hypothetical example... suppose I could get Micro$oft word from the office and load it on my home machine. Is M$ out whatever the cost of this is at the store? Of course not. I would have downloaded something free from the internet for my word processing needs and not used word at all. The reason I am using it is because I like it and it was just as free as the one I could've downloaded. Further complicating matters, suppose I did have to buy it because I couldn't steal it from work... would I have purchased that product or a much cheaper one that does the same job. How the hell are they calculating the loss and who lost the money? The cheapest decent word processing software company lost the money, not M$.
The numbers therefore, are bull crap as we say here in Texas.
A little misunderstanding? Galileo and the Pope had a little misunderstanding...
Oh, idiot. You mean ridiculous.
doesn't usually make much sense, yet it's one of the primary arguments when it comes to fighting it.
The only thing the growing of pirated software can teach us is that there is an increasing proportion of people using pirated software over legit versions. That doesn't directly equate to revenue loss. Look at how many people use a pirated version of Photoshop, for instance (let's face it, we all know there are very many!). Do you sincerely think those would have shed out a thousand bucks to buy a license? Come on... On the other hand, as with Windows, it increases the user base, and thus is actually a good marketing thing. I'm not advocating piracy, I'm just saying that the "bad" consequences are pretty hard to put figures on, and the "good" consequences may actually be easier to quantify.
I think the real problem is not a so-called revenue loss. Not yet anyway. To me, the real concern in the long run is about making people realize that purely digital (that is, immaterial) products are actually products worth buying... and it won't happen until intelligence is valued over brute force. Right now, brute force tends to win, so the only way to fight piracy is by legal means (DRM and software "locks" don't work, it has been proven over and over...) When people are ready to acknowledge "mind products", then purely technological solutions will have a chance to work... right now, the only way to deal with piracy is either to use brute force (legal enforcement with harsh penalties) or ignore it altogether.
Worldwide revenue loss due to software piracy was estimated at $33 billion
Remember that since piracy costs almost nothing to do, this revenue loss is also a corresponding revenue gain for those who pirate. So another way to say this is, "Due to piracy, the world gained $33 billion dollars worth of software without spending a dime." It doesn't sound so bad when you put it that way, huh?
They will try to fight it with TC, but in the end it will fail because the majority of people already have access to more than enough for their basic computer needs.
...at very low prices, or even free (I have just such a copy of Oracle in front of me, which came with a textbook.) This particular one is limited to 120 days and clearly says FOR EDUCATIONAL USE ONLY in the license.
Other server tools are commonly available with use restrictions that leave them fine for learning but unsuitable for a production environment (performance limitiations, one concurrent user, etc.)
Unliscensed use of Software does not equate to a lost sale of said license.
It may do, but in many cases probably not, it may well mean a future sale when the garage heads grow up and find their skillset is tied into a proprietry package.
It does however hurt those who are undercut by cheaper design/ programming/ CAD/ etc houses as those who do not pay licenses have cheaper operating costs than those who do and can thus charge less.
But then it does mean many things can be achieved on smaller budgets that may not have been possible before.
It also hurts the open source community because instead of joining in and helping to create solutions that are available to everyone people would rather pay for thin air.
So it hurts end users who resell services using software and the Free Software and Open Source Movements, I think in the long run it is probably beneficial to the comapanies whose products are pirated as it gives a much bigger market share than they would have without it which translates to future sales.
Generally proprietry Software is overpriced and Buggy crap that promises so much more than it delivers - it is probably only piracy that has kept the endless stupidity afloat.
So the Software alliance should stop talking crap.
But defintely crack down on people using proprietry software as this will only benefit those who have yet to understand the Truth of Liberty as in Beer...er...3) Profit?
Another Question entirely is how much money has been lost, especialy tax payer money for liscensed solutions that often fail to work and must be rented (liscensed upgrades) every year when a customisation of Open Source products or even something coded from scratch would have done the job a thousand times better.
I mean most of these tasks such as database manipulations are well established procedures, generally built apon foundations of academic expertise that the taxpayers paid researchers to develop in the first place.
Clearly without the hellish black hole that is proprietry software, all those billions would have gone to the development of excellence in Software and Hardware.
Think about how much wasted development all that money in say Microsofts coffers represents - think how much further ahead things would be. No innovation has come from M$ and it never will.
It is standards and sharing and free apache that has got the internetworked world where it is today.
Imagine a world where every one is free, as in Beer...
Still without Software companies where would all the Open Source Developers have their day jobs?
Sigh **
Are they really suggesting that the worldwide market is going to triple that quickly?
Speaking as a guy in my 40s, I know a midlife crisis when I see one. They start when the perception of unlimited possibilities you had when you were a youth inevitably gives way to the realization you are probably not going to set the world on fire; at best you've got to work like hell to keep the bonfires you have set supplied with fuel.
The relevance to the topic at hand is this: I lived and worked through the great informatics boom of the late twentieth century from roughly 1980 to to the dot com crash of 2001. In the late 80s early 90s, we had exponential growth of spending on software, fueled by exponential growth in the adoption of computers. In the late 80s, I worked for a company with few hundred employees, and we used to regularly order literal truckloads of computers. This gold rush atmosphere was artificially prolonged for perhaps another six or seven years by the dot com boom.
The dream was that licensing software was like printing money. Hell, the license certificates after a while started to look like money -- or at least some kind of bond certificate or something.
Well, the gold rush is over. Sure, some people may make huge fortunes creating new, paradigm disrupting products, but by in large the software market (specifically software licensing revenues) is mature, and in some cases may shrink as open source takes over mature application areas.
And, like the former hotshot who looks into the mirror and sees a tired looking, paunchy middle age gent, our friends in the software industry facing a paradigm shift from land office business to the crappy, low margin service sector, are exhibiting stage one of the whole Kubler-Ross reaction to facing the inevitable: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.
Well, guys, there's good news and bad news about being middle aged. The good news is that you don't have any problems talking to pretty girls anymore. The bad news is that their respectful and call you 'sir'.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Does this mean more pirated installs of BSD out there? I'm not sure that's a bad thing...
...guess I'm the moron here. I hereby retract the comment I made and humbly apologize for the name calling and failure to recognize the sarcasm. I'm really getting slow in my old age. Seriously, sorry 'bout that.</blush>
but in all fairness, piracy is where one boards a ship to beat, rape, pillage, and murder people.
...", etc. part. But the BSA does board your ship, so to speak, pillage your organization, especially if they find one single unlicensed software. You will henceforth become an all-Microsoft shop.
The BSA does send thugs to your place to search for infringing software. I'm not sure about whether the BSA engages in the "beat, rape,
So maybe the BSA is correct, in a way, piracy will increase in response to increases in copyright infringement.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Headline reads,
Software Piracy Will Get Worse.
But if you read the article, it actually says software piracy will double its market share in five years, thus:
Software Piracy Will Get Better
would be more accurate.
"Worldwide revenue loss due to software piracy was estimated at $33 billion for 2004"
If they think that people who can settle for Irfan View for their photo will pay >$600 for photoshop, then they are wrong. Any guy in Nigeria (!) who is using Photoshop "because he can" will happily use Irfan View hadn't photoshop been available for him on the street for $1 a pop.
This seems all similar if not worse than the RIAA reasoning.
Why stop at $200 million BSA? Why not just say nine zillion billion dollars are lost to copyright inf..oh, I mean "pirates"? Obviously the more the better and you don't even have to provide proof for your figures.
I have seen this kind of quote many, many times. There as always been one crucial assumption in them that I believe is a flaw in thinking. .pps with Powerpoint, then my co-workers need Powerpoint to read it) Whatever is popular enough becomes the standard. If it is a game, then you have to consider the hype effect. Enough hype makes me want the game more 'cause all my friends are playing it too and are raving about it.
If there are say 10 million possible customers for your software at a licence cost of 10$, then the bean counters assume that means projected sales of 100 million dollars. If they only sell 6 million copies, they then claim that they "lost" 40 million to piracy. * a failure to sell is not automatically a loss* Out of those 10 million possible customers, some used a competing product (open source/free or commercial), some used pirated copies and some simply did without.
If I were to use a pirated copy of a application, that does not automatically translate into lost earnings for the producer. First off, without the pirated alternative, I may not have used that product at all. (which is *still* lost earnings)
Second, if that application is a utility, then my using it, by any means, only encourages others to use it as well. (if I create a
Bottomline, *if* I use your software without permission, I am indeed stealing *but I am not stealing your money* While my actions may hurt your bottom line an infintesmal amount, they also contribute to your company's popularity. Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't this part of the basic premise behind most shareware and freeware given out by otherwise "for profit" companies and solo programmers? Simply let people have for free, and if it's good enough, enough people will agree to pay you that you can profit.
I need a wheelchair van for my son. Help me get the word out. https://www.gofundme.com/wheelchair-van-for-jj
They make their products too expensive.
ppl notice they can get a *free* copy from a friend or of the internet.
If they want piracy to become less worse, they've got to do 2 things:
1) Lower the price to something which will be accapteable to the customer (either the consumer or a given company).
2) Increase the quality of the software.
Amount of profit is irrelevant.
Most people I know go to Walmart because it is cheaper.
They don't go to the other store because the price is higher.
They have no idea what the profit or loss is for that item at each store, and they don't care.
Many Rental and leasing agreements and laws are typically written as non transferable, or with conditions on transfer.
It isn't like you own the software you are licensing.
If my cost is $100 I'd rather sell 10 at $500 than 50 at $200.
The BSA are murderers
By "murderers" I mean that they are guilty of using pejorative language to skew the debate. By "debate", I mean propaganda campaign.
Phew. It sure gets complicated when the very language used in debate gets redefined by one side to suit their own purposes. And look how many of the comments here play right in to their hands.
Once more from the top : "piracy" is unlawful seizure or robbery of ships or property thereon.
This practice of tainting debate though deceptive language is not just malapproprism, it's paedophilia
Did you know that there's no agreed upon concept of the value of software (or the "value" of anything for that matter) in the economic theory. Same also goes with the price. So there's a much more fundemental problem here. It's not only piracy, it's not only software.
But your point in the scarcity argument is correct. Something which is not "scarce" as in the software case, cannot be a "commodity" in an economy based on capitalist principles. But the propensity of the capitalist economy is to "commoditise" everything in order to profit from them.
Intelectual Property is the main driving force behind the "new economy". It is thought as the next big export item from developed countries to underdeveloped ones. The reason: it can be multiplied endlessly with almost no effort, which means that after the breakeven point, the ratio of profit in any marginal unit sold is almost %100. Who doesn't want to make %100 profit.
The main problem is that there's still a huge fixed cost for the production of the first unit. And there's no guarantee that that cost will be recovered (e.g. flop big-budget movies and any hit-based IP industry like music and video games). So there's lots of risk. That risk is actually factored in the prices too.
The point I'm trying to make here is that the problem of the industry has nothing to do with technology. It's all economic, and it's so deep that I don't think there's an easy way out of this. I've been thinking about this and discussing with some of my friends (economy professors) for 5+ years but haven't come up with any solution short of enforcing IP laws as hard as other property laws which needs at least an Orwellian police state. Although the US at least is going in that direction of becoming one (for other obvoius reasons) and the BSA report shows that some of the most drastic gains in lowering the piracy rate happened in non-democratic countries (e.g. UAE), I can't see that the worlwide problem can be solved this way. The peaceful solution is ideological brainwash (education in BSA terms), but that will take a long time in countries where piracy is the norm and actually covertly supported by the governments to increase competitiveness in exports (India and China are prime examples) .
Sorry for any misunderstanding.
It took me the better part of an hour to find a good copy of Office 2003 yesterday.
kidding!!! I'm kidding
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm
"Wow, so the BSA is reporting that piracy will continue to grow. We all know how objective and unbiased a report created by an anti-software piracy group must be."
So by implication we know that the pro-piracy groups are going to give us an unbiased look at the situation.
If you're going to slam reputations, you might want to look at the state your side is in first.
Well, if you'd grunted at it, you'd noticed that it finds FOSS stuff too. Why would anyone bother downloading FOSS from P2P when you can just google for it and get it from the official homepage much faster is not something I understand, but you can get it from P2P.
Certainly. However, please understand that the Windows "ease of use" is mostly illusory - getting the program working might be easy, keeping it working well is another matter. Library incompatibilities (and missing libraries too) are not unknown in Windows world either. And many Windows programs have "copy protection" mechanisms which have the nasty tendency of being either very inconvenient (you have to enter the CD each time you want to play) or making the machine unstable (Morrowind crashed my machine almost each time at CD check time - no-CD patch solved the problem), or both. FOSS is free from such problems.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
I guess in the developed countries, there's nothing to pirate... everyone already has that piece of crap OS, and those craps applications.
I havent seen anything new in the store that jump out and really make me drool over.
"You've missed the point. If I write a shareware program and receive no registrations, then complain that I've been cheated out of = $(#downloads * $registration) I've made an invalid assumption"
The key hinge is value. Can digital goods have value? If so then; can that value be influenced by people not honoring reciprocal agreements?* If it can then that means that OSS as well as shareware can be affected, even though the nature of the agreements are different. Make note that "form" plays no part in this discussion.
The consequences of the free distribution of digital goods that are ment to support an economic model (An incidental in OSS) vary depend on who's doing the arguing. From the "free advertising" to the "saturation of the market", both arguments have only circumstantial, and anecdotal evidence to support their positions.
But I don't think we should take the neutral position and assume that there's no influence, nor even the "It's all good". For a freedom loving "Don't thread on me" group. The idea that others are making your decisions for you should resonate with both citizens, and artists.
*If not THAT good, then how about future goods? No more good free code being written, or good quality music being played from those with talent (How many people aren't going into the arts because of the present day handling of all artists by BOTH sides?)
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Value of digital good that will support an artist ($1000)
|
|
100 people that purchase good at $10 because they don't have it.
|
|
Artist continues producing
</BLOCKQUOTE>
verses
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Value of digital good that will support an artist ($1000)
|
|
50 people that purchase it at $10
|
|
Minus 50 people who didn't purchase it at $10 because they already have it from P2P
|
|
Equals a shortfall of $500.
|
|
Lather, rinse, repeat however long your savings last, and your tolerance to pain.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
Conclusion: Why the hell are you an artist in such an easily abused career?
Although i disagree totally with the label 'piracy' for infringing on a copyright agreement, i think this is great.
Copy it all, to hell with them.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
It isnt piracy when your operating system and all of its software is Free.
-- -=innocent ramblings from the mind of an insomniatic programmer=-
Why not just provide a gallery of web applications to the masses instead of binary packages to computers. The cost of computers would go down because only basic utilities would be included like the browser, and a media player. Web applications provide a way to interface with a wide range of computer technologies as well as operating systems. People could pay a subscription service to such an application service provider for the monthly or yearly use of the service. I know that if someone really wanted to do it we could write an XML commons for formatting data carried across such a web application service, ranging from spreadsheets to webmail anything can be done online with Rich Applications based on a web application service.
New Zealand is one of the lowest piracy countries? Here's BSA's dirty little secret. BSA has no office in New Zealand, and don't monitor New Zealand, and don't take reports about cases in New Zealand from its closest office in Australia. It's great that the BSA stays out of this backwater, it's not as if we have all run out to pirate software because they have not been looking over our shoulder. The point is that they have to be making something up if they put New Zealand at the top of the "Good" list if they don't gather any data from the country.
This is supposed to be bad news how?
I think they should offer lower prices on software, because, there is NO WAY EVER, that I would infact pay for somthing thats 600 Dollars, and only does one thing (images!), maybie 600 dollars for a good video encoder, a blend of psp and photoshop, somthing like garage band, somthing like fruity loops, and maybie even an os, then i'll consider it, but utill then... NO
Your skill in reading has increased by one point!
Do I need to be the one that points out, again, that software piracy causes maybe a 5% profit loss? Most of those who use it illegally would never have paid for it, if they couldn't get it for free.
Damn, stop wasting your money on copy protection, macro-media, catus data sheild, yada yada yada, and focus on writing good software. Its not stopping ANYONE from using it illegally. Its only making it hard for those who would never pay for it to use it.
-- If we don't stand up for our rights, now, there will be no right to stand up for them later.
Certainly anything the BSA says is pure bullshit. This has already been well established in the comments to this. Its really quite simple: Any personal use is NOT piracy, but if you profit from anyone's work, you really owe them something! If the application is useless to you, just destroy it. Has the BSA heard about the 'try before you buy' concept?
It gets even more blurred when you are dealing with source code. If you are a developer, you really want to have the source code and compile it yourself. Some companies really want a pretty stiff non-disclosure agreement but the bottom line is personal use is fine but distribution is not. Again, if you profit from it, you are morally obliged to contribute. If not, destroy and inform the company that you have done so.
Another class of software it that which is specific to a particular device, namely drivers. In this case, nobody pays for software, it comes "free" with the hardware unit although we all know it it probably the most expensive part. I could care less if people distribute copies of "Finalscratch" in either form. This can only to lead to more sales. More hardware sold, more money to all the developers.
Any software only products I develop are by default open source -- no exceptions. I have the luxury to demand this condition. All of the developers I know feel the same, unfortunately some aren't millionaires yet.
BSA, If you don't understand this, you will be despised by the very people you try to protect and laughed out of court.
Cry me a river, just to get better support of parlament to push for tougher laws; Jail time for piracy, yet some pedophiles are out for a walk in your neighborhood, some teenagers are playing costly pranks, and some crook carves your face with a knive just to get 20 bucks out of you.. if you still can afford to have spare 20 bucks on you. Cheers, LL
"But within five years, that number could boom to two-thirds, with the value of pirated software nearing US$200 billion."
The software is obviously not worth that much, if two-thirds of its users are unwilling to pay it. If anything in the system is flawed, I'd say its their marketing and pricing strategies.
Therefore, the steps to acquire and install a FOSS app would be:
...
Let's try the gimp 2.0 right after it first came out.
1. Go to Sourceforge or Google and search for the gimp.
2. Download the exe installer.
3. Double-click "setup.exe," "install.exe," or "[whatever].msi"
4. Be notified that you have to have GTK+ installed for the gimp to work...even though you already have it installed to support gaim, your other favorite FOSS app.
5. Download the gimp's GTK+ installer and run it.
6. Install the gimp.
7. Try to launch gaim and watch it fail because the wrong version of GTK+ is installed.
8. Reinstall gaim's version of GTK+.
9. Try to launch the gimp and watch it fail because the wrong version of GTK+ is installed.
10.
This problem has since been solved, but it was a showstopper while it lasted. The two FOSS apps couldn't be on the same machine at the same time. I've never had this problem with Trillian and Photoshop.
I used to think that the reason software was always easy to install in windows was that microsoft somehow "got it right" with software installation whereas linux wasn't there yet. But I've since changed my mind.
Up until MSI, microsoft didn't have that much of a role helping third party applications get installed. The real difference is that windows is a platform for applications whereas linux is not. It is possible to count on certain fixed set of things being available in windows, and nothing else. On linux, it's not even possible to count on an ABI-compatible libc being present on the target system; however, applications make this stupid assumption and so we have the package management mess.
Windows applications (and application installers) that are put together with this in mind work very well (Trillian, Photoshop). Windows applications that do not are not so fortunate (the gimp, gaim). My interpretation of the situation is that the linux heritage of these applications and the linux experience of those who constructed the installers is what allowed this problem to happen.
...the Anti-Virus industry forecasts severe increases in viruses.
Piracy is an issue on the Internet and it is getting worse. Lets face it, if there is one thing that Open Source and Closed source can agree on is piracy. Piracy is a violation of copyright, and imagine the uproar in the Open Source community if 75% of individuals used Open Source for products and did not disclose the modifications? There would be cries for "bloody murder"!!!!
These days there are simply too many people who are too eager to download cracks. Think of it this way. Shareware is distributed via the Internet, meaning a user of shareware is Internet savy. This means it is easy to find a crack, and hence not pay a cent.
Shareware authors generally don't mind some pirating, but some people are loosing like 75% of their income. They do not measure it by downloads, but by support questions, and drop off in income.
Here is the trick, shareware author comes out with software, sales come in. Shareware author watches the crack sites and sees when a crack comes out. Shareware income drops like a rock.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
... just not deal with licensing at all? Let us think of this
Monkey See, Monkey Do!! And out government, and the BSA have no right in my opinion to Bi7ch about it. The US is over stolen ground (groans, not this story again). We stole this land, and the resources. So it's only fair that our legacy of thievery continue over the internet..... Just a thought....
All the more reason to stick it to the man and use open source!
Bypass Compulsory Web Registration -- http://bugmenot.com/
In the rest of the world, "american" is a word that means "fucking retarded".
Okay, so this is a different number and it's kind of like comparing apples and oranges...
But in 1990, Compute! magazine took a poll of its subscribers. Over 80% of them had pirated software at least once.
But now the percentage of computer users who pirate software is a lot lower.
Why is that?
Because back in 1990, the only people who were really using computers at home were geeks. And they all knew how to get around the copy protection. These days, copy protection is a little harder, and access to methods around it are readily available on the internet, but 80% of the people who use the internet haven't got the first clue about how to circumvent copy protection. Or even know where to find the cracks that do it. Or how to use them. Add to the fact that you can't exactly download an 800 megabyte application off the web as easily as you can get the latest copy of Eudora. Sure, there's torrent sites, but you have to *know* they exist, and *know* where they are. But considering the number of people who even *know* where Eudora's website is, or even that Firefox is a browser like Internet Explorer, and all of a sudden the problem seems quite a lot smaller.
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
Seriously where do they get there figures from? Most of the ppl using the pirated software would not be using it if they had to pay for it, therefore that is not a monetary loss to the company anyway.
The BSA are really running a protection racket.
I encountered them by telephone when they threatened to sue my company because we were using unlicensed software - Microsoft and Veritas. They clamied they had received an anonymous report from a disgruntled ex-employee who had provided documentary evidence. They told me that unless I provided a full asset register within 30 days court proceedings would be instigated.
To cut a long story short I refused to provide this and I have not heard from then since.
In Linux, to acquire a FOSS app, (assuming you are running any sort of normal version of Linux), the steps are:
1. Run the "Install Software" application from the main menus,
2. Enter the root password when asked,
3. Select the "Section" applicable to the application you want (eg Graphics software)
4. Browse through the list of available packages with descriptions to select what you want
5. Select the desired package for installation,
6. Click "Apply"
7. Wait for the package and all dependencies to be downloaded and installed for you.
8. Run app and be on your way...
oh, and BTW, you misnumberd 6 for Windows, which is reboot.
And also after step 7 for Windows (Run app and be on your way...) you forgot (for apps loaded from P2P) steps 8 through 27 which are all the same:
"figure out where malware was installed and remove it".
They're simply overvaluing their software.
I'm an Australian working and living in Vietnam and the piracy rate there is hardly surprising.
I was working with a bunch of networks guys a month or so ago and the subject of salary came up. These guys were on $100USD per month. They were university graduates with industry certifications working as IT professionals on 100 bucks per month!
Now who in the "Developed" world could afford to pay multiple months salary for software.
I bought the Tiger family license the other day for $200. The distributor had to order it in specially and as I was waiting in the office I was tended to by 3 people. It was like I was buying a BMW or something.
Piracy in the developing world is totally different to the developed world. When they talk about "lost revenue" in places like Vietnam they are seriously kidding themselves. The revenue has to "be there" to "be lost".
Net Hack!!!!!
and... free civ.
I think we have established that Americans don't care what the rest of the world thinks.
"I don't know about the KDE package manager but I highly doubt it will find every app a user is looking for and it probably only searches locally on a CD-ROM, not on the internet for the latest and greatest."
Package managers are provided by the distributions, not by KDE.
Fedora is the very worst distribution as it provides only yum. I'd personally get and use apt4rpm.
Debian, Mandrake and Suse are all vastly better - they provide Synaptic, RPMdrake and YAST respectively.
They each provide far better search capabilities than any P2P application - you can search by name or keyword in description, or you can browse sections.
And no, they do search locally. There are >17000 FOSS packages in the on-line Debian repositories, and that is what Synaptic searches.
According to reliable sources, the basic "software piracy" figures oft quoted by the BSA are oversimplified and down right dishonest.
Their method of calculating piracy?
the formula: piracy = PC's sold - BSA software titles sold.
This sloppy little math equation means that if you use linux, open office, or other OSS alternatives to "big software" product you are a "dirty pirate" and should be hung for murder and pillaging on the high seas =).
I'm not claiming that all their figures, or their more in depth studies are guilty of this, but their PR campaign's simplified figures are produced this way. (one can only hope they don't supply the same numbers to our senators, or that our senators are more intelligent than we think)
How can you steal something that does not yet exist?
Dead easy. Even for ALSA sound drivers.
There are two methods, either the GUI method or the console method.
GUI:
1. Select "Install Software" from the menus.
2. Search for ALSA.
3. Select "mark for install" against the ALSA package.
4. Click "Apply".
Console method:
1. Open a console terminal, and login as root.
2. Type "apt-get install alsa"
Note: this is for Debian. For other distributions, it is slightly different, but similarly easy.
I have to admit I just pirated a program.
I have a HP computer that is a couple years old. The CD writer software that came with it suddnly started crashing when it finished burning 1 cd. To recover would require a reboot. No problem. It must have a damaged file somewhere. I deleted the program and got out the original disks to re-install the application.
This is when I found out the application is part of the Ghost install. To re-install the application would mean a total hard drive re-image. I have suffered through 2 hard drive failures and re-install's. (the troublesome 30 gig IBM drives) I wasn't willing to do a full wipe of the drive to reinstall one troublesome app. I borrowed a copy of the same program and installed it.
I wish computer manufactures wouldn't be so difficult in the ablility to re-install a single application. The drivers were on a seprate install disk so I could re-install the LAN or Sound drivers, but an application re-install would require a wipe of the drive.. Give me a break. I wouldn't have pirated a copy of the CD burner program if they provided a way to re-install a damaged copy that would not wipe the hard drive.
The truth shall set you free!
15,000 to 1 really isn't meaningless. What it means is that most Zimbabwean's can't afford to eat and certainly can't afford to buy any imported goods. Hell before the debasement of the currency a Zim dollar was actually worth something.
And even though we think a Zim dollar is basically worthless, to an average Zimbabwean living in abject poverty a Zim dollar is real money. Many live on less than 800 Zim dollars a month.
"The Zimbabwean dollar is pegged at 6,200 against the US dollar, yet on the black market last week it traded for over 13,000 to greenback.
Zimbabwe is mired in its worst-ever economic crisis, with a triple-digit inflation rate, unemployment levels over 70% and the critical lack of foreign currency."
PS It costs 30,000 Zim dollars for a coffee at a nice restaurant in Harare - but they prefer you to pay in US$.
..this, but I might be the first to write it. Is it any wonder that the highest rates of piracy are in countries with a combination of low standard of living combined with poor law enforcement (in general, not just as it relates to software piracy - not eventhe US is great at that)?
Ok... so if somehow people were completely stopped from pirating, the software industry would have made an additional $33 billion?
.NETed the hell out of it.
Let's see how that works out... most of the software I use on a daily basis, I did in fact pirate at first. I used it and often still use the pirated versions that I've installed even after getting a proper license. The fact is that most of the programs, I'd have never bought if I didn't get to use the programs freely until I could afford them.
Also, there's an interoperability issue. If for example, I write a document using Visio, then I send the document to someone. I use Visio since I know the other person can view the document using a pirated copy of Visio (since the Visio Viewer installer has been broken for many versions).
I often buy acedemic editions of software just to give money back to the companies I'd otherwise pirate from. For example, I would never-ever-ever pay $299 for a copy of Windows XP Pro (home is a joke). So, I buy the $78 Windows XP Pro Academic Upgrade that I'm not entitled to. And why? Because I'd like to have software I've actually paid for, but as a home user buying 5 copies of Windows XP Pro, I need to stick to what is fair. Microsoft has gotten nearly $450 for my Windows XP licenses from me. If they insisted on the $299 per copy, I'd buy one copy and warez the rest.
As to programs like AutoCAD. I use AutoCAD for many hobby projects. I used use AutoCAD inventor, Orcad, and Protel. There is a hell of a lot of money right there. If I could buy AutoCAD, the actual box for $200, I'd do it in a second. If I could get Inventor for $300, I'd do it in a second. If I could get Orcad for $300, no doubt. Protel, I don't think I'd consider paying for ever since they
So all things considered, the primary reason I pirate is because I don't have the money to give to them in the first place. I only make $120k a year, I still have to pay for the house, feed the family, fill the car up, etc...
As for businesses in these countries they're talking about, well that's another story... Microsoft is pissed that a company that pays their average employee $50 a month or less isn't licensing software for $600 a year per machine. Well, let's do the math here... less than $600 a year gets you an entire person to work 10 hours a day 6 days a week. But $600 or more a year gets you the tools they need to use.
I'm not entirely sure my logic is correct here, but really, I think the company would use paper and pencil if they were forced to before paying more for the software than it would cost to hire the people to sort it out manually.
As for Sweden, well Swedish companies are from my personal experience (been there A LOT!!!) not so bad with piracy. Now Swedish home users tend to pirate constantly. The best piracy sites are all Swedish and it appears they don't even try to hide it. Swedish privacy laws protect users from their identification ever being told to someone looking to sue them. ISP's will never release personal information to RIAA or MPAA since the laws protect them from having to do so. Sweden also has some of the fastest home lines. Actual ethernet connections, not ADSL to the house.
The U.K. that's more of a psychology related issue. They typically have always lived by the "Well if it's so easy to pirate, they why bother paying for it" rule. I'll never be able to fully understand it, but everytime I visit London, I always feel as if I'm surrounded by a bunch of people that would steal my childrens candy if I didn't watch them closely enough. The university campuses in england are typically filled with scarier and more suspicious people than you would find the the south bronx in new york. And as for the rest of the working class in england. Well, if you ever see a soccer match in the UK, you'll be offended the next time that any Englishman dares to refer to themselves as civilized. I feel as if the people would be best referred to as "The Mob" and the only thing that would improve their experience at the game would be to unleash 10 angry, starving lions onto the field during the game.
There the BSA goes again, inflating numbers and making claims, all the while cranking up the propoganda machine.
Why do I say this? Simply put, they're claiming numbers which are simply pulled out of thin air. As I've said numerous times, business organizations and software companies like to fabricate "loss factors" based on populations, and claim that they're losing money, when in fact a high percentage of the loses they're claiming are from people who would've never bought their products in the first place. ((e.g. Whether it's a welfare mom who plays with Photoshop for something to do, or a 3rd world genius making political satire, then again if he's a genius he's probably using some flavor of unix anyway...)
This is just another scare tactic of the corporate machine in order to get sympathy from the politicians. (...and this is coming from a Republican.)
Only thing I have to say beyond that, "Move along, there's nothing to see here."
Who cares about the ozone layer?...thanks to CFC's I can write my name......IN CHEESE!!!
From the front page of dag.wieers.com
"Stop software 'piracy', support Open Source!"
I live in a country where we can't afford to pay for most of the software, music or movies simply because they are sold at the same price as in the U.S. or wherever they are made. Why don't manufacturers scale the prices to each country's possibilities? This is certainly hard to do, but I refuse to buy if I can just download it from the net.
As the internet grows, millions of people that currently do not pay for software, will continue to not pay for software.
apt-get install apache
Let's see I don't have alot of entertainment expenses (Never go to movies(Seen 1 in 3 years), and never go to bars(I hate alchohol of any sort)), Usually cook for myself, I do buy books, but those are mostly work related, don't buy hardware very often, my roommate pays for DSL, I pay for gas and electricity, and I can't stand to travel. And usually I am broke. :-)
Kosh: "Understanding is a 3 edged sword, your side, their side, the Truth."
The drivers to support my soundcard were released as a source patch against the alsa-lib sources. They weren't integrated into the core codebase. Also, how do you apt-get install something that's not in any apt-get repositories? The point I was making is that many things are released source-only.