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BSA Piracy Study Deeply Flawed
zbik writes "Corante reports that The Economist has blown the lid off the BSA's recent report on software piracy (covered by Slashdot), referring to their methods as 'BS'.
'They dubiously presume that each piece of software pirated equals a direct loss of revenue to software firms.' The BSA has complained that the article is offensive but does not dispute their analysis. Score one for common sense."
BSA is the 'BS' Association.
Your Rights Online: The Sun is Hot
Your Rights Online: Osama Bin Laden Not a Nice Man
Your Rights Online: Some Politicians May Be Influenced By Money
ok, cool.... Now, anyone got a torrent of MAC OSX 10.4 for x86? We need more data to test.
Life is not for the lazy.
But I thought "trustworthy" was one of the parts of the scout law! Was I mistaken? Is there some sort of mix-up here?
I'm so disillusioned just now...
For any company confident enough to claims they have lost 100,000 copies in revenue. They need to also claim they have increased their market share by 100,000 users.
We all know that their method of determining loss is flawed. Let's say I'd like to play with a program called A, I don't really need it in my business or at home, but it looks nice and maybe I'd use a part of it once. I would never have bought program A at $499 for a one time use and to play around with. I rather download it from somewhere and install it. This would count as a loss of $499 but this is flawed. I would never have bought the program in the first place if I had not gotten it from the net. Why? I can't defend spending $499 on a program I have virtually no use for.
If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
If you prove the antipiracy studies' use of bogus assumptions, the pirates WIN!
You're looking for quotes? See my journal.
if all those people couldn't have found a .torrent of photoshop cs 2, i'm sure they would have bought it...
The Economist has blown the lid off the BSA's recent report on software piracy, referring to their methods as 'BS'.
BSA = 'BS' Analysis ?
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
Boy these people's heads are stuck so far up their asses that they can see through their mouths... you just can't make this stuff up.
Dissolve... Resolve... Evolve...
It would be interesting to see a real estimate of the 'costs' of piracy, compared to the benefits companies reap from their products being pirated. It would be extremely difficult to accurately measure, but I bet the results would be that piracy just doesn't cost that much.
:)
Not that I in any way condone piracy
The economist is refusing connexion with Slashdot as referer. Simply copy/paste the link in a new tab.
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
Much as we might laugh at the BSA's (don't they make guns and motorcycles?) figures, illegal software distribution (I refuse to call it piracy until is bad for open source. Every low budget company that copies top-of-the-line software that it can't afford is the loss of another business that might be persuaded at the cost efficiency of a Free Software solution.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
I can see why Beth Scott would find that headline offensive.
"IDC estimates the average amount of software that is installed on a PC per country ... That figure is then reduced by the known quantity of software sold per country-a calculation in which IDC specialises."
So every time I choose OpenOffice rather than Microsoft Word, I bump the piracy losses a little more? (+1 installed, +0 sold) Good show...
Could someone pirate the economist article for us? :-D
The implication that an industry would purposely inflate the rate of piracy and its impact to suit its political aims is ridiculous. The problem is real and needs no exaggeration.
then stop exaggerating putz!
I was at the AppleFest Boston in 1983, where Steve Wozniak brought up that point in the piracy debate/round table. Of course that was after he ducked under the table to put on his eye patch and hat. Before that he was quoting BSA type figures while being interrupted by the phone where he answered "just type BRUN CHOPLIFTER"
Fight Spammers!
Yes. Definately score one for common sense.
1. The general public who uses "pirated" software wouldn't have bought it anyways, hence there's no loss of income. Moreover, they pretty much act as free beta testers.
2. Most companies who use commercial software do pay the licensing fees, so no loss of income. However, companies that decide to switch to cheaper, possibly opensource solutions are in fact loss of income for the software vendors. Nonetheless, switches like this are completely legal. So again, no loss of income due to illegal actions.
The BSA is full of it.
Those who use pirated software wouldn't have bought it anyways and even if forced (as in bigbrother) to not use a certain piece of software without paying, they would have found alternative applications and still not pay up.
Those who do pay are getting fed up with the EULAs, crappy software and prices then turn to cheaper alternatives.
^_^
actually, the Boy Scouts of Hong Kong are now being encouraged to become anti-pirates:
and now back to the fallout shelter...
Because it's software (information), you haven't prevented them from selling it to anyone else, either! They've lost no assets - they can still sell it to anyone else they want!
--LWM
Just ask Microsoft -- if not for so many pirated copies of Windows all over the world they would have lost market share to Linux or something else. They just settled a piracy dispute with the government of Thailand. THOUSANDS of government computers had pirated copies of Windows and Thailand settled with Microsoft for $1 per computer. The last time I checked on NewEgg.com, an OEM copy of WindowsXP Pro costs $140. Therefore, it's worth $139 / machine to Microsoft to make sure Linux is *not* installed...
Slashdot quotes the BSA as "not disputing" the Economist's analysis.
The BSA has complained that the article is offensive but does not dispute their analysis. Score one for common sense.
The BSA says:
The implication that an industry would purposely inflate the rate of piracy and its impact to suit its political aims is ridiculous. The problem is real and needs no inflation.
The BSA spokesperson claims the numbers are not inflated; the Economist says they are.
That sounds like dispute to me.
--
AC
The people (guess Who) that paid for that report got the report that they want. Just what is new about that.
Sounds a whole lot like the Bush Administration being taken to task over internment camps... just say "offensive" and pretend it's not true.
They estimate the amount of software on each PC and then subtract sales revenues. What is left is pirated software? Talk about a loophole in their logic! Based on their logic, any piece of freeware that is installed on a computer is revenue that BSA considers lost.
Though if you consider who is partners with the BSA, it's not surprising they'd consider Linux and Openoffice to be "warez"!
If these companies came down HARD on Joe User and really scared these pirates I'm sure many of them (not all- not even a majority of them, actually) would just:
1) shrug their shoulders
2) install Linspire or Ubuntu, Openoffice, Firefox, Thunderbird
3) call it a day
If pirates were REALLY scared of being caught they would see the benefit to just loading their computers full of FOSS (and burning the many dozens of CDs that contain W@R3Z!1!).
Truth is there is no fear of being caught.
It's kind of weird that all copyright/piracy/P2P articles show up in the "patents" section,
So, if there's 3,000,000 people with an operating system, but our members have only sold 2,000,000, that's 1,000,000 pirated copies of our member's operating systems! Call the police/FBI/attack-squads!!!
Surely that can't be how they work it out. Anyone ever had one of these IDC surveys? How specific are they, would they allow them to filter out software by publisher/developer so that for instance GIMP and Photoshop don't both show up as "Graphics Tools"? If not, that means every copy of GIMP would be a loss to Adobe!
(Note - it wouldn't surprise me if that is exactly how it works, and that it was entirely deliberate, but that's a different matter...)
Game dev and music blog
... some Microsoft (related?) sales person calls my company and asks me about any plans for upgrading to whatever it is they are trying to sell at that moment. I get the pleasure of stating, "we're attempting to reduce our use of Microsoft software" and when asked, I explain that the BSA audit our company went through some years ago soured many people on Microsoft so badly that we're steadily seeking alternatives.
It's not a full or heavy press at the moment, but I believe there will be a day...
So basically you can justify copying ANY piece of software by simply stating that you wouldn't have paid for it anyway??
If everybody thought the way you do, there wouldn't be a software industry.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
The Economist.
Deep under cover, the Economist works hard to blow the lid off the scandalous BSA.
But the BSA has a few tricks of their own, and their own army. People around the Economist mysteriously start dying and/or disppearing.
The Economist is determined... to blow the lid off this story.
And then the final scene - it's revealed to the Economist that he's really a warrior from god, and that the BSA has been heavy into the occult and needed the lies of humanity to feed the gate to revive Satan (played by TV's Patrick Duffy).
Fuckin BLOCKBUSTER.
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
Remember kids, only copy this video if it's for educational purposes.
Piracy is a serious issue. We don't appreciate you BSA folks downplaying the importance of actual killin' and stealing of booty. YARRRRRRRR!!!!
ooohhh, B$A is hte sux0rz!!!!!11
A company I worked for went through a BSA audit including Microsoft Office among others. When figuring their "penalty" for office, they used a 2x multiplier on retail cost. Of course they did it seperately for a full copy of Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc... making each copy of Office to be $2400.
...but I do believe that there are many cases where copyright infringement is quite justified and also quite harmless.
In fact, the attempts being made to stop copyright infringement are far more economically and personally harmful than the copyright infringement itself. You know...kinda like chopping off your arm to cure a hangnail.
But nobody cares what I think. Especially not the decision-makers.
The implication that an industry would purposely inflate the rate of piracy and its impact to suit its political aims is ridiculous.
No its not!
don copy that floppy
Oh come on, like this is even a believable article! Next they'll tell us the RIAA inflates their claims in the same fashion!
MoM++ - A Classic Expanded - [Master of Magic 1.5]
http://mompp.sourceforge.net/
BSA or just BS?
May 19th 2005
From The Economist print edition
Software theft is bad; so is misstating the evidence
IT SOUNDS too bad to be true; but, then, it might not be true. Up to 35% of all PC software installed in 2004 was pirated, resulting in a staggering $33 billion loss to the industry, according to an annual study released this week by the Business Software Alliance (BSA), a trade association and lobby group.
Such jaw-dropping figures are regularly cited in government documents and used to justify new laws and tough penalties for pirates--this month in Britain, for example, two people convicted of piracy got lengthy prison sentences, even though they had not sought to earn money. The BSA provided its data. The judge chose to describe the effects of piracy as nothing less than "catastrophic".
Intellectual property
But while the losses due to software copyright violations are large and serious, the crime is certainly not as costly as the BSA portrays. The association's figures rely on sample data that may not be representative, assumptions about the average amount of software on PCs and, for some countries, guesses rather than hard data. Moreover, the figures are presented in an exaggerated way by the BSA and International Data Corporation (IDC), a research firm that conducts the study. They dubiously presume that each piece of software pirated equals a direct loss of revenue to software firms.
To derive its piracy rate, IDC estimates the average amount of software that is installed on a PC per country, using data from surveys, interviews and other studies. That figure is then reduced by the known quantity of software sold per country--a calculation in which IDC specialises. The result: a (supposed) amount of piracy per country. Multiplying that figure by the revenue from legitimate sales thus yields the retail value of the unpaid-for software. This, IDC and BSA claim, equals the amount of lost revenue.
The problem is that the economic impact of global software piracy is far harder to calculate. Some academics have shown that some piracy actually increases software sales, by introducing products to people who would not otherwise become customers. Indeed, Bill Gates chirped in the 1990s that piracy in China was useful to Microsoft, because once the nation was hooked, the software giant would eventually figure out a way to monetise the trend. (Lately Microsoft has kept quiet on this issue.)
The BSA's bold claims are surprising, given that last year the group was severely criticised for inflating its figures to suit its political aims. "Absurd on its face" and "patently obscene" is how Gary Shapiro, boss of the Consumer Electronics Association, another lobby group, describes the new ranking.
See how you like it, Mr Economist!
http://mushroom.atspace.com/bsa.html
Gollum Not fair! It isn't fair, my precious, is it, to ask us what it's got in its nassty little PeeCeessssssesss?
Bilbo What have I got in my pocket?
Gollum Sssssss. It must give us three guesseses, my preciouss-three guesseses.
Bilbo Very well! Guess away!
Gollum Photoshop!
Bilbo Wrong! Guess again!
Gollum Sssssss. Autocad!
Bilbo Wrong! Last guess!
Gollum Sssssss
Bilbo Time's up!
Gollum DOOMIII!-or nothing!
BilboBoth wrong!
Tires are a concrete good that you cant reproduce at zero cost. Me taking them costs you profits. Software, however, does not cost you a potential sale if I was not going to buy the product. You can still sell "the tires" to someone else even if I drove off with them - because you can make an infinite number of tires *for free*.
As to market share, there are many markets in software that have *no* alternative with identical functionality (or even comparable). Closest alternative to Visio? A joke. Closest alternative to Windows? Incompatible. In a market where there are no acceptable alternatives, and the price point is unbearable, piracy has occured.
As to the right to use it, that much we agree on. But we're not arguing about the right to do it - we're discussing the reasons people *are* doing it, and what impact they have.
GPL'd web-based tradewars themed space game
Argument 1 is really weak. In your description, the auto shop lost time and money by having a worker take the time to rebalance your tires. You stole his work effectively. No such thing really results if you download software illegally. If you download "photostore SC" from a torrent, everyone sharing on the torrent was providing their bandwidth for free. Argument 2 is far streonger.
Let's debunk a few myths:
1)"I wouldn't have paid for it anyway, so it's not a lost sale"
OK, so let's say I go in to get my car's wheels rebalanced (or some other service). When they're done.. I just drive off without paying. Have I done anything wrong? Well, what if "I wouldn't have paid for it anyway"? So it's not a lost sale!
Umm, what the hell? That made zero, and by zero I mean none, sense. The analogy is too terrible to even examine.
2) "The software is too expensive"
So perhaps you wouldn't buy product A which is overpriced for your needs. But by pirating A, you rob product B and C - competing products that are much cheaper with limited functionality compared to A that still meet your needs - of market share.
Now here I can only conlude it should be illegal to buy any software at all, for everytime you do so you are depriving any computer of companies of revenue. I suggest you write your senator right away and demand that all software sales be outlawed on these grounds.
The fact is, if you don't pay for the software (unless a license is given for free), then you have no right to use the software. Period.
Now that part I agree with. You have no right. What is in question is how much harm it does, which depends entirely on the circumstances of the pirating and cannot be assigned a simple number. If a baby is given a pirated copy of Photoshop for teething is that really a loss to Adobe of $600? Please justify a yes response. The BSA would say yes.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You've just gotta love Brazil's response:
"We're against software piracy. We believe Microsoft's rights should be respected. And the simplest way to respect their rights is for Brazilians everywhere to switch to free software."
Ah, the joys of the kinds of arguments you use. Build up an imaginary foe and than attack it mercylessly. :-D
"1)"I wouldn't have paid for it anyway, so it's not a lost sale"
OK, so let's say I go in to get my car's wheels rebalanced (or some other service). When they're done.. I just drive off without paying. Have I done anything wrong? Well, what if "I wouldn't have paid for it anyway"? So it's not a lost sale!"
Ok, so let's say I get the opportunity to "pirate" photoshop and play around with it. Does that translate into a loss for adobe of whatever photoshop might cost today?
No, of course not, as I wouldn't have bought it anyway. It's just the fact that I can get it for free that makes me use it.
Now that's the argument people are making and you should address, unfortunately you instead opted to babble about something totally unrelated.
"2) "The software is too expensive"
So perhaps you wouldn't buy product A which is overpriced for your needs. But by pirating A, you rob product B and C - competing products that are much cheaper with limited functionality compared to A that still meet your needs - of market share."
I agree with you, however I don't see many people if anyone at all make the argument that "software piracy" is legitimate, because of software being to expensive.
So again you chose to attack windmills instead of addressing what people are actually saying.
IANAA(ccountant) or an economist, but with all these studies showing that the BSA is wrong or that the Microsoft studies are wrong, and all the controversy surrounding them, isn't there a standard way of conducting these things so that we can have one answer once and for all?
That's not to say we only need one study. If a study is independently backed up by others, then wouldn't we know the real effects of piracy?
'They dubiously presume that each piece of software pirated equals a direct loss of revenue to software firms.'
I completely agree that this does not give a 100% accurate picture of the actual piracy going on. The question is, how else do you measure it? Do we guess and pretend that 50% of pirated programs wouldn't be purchased so they don't count? The fact is that if you doownload a program and run it and you have no rights to that program, you are breaking the law, and that is what they are measuring. Is it a perfect picture of lost revenue? No. But there isn't a perfect picture and this one at least is consistent. Until someone comes up with a better, more accurate method, this is all there is.
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
1) I said tire balancing.. IE a SERVICE. No concrete goods lost here.
2) It depends on what you call an "acceptable" alternative. If the alternatives are slower/buggy/more cumbersome to use.. well, you get what you pay for. If you can't stand to live with the limitations of the lower priced product, buy the real one. Sometimes, you do get what you pay for.
I am the maverick of Slashdot
Seems corante.com got well and truly slashdotted. Where's the karma whore with the 'TFA for the latecomers' link?
Perhaps a few /.ers should go out and buy a subscription to the Economist.
As for me, my money is where my mouth is and I have my dead tree subscription
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
Not every pirated copy of an app equates to a 'lost' sale. We know that. But how are we going to convince companies that anti copy protection is 'evil' - after all - what do they really have to lose by preventing unauthorized use? Does 'try before you buy' factor in so much in the modern internet informed/magazine review/word-of-mouth saturated world? Really? Does it? We all know marketing hype works - if all that they need to rely on is that to generate sales then let me re-iterate. What have they got to lose?
Come on.. don't use arguments as silly as that.
Having your car's wheels rebalanced involves actual time lost for the mechanic. As such it is a very real loss of income, as that time could have been spent more profitably doing other work.
Copying software doesn't _cost_ anything to anyone. You are the one covering the expences of bandwith, CDs etc.
The only "loss" is the loss of a potential income. If you otherwise wouldn't have bought it (how many teens can really afford 3D-studio, Maya etc?) there is no actual loss to the producer.
What does an armory have to do with software piracy?
About 15 years ago, I lived in the Nasa area south of Houston for a few years.
One day I was in a computer store near NASA looking for a software package, but they were all sold out. When I asked why, the salesman said that every time any of the local NASA contractors had a software audit, everyone would rush out to buy legal copies of everything on their machines.
Somebody alert Penn and Teller!
Liberals call everyone Nazis yet they are the closest thing to it.
The BSA, what a bunch of jokers. They go around claiming that SW piracy does the SW industry this incredible injustice...
Well, it's funny that you can hardly find anyone in the SW industry who agrees, who actually know something about SW, like artists and programmers for example. It's only executives who aren't very technical and don't actually understand or use much who claim they're losing vast sums to piracy.
Want to know who pirates SW the most? People who make SW, and people who ultimately drive purchases of the most expensive SW for business and personal use. I've decided purchases of software selling for up to $16K per seat for entire teams in companies I've worked for, and it all went to staff members who were largely able to use it because they had learned to various degrees on pirated copies.
If it wasn't for SW piracy, far fewer people would be software expert users and the SW industry would be much smaller than it is. As a result, fewer PC computers would be sold, and we'd generally have a less computationally advanced society. That would obviously effect industries like the internet including commerce, movie special FX, and video game development, which are big economic drivers for the national economy.
Take Photoshop for example, that ubiquitous paint program. In my entire career I've never met a single Photoshop user, NOT ONE, that didn't sometimes use, and hadn't learned primarily on a pirated copy before becoming employed at a business that would purchase it to match their skills. Many of those people became interested in the field, and THEN went to school for training, because of the ability to try extensively for free. No trial programs don't suffice and never have. Reality is that every single art student has, and needs, a cracked copy. Later, studios buy software to match the preferences of the users, whose opinions are often based on use of pirated SW.
*** SW "piracy" = free advertising = increased market growth. ***
You can say the same for movie FX, or game development. Try and find people in those industries who don't give a large credit in their education to pirated software, or who would be less likely to be in the industry, and therefore not purchasing SW, if it wasn't for piracy. It's the same for many other industries. Even many secretaries and business software users have had access to pirated software to learn it, give it to friends, etc, which eventually supports a purchase in SW, and is like free advertising for the SW makers.
If it was possible to magically end all piracy in the US today, you'd see SW revenue and computer sales plummet in the short term, and overall national competitiveness drop in the long term.
These BSA bozos really do have their heads DEEP up their asses.
Companies like Adobe for example should be THANKING SW piracy for thier stock price.
Hey, if you say it like that, I'm sure a LOT of politicians want to try their luck in *ahem* virgin territory...
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
wheel balancing - loss of income to the mechanic
software piracy - loss of income to the programmers.
I am the maverick of Slashdot
Let's debunk a few myths: 1)"I wouldn't have paid for it anyway, so it's not a lost sale" OK, so let's say I go in to get my car's wheels rebalanced (or some other service). When they're done.. I just drive off without paying. Have I done anything wrong? Well, what if "I wouldn't have paid for it anyway"? So it's not a lost sale!
That's a really bad analogy. It's more like going to a porche dealership. Looking at their cars, deciding which one you want and then replicating it star-trek style.
It cost them absolutely nothing for you to replicate it. This hurts a company much less than physically stealing the car. The problem is how much does it really cost them?
The owners of intellectual property are not stupid, they probably have a rough figure for how much this costs them but the results are kept locked away from the public. The figures we see are almost certainly paid for by the PR budget.
Simon
Software piracy: BSA or just BS?
The Economist
Software theft is bad; so is misstating the evidence
It sounds too bad to be true; but, then, it might not be true. Up to 35% of all PC software installed in 2004 was pirated, resulting in a staggering $33 billion loss to the industry, according to an annual study released this week by the Business Software Alliance (BSA), a trade association and lobby group.
Such jaw-dropping figures are regularly cited in government documents and used to justify new laws and tough penalties for pirates--this month in Britain, for example, two people convicted of piracy got lengthy prison sentences, even though they had not sought to earn money. The BSA provided its data. The judge chose to describe the effects of piracy as nothing less than "catastrophic".
But while the losses due to software copyright violations are large and serious, the crime is certainly not as costly as the BSA portrays. The association's figures rely on sample data that may not be representative, assumptions about the average amount of software on PCs and, for some countries, guesses rather than hard data. Moreover, the figures are presented in an exaggerated way by the BSA and International Data Corporation (IDC), a research firm that conducts the study. They dubiously presume that each piece of software pirated equals a direct loss of revenue to software firms.
To derive its piracy rate, IDC estimates the average amount of software that is installed on a PC per country, using data from surveys, interviews and other studies. That figure is then reduced by the known quantity of software sold per country--a calculation in which IDC specialises. The result: a (supposed) amount of piracy per country. Multiplying that figure by the revenue from legitimate sales thus yields the retail value of the unpaid-for software. This, IDC and BSA claim, equals the amount of lost revenue.
The problem is that the economic impact of global software piracy is far harder to calculate. Some academics have shown that some piracy actually increases software sales, by introducing products to people who would not otherwise become customers. Indeed, Bill Gates chirped in the 1990s that piracy in China was useful to Microsoft, because once the nation was hooked, the software giant would eventually figure out a way to monetise the trend. (Lately Microsoft has kept quiet on this issue.)
The BSA's bold claims are surprising, given that last year the group was severely criticised for inflating its figures to suit its political aims. "Absurd on its face" and "patently obscene" is how Gary Shapiro, boss of the Consumer Electronics Association, another lobby group, describes the new ranking.
www.economist.com 21/05/05
1)"I wouldn't have paid for it anyway, so it's not a lost sale" OK, so let's say I go in to get my car's wheels rebalanced (or some other service). When they're done.. I just drive off without paying. Have I done anything wrong? Well, what if "I wouldn't have paid for it anyway"? So it's not a lost sale!
How much time would a car service center have to put in to rotate your tires? How much extra time would Company A put in when you use their software?
Compare the two and you will see why your analogy is flawed. Your car example requires a physical effort and service, software has no physical product or service involved.
Apple
IBM
Borland
Vertitas
Intel
Dell
Cisco
Adobe
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
The time spent on the service is the exact same, BAD, analogy.
Time is spent making software, but it reproduced an an infinite supply for free via piracy. Therefore your analogy of a tire service center is just bad.
Your simian moral instinct, physical analogy of right and wrong with physical goods and servics doesn't cut it. If you don't understand that, you're not qualified to discuss the subject.
Most users who would have bought the SW in the first place, still do buy it. Bussiness users still buy it.
Most who pirate the software do it at zero cost to the maker, and do not represent a lost sale, so there is ZERO loss to the SW maker.
Many SW pirates become familiarized with the SW through piracy, and will often increase SW purchases in latter years as a result, which is an upside for the SW industry. Like free advertising as an analogy.
1)"I wouldn't have paid for it anyway, so it's not a lost sale"
OK, so let's say I go in to get my car's wheels rebalanced (or some other service). When they're done.. I just drive off without paying. Have I done anything wrong? Well, what if "I wouldn't have paid for it anyway"? So it's not a lost sale!
Yes it is. In the time they spent balancing your wheels, they were unable to do other revenue-earning work. The time and effort involved here is a finite resource. This is in contrast to software, where copies can be made without using up the original.
Your example is more like walking into a shop, and stealing the CDs from the shelves without paying for them; this really does represent a lost sale, as the shop will no longer be able to sell those CDs. I doubt this is anywhere near as common as the "piracy" that the likes of the BSA are making a fuss about.
The next shocker will be finding out Joe Scarborough, Ann Coulter, and Rush Limbaugh are all paid right wing shills for a corrupt administration.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
There is still a concrete loss, the time of the employees who balanced your tires. Those employees could have been working on the car of someone who was paying.
Copying software doesn't cost the company anything. The software is already written, they aren't paying the employees to write it anymore. What's lost is a potential sale, some money that they might have received if certain conditions were met. They also might not have received that money. Some 15 year old pirating Photoshop to make a 1337 image for his HL2 clan is not a lost sale to Adobe. He wouldn't have bought the software if it was not available to be pirated.
Your argument holds no water.
While we're at it, do any of you want to admit to smoking pot, snorting coke, distributing a virus, or murdering a hooker? :-)
Start a happiness pandemic
The software company didn't lose the time and money having the programmers write the software (unless you're talking about contractors writing custom software). The software downloaded was already written, it was a copy of a complete work. In order for your argument to stand up, they would need to have been working on something for you instead of working on something for someone else who was going to pay.
Tires and software are goods. Tire balancing and software support are services. A software pirate does NOT cause lost revenue, because:
1) they have not (usually) stolen a physical product - nobody is deprived of that software due to the piracy.
2) Nobody is incurring support costs due to the piracy (how many pirates call up their software manufacturer?). With regards to software updates, I contend that even that costs the manufacturer nothing more than bandwidth, because they're developing the updates for their paying customers anyway.
The difference is that if you balance tires you have to balance every tire, every time. What if instead you could balance one tire, one time, and then every tire that entered your shop would automagically be balanced, for free, instantly? The customers who walked in, didn't pay, and left (pirates) now have balanced tires, but it didn't cost you anything beyond what you were willing to pay to begin with (water/power/etc).
How is this fictional tire store different than a software developer?
And of course, none of this changes the ethics, morality, or legality of software piracy. I'm making an economic argument, nothing more...
Software piracy isn't a loss of income to the programmer, it's a loss of potential income. That's like saying by choosing to use Linux instead of Windows I'm depriving incoming to the Windows programmers. I'm not, it was never an actual sale.
Software piracy
SIR - Your article on software piracy was extreme, misleading and irresponsible ("BSA or just BS?", May 21st). The headline was particularly offensive. The implication that an industry would purposely inflate the rate of piracy and its impact to suit its political aims is ridiculous. The problem is real and needs no exaggeration.
What an amusing little letter from an organization such as BSA.
extreme, misleading and irresponsible
Fine, enlighten us then- what is so "BS" about it, any proof/evidence?
The headline was particularly offensive.
W00t, let's go after the title, not the actual story itself! Attack the title to create an impression! Yes that's the way to win an arguement.
The implication that an industry would purposely inflate the rate of piracy and its impact to suit its political aims is ridiculous.
I don't see why not. Wow, I am really speechless. Fine, if you want to accuse the E of slendering, provide evidence that would uphold in a court battle.
The problem is real and needs no exaggeration.
So is your logic apparently.
Jesus, I can't believe the government is delegating the enforcement power to these idiots. This stuff looks as if it had been pass thru the random complain letter generator.
They should just hire me- even I can do better than that.
Any study done to legitimize a previously desired result can be proved wrong.
Remember, there are lies, damn lies, and statistics.
Any psuedo science that takes one set of data and can produce two opposite results (Statistics) is really nothing but rumor gossip and bullshit.
The mathematical versions of Statistics and Economics currently taught in all U.S. Universities were invented by out of work mathematicians in the 50's so they would get jobs. Always keep that in mind.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
Every programmer and artist I know all learned on pirated SW.
SW piracy has contributed tremendously to the growth of the SW industry, video game development, movie FX, and countless other industries.
Comapnies like Adobe OWE a LOT to piracy, as I've never met a PS user who didn't owe some part of his/her PS skills to pirated copies, and who would have been as likly to support a PS purchase without piracy.
F'ing sick of these greedy, hypocritical, A-holes.
The reality is that the BSA just bitches and cries wolf because they're trying to have it both ways.
Nothing new under the sun.
The BSA's fraudulent activities cost Linus Torvalds over $300 billion dollars yearly in the United States alone.
Their bogus numbers have caused people to be frightened away from Linux, which Linus *could* potentially be selling for $1000. The fact that he is making *no money* from each copy of Linux used is due to the fact that the BSA has damaged the perception of Linux so much. As a product technically superior to Windows, it should have taken over by now. That's $1000 per person. There are ~300 million people in the United States, counting every man, woman, and child. (We all know that GNOME is simple enough for a baby to use, so counting babies is perfectly legitimate.) Since Linux is upgraded so frequently, people would buy a new copy about annually.
As you can see, since the BSA is COSTING LINUS TORVALDS OVER $300 BILLION DOLLARS IN THE UNITED STATES THIS YEAR ALONE, we desperately need laws to protect the starving open source software authors that are being victimized by the criminal activity of the BSA. It is crucial that we receive laws to protect these authors -- all companies choosing a non-open-source software product over an open-source software product should be required to annually submit a report with cost estimates and associated usability/compatibility testing as to why they choose not to use open source software.
No, it's just not the same. We need whatever PR people the BSA has.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
1. most computer users are younger people.
2. younger people usually don't have as much money as older people.
3. software is expensive
4. this software is needed for school/work/play
5. large user base can't afford companies products so they download them for free.
6. company gets pissed off thinking they are missing all that revenue when these people wouldn't have bought that software in the first place simply due to cost.
i save my pennies to build a new system in the future and to buy food. i don't save them to buy an obscenely overpriced piece of software i might use occasionally. i have an OEM copy of XP pro and thats pretty much all i can afford.
Be the same on either. The guy doing the work is there from 8 to 5, sometimes just sitting there! So does it make a difference if it was a slow day?
The first analogy isn't great, but it's not as bad as it's being made out to be. The poster is referring to a service, not selling actual tires or anything else of any substantial concrete value (unless you're counting wear-and-tear on the machinery and/or the cost of the weights).
So as long as there is no one in line to get their tires rebalanced, you're not depriving anyone of any revenue, so it should be fine to just take off without paying, right? The mechanic would have just been sitting around doing nothing, so it was only "potential" revenue.
Use the same method with taxi drivers, too. If they're sitting idly waiting for the dispatcher to give them a fare they might as well take you where you want to go, just for the cost of the gas.
But stealing is so much easier when you don't have to put a real face on it.
because it limits the use of FOSS.
I fully support the BSA in their endeavors.
Oh well, what the hell...
Posting as AC for non-karma whoring.
Software theft is bad; so is misstating the evidence
IT SOUNDS too bad to be true; but, then, it might not be true. Up to 35% of all PC software installed in 2004 was pirated, resulting in a staggering $33 billion loss to the industry, according to an annual study released this week by the Business Software Alliance (BSA), a trade association and lobby group.
Such jaw-dropping figures are regularly cited in government documents and used to justify new laws and tough penalties for pirates--this month in Britain, for example, two people convicted of piracy got lengthy prison sentences, even though they had not sought to earn money. The BSA provided its data. The judge chose to describe the effects of piracy as nothing less than "catastrophic".
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The BSA publishes the "Piracy Study" it conducted with IDC. See also the Consumer Electronics Association.
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But while the losses due to software copyright violations are large and serious, the crime is certainly not as costly as the BSA portrays. The association's figures rely on sample data that may not be representative, assumptions about the average amount of software on PCs and, for some countries, guesses rather than hard data. Moreover, the figures are presented in an exaggerated way by the BSA and International Data Corporation (IDC), a research firm that conducts the study. They dubiously presume that each piece of software pirated equals a direct loss of revenue to software firms.
To derive its piracy rate, IDC estimates the average amount of software that is installed on a PC per country, using data from surveys, interviews and other studies. That figure is then reduced by the known quantity of software sold per country--a calculation in which IDC specialises. The result: a (supposed) amount of piracy per country. Multiplying that figure by the revenue from legitimate sales thus yields the retail value of the unpaid-for software. This, IDC and BSA claim, equals the amount of lost revenue.
The problem is that the economic impact of global software piracy is far harder to calculate. Some academics have shown that some piracy actually increases software sales, by introducing products to people who would not otherwise become customers. Indeed, Bill Gates chirped in the 1990s that piracy in China was useful to Microsoft, because once the nation was hooked, the software giant would eventually figure out a way to monetise the trend. (Lately Microsoft has kept quiet on this issue.)
The BSA's bold claims are surprising, given that last year the group was severely criticised for inflating its figures to suit its political aims. "Absurd on its face" and "patently obscene" is how Gary Shapiro, boss of the Consumer Electronics Association, another lobby group, describes the new ranking.
The fact is, if you don't pay for the software (unless a license is given for free), then you have no right to use the software. Period.
Yes I do. I seek out a copy of the software (herein, called a template or an exemplar), I use my own time and equipment to manufacture a copy of the software (herein, called the product of my labor), and I install it on my computer/MAME cabinet/NES emulator.
It's remarkably similar to the processes used by humanity to ensure its betterment through the construction of housing, the fashioning of household goods, and the manufacture of most of the machinery that we all know and love.
Of course, because it doesn't require any actual manufacturing, it's of course illegal (and at life of author + 70 years or 95 years, somewhere between 3.5 and 5+ times more illegal, temporally speaking, than the manufacture of any otherwise legal product on Earth), but in practice that means little unless you're caught.
Yet I should feel bad, because sometime in the distant future (a few decades after the apocalypse), this stigma will melt away and all of us will be able to freely enjoy the fruits of this otherwise non-rivalrous "intellectual property". Unless, of course, you consider that organizations like the movie studios are utterly failing to preserve this content so that I'll ever get my grubby public hands on it...
The [National Film Preservation Board] report, submitted to Congress in June 1993, documented a film heritage at-risk. Of America's feature films of the 1920s fewer than 20% survive; and for the 1910s, the survival rate falls to half that. But what is even more alarming is that motion pictures, both old and new, face inevitable destruction--old films from nitrate deterioration and newer films from color fading and the "vinegar syndrome." Only by storing films in low-temperature and low-humidity environments can nature's decay processes be slowed. The majority of American films, from newsreels to avant-garde works, do not receive this type of care and are in critical need of preservation." --James H. Billington, Librarian of Congress, July 25, 1994
The social contract has been repeatedly and materially breached. Take your moral argument and stuff it.
I see a study like this and I have to ask 2 questions:
The Boy Scouts of America did a study to see if piracy should somehow be worked into the Scout Oath or Law?
And the study was biased?
wheel balancing - loss of income to the mechanic
software piracy - loss of income to the programmers.Ummmm, no. The mechanic works on the clock. He still gets paid. The business itself eats the loss from your very poor wheel balancing analogy, which means the 'lost sale' comes out of the general cashflow.
That money comes out of the till because there was a concrete service performed that has a set value based on the number of man-hours the job takes, materials, fixed operating costs, etc.
This is different from the software situation where no additional costs or efforts for the company went into an illicit copy of the software. Thus 'lost sales' do not come out of the till, are never a part of the company cashflow, and represent at best only potential lost sales (though a far more realistic way to look at illegal copies is potential future sales).
Unless you can show that the programmers' income is directly related to the number of copies sold for a given piece of software, then they don't lose any income either.
They might have been salaried employees at the time the sofware was written, they might have been on contract, they might be developing and servicing the same piece of software now, or they might be working on something completely different.
There is simply no connection between the frequency with which a piece of software is copied and the income of the software's authors (except that the most copied software is, by definition, the most popular, and therefore is built and maintained by the most expensive developers).
Besides, BSA companies themselves are responsible for a lot of their 'piracy' numbers. I lived for six years in eastern Europe, and I can tell you that where I was, the schools had an 'amnesty' from BSA (meaning schools could run whatever they could get their hands on), and member companies would routinely give away burned software as nudge-nudge-wink-wink incentives on other purchases.
I did something relatively minor for a BSA company in 2000, and they loaded my notebook with win98 (it was 95), photoshop, acrobat, office, and a few other packages. A buddy who ran a graphic design place got just about all the software he needed after upgrading a bunch of hardware.
The point is that the BSA's numbers were pulled out of thin air, and they have absolutely no meaning because they discuss a nonexistent loss of imaginary money that nobody ever had to begin with.
That was not a good example, Oracle offers all their software free of charge as long as you don't use it in a commercial setting.
Oddly enough, my reading of the article indicates that this hypothetical would have been characterized as a loss by the BSA's methods.
What constitutes fair price for a block of code in a free market? What, truly, is the worth of a piece of software? When it comes down to it, a software company publishing a piece of software is much like an author publishing a book online or a composer creating a song - they are selling an idea, not a physical object that requires resources to duplicate or a service that requires people to perform it. People tend to make comparisons for the sake of expediency between pieces of software and services that require human power or products that require physical resources.
When someone downloads a piece of software they didn't pay for using something like bittorrent, there is absolutely no direct cost to the software company. Consider for comparison stealing a tool from a hardware store and driving away from an auto-shop without paying for the repair service. In the first case, the company that made the tool and all the people that formed the transportation bridge to get that tool to the store suffer a direct loss. They had to physically create something and physically transport it, and that requires resources. In the case of the auto repair, you've just cost some poor smuck an hour or so of his time - he was repairing your car. If he doesn't get anything back from his efforts because you cheated him, you've stolen his time.
Now for the software company. They researched and designed something, and in the end engineered a piece of software that acts as a tool on your computer to produce something you want. But when you download the tool from someone illegally over something like bittorrent, what are you taking from the software company? You duplicated the code for a total cost of $0. They didn't expend effort creating a CD and shipping it into a store - you haven't even stolen the transport cost. There's no physical object being stolen - they don't require anything to create more copies of the code. In fact, you could continue pirating the software from them left right and center, and outnumber their actual product sales by 10 to 1, and it wouldn't hurt their product sales at all. It makes no difference to Adobe if I download one illegal copy of PhotoShop or twenty million illegal copies of PhotoShop. Twenty million times zero is still zero. The only argument they can pose for my actions costing them something is that they have a legal right to demand any sum of money they choose from you when you use their software, and because you bypassed their right you cost them the money you would otherwise have been forced to spend.
In a capitalist society we need to reimburse people reasonably for the time and effort it takes to think up new ideas, and for the time the software companies spend creating their software - otherwise one could argue that we wouldn't get any new ideas or software developed. Because of this, we created copyright law. Copyright law is designed to allow people to profit from their ideas by giving them rights over how people use that idea, and the right to take money from people who use their idea.
Reasonably, however, if a mathematician designs a new formula that revolutionizes computers and allows circuits built using his idea to operate 500 times faster than they do today, it seems a little unreasonable for the mathematician to demand that every single computer made using his idea pay him a royalty of US $5,000,000. In a similar way, is it reasonable to permit software companies to charge whatever sum they feel for a piece of code that in the end is nothing more than an idea? The code is well thought out, and complicated, and took time to make. Yes, society should compensate them for that. Yes, people who spend their time working this way should be well compensated for their efforts and be made wealthy. But there should be a limit as to what they can demand, and that limit is set by unspoken public consensus if not in our legal system. That unspoken limit being surpassed is what results in software piracy. When the average person who w
Fact is, this is one of the many symptoms of trying to make the software industry fit into the mold of a regular industrial industry. It's like shoving a square peg into a round hole. But that's what happens when you let old people, with old ideas, using old systems run the world. Perhaps we should enforce mandatory retirement by 40?
Linux sucks. And you're fat. Take a shower hippy.
Piracy is indeed a social problem. But somehow I think that this abstinence method of solving it won't work any better on this than teenage pregnancy.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Retirement for those over 40, leaving the world to those who don't even know what it means to rebalance a tire?
SIR - Your reply to my earlier letter was extreme, misleading and irresponsible ("Madam", June 14th). The salutation was particularly offensive. The implication that an industry would allow an Englishwoman to perform an act or acts for which she is so clearly unsuited and that anyone would pay for her to persue such aims is ridiculous. The problem is real and needs no exaggeration.
Beth Scott
Business Software Alliance
London
I don't believe that Ann Coulter is a paid shill.
I believe that she is an independent entertainer.
Now, admittedly the views that she pushes have about as much to do with reality as professional wrestling does with Olympic wrestling, but at least she works for herself.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
where did you get the idea that they dont take opensource into account?
Who cares about the Boy Scouts of America's opinion anyway??
I find it absolutely amazing that anyone is still trying to make the claim that each instance of software piracy translates to a lost sale (that is, if John Torrentuser downloads PhotoShop, Adobe automatically loses $700). We've known for at least twenty years that that's not the case.
I'm among the older Slashdotters, and I remember this same discussion taking place back in the early Eighties on the BBSes that I used to hang out on (remember them?). The same point we made back then still holds true today: in most cases, if the person doesn't pirate the software, he doesn't go out and buy a legitimate copy -- he simply goes without the software. Especially in the case of very pricey apps like PhotoShop.
I find it hard to believe that the BSA or anyone else doesn't graps this, so I can't help but think that they have an ulterior motive in making claims that they must know are not true.
Naw, it's Boy Scouts of America.
I just hope BSA hit everyone as hard as they can. I hope BSA act like MPAA/RIAA. Then finally people realize what 'free' (as in both freedom and beer) software are all about, and why MS's business model is evil.
I've never worked for a company that suffered through a BSA audit, but does anyone know what it is that makes a corporation roll over and allow such a thing to happen? I keep hearing about how they inflate the cost of any "pirated" software they discover to ridiculous proportions, and we've all heard their TV and radio commercials, "Remember! It just takes one disgruntled employee!" Does it? And what, exactly, is it? Do they threaten businesses with frivolous, expensive lawsuits to get them to comply?
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Actually their survey specifically refers to "packaged software". Although knowing them that probably includes anything in .deb format :P
For the love of God, please learn to spell "ridiculous"!!!
This is what the RIAA is doing as well. I haven't bought a CD from an RIAA member in about 2 years. I haven't bootlegged anything either. But by them, I'm a pirate. I can't possibly be boycotting them, by their definitions, I simply must be pirating music instead.
Same thing here: I can't possibly be installing legitimate freeware, I simply must be pirating software instead.
I'm getting damned tired of playing fair with these people and being called a thief in return, just to hide the fact that I'm a dissatisfied former customer. I don't want to start violating their copyrights to get even - I want to get even within the system - they learn to respect their honest customers again, or go bankrupt quickly.
Who is John Cabal?
take 535 parts people who are largely technology ignorant and in need of money for re-elections...
take 2 easily "convinced" people, one in either party*
take 5 organizations with lots of money and lawyers...
mix and get an endless slew of consumder unfriendly laws.
* Senetors Hatch and Lehey...
I believe sex is highly over rated... unless it involves me
Consider...
The number of people in the world is finite, as is the number of computers that they own. Every computer that does NOT have software X installed is a possible sale. Every computer that does have software X installed is no longer a possible sale.
Thus anytime software X is installed on a computer, it removes a possible sale. Since there are only a finite number of possible sales, piracy has caused a loss.
"So as long as there is no one in line to get their tires rebalanced, you're not depriving anyone of any revenue, so it should be fine to just take off without paying, right? The mechanic would have just been sitting around doing nothing, so it was only "potential" revenue."
Another similar analogy: your local club has a $10 cover charge to come in and see a live band. There's no way in hell that you'd pay the $10, so (assuming the club isn't past capacity and you're otherwise not ruining somebody else's fun by being there), is it morally acceptable to sneak in the back?
My guess is that a common /. answer to that question is "yes, because it increases the odds that I might like what I hear, and end up buying that band's album. In fact, the band should be playing for free."
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
It occurs to me that this same argument justifies sitting on the street using binoculars to look through the open window to watch your neighbors have sex.
Thank you.
that the US laws exempting software from product liability sets the stage for crappy software releases being the norm and creates a situation where a small business or individual has to pirate software just to find out if it actually will work as advertised (or at least close enough for their needs) before plunking down major cash on a license. Personally, when I was a small business I bought several high-buck software packages on the advice of my office admin only to find out that they did not work, then, after firing the admin, went on to linux and open source apps.
The quest for a perfect metaphor continues...
Sneaking into theatres?
Information wants to be free.
Entertainment wants to be paid.
You just want to be cheap.
I note you posted AC, yet another coward unable to face the harsh realities of a superior argument. I basically used the technique of meeting an insane argument with another one equally illogical, to show flaws in the original.
That original argument is actually somewhat less insane than the first, but it has many dire implications if you follow the train of logic.
The problem with your (well, his) assumption is that if Photoshop were not around - that program being pirated would then become PaintShop Pro.
Let me outline for you the people who pirate. First there is the cheapo. He's a student, or some other guy who has no money. Is PhotoShop too expensive? Probably more than two months slaray is a yes! Is PaintShopPro too expensive? Answer: When you're eating Ramen $10 is too expensive. And so said person pirates. Once upon a time I was that person; No longer, since I can afford to buy software. But at the time did PhotoShop loose any sales through my pirating? Hell no. Did any lesser program? No again because I could afford nothing.
The second type of person is The Collector. They collect programs like chips, compusivley. Adobe is REALLY not loosing sales from these guys because they only have time to collect and use IRC.
The people who do not fit in those categories are the ones who do, in fact, buy Paint Shop Pro or the light version of Photoshop. So in fact people who could not pirate PhotoShop would just be pirating PaintShopPro, and if they couldn't pirate that would simply use The Gimp. The existance of that program drains your argument substantially as there is always a floor of $0 for PhotoShop like programs, thus you cannot ever say pirating of one is robbing sales from another as the free version sucks all the life out of possible secondary sales caused by unavaliablity of a more expensive program - it simply moves down what is pirated, it does not drive up sales at all.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If people can obtain something for free then it decreases the perceived value of that thing. Why should I pay $600 for photoshop when I know that babies are getting it free? I may be more inclined to pirate photoshop since I now believe that it is no longer worth the $600 asking price.
What would you say if I told you that RIGHT NOW, as we speak, people are getting Photoshop much cheaper than you? And that Adobe is sanctioning it!
It's called student discounts and bundling, and Adobe doesn't seem to have an issue with it. Honestly Adobe does not really care much about piracy because they understand it's keeping them dominant. Microsoft is having a rougher time understanding the basic concept.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
No? Maybe the Oil Industry, or big Pharma.
Seriously, if you can make a statement like that without your head exploding you've got it made in PR.
And why shouldn't you be able to do that? If your neighbors don't want to be watched, perhaps they should close their blinds.
Of course, the analogy here does not quite fit towards software - you could say that if a company does not want it's software pirated that they should aggressively pursue the piraters. But then, in the world of computers, there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING a company can do to prevent it's software from being pirated. After all, that software is just a sequential series of 0s and 1s. Theoretically, if you generated random binary files for long enough you would make photoshop yourself.
So, it would seem to me that the best, if not the only logical thing for a company to do is to ensure that their product is good enough to attract the people with the money willing to pay for it. Like Oracle. Also, like Oracle if the company is confident of its product, it could allow people to download it for free. Because it knows people are going to pay for it, and it knows that some people may not be able to afford it now, but maybe those people could afford it later, or know people who could use it who can afford it now.
kaens.blogspot.com
the real problem is not the BSA, the problem is you. yea you stearing at your computer right now. how many times has /. bragged about taking down websites. as long as nobody stands up to the BSA they are going too keep extorting you. that is the problem the BSA has no checks or balances they simply do what they want. if /. were to mobilise, fight back in the courts and at congress the BSA could be sent packing. untill /. organizes and destroys the BSA you have no right to complain or quip about their action. " people who give up their freedom for secutity deserve neither"
(I'm not going to respond to all of the rest of the messages because the moderating Nazis are calling my posts "trolls").
You need to think about how the economics of commercial software works. The sale price of a single copy of a piece of software comes nowhere close to covering the development costs... they are only recovered after many, many copies have been sold. So, if because of piracy, the software company does not sell enough copies of the software.. they do indeed lose the $$ they spent developing the program.
Also consider the developers. Most do earn a salary.. but often get stock options/bonuses that are related to the performance of the company. Fewer software sales = less $$.
I think the fundamental question to ask is, if pirated software were not available - would you still have performed the task? And if so, how?
If you would have still performed the task, then there is a definate loss to the software company. Either you would have bought the software (or a similar lower-cost competitor) or you would have used some other means to accomplish it. In the latter case, the question is.. why not use that alternative instead of pirating software? Obviously, the pirated software must have some value (it makes the task easier, faster, etc.) to you.. otherwise you wouldn't use it. And if it does have value, then you are obligated to pay for it.
I would wager that a large majority of pirated software use falls into the category above - a category where there are definate losses to the software company.
OTOH, if you would not have performed the task.. we have a different story. Now, we need to consider the consequences of not performing the task to see how valuable the software is (and I'm not going to go into any detail on this).
I am the maverick of Slashdot
Since when did the Boy Scouts of America have anything to do with piracy? /Eagle Scout
The higher the price, the less demand there is. At retail price (high) you would have I = p1*q1 = big*small, with piracy (low) you have I = p2*q2 = small*big. That is the maximum the market will ever pay you. But to calculate losses, they take p1*q2 = big*big.
Also, as a special case, for free the pack rat mentality kicks in. If you got a cd full of mp3s, would you keep it even if it wasn't really anything you need? Many people would, just a few hundred MB on their HDD. Instead of asking "Why should I pay for this?" the question becomes "Why not? It's free, might come in handy some day."
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
BS according to the Economist does not have the same street meaning as in the US. After all, the Economist is a pillar of Capitalism and a bastion of good manners.
;-)
Given this, they are staunchly anti-monopolistic. This little article was nothing more than a single column, the reply from the head of the BSA in the UK made it all worthwhile.
As another poster mentioned, having this issue discussed on the Economist (and everybody has this morbid curiosity to read the reader's letters) is great for the anti-BSA lobby - the majority of the world's population. Most CEOs just browse the Economist, but nobody skips the letters to the Editor.
The BSA lost this one, now the Economist's offices are going to be raided. I wouldn't be surprised if they were running Linux on the servers and OS X on the desktops... After all, those three-piece suited know-it-alls like to have the best money can buy
NB I am a subscriber
The BSA (and a few others) are basically arguing that if some Chinese kid got a copy of AutoCAD or 3DSMax, that's a lost sale and it litterally means some $6000 lost. Can they possibly present a coherent business plan where it's even possible to enlarge that market there, at those prices, if piracy didn't exist?
Hello? An average Chinese family's yearly income, last I've checked, is around the $1500 mark. That is, before, food, clothes, rent, etc.
Take your current yearly salary, multiply it by 4, and ask yourself if you would _ever_ pay that much for a piece of software you don't even really need. Would you?
Some of that software waved around by the BSA as big losses even I wouldn't buy on a western european salary, and I could afford it easily. E.g., would I pay some thousands of dollars on 3DS Max just to mod a $40 game like "X2 - The Threat"? Because that's the kind of use those pirate kids see out of that software. Heh. Would you? Right. That's what I thought too.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
My sentiments exactly. I really really resent being called a theif because I don't buy from them.
I look forward to the day the tide turns and people start using free alternatives en masse.
You make the mistake of thinking you can educate the fundamental stupidity out of people. You can't.
Another thief, I mean "copy right infringer", speaking up and justifying their immoral actions in order to remove any guilt they might have.
Bah, crazy slashdot, make up your mind. Is the government corrupt (moralless and for sale) or an evil basition of 'morality legistaltion' (i.e. not corrupt enough)? Am I the only one that's annoyed by the contradictory double?
...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~
You have lies.
You have big lies.
You have statistics.
If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. That was it. Personally I thought it was clever. Never mind. Please don't mod me down.
It would be more like being able to listen to the band even from outside the club. When you copy stuff, you don't get the manual and support that paying customers do, for example. You may get a lower-quality product (i.e. some parts removed to facilitate copying). All in all, NOT an equivalent experience to actually buying the product.
As far as the morality of the act described, no it isn't moral. Neither is lying or manipulating (like the BSA is want to do), but that doesn't get you thrown in jail whereas copying can.
It is simply a matter of recognizing that even though something is immoral, that doesn't automatically make it sensible for an organization like the BSA/RIAA/MPAA to turn it into a witch-hunt. Lawsuits for lots of $$$ and DRM laws is WAY over-the-top as a response to this immoral behaviour.
On the other hand, I find that the intentional perversion of a nation's legal system in order to facilitate extorsion on a GLOBAL scale is immoral enough to rate lifetime imprisonment and multibillion fines at the very least, if not capital punishment. That's an attack on the whole of society by a special interests group, something that I personally think is VERY serious.
a company does not want it's software pirated
"its".
Werd.
Freedom would be not to choose between black and white but to abjure such prescribed choices. -Theodor Adorno
example... My father is a dentist.
He has, on several occasions, entered into working
agreements with other dentists.
He works in their office using their staff
on the weekends when the dentist is not working.
The standard agreement he uses is that he gets paid 50% of everything he produces while the dentist that owns the office
pays the staff and lab bills with the other 50% and
keeps the rest.
It's a fabulous agreement since the dentist will be
making an extra 2-4 THOUSAND dollars a weekend that
my father works for them.
Want to know where every dentist has screwed the deal?
After 4-6 months, they just can't stand signing the checks for 20,000 to my dad anymore and
start complaining about how much they have to pay him.
WTF!?? What would you call someone who turns down 2-4K$ a weekend for sitting on their ass?
To top it off... the STAFF does all th work.
Perhaps we should enforce mandatory retirement by 40?
Shit, there goes social security.
...stands for BS Agency.
So what else is new?
Free PC version of ChipWits at http://www.breueronline.de/klaus/chipwits/
BSA or just BS?
May 19th 2005
From The Economist print edition
Software theft is bad; so is misstating the evidence
IT SOUNDS too bad to be true; but, then, it might not be true. Up to 35% of all PC software installed in 2004 was pirated, resulting in a staggering $33 billion loss to the industry, according to an annual study released this week by the Business Software Alliance (BSA), a trade association and lobby group.
Such jaw-dropping figures are regularly cited in government documents and used to justify new laws and tough penalties for pirates--this month in Britain, for example, two people convicted of piracy got lengthy prison sentences, even though they had not sought to earn money. The BSA provided its data. The judge chose to describe the effects of piracy as nothing less than "catastrophic".
But while the losses due to software copyright violations are large and serious, the crime is certainly not as costly as the BSA portrays. The association's figures rely on sample data that may not be representative, assumptions about the average amount of software on PCs and, for some countries, guesses rather than hard data. Moreover, the figures are presented in an exaggerated way by the BSA and International Data Corporation (IDC), a research firm that conducts the study. They dubiously presume that each piece of software pirated equals a direct loss of revenue to software firms.
To derive its piracy rate, IDC estimates the average amount of software that is installed on a PC per country, using data from surveys, interviews and other studies. That figure is then reduced by the known quantity of software sold per country--a calculation in which IDC specialises. The result: a (supposed) amount of piracy per country. Multiplying that figure by the revenue from legitimate sales thus yields the retail value of the unpaid-for software. This, IDC and BSA claim, equals the amount of lost revenue.
The problem is that the economic impact of global software piracy is far harder to calculate. Some academics have shown that some piracy actually increases software sales, by introducing products to people who would not otherwise become customers. Indeed, Bill Gates chirped in the 1990s that piracy in China was useful to Microsoft, because once the nation was hooked, the software giant would eventually figure out a way to monetise the trend. (Lately Microsoft has kept quiet on this issue.)
The BSA's bold claims are surprising, given that last year the group was severely criticised for inflating its figures to suit its political aims. "Absurd on its face" and "patently obscene" is how Gary Shapiro, boss of the Consumer Electronics Association, another lobby group, describes the new ranking.
They do take it into account. However, they put in in the "Software Load" column (all software), and they don't put it in the "Software Shipped" column (non-pirated software). So, it's quite obvious they are counting opensource as pirated.
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
I have to admit, I've never understood the 'they don't lose money, because I wouldn't pay for it.' argument.
I mean, they offer up 1 copy of their software in exchange for 100 dollars. You obtain a copy of the software, without forking over 100 dollars. Therefore, they have lost 100 dollars.
By that same, EXACT same argument, there is never any such thing as a GPL violation, if the programmer never intended to release under the GPL in the first place. That is to say, 'you may copy this code, in exchange for releasing your changes.' Well, I wouldn't release my code in the first place, so I should be able to use your code anyway. You don't lose anything.
Seriously. Take my first example, replace '100 dollars' with 'your modifications' and what's the difference?
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
When price goes down, demand goes up.
Thus, when something is free, some people will take it even if they wouldn't have bought it.
It's a real toughie.
This is the equivilent to selling 100 items for $10 each and saying "Dammit, by not selling them for $20, we effectively lost $1000!".
"When the atomic bomb goes off there's devastation...but when the atomic bong goes off there's celebraaaaation!"
"Sneaking into theatres?"
Right, because if you like the movie, you'll watch it again, paying for a ticket the second time. That'll happen.
--
Slow Down Cowboy!
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needs an obvious tag....
eat shiat and bark at the moon
The quest for a perfect metaphor continues...
Not hardly! I was just looking for a supposed justification for something I was going to do anyway.
Perfect!
Information wants to be free.
Entertainment wants to be paid.
You just want to be cheap.