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BSA Piracy Study Deeply Flawed

Posted by Zonk on from the losing-money dept.

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."

4 of 437 comments (clear)

  1. And this is a surprise because? by IdleTime · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

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    1. Re:And this is a surprise because? by IdleTime · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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. Go to www.oracle.com and download the Enterprise version of the database and use it as much as you like on your own private box. If you are going to use it in a business, you have to pay for it. Quite reasonable I would say...

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      If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
  2. How odd... by MaestroSartori · · Score: 4, Interesting
    From TFA:
    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.
    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...)
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  3. Once in a while... by erroneus · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ... 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...