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BSA Claims 35% of Software is Pirated
hdtv writes "Business Software Alliance says 35% of packaged software installed on PCs globally is pirated, and estimates the losses at $34 bln. From the article: 'The countries with the highest piracy rates were Vietnam (90%), Zimbabwe (90%), Indonesia (87%), China (86%), and Pakistan (86%). The countries with the lowest piracy rates were the United States (21%), New Zealand (23%), Austria (26%), and Finland (26%).' TechDirt analysis debunks some of the myths: 'The BSA claims that all of these "lost sales" represent real harm to the economy. It's the same bogus argument they've trotted out before, which is easily debunked. Much of that unauthorized software is being used to make firms much more productive than they would be otherwise -- probably benefiting the overall economy quite a bit.'"
Each pirated copy, contrary to the BSA (interesting, what does the BS stand for?) claim, not only is not a lost sale, but potentially an extra sale.
BSA's claim is akin to the MPAA/RIAA's claims each downloaded/pirated DVD/CD is a lost sale. And, there have (AFAIK, and I've researched this many times) been no studies coming close to showing causal relationship between pirating and decreased sales.
Interestingly, one of the most damning contra-examples was the huge spike in CD sales corresponding to the spike in file sharing at the emergence of the original Napster. Of course, once the RIAA and music industry managed to rein Napster in, the dropoff in shared files was matched almost identically for a decline of CD sales.
People, especially in the poor couuntries, are running pirated software because they otherwise would run no software at all. And, if with this pirated software, they manage to bootstrap their own situation, or that of their business out of the netherlands they become much more likely to buy and pay prices for non-pirated software.
That's an easy one because 15% of all software is just garbage. The rest is open source and you can't pirate that.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
If the software is making firms more productive, then they should pay for it instead of stealing it.
Personally I think 35% is a very conservative estimate.
Much of that unauthorized software is being used to make firms much more productive than they would be otherwise -- probably benefiting the overall economy quite a bit.
This is the WRONG counter to their claims. The correct counter is that an unauthorized copy of a piece of software is NOT the same as a lost software sale.
In fact, if companies are using unauthorized copies of software to increase their business, that's when it's morally wrong to not pay for your software in my mind.
To me, it's like watching a illegally downloaded movie for personal (potential) entertainment vs. selling it on the street. The latter is the one I have a moral issue with and represents a more realistic loss of sale for the copyright holder.
How many of these systems simply would not be running the software that is being pirated at all. For example, if I were not able to pirate PhotoShop, I'd probably run GIMP or Picture Publisher or something that doesn't cost $500 a license. So saying that pirated software=money lost is not true.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
I suspect most of that is Windows software... I think that for Mac software it is probably a bit lower. Most Mac users I know are full on legit. There are a couple... but every Windows user I know has TONS of illegal crap. I wonder - is there a bounty?
-WS
An operating system should be like a light switch... simple, effective, easy to use, and designed for everyone.
No shit, sherlock. The point TechDirt is making is that it's still better that they run warez than nothing at all. You can preach morality all you like, but the guys struggling to keep their businesses afloat from day to day don't give a shit about what you think is right. And their productivity is a lot more important than your indignation or the potential profit of the software industry.
I can't believe the US is doing so poorly in their rate of piracy. I guess I'll have to start pirating twice as much software just to help us make up the slack on the rest of the world!
It's also worth noting that it's a bad thing for the open-source movement if, say, everybody in Vietnam runs a pirated copy of MS Office on a pirated copy of Windows. MS secretly loves that, because Vietnam wasn't a potential market for them anyway in the near future (too poor), but may be in the future. It's just like Apple selling machines cheap to schools and college students; it's a form of advertising. What would really strike fear into MS's heart would be if everybody in Vietnam started using Linux.
Find free books.
New Zealand (23%),
:|
Yeah we have too many sheep here in NZ.. of course we have a low piracy rate.. That'd require people to know what a computer was
"Each pirated copy, contrary to the BSA (interesting, what does the BS stand for?) claim, not only is not a lost sale, but potentially an extra sale."
Flip a coin. There's your "potential".
"BSA's claim is akin to the MPAA/RIAA's claims each downloaded/pirated DVD/CD is a lost sale. And, there have (AFAIK, and I've researched this many times) been no studies coming close to showing causal relationship between pirating and decreased sales."
And yet people have no problem with a "causal" relationship showing a benefit from said action.
"Interestingly, one of the most damning contra-examples was the huge spike in CD sales corresponding to the spike in file sharing at the emergence of the original Napster. Of course, once the RIAA and music industry managed to rein Napster in, the dropoff in shared files was matched almost identically for a decline of CD sales."
Another "causal" relationship? Can I get a phone poll to go with that?
"People, especially in the poor couuntries, are running pirated software because they otherwise would run no software at all."
Like Linux.
"And, if with this pirated software, they manage to bootstrap their own situation, or that of their business out of the netherlands they become much more likely to buy and pay prices for non-pirated software."
For something that has no value, someone is sure getting their monies worth.
What losses after selling software at EXTRAVAGANT prices ?
... Consider it a market adjustment by the 'invisible hand' - an adjustment to balance out the ridiculous prices you sell software for.
Do they ALREADY count our money as theirs, and deem it as loss ?
Nay, sire
In the history of this world, there has NEVER been piracy UNLESS commodities' prices were not set in standards of highway robbery.
I aint giving me money to you sir. Not at THESE prices at least.
Read radical news here
I know friends with 100% pirated software, I however run Debian, so couldn't care less.
The cost of pirated software is typically free, or at least highly discounted. There are naturally far more people willing to get it for free than would be willing to pay for it. So, every pirated use is NOT a lost sale. That's probably especially true in very poor countries. So, the amazingly high rate of piracy in 3rd world countries really doesn't present that big of an issue for the software industry. The 20+% in the U.S., though, should be causing them a lot of concern.
Along those same premises, let's say, hypothetically, that I had a pirated copy of Adobe Photoshop on one of my PC's. I'm not a graphics professional, and have little use for it beyond making my own wallpaper. Are we to assume that I would actually pay the $699 price tag for this software? HELL NO.
What I would very much like to see is a poll comparing what people have pirated against what people have pirated and would pay for if they could not pirate it. I don't have any statistical evidence to back me up, here, but I'm going to hazard a guess that piracy leads to a lot less in actual losses than the BSA or the RIAA/MPAA assumes. And that is ignoring the fact that there are a rare few people that actually purchase a product just because they were impressed with the pirated copy, and wished ot support the author/creator.
Haven't we heard enough of this "piracy is going to kill our economy" bullshit? Why are we focusing on this, when the our (America's) trade deficit with China is over $200,000,000,000/year (yes, that is 200 billion dollars a YEAR at the current rate). Seems to me that this piracy thing is small potatoes, in the end.
/dev/random
I'd like to have the BSA negotiate a raise for me.
Here, I'm not in debt, but I sure could use an extra, say, $50,000 a year.
I could file my taxes at a $50,000 a year loss and claim it on wages not paid.
Isn't that the same thing they're doing?
if you steal from one source, that is plagiarism, if you steal from many, well, that's just research.
The truth of the matter is that most people wouldn't buy that software if they couldn't get it for free. I'm sorry but the average home user doesn't have the cash for a copy of Photoshop, so yeah, they pirate it. If they couldn't pirate they wouldn't go out and buy photoshop, they'd download the Gimp.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
That's B.S. So a firm might be more productive (and profitable?) using a software package, thus contributing to the general economy. No argument with that. But I fail to see how this debunks the BSA's arguments. Is techdirt (or Mike, or whoever) arguing that the same firm would be less productive if it had paid for instead of pirated the software?
Some see the vessel as half full; others see it as half-empty; We pour it out on the floor and laugh
For now they are just talking. They can't take any enforcement actions, because those countries would simply switch to open source.
For example, they could threaten these countries with ejection from the WTO or other treaty-based organizations, but they won't... until those countries are economically viable enough to pay the exorbitant licensing fees.
And then they will win, because they can lock people in to their proprietary formats. They call themselves the Business Software Alliance. But they are really the Proprietary Software Alliance.
0% of free software is pirated.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Deal with it. What happens when replicators are invented? You gonna arrest me for creating "pirated" food instead of making it for free?
You must be a troll ;p I don't see how China was harmonious and happy when they were running their own people down with tanks.
That techdirt line is great. If a company uses pirated software and makes profit they wouldn't have been able to make without that software, the BSA has a legitimate gripe with them. The heavy handed tactics are tiresome and they pretty much pretend with the statistics, but companies that generate profits exceeding the cost of a given program by pirating it are stealing in a very real sense.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
I pirate my software and spend the money I save on CDs. I'll let the RIAA and BSA fight it out between themselves.
Khaed says 73.532% of statistics are bullshit.
In the early days, Microsoft turned a blind eye to piracy in US / UK / Canada because "borrowing" the disks from work to install at home was the gateway drug that lead to the rise of Word as the dominant word processor. (WordPerfect Corp dropping the ball with WP for Windows didn't harm it either)
"She's furniture with a pulse"
All of those dollars the BSA is claiming as economic losses are actually being spent elsewhere. It's not a situation of money that should be out working loafing safely in a shoebox. Would we all reap more economic benefit from shifting money away from the other things into the software industry? I reckon not. Microsoft is probably one of the biggest claimants of the BSA loss statistic, and it is difficult to suggest that we would all be better off if they had more money or more freedom to make/improve software.
This is more of that smoke and mirrors trickle-down voodoo-economics gobbledygook. The BSA overwhelmingly represents the entrenched interests of large enterprises (you think big government is wasteful? How about big business..) against entrepreneurial business (where we see the most real economic growth).
--- Nothing clever here: move along now...
contribute to global warming? They should be ashamed.
I've heard a lot of arguments about why software piracy statistics are bogus, but none as *dumb* as saying that companies using software illegally will be more productive because of the software, thus contribute more to the economy.
Despite the fact that it represents some pretty screwed up values, it just doesn't make much sense. If a company can experience growth related directly to the stealing of software, then they could have purchased the software, and they still should have grown. Buying software is just a cost of doing business, and shouldn't be having that much of an impact on the bottom line all by itself. Perhaps we should all just start bending the rules and pirate and steal our expenses away because hey, we're hiring more employees, we're paying our investors, and we're making more profit, which is good for everybody, right? Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me.
When it comes piracy on the private, home use level, I think that the piracy numbers they always come out with are ridiculous. Just because the software is installed and being used does not mean that a sale was lost. This isn't a defense of piracy, just a reiteration of distinction between piracy and theft. They are not the same thing. But if we decided to treat them as the same thing for the purpose of creating an accurate yet misleading argument, then oh no, Software Company X is out a gazillion billion dollars!
People is copying software for two different reasons. The first one is cost. The cost of software is huge while the (viable) alternative is open source software with the all the configuration/management headaches. The other reason is that (usually) there is no additionaly benefit or differentiating factor between a pirated copy and an original one, so someone will simply choose the free one. The majority of the small office owners here in Greece use pirated software for these reasons. They gain nothing by using licensed software (they only spend money) and although immoral for some people it makes perfect sense. As these two factors are not eliminated, pirated software percent will increase as the population of users increases. Software companies do not seem to understand that and continue to offer overprised software, with restrictive licensing schemes that just make you fill a slave because sometimes there is no alternative.
I am sure that if it wasn't for piracy linux would have taken the world literally, the majority of PC users would be adepts to free software, instead piracy allows MS and other giants to retain their monomoply.
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
Microsoft makes it almost impossible to figure out how licensing should work if you are a small or medium size business running their servers (outside of sending them blank checks every year for Software Assurance). I would venture a good portion of the "pirating" the BSA is complaining about involves confusion about regarding how many CAL's, and what kind of CAL's a business should have. Even Microsoft admits that CAL licensing can be a complicated area.
Welcome to the free market, pal. Adapt or die.
Part of adapting is adapting to your competitors. If your competitors are pirating software, they're gaining an advantage over you. With piracy in it's semi-legal state, it's bad business not to do it.
Oh, and fuck your stolen chairs and desks analogy. We both know what a pile of bullshit that is.
"Much of that unauthorized software is being used to make firms much more productive than they would be otherwise -- probably benefiting the overall economy quite a bit"
What is this software, and why isn't it available for Windows?
The BSA says this is a national economic issue, saying the losses should be treated like Acts of God. But this is obviously wrong, since someone benifits from piracy.
Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for further development.-- Frontinus, 1st cent. AD
What the BSA wants is a bit absurd. They'd love to be able to do 3rd degree price discrimination - to charge one price in Zimbabwe and one in the US, maximizing their profit, unless, of course, you believe Windows would sell for 300 USD a copy in Zimbabwe. This is a monopolist tactic. It deprives consumers of benefit, and no global regime against it exists. Copyright violation acts as an illegal solution.
The same situation exists in region-coded DVDs - it's not piracy-preventing, it's profit-maximizing.
Since when has this country used intellectual elite as a pejorative term?
all they did was read the pole. http://slashdot.org/pollBooth.pl?qid=1342&aid=-1
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
My point is some companies HAVE to pirate software to do business. Sure they might buy legit copies after they end up making money but from the beginning most companies just can't afford to go out and buy several licenses of software that goes anywhere from $50-$10,000. You're comment about stealing chairs and desks is a bit moronic as well. If those struggling companies were forced to purchase licensed copies of said software than I'm sure they wouldn't have desks or chairs because they couldn't afford them. And if they could get some desks and chairs they'd probably look to a used furniture store or the like.
It's kind of hard to find 10 used licenses of any program on eBay.
My new laptop came loaded with a ton of scumware. Solution: wipe the hard drive and reinstall windows. The recovery cds dilligently reinstall all the scumware, so my only option is to run a pirated version of Windows. Now I can't get updates, even after paying the windows tax.
Solution: learn every genuine advantage workaround, repeat them, and distribute pirated copies of windows. If you want to screw me over, I'm happy to return the favor.
In a similar situation, I find myself out of town and I accidently left my laptop power cable at home. I go to the store to get a replacement and it costs $120. Highway robbery if I ever saw it. My solution: return the new cable when i get back in town. If it cost less than $50 I would just keep it, but if they want to rob me, I have no problem robbing them right back.
Moral of the story: If you screw me over I have no problem returning the favor.
For example, piracy may help the economy achieve a kind of uniformity of software that is very easy to work with. For example, even is a small firm cannot afford a copy of MS Windows and Autocad, they can always pirate a copy. We benifit because the draftperson does not have to learn multiple systems, and, as the skillset is much easier to garner, can be hired much cheaper than a traditional draftsman. OTOH, as Autocad has no compitition, they probably charge quite a bit more that market, and can continue to do so as they do not need to cater to the small shop.
So, the primary harm that piracy exacts is probably in terms of promoting high prices and reducing the responsiveness to consumers. In competative markets, like the database, there is an effort to get versions out to users that are either low or no cost. This allows the student or amatuer to gain the experience with product without paying professional prices. This is similiar to what once would happen with equipement, such as typewriters. One could buy an old selectric and gain expereince.
In noncompetatve markets, however, the only way to get a low cost version of many applications is to pirate. MS would like us to believe that we can buy a used PC, but we must buy a new license to the OS. The student edition of MS Office is $120, which is already way too much, but to get access it rises to $200, which is really a joke. They are charging more for Access than Foxpro! Autocad is little better charging $150 per year. Mathematica is little better. Labview shows what can happen when a competitve market exists, with a version at $80.
So, what we have is situation in which piracy has lead to extreme economic damage by promoting monopolies in certain sectors. The vendors are perfectly happy to allow the piracy, as it is partially why they are succesful. I will always remember the time in the late 80's when my boss told me he was going to get his first PC because he would not have to pay for any software, unlike on the Mac where most of our software was properly acquired. However, a vendor cannot survive with no sales, so the BSA tries to create opportunity costs, at least for certain customers, that are higher than acquisition costs.
As a student I got MS Office, Mathematics, Foxpro, etc, for a song, so I did not prirate. If I were a student, or new to the IT industry and just wanted to learn, I would think long and hard about buying the software at the offered prices or borrowing a copy.
Ideally I would like to see most piracy stopped. I would like to see offer prices that are in line with what a competative market will bear. I also hope that the BSA pulls the rug on china and forces either the software vendors to cut thier price of the Chinese to find another solution. We will then learn hard and fast what it means to not communicate with an important trading partner.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Or do they expect someone to come along and lock down everyones' computers for them in order to artificially prop up their business model?
Yes.
~Rebecca
What does the IRS say about these claims of loss? Surely if a company truely believed the loss was actual they would try to claim it. Does that actually occur? What would the guidelines be from the IRS?
Hey, Colonel History, the tank in that photo stopped.
According to one notable handicapping service, the RIAA would win, but just barely. On the other hand, you can see that Free Software kicks the BSA's ass, which suggests a possible alternative. :)
PC stops working, shop says it's cheaper to buy a new one than fix the old one, and of course, the new one comes with a new OS.
Old PC goes in the dumper along with a perfectly valid OS license (which could have been legitimately moved to the new machine, I believe)
All the second hand machines I have came with license stickers on the sides. Sadly, most of these licenses remain unused, as the machines are running Ubuntu Linux...
Well, first of all, illegal copying is not stealing, anymore than murder or adultery is stealing. Would you say that a murderer is stealing a life or an adulterer is stealing a wife? The effects of stealing are different form those of illegal copying. When somebody steals from my property, I end having less than I had before, when somebody does illegal copying from my property I end having exactly as much as I had before.
Second, if anybody should pay for illegaly copied software, then shouldn't the inverse be true? Can I demand that a company that sells me software that doesn't make me more productive reimburse me for the time I lost installing and trying to use their piece of shit?
The article doesn't say that the study relied on the falacy of the pirated copy=lost sale argument. It also doesn't say that it didn't rely on that argument. I just don't like how many are jumping to the conclusion that the falacy is being used. I recently read an article about a study funded by the MPAA that specifically accounted for that falacy--in the survey they asked people if they would have purchased a copy of a given song if they did not have a pirated copy of it. I do have somewhat of a problem with this too, however, and I think a study should make sure to take hindsight into account as well (I'm not sure whether or not the study I mentioned took hindsight into account). What I mean by this is, after I've illegally downloaded a song that I'd never hearn of--say, perhaps, by some band named "Quarashi" or something--and decide that it is awesome, if someone asked "would you buy this CD if you didn't have it illegally?" I would say "yes" because I think it's awesome. But in reality the answer should be "no" because I would not know this band exists, and I wouldn't have experimented with it if it wasn't free.
But anyway, I'm off topic now. My point is that you people should not be saying "this study's terrible because a pirated copy does not equal a lost sale." Instead you should be realizing that these research companies have the ability to figure this out, and this study might have taken that into account.
That's right, we can't very well let the USA be in second place for anything. We must pirate more. I will do my part, and ask that all slashdotters make a pledge of the same kind.
;)
USA! USA! USA!
Ex nihilo nihil fit.
...because "borrowing" the disks from work to install at home was the gateway drug...
From what I've heard, that's quite true. However, in the years since then they've actually explicitly stated that you can do this in the license agreement.
This guy's the limit!
Art seemed to have no problem getting along before copyright law.
The BSA spins it as lost revenue while Microsoft spins it as increased market penetration..
What sort of market share would Microsoft have in Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia - if not for illicit copies?
What about India? How many H1-B visa holders cut their teeth on a blackmarket copy of Visual Studio?
You can't bitch coming and going! If anything is unfair, it's that..
Do people really believe these statistics? How can they loose 34 billion bucks if they didn't have it in the first place?
I buy reasonably priced software. I used to pirate MS Office just because when I was a student and needed those tools, I couldn't afford a $500 software package. However, if I hadn't been able to do that, I could have just done the work needed to be done with that software in the computer lab; they didn't "loose" that money, because if I used a pirated copy or not I still wouldn't have spent the $500, it just let me work on the laptop in my room instead of up the hill in the library.
The irony is, now that I can afford a $500 piece of software, I don't use it. Wordpad is enough for most everything I need, and for the rare occasions I do need a spreadsheet or something (a few times a month), I use OpenOffice.
I honestly hope no one out there takes this seriously in the business world, I hope they know better; if the world worked like this, I could claim losses of billions myself for all those lottery tickets I never bought for jackpots I never won...
AE
Vietnam (90%), Zimbabwe (90%), Indonesia (87%), China (86%), and Pakistan (86%). The countries with the lowest piracy rates were the United States (21%), New Zealand (23%), Austria (26%), and Finland (26%).
:-p
I'll wonder if they can see the common denominator among the piracy levels and these countries.
Looks to me like high piracy goes for less rich countries.
Wow, could BSA's issues have mostly to do with too expensive software, rather than a general evilness among people?
Naah, it can't be that simple, can it?
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Yes theft is wrong, but this is not theft, but piracy/copyright infringement. If you can't use proper legal terms in a discussion about legalities, then I would you reccomend you do so before the uppitys (besides me) jump on you.
*ENTERS OBLIGATORY "You sensative clod!" LINE*
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
That should read, "you insensitive clod!"
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
That would mean that the BSA would be by far the richest organization on the planet if they would just step up their auditing a few orders of magnitude.
If 20% of the software is pirated, and they can extort probably double the price of that software from these companies, then they should be hiring every person available to go make raids -- I mean, audits.
Seriously, ASCAP does this for songs. If you are playing music in your bistro and not paying them -- they will find out and shut you down. They have armies of people visiting all possible music-playing establishments -- and it works.
So -- the possibilities are
1) That the software piracy in the US is not actually all that rampant
or
2) BSA and Microsoft decided that they really don't want the money that would come from enforcement.
Draw your own conclusions.
Thad Beier
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
As we see, all the developping countries are having high % of pirated software in comparison to developped countries.
These countries generally speaking can't pay for software at the same price we are paying it. As being a development tool, pirated software should help to develop their own economy and industry. Consequently, some of these countries will eventually develop a strong economy. They will then be able to buy the software. If you don't let them get the software initially, then many of these countries would not be able to create a real economy. In long term view, this is an investment for the world market.
For(k;;)(Fork();)
Actually, Microsoft decried piracy as early as Altair Basic - their "An Open Letter to Hobbyists" is fairly famous for this.
This is the WRONG counter to their claims.
It may not sit well ethically with some people or be the best counter, but it IS a valid argument. People/the economy can be better off with an illegal activity. Specifically, the claim that is being focused on is;
real harm to the economy
rather than the "lost sales" aspect.
It isn't suprising that the highest piracy rates(per comp. rather than per cap.) are in the poorest countries... and it wouldn't be suprising if the poor stealing from the rich would result in a (world)economy wide productivity boost, since the poor have a much higher productivity increase potential. I think the productivity change from a underemployed/unemployed poor person to working poor person is much larger than that from a well off developed world worker to an even better off worker.
It also helps smooth out the investment cycle, where you don't get the massive wasted infusions of cash that just get funnelled into a few pockets because economic friction doesn't allow for sound capital mobilization/development over such a short timespan. Sure, Ferrari manufacturing(were else would the uber rich spend that cash?) might suffer a hit, but other sectors will nicely compensate.
The fun thing about economics is that you can make an argument from almost any side of a debate, with ethics being almost irrelevant. The 'establishment' (for want of a less hippiesque word) has been doing it for a few centuries, and I say it's high time everyone else get in on the act.
Oh, did the BSA substitute "the economy" for "the economic sector we represent"? Naaaah.
The countries with the lowest piracy rates were the United States (21%), New Zealand (23%), Austria (26%), and Finland (26%).
I wonder if there is some kind of connection between being the home country of Linux and low piracy rate. We have quite cheap broadband connections available here, so it's not caused by pirated software being unavailable to public.
These figures are skewed by being "Globally" based.
The fact is that the average person or business in Vietnam could never afford the real cost of software at American prices. Can you imagine paying half of your years wages for your OS and Office package - just aint going to happen.
Until Microsoft or others price the software realisticly into these markets, or there are viable alternatives that people will use in these countries they are going to use pirated softare.
And good on em I reckon.
I haven't been there, so I have no way of actually knowing. But I'm sure it's true.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Ok, we have a (probably BS) estimate on how customers are screwing over software companies. Where's the estimate on how much software companies have screwed over customers? Oh, wait, we're not supposed to give a damn about that, are we? It's okay for the software companies to screw over people but not the reverse.
This is why people don't give a crap -- including me. My first computer came with Widnows ME which caused me no end of trouble because it was buggy as hell. I was running Norton's Internet Security Suite and kept it fully updated. Within a month a worm downloaded itself into my system when I went to (of all things) a charity site. The worm wrecked my system and I had to get everything reinstalled. After that I downloaded a shareware anti-worm program to supplement Norton's. It worked fine, or seemed to, so I bought it. They sent me a keyfile in my email and told me how to install it. It didn't work. The program responded as if the time had run out and loaded my screen with one pop-up box after another to inform me that I needed to buy it. I literally could do nothing with my comuter because of all the pop-up boxes; I'd estimate that there were two hundred piled on top of each other when I had to force shut-down my computer.... and then reinstall Windows. Did I get my money back? No.
So, if you're not keeping score here, I got screwed by Microsoft, Symantec and one of the small software companies you guys are defending so ferociously. But no one else is saying anything about this sort of thing happening. Here's a clue: until the protection goes both ways we, your potential customers, don't give a damn. People have been screwed over enough that they assume that the software companies are trying to screw them over -- and a great many are -- so they don't care about you. But no one is even trying to do anything about that happening; no, all the effort is directed at trying to prevent piracy, not software makers abusing licenses and committing outright fraud. Until an actual effort is made to curb that people won't care. And why should they? I wouldn't be surprised if the guys who sold me that anti-worm program posted in this thread.
Oh, and btw, I'm a *nix-user now, so when a program doesn't work or screws up everything I can at least console myself with the fact that I wasn't defruaded out of money for it. Plus I know that someone will eventually fix it, instead of hoping that the software company will. All too many software companies never will fix their buggy software, or if they do they release it as the new version and expect you to pay for it all over again just to get a copy that workd even though you've already paid for it once. But it's okay for them do that but not for the customer who got screwed over with the earlier buggy version to pirate the new version, isn't it?
I dream of a better world... one in which chickens can cross roads without their motives being questioned.
...if congresscritters weren't so gullable...Did I mention that BSA will be enclosing a $25,000 "campaign contributions" check with every copy of the "thank you for voting for our new law" letter?
You just contradicted yourself. What is gullible about passing bad law for a princely sum? Replace "gullible" with corrupt or despicable.
What?
Lincoln wanted to raise tariffs to support public works projects and protect northern goods from competition.
Listen p*ssy. I'm sure your the same homo that posted earlier about alf's boner and you just want to remain anonymous fo
from the beginning most companies just can't afford to go out and buy several licenses of software that goes anywhere from $50-$10,000.
Then they didn't have enough money to start their business in the first place. Software licenses are supposed to be a cost of doing business. Would it be ok to squat in an abandoned building because they couldn't afford rent when they started their company?
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
Down here in Argentina, 1 dollar costs about 3 pesos (our local currency), so let's say that i am the owner of an small startup company that needs to produce things (in this case graphics). What's the price tag for photoshop in the US? 450? 500 USD? Well, multiply that by 3 and you are paying 3 times more (1500 pesos) for ONE piece of software. If i get 4500 pesos per month and after paying all the bills (let's say 2 employees) i only keep 1500 in my pocket, do you think that anyone in their right mind would pay all that money (1500 * 3 machines, just for photoshop alone) for just one piece of software?
And sorry, but no, in the professional graphics world you can't use GIMP to make your productions.
Here's a list of all the software you need to be a professional web developer, just to give you an idea of what i'm talking about:
Macromedia Studio (Flash, Fireworks, Dreamweaver): US $999
Adobe Illustrator: US $499
Adobe Photoshop: US $649
Zend Studio: US $249
Navicat SQL Client: US $168.00
That's US $2564, or in our local currency: $7692, plus taxes (21%) = $9307 pesos, plus the import costs...calculate a total of 10.000 pesos in production software licenses..
Imagine what the exchange prices are in poorer countries like Vietnam or Indonesia where 1 dollar costs like 20 in their local currency.
The world would be a perfect place if we all had the same currency, unfortunatelly that's not the case and to my opinion, that's the main reason why people pirate software.
90% of all software (and games) in stores are overpriced.
If software publishers were to lower their prices, then there will be a higher demand.
How many more people will software if it dropped from $500 to $50-$100?
Software Publishers can only blame themselves for high rate of piracy throughout the world.
Also, high prices in commercial software helps open source software gain market share.
\
That may be true, but Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci, Monet, and countless others were not producing art that was able to be replicated perfectly at no cost. Want to carve yourself a copy of David, or draw your own sketch of the Mona Lisa? Go right ahead. It's not going to be a perfect copy of the original, no matter how good of an artist you are.
I'm all for try-before-you-buy with "digital music" and movies, but am against wholesale leeching off of the media companies. There has to be a balance between the RIAA's desired monopoly and pay-per-play schemes, and the free-for-all that so many feel entitled to.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
...when I could have paid. If someone offered it to me for $10 I'd probably pay it. I might even consider paying $12.50. But any more and I'd use the Gimp. So when they do their figures I hope that the BullShit Association counted that as $12.50 and not the $1,000 or whatever ridiculous price it is that Adobe charge.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
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.
Listen p*ssy. I'm sure your the same homo that posted earlier about alf's boner and you just want to remain anonymous fo
The stupid assumption: If I didn't pirate it, I'd pay for it. No. If I didn't pirate it, I wouldn't use it.
:)
I have about a dozen or so of good original games. The rest of my games is pirated, and you can be sure I wouldn't spend money on them. Legal? No. Fair? Maybe yes, maybe not. Harming economy? Total bullshit. The worst harm to the economy comes from me playing these games instead of working. If I didn't pirate them, the authors wouldn't see a single penny from me just the same. I just wouldn't play them.
The situation about utility software is even more twisted - same "not pirated=never used" often applies here too. Except pirated means using the software for profit and eventually purchasing originals when you can afford them (earning money on the pirated version first). Means the authors WILL eventually get their fair share. If I'm too afraid of get busted for pirating the software to use it though, they won't see a penny from me.
Last but not least, Postorder. Opposite of preorder. Preorder is when you pay now, get program later. Postorder is when you download the program now, pay later, at your leisure. Don't worry, Bethesda! I will pay for that copy of Oblivion I got... eventually!
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
From what I've heard, that's quite true. However, in the years since then they've actually explicitly stated that you can do this in the license agreement.
Too true. The thought was that you could be only using the Apps at work or at home, but not both. Later my company(and MS) encouraged having the same office suite at home as we did at work. I got a CD of Office 2003 Pro with all the bells and whistles for $25.00. XP Pro was around $50.00, and my favourite thing, AOEII was free. Oh yea same with Mcafee Enterprise(free).
Haven't we heard enough of this "piracy is going to kill our economy" bullshit? Why are we focusing on this, when the our (America's) trade deficit with China is over $200,000,000,000/year (yes, that is 200 billion dollars a YEAR at the current rate). Seems to me that this piracy thing is small potatoes, in the end.
Cease your pirate propaganda, slashdotters are too smart to fall for it. There's been credible studies that have come to the conclusion that piracy costs $11,440,939,650,000 per month. In fact, unless piracy is immediately stopped, it will cost more than $132 trillion by the end of this year; your measly $200 billion is small potatoes compared to that!
In some of thouse countries with high copyright infringement rates, you have to take the difference in economies in to account. If the GDP per worker is less than $300 (which is the case in Vietnam for example) you can't really afford to drop a couple grand on software. Spend $2000 and you basically paid an entire yearly saliry for an employee. You just can't do it.
I'm not going to get in to a moral argument about it, but that's the reality in many of these high infringment countries. The cost of software is just too high for them to pay, so they just don't. If they couldn't get an illegal copy, they'd probalby just do without.
Similar situation to university students that grab copies of things like Photoshop and Visual Studio. No way they are going to scrape up $500+ for software they don't really need. If it was made impossible to copy, they'd just do without. Actually for this reason MS makes it fairly easy to get their software for cheap/free to university kids. They know they aren't paying full price no matter what, so might as well get them hooked on it and get soemthing out of it. Where I work it's like $100 to get VS 2005 if you are a student in any department and it's free if you are an enginereing or CS student.
Think about it, Open Source software is just stealing money from for-profit businesses! So the dollar amounts lost is probably 10X what it is predicted!
I believe it's the motherboard that MS considers the "heart" of the system. I don't know why they don't just marry the OS to the case the machine shipped in since that's normally where they put the damn sticker anyway ;o It's probably a trap for upgraders though.
the Bull Shit Aint never going to stop...
65% of all statistics are made up on the spot, including this one.
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
How much does it cost you if I steal one of your chairs or desks?
How much does it cost you if I copy one of your CDs?
See the difference?
If it weren't for all the money they're losing to the pirates, Microsoft would be able to spend the amount needed to create Vista on time as a quality product. By pirating software, we're just leading to bad software.
(Me ducks and runs for cover!)
And I don't know what planet you do business on, but from what I've seen a 'cost' means "something we can't avoid paying", not "something we really ought to pay". And "enough money to start a business" means "enough money to pay the costs".
These are the kinds of statistics that are pretty meaningless. Anyway aren't they talking about pirated CD's for sale on the street as opposed to downloads? You really don't see too many guys with trenchcoats with 50 CDs inside, for sale like cheap Rolex's. At leat not in the western world. So it's pretty hard to know how many people have downloaded Windows or MS Office or whatnot.
I have 5 machines in my house and everyone one of them has legitimate licences or freeware-open source code for 100% of everything and they are all Windows XP machines. If they want to burn me on the price there is ALWAYS a legitimate way around them.
No, i didn't RTFA... as all piracy statistics are made up and biased one way or the other. Still, seems awfully close to the percentage of people who said they'd get Vista illegally :D
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
How much does it cost you if I steal one of your chairs or desks?
How much does it cost you if I copy one of your CDs?
See the difference?
The difference is that copying software isn't comparable to stealing. It's more comparable to counterfeiting. When more and more people pirate a piece of software, over time, it becomes the norm to just "get it from your friend" rather than buying it. It will eventually be seen as having less value, and the company will lose money.
The U.S government doesn't want people countefeiting money for the same reason Microsoft doesn't want a business conterfeiting their software.
So I'm guessing there are people out there trying to make up the slack that I've created.
As much as I would love doodling around in Photoshop and 3ds Max, I don't. And the reason is purely because of the price. I can't afford to buy $3000-4000 to get all the software I'd like to try out. I think the lost sale, in some cases, is because the software is expensive, not because it's cheaper to pirate it.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
First things first, take back the name. It's not PIRATED software, it's duplicated, unlicensed software. Nothing was PIRATED, because NOTHING WAS STOLEN.
The claim that the business LOST $34 billion is flawed, since, in fact, business cannot LOSE what it never HAD: the $34 billion.
If we correct the grievance claim, and postulate that the business' suffered $34 billion of income deprivation, then that claim, too, is probably flawed. I suspect that most unlicensed, duplicated software is to the benefit of financially poor computer users, who might not otherwise have ANY access to the duplicated, unlicensed software.
Therefore, I postulate that the only real cost to the corporate world is the tax deductible charity receipt for helping the poorest of the poor with their computers.
If it were not for "piracy" laws, then they might be able to arrange for some kind of tax deductible charity receipt for unlicensed, duplicated software for low income computer users. But while such laws are in effect, it is unlikely that they will find low income users to be cooperative with any such effort.
"Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." -Jesus Christ The Lord's Prayer
. . . you can buy software now? ;-P
spoonerize "magic trackpad"
You haven't disproved his point. "Turning a blind eye to" something and "decrying" it are orthogonal.
Words aren't actions.
"In any case, this notion of a lost sale is just plain silly. After all, you can't lose something you never had."
Like your mind?
Windows equals lost productivity all right, but it doesn't have to be a pirated copy for it to do so.
Fine, can a company avoid paying a business license just because they 'couldn't afford it' when they start. Software licenses are as much a legal requirement as paying rent, getting the license and possible rezoning if you're working out of a residential area. Simply ignoring them because you're ok with breaking the law doesn't change that. Software licenses are not something that would be nice to do, it's something you are required to do to remain within the law.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
Steve Baller is after you.
And he has a chair.
I regret spilling a glass of ginger ale on an achritect!
I'd say it's something like iTunes minus the DRM. (And it has to be as easy to use as iTunes.)
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
Bull Shit Agency?
it doesn't legitimize theft. I realize that software piracy is not seen as a particularly serious crime by, but it is still a crime.
Realistically, it is also a more serious crime than most people treat it as. It is essentially theft, and it does clearly violate the right of property of the copyright owner. The counterargument, which is usually only made halfheartedly, is that piracy does not subtract from the material possessions of the copyright holder. This is essentially a silly argument, and only shows that theft of material possession and theft of intellectual property are not the same thing and have a different set of repercussions.
The repercussions of intellectual property theft are different from the repercussions of material theft, but they do share one thing in common that keeps them in the same class. The theft of intellectual property violates the right to property, including the right to control access to said property, and the right to use said property for profit. Some other crimes that would fall into this category would include breaking into someone's house to use their bathroom or telephone without asking, sneaking into a theater, or breaking into an amusement park at night to ride the ride for free.
People often also make the argument that they are trying out software that they pirate, and that if it is good they will purchase it later. This does sound like a good business model for software in some cases. Indeed, many developers do publish software under a contract that allows some degree of trial usage. These are shareware publishers. However, if businesses don't want to give trial licenses to their software, it is quite clearly their right not to do so, even if this appears shortsighted to users.
By using software in a trial system that developer has not licensed you to participate in, users are behaving paternalistically towards the developers and content producers. By paternalistically I mean that they are saying the the developers aren't competent to choose their own ends, and that these are their proper ends, and then forcing them to comply with them. This is actually worse than simply violating someone's rights or coercing them, since normally when someone violate another's rights they at least admit that they have rights which can be violated. Paternalism is pretending the other agent isn't a rational agent, ignoring their will, and choosing their ends for them. Authorities often do this to individual citizens with things like nanny laws, and I think that it is deeply troubling that as a society we are becomming more comfortable with proscribing what is in another's "best interest" even when it is against their actual consent.
I want to be clear that I'm not trying to be self righteous here. I pirate software and I fully intend to continue to do so. However, I think it is very important to realize that this is a moral failing on my part. To pretend that it is not my moral failing, but wholly the failing of the developer to not recognize his own best interest that causes me to pirate software is to commit a crime far wose than theft. It is to essentially deny developers as rational entities. Another way to put it is to deny that they have rights, or they have personhood.
It is not a counterargument to say that these decisions are made by corporations and not by actual human beings. All decisions made by corporations are made by beings who are at least somewhat rational, their executives, etc. To disrespect the basic rights of a corporation and to deny it's entityhood, isn't to deny the entityhood of an artificial social construction, but to deny the entityhood of the particular persons who made particular decisions. Similarly, to deny that the results of a popular election is the actual will of the people because the election polled a large group of people who is not an actual individual rational agent is to deny the personhood and natural rights of all of the individuals polled. Arguably (although this seems to me to be on less stable ground), it eve
Of course it means they didn't have enough money to start a business in the first place but if one can create a business in order to pay for software licenses than they could expand.
As for the rent statement, I'm not sure if you're talking about rent for a business or rent for living needs. They are very different from one another - if they couldn't afford rent for their business they would probably work from home. If they couldn't afford rent for living purposes than its obvious that they are in no position to start a company and if you look at it from a musician's perspective.. many bands start by traveling in a beater van from venue to venue playing their music until or if something great happens (ie: Greenday and many other bands...).
The Bull Shit Association expresses outrage.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
The Boy Scouts of America are the software Police now?
Shouldn't they be out eating Brownies?
They pirate specificly because they CANT buy, it is not a lost sale
I'm desperately trying to figure out when Slashdot became pro-piracy. It's really become quite a pro-piracy haven these last few years. People think it's perfectly all right to steal software and not pay the author for it. They actually believe it's okay to download, for instance, Doom 3, and not pay John Carmack, even though he spent five years of hard work to release it. Even more hypocritically, you'll often hear that piracy isn't theft, but when a GPL violation is reported, it is referred to as "stolen code." Also, people act as though it's wrong for the RIAA or the MPAA to go after individual infringers (never mind that this is exactly what Slashdotters were calling for during the Napster lawsuit), but when there's a GPL violation, the EFF should get involved and sue the infringers. I just don't understand the disconnect. I have a feeling it really just boils down to money--people want to preserve the means to get stuff for free without having to pay for it. It has nothing to do with morality or ideals at all.
I also don't get TechDirt's hostile opinion towards the idea that--gasp--piracy is wrong and shouldn't be happening, and that it costs people money. Of course it does. The idea that some section of the economy is magically enhanced because they got to use pirated software ignores the section of the economy hurting from lost sales. And none of it matters anyway, because you don't magically have the right to pirate software just because it would enhance your company. What a selfish and amateurish opinion to have. My company would do better if we could hack into competitors' computers and copy their valuable trade secrets for ourselves, but we don't have the right to do that just because it would enhance our business.
Finally, I don't get why so many pro-piracy opinions exist in Slashdot comments, invariably with some mention of the "MPAA/RIAA," as though scapegoating some lobby group somehow justifies making sure some musician or filmmaker or software engineer doesn't get paid for something they worked hard on to release and make a living from. I think rooting for piracy is a weak, lazy mindset. It's the easy route to take, and illustrates that one has not thought through it at all. They likely are high school or college students who haven't had to go out into "the real world" and perform work in exchange for income. They're used to running Kazaa and eMule all day long, downloading everything they can find, and they get so used to such convenience that they get bitter and defensive when the free ride is taken away.
But, I don't expect the amateur opinions around here to change. People will continue to scapegoat the RIAA and MPAA as a lame justification--"The RIAA made me download System of a Down's latest album!" "The MPAA made me download a camrip of X-Men 3!" Slashdot will continue to post vaguely pro-piracy articles such as this one, while ignoring its own Slashdot heroes like John Carmack (id Software was estimated to have lost millions of dollars when Doom 3 was leaked the weekend before its release date). Outside of the green and white bubble of this website, the rest of the world will continue to run on capitalism, the least bad economic system on Earth, and the antithesis to the pseudo-socialist worldview of "share everything and worry about the consequences later" that permeates the discussions.
Just my two cents.
"Sufferin' succotash."
No shit, sherlock. The point TechDirt is making is that it's still better that they run warez than nothing at all.
Nobody can explain exactly why that's "still better." If you don't have the money to pay for stuff, you find investors or take out loans like everyone else.
And their productivity is a lot more important than your indignation or the potential profit of the software industry.
What a self-centered mindset. How is one person's productivity more important than someone else's (through paying them for their work)? One company is more important than another's, just because one of them doesn't want to pay for software? What a lame, pseudo-socialist mindset (the struggling company is somehow entitled to something it doesn't want to pay for).
"Sufferin' succotash."
There's two real morals to that story:
+ That piracy helped MS-BASIC become the "standard BASIC" which helped Gates enormously in the long run (which I'm sure he figured out).
+ Microsoft realized that you can't really stop people from pirating shrinkwrap software, so the real solution was to enter into contracts with the OEMs and get the money right from the source.
Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
Actually, depending on the market, it does. It wants everyone to pirate their software. That way they can get them hooked on it, become the de-facto standard, and then work on doing away with pirating (which is the stage they're actually up to).
Pirating software increases a software's value if enough people do it, not decrease it.
just leave my sheep alone!
Engineering is the art of compromise.
You have a choice if you use their software, they don't have a choice if you pirate their software.
Huh? If there was a market for a cheap/free photo editing tool, somebody would fill it. In fact, there are several lower cost (and free) photo editing tools made by small companies that sell to people who don't need/can't afford Photoshop. And *these* are the companies that get screwed over when people warez software.
Joe six-pack may not spend $600 on Photoshop, but he would probably buy a $19.95 alternative (or his buddy might show him where to find Gimp). But if he can just get the top-of-the-line product for free, why the hell would he bother trying anything else?
In short, it isn't Adobe taking the lose as much as the independent and Open Source developers.
Spell cheek you've failed me four the last thyme!
I don't think you can do this anymore, but it was certainly OK for most of the 1990s. A lot of IT departments had piles of loaner CDs so that people could install Office etc at home.
Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
My point is some companies HAVE to pirate software to do business.
No they don't. There's open source tools out there to do anything a small company needs. It may not do what they want, but it will do what they need, and if that's all they can afford then that's all they get.
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I dunno about you, but I have had the motherboard in my Thinkpad replaced 3 times. Each time it was replaced, I didn't have to deal with a reactivation.
My Sysadmin Blog
Pirating software increases a software's value if enough people do it, not decrease it.
this may be the case with really populat software apps, but it is rare that a company gets to that level. For most, it just hurts them.
If a hardware or software distributor is in violation of the GPL, the vendor has no liscence to use the GPL code. Period. Not even end of discussion, because there is nothing to discuss. The vendor is on the wrong side of copyright law, and the vendor's only legal options are to a) remove the GPL code, or b) get into compliance. What's to discuss? That hurts? Tough shit.
Same with MS and others' EULAs, if MS determines you are in violation of their EULA, and revokes your "rights" to use it, you are legally required to remove the MS software from your system(s). Period. Nothing to discuss. That hurts? Tough shit.
If you want your life to be different, live it differently.
The difference is that copying software isn't comparable to stealing. It's more comparable to counterfeiting.
The U.S government doesn't want people countefeiting money for the same reason Microsoft doesn't want a business conterfeiting their software.
The significant difference is that money is used to exchange for something of value but software is used to produce something of value. Therefore, copying software to sell is comparable to counterfeiting, copying software to use is not really the same at all.
No country for example will allow counterfeiting of currency. Many software producers will allow copying of software, and not only F/OSS either, but shareware, freeware, and even proprietry software companies hoping to dominate new markets. Counterfeiting has never been advocated as a means to help economies, but the UN recommends and promotes open source (copying software) for the development of it's member nations. Until I see the UN advocating counterfeiting as a means of developing a nations economy, I'll consider consider copying software to be nothing at all similar to counterfeiting.
http://marriedmansexlife.com/
See my other reply for a clarification. But you are not entirely correct. Copyright Violation + No Harm Done = Fair Use.
Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
Sera
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
A code of conduct that says "using pirated business software in your business is wrong."
It just doesn't work in the non-western world.
Who cares, we couldn't afford it anyway is the usual answer....
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
How much does it cost you if I steal one of your chairs or desks?
How much does it cost you if I copy one of your CDs?
See the difference?
This is hairsplitting. Yes there is a difference but it isn't the difference between stealing and doing nothing wrong, those are just two different ways of doing somebody economic harm. If you are trying to argue that consuming pirated software does nobody any harm you are deluding your self. Software piracy causes software manufacturers very real losses of revenue. One can argue endlessly about how great this loss of revenue is but you are still doing somebody financial harm by using pirated software and you are also doing something that is plain wrong. Yes, everybody uses pirated software and yes, it is true enough that the pricing of software products is in many cases quite outrageously inflated and unfair but that still does not mean that there is nothing at all wrong with engaging in software piracy and using pirated software. No matter how many complaints you may come up with to justify your use of pirated software and how meritous those your complaints may be they still don't make using software without purchasing a license to do so from the software's manufacturer any less wrong.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
With computer literacy being as low as it is in South Africa, I'm probably responsible for 80% of the countries reported piracy. I buy alot of software, but if I had to buy all my software, I'd have to spend my entire salary on media. The BSA in SA, is only concerned with companies, not individuals.
High prices = excuse for people to turn to free (as in beer) software. Of course, to avoid getting BSA in your house and suing you into bankruptcy, FOSS software is recommended, esp. if you're running a business.
There are 10 kinds of people in the world - those that know binary, and those that don't.
Indeed. The entire principle behind trade is that the amount of goods in the system remains the same after each trade, but the value of those goods increases due to their redistribution. e.g. Chicken farmer has more eggs than he knows what to do with, cow farmer has more milk than he knows what to do with. They both decide to trade some eggs for milk. Net result is that although the total amount of milk and eggs remains the same, their value to the two farmers has increased due to the trade. Those two dozen eggs were worth more to the cow farmer than two liters of milk. Those two liters of milk were worth more to the chicken farmer than those two dozen eggs.
In the same way, if the theory that (some) software is overpriced is correct, then if all this pirated software were actually bought, the value of the system would actually decrease. In other words, this is a pretty good argument that if the "lost" revenue the BSA is crowing about were recouped, it could actually harm the economy.
Once software infringement has reached endemic levels, it is probably about as difficult to reverse as just about any other severely ingrained cultural practice. After all, if a perfect copy is available for $1 on any street corner, and the culture refuses to enforce against this, there is no rational reason to pay even $50 for it.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Who cares, we couldn't afford it anyway is the usual answer....
It's easy for you to dismiss that "argument" as a real one, but it's frequently true. There are software prices (I'm not talking 30 buck zip here) that some people on this planet don't see collected in years.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
How can a single paragraph without any facts be an analysis?
What the hell does the Boy Scouts of America care about software piracy?
What I mean is, if there was no way to pirate high price commercial software, Linux and other FOSS software would have gotten much much more widespread. Piracy for commercial use (i.e. companies making loads of money with pirated sw) are ones which probably would have the money to pay but they don't so that could be called potential sales (and _not_ lost sales), but piracy for home use is nothing else than free promotion and advertising - it's not just about buying the software, it's about people gathering knowledge of use of these software and the potential sells for them later on. I think they just make too much fuss about this whole sw piracy issue. I'm not saying they should charge less or null for their software, but claiming that every pirated copy is a lost sale is just stupid and ignorant.
And of course they know this all too well, since you can't sanely think these companies employ and rely on stupid people. But they just love to talk about big number of hypothetical fairytale lost sales money to impress sixpacks and politicians.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
Without commenting on the right or wrong of software piracy, I'm curious to know if there are any real world examples out there if a high-priced, heavily pirated software title where the vendor decided to lower the price to a reasonable level.
Just about everyone I know has photoshop, but nobody I know plunked down the several hundred dollars for it. These are the same people who have no issues with spending $50 on a game rather then go through the hassle of pirating it, and would likely puchase the graphics editor if it was more realistically priced.
I would think that Adobe would make more money if they could sell 20 copies at $50 a peice for every one they sell at their inflated price right now. Has any other company made that switch?
The Internet is generally stupid
You want a signature? You can't handle a signature!!
Remember that the judical definition of damage is VERY broad. Theoretically you could slap an ad banner on your download page and sue infringing mirrors for lost ad revenue.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
My employer isn't investing in 'developing commercial operating systems for personal computers'. He is investing in 'developing free operating systems for personal computers'. He sells service, always has, always will. Want a guarantee ?
It's also a natural fact that you can stab a random person on the street to death. That's why we got laws, because natural order isn't sufficient to make society exist.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Go on and post your WinXP license key. We are going to see how much it'll cost you. When you copy your licensed software, you have got still one license.
Copying a CD, whether it is music, data, software or whatever it is, isn't stealing. Copying a CD, and only when the copier doesn't have any authorization to do so, is copyright infringement. In come countries, where mine is included, copying CDs/DVDs/whatnot for private use isn't illegal at all and it is even clearly defended by law. So please get your facts straight and please try to avoid spreading that kind of propaganda.
Slashdot, fix your code or at least hire someone who is competent at it to do it for you.
35% of packaged software installed on PCs globally is pirated
And over 90% of statistics like these are made up on the spot.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
How much does it cost you if I sit with a copy machine at home producing thousands of counterfeit dollars, while you go to work for weeks to earn that same money?
It is true that "stealing a chair" is not quite an accurate analogy for copyright infringement. If I pirate X amount of software that you own, that doesn't mean that you lose X worth of software. Counterfeiting is a much better analogy because it involves devaluing a commodity. What piracy does do is devalue that software for everyone. By "devalue" I obviously don't mean that the software becomes less useful for users; I mean that it forces the price down.
If counterfeiting were as easy and common as piracy, there would be a lot less incentive to work. Instead of working for several weeks to get their paycheck, workers would just fire up their copy machine and get the money in an instant. Since money is society's incentive to keep people working, easy counterfeiting would be pretty damaging to the economy.
Without piracy, prices are set by a sort of macroeconomic negotiation, where programmers can ask as much as they want and consumers can reject them as much as they want. This system makes neither side completely happy; the programmers want to set the price to infinity, and the consumers want to set it to $0. But it does allow for a compromise based on the *quality* of the software that works fairly well, as can be seen in just about every other industry.
With piracy, quality basically doesn't matter anymore. It is as easy to pirate a crappy program as it is an excellent program. Consumers can set the price to $0 if they like. Since the software is economically worthless, the price is now set by things unrelated to quality. They will pay to get things like support or a shiny box and CD. But now the economic system encourages better tech support and better boxes, not better software.
Now, as a supporter of open source software, I think that this discussion leaves out a very important point: programming is fun (at least for a lot of people). But even so, programming can sometimes also be boring, and this is why the proprietary model holds that programmers need to be paid for good software to be produced. Whether or not you agree with whether the model works, it is disrespectful and unethical to interfere with the proprietary model by pirating proprietary software, just like it would be for proprietary programmers to interfere with the open source model by pirating open source code (by incorporating it into proprietary software). In order to allow these two models to compete, society provides the copyright system so that programmers can set the terms for what users can do with their software.
Again, piracy is not stealing. It's like counterfeiting or cheating on an exam. You aren't directly taking something from someone else; you are making the work of other people less valuable by being dishonest.
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof of this theorem that this sig is too small to contain.
That wasn't a debunk, that was a rant. They could have acted a little more professionally.
The countries with the highest piracy rates were Vietnam (90%), Zimbabwe (90%), Indonesia (87%), China (86%), and Pakistan (86%).
/scarcasm
Yeah. Clearly the general populace in those countries would be willing and able to pay full retail if it weren't for those damned pirates.
The countries with the lowest piracy rates were the United States (21%),
Good. Does that mean you're going to get off our (USians) backs now? How about just cutting back a little on buying congress people and laws? You know, ease up on the Federal corruption - just for a little while - till the populace regains some semblance of trust in the democratic process that made this country great.
Come on, just for giggles - eh?
Just a thought.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
microsoft won the race because their products were incredibly well pirated. the gaming industry is, where it is now, because of pirates! heck what would security software companies complain if there were no pirates? no copy protection O_o necessary (go paradox interactive go!)? a whole industry looses billions? where would major hardware vendors be without piracy? who needs tons of tons of cdrws, dvdrs, hdds? right, the guys who got so much stuff (they can't even consume), that they need to store it somewhere. this goes on... the damn industry not only created and nurished pirates for years, they are dependend on them! but if i could sue my customers for a lot of money i wouldn't make any other way (because if they can't get it legally, they wouldn't have it at all) i would probably do it myself.
i say: let's not only boycott them. burn them on a stick!
(never bite the hand that feeds you)
How much does it cost you if I steal one of your chairs or desks?
A chair / desk.
How much does it cost you if I (and a few million others) copy one of your CDs?
A livelihood.
Of course if you belong to those who believe that people shouldn't be allowed to make a livelihood out of writing software/music, no matter how much others benefit from it, then you may have a point.
(Yeah, I modified your second sentence a bit - just to keep your weaseling out in check, because you had changed the question in the first place. Individuals making a few copies of legally owned material is no big deal, millions of people leeching of torrents is - that's why private copy is legal and paid for through blank media levy in much of Europe and Canada, but P2P distribution isn't)
"Part of adapting is adapting to your competitors. If your competitors are pirating software, they're gaining an advantage over you. With piracy in it's semi-legal state, it's bad business not to do it."
ah cool, so fuck whats legal then. If my competitors are mugging my employees on the way home and cutting their hands off to stop them working, maybe we should do that back to them too eh?
If your competitors are breaking the law to get an advantage over you, they should be fined by the govt and bought into line, thats way better than your "fuck the rules, every man for himself" attitude to business.
BTW since when was pirating "semi-legal" outside of your own mind?
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
"we people" would be people that make software for a living, and have bills to pay.
Some people make chairs for a living. Some people make data. Both of them go to work each day, both of them have bills to pay.
Explain to me why one of these people gets paid for each sale, and one of them has to go hungry?
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
in both cases, the company making the product needs to sell units in order to make money.
just because one can be digitally copied and one cant does not change this fact.
Your argument is useless, because it does not scale up at all. If 1 person copies photoshop, it may not seem to matter, but if everyone copies it, adobe go out of business. So how exactly is this a viable way for the economy to run, or is it only you and your friends who get to act as free-riders?
You cant base an economy on the idea that people dont purchase stuff because its digital. Nobody would have an incentive to make anything. Why cant people see this damned obvious fact?
I suspect you see it all too well, but dont want to spoil the party whereby you get to take everyone elses work for free, subsidised by law-abiding customers.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
Squat in an abandoned building? A building that no one is using? A building that is going to waste?
Of course. Why not? As long as you move out without causing any damage when the owner wants it back, where is the problem?
Homeless people. Empty houses. Socialist attitude. Love this country. End of post.
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
On the UK BSA website it says...
.NET) development and this investment has been blown away by Microsoft's decision to discontinue VB (VB.NET is not VB).
Welcome to the Business Software Alliance UK website. We are here to help businesses avoid software licensing problems.
If that is truly their aim, they should be pressing for businesses to use Open Source software. Searching for "Open Source" on their site reveals that the term occurs only once, in one document. They could also point out the dangers of investing your companies future in proprietary solutions. e.g. I work for a company that has invested hundreds of thousands of pounds in Visual Basic (pre
Explain why a business owner in Vietnam should pay the same $200 for software as the American businessman, when incomes in Vietnam are less than one tenth of American incomes?
The businessman just chooses that he shouldn't be the one to go hungry because of over-prices software.
And don't pretend software companies are making no money. They are just making slightly less than they theoretically could, but for many illegal users, the option for legal use simply is unaffordable so they wouldn't have been real customers anyway.
I don't own a copy of Word. Never owned it, never used it. My entire collection of Microsoft software consists of a bunch of old DOS floppies (and Microsoft C for DOS) in a shoebox somewhere in the garage, and one Win95 OSR2 CD. I don't have anything they're even supporting any more, let alone selling. Do you think it still counts as a lost sale if you copy something they're no longer selling? :)
:)
How about WINE? I can easily make copies of WINE! Do you suppose that (legally) copying an up-to-date emulator of their system hurts them more or less than (illegally) copying an obsolete version of their actual product? The philosophical implications could be amazing!
Your logic is, at least, very faulty and from the very start. First, you should not mix up two whole different concepts which are "stealing" and "not selling". When someone downloads something, it isn't stealing. Stealing results in the subtraction of property while "not selling" only results in a hypotetical loss of revenue. Although it can be discussedd that both have impact on the bottom line of any company, while the first one deals with tangible information and a concrete loss of capital the second only deals with speculation and a bunch of vagely formulated "what if"s.
One of those "what ifs" which is always assumed to be a fact by the proponents of the the "downloading is stealing" propaganda is that each download is a lost sale. That is false and misleading, to say the least. First of all the real cost of the product directly affects it's purchasing. For example, joe shmoe would never spend more than 500 for a photo editing suite just to resize his vacation pictures or 500 on a professional CAD application just to write a simple diagram. More, there are people who basically simply collect downloads. They keep their eMule client running after downloading a couple of ISOs although he never burned a CD with them.
Another fact is that the use of unauthorized copies leads to a more massive adoption of the product and in some cases it also contributes for it being the "de facto" standard. That, in turn, will lead to even more sales which would never happened in the first place.
So as it easy to see, not only is downloading not stealing but downloads do in fact have a positive impact on the acceptance and adoption of a product. So, a company can and should have the right to authorize who can and cannot use it's products but still, that doesn't mean that unauthorized use has such a clear negative impact on their bottom line as you and other anti-download propaganda-spreaders wish to make believe.
Slashdot, fix your code or at least hire someone who is competent at it to do it for you.
So, now, I have a piece of defective software that I can't take back to the store because it's been opened, and I don't think another copy of the same software is going to fix the problems.
The BSA counts this as a sale, and I lost my hard earned money on this crap. No wonder I used to pirate software all the time.
The day Microsoft creates a product that doesn't suck, it will be known as the Microsoft Vaccuum Cleaner!
It's not "fuck the rules, every man for himself", it's "fuck the rules, they aren't being enforced". It's a force you'll have seen in effect in real life. There might be a big Keep Off the Grass sign, but if the first few people in a big crowd start to cross, the rest will follow, and it'll feel pretty stupid to try to obey the sign anyway.
It might not be right, but at least accept that this is the way things are. At least then you might be able to start to do something about it. And no, the answer isn't for us to change. That crowd won't stop crossing the grass very easily. You need to change your business models and stop putting grass in our way.
Hold on cowboy, you can't claim bogus logic and make an equally bogus poinnt! Stealing trucks and copying software have various differences legally, logically, hough only through the individual moral view could you see them as exact equals, IMO.
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
so all big companies should stop making software then.
well done, you just killed off the software business.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
interesting. Are you the same kind of person who would then complain that the vietnamese company can undercut americans and take jobs by outsourcing I wonder?
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
this is nonsense. you are saying that people taking software they dont pay for actually helps that software become the de facto standard. for what?
for everyone else to take it for free as well?
Now that doesnt sound like much of a business model to me. If this business model worked so well, people would be giving away the first 10,000 copies of photoshop. but you may notice they do not.
I dont care if you think "i wouldnt have bought it anyway". In that case, dont use it, you have no right to take other peoples work for free unless they allow you to do so expressly.
Software is not food. It is not water, it is not shelter, it is a luxury good. The same goes for music and films and games.
Your whole philosophy is based on the idea thats its fine for people to take stuff without paying for it, because it creates a market where OTHER PEOPLE will pay for it and keep the business in profit. I always notice that the freeloaders who state this view always mentally put themselves in the 'getting it for free' group, and everyone else who they look down upon goes in to the 'paying for that software so I dont have to ' group.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
The change is happening anyway, with or without you. A few examples: Red Hat, Novell, Bethesda, and Bungie. They all sell software, but they also make a load of money from stuff like services, support and extra content. Software can be profitable the moment you stop playing King Canute with piracy.
Have these losses been reported to the SEC? If they truly are losses, then the BSA members have an obligation to their shareholders to report these losses.
Copyrights, Patents, Trademarks: temporary loans from the Public Domain, not real property ("intellectual" or otherwise)
There's plenty of open-source 3d modeling software, and I bet there's plenty of open-source software for any other need a small business might have. Maybe you don't like that software as much as the software that costs money, but that doesn't mean you can just download proprietary software without paying the asking price. Software companies don't owe you their software. There's plenty of software being offered for free, why don't you use that instead of the software that isn't?
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
The judicial definition of damage is interpreted on a case by case basis, and also subject to appeal.
So positing a ridiculous case does not win you the arguement.
most of the pirated software would not be bought if it were only available if paid for. I hope the people who publish this stuff and have a disproportionate influence on law makers die of cancer, preferably a very unpleasant cancer. Those organisations which note the unpaid for usage of software in different markets and find ways of selling cheaper copies in those markets deserve to make lots of money and take over their brain dead rivals.
Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
I remember Microsoft calculating the piracy rate for windows by subtracting the number of copies of windows sold from the number of pc's sold.. thus including all linux, unix, NExT, etc software in their so called "piracy rates".
I want to know how the bsa is calculating this.
If it uses the same formula as microsoft, then youre pirating photoshop by using gimp.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
A state that has more than 80% piracy rates (and maybe even as low as 40 ro 50% rates) is a strong endorsement that society does not want an anti-piracy law or does not want the law as it currently sits. Thus, it would be foolish to try to enforce a law that society obviously does not want (it's a good way to get yourself voted out next election in a democracy and a good way to encourage revolt and other such dissent in a non-democracy). Whether or not it's right or moral isn't a consideration; no government can work when it makes a law that makes a majority of its populace criminals AND tries to enforce said law.
I am not in anyway affiliated with Max Cannon
You must be new here.
I think the obvious answer is to raise the price for the people who buy the software to cover the losses.
"he drew his sword Ringil that glittered like ice... and he wounded Morgoth with seven wounds..."
appears the west is all paid up, no?
According to the article the US is actually in the lower end of the spectrum concerning piracy yet its our citizens who get the lead pipe over the head? If the **AA's are going to bitch then they better bitch about the right groups and people not regular consumer/citizens. This could probably go for the same in the UK (as I don't live there I don't know).
...now I'm off to take my meds.
Its always been the asian countries (with a small exception to Japan), I know from past articles I've read China is a huge issue. But the ones who get clubbed are the US citizens because we're easily reached. Don't get me wrong I'm all for taking down the jerk-offs selling the bootlegs out of their trunks, etc. But for the **AA's to sue families who they know don't have the income to pay outrageous settlement amounts (yet know they have some money is ridiculous.
You know, its funny too. I was going to buy a cd off Amazon the other day and the damn thing is "Copy Protected". Upon further reading this crap "...may not work with some or all CD/DVD drives..." So a cd I buy might not even play at all? I could have possibly bought a very shiny coster? This doesn't even delve into whether I'll be able to put the songs onto my Creative Zen.
I'm glad they feel safe in this day and age for if it were the medieval days they surely would have either been burned at the stake or stoned to death by a huge mob with axes, torches, and pitchforks.
"When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty."
Business Software Alliance says 35% of packaged software installed on PCs globally is pirated,
Solution: Web-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS & SOA). Negate the need for packaged software (and MS, and the BSA). BSA is jousting at windmills as their Rome burns, to mix metaphors...
Flying is easy, just throw yourself at the ground and miss. -Douglas Adams
Same with MS and others' EULAs, if MS determines you are in violation of their EULA, and revokes your "rights" to use it, you are legally required to remove the MS software from your system(s). Period. Nothing to discuss. That hurts? Tough shit.
Bzzt, wrong. The "right to use it" is not Microsoft's to revoke. Once I have a legally-produced copy of a piece of software in my hands no law short of the DMCA (sometimes. may it rest in peace, soon, PLEASE) stands in the way of my installing and running it. MS can stop me from making copies, selling copies, renting it, making derivative works, public performance, and a few other things. What they cant stop me from doing is writing a review, installing the software, making a backup copy, running the software, using the cd as a frisbee or the manual as toilet paper, and many many other things.
Thanks for turning me on to Eclipse (www.eclipse.org). This is fantastic stuff by the looks of it and the little bit of time I'd actually used it.
+5 Karma bonus
Did I ever say I was using that software? I was just using an example. And I wasn't saying the software companies owe you their software - just that if its available to download the "brand name" software... they're going to do it and who can blaim them? Sure it's illegal but hey... every man for himself because its a dog eat dog world out there.
Who on earth modded this up? If I hadn't already commented on this article, I'd mod this flamebait myself. I mean, honestly, that is a can of worms that has been opened thousands of times, was not really on topic, and certainly was not necessary. And from somebody with a UID in the 100000s, too. Wow, I'd expect better behavior of such an old man.
SIGSEGV caught, terminating
wait... not that kind of sig.
I was using "you" as the generic "you" - I wasn't saying you personally were pirating. As far as blame goes, if you don't think piracy is wrong then I don't know how I'd convince you otherwise.
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
When somebody steals from my property, I end having less than I had before, when somebody does illegal copying from my property I end having exactly as much as I had before.
You don't have as much as you did before, because you no longer have as high a potential to sell to the "thief" as you previously did.
Secondly, if Company A steals trade secrets from Company B, is it not stealing even though Company B still has the information?
Is sneaking into a movie theater to watch a movie for free not stealing (of a sort) eventhough the theater "has as much as it had before" (and for this example, we'll assume that the theater wasn't sold out, so no, it's not the occupation of a seat that is the stolen item, but the viewing of the movie itself).
There are many more examples of stealing where the victim hasn't lost a tangible item.
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
But how much do you have to know about Windows to do this? Mom, Pop and many average users don't have this knowledge, and don't necessarily want to invest in the knowledge.
Seems like a good opportunity for ShareWare: Use that knowledge to generate a list of "everything" that is on the machine, and then allow a check for items to (keep | be removed).
(Or, do what I do, which is stick with Macs and self-assembled clones with generic versions of MS Windoze.)
dave
Working for a small software company, I can say you're wrong. It's not uncommon to discover that sales are being generated because a warezed version of our software has become widespread and given us some nice grass-roots publicity.
well, I own a small software company and I know many people in the biz and we have all had people cracking our software.
What usually happens is the pirate sites will pick up on our app, release a crack, we will get a surge of downloads (which wastes bandwidth), and sales will start dropping over time. When a patch is released, sales will increase once again. It's pretty obvious what's happening.
so you guys don't care if people crack your software? Can I have a free copy?
"My point is some companies HAVE to pirate software to do business."
Any company that HAS to pirate to do business should get out of business. It's funny, slashdotters routinely condemn Microsoft as a "criminal" organization (despite that they've been convicted nor even accused of any "crime" (civil suits are not criminal matters)), yet you guys defend companies that base their business on using pirated software, which is indeeed criminal behavior.
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
I have an XP Pro CD and I just type in whatever license code is on the sticker attached to the box in question. Then I install SP2.
. htm
You do know that you can slipstream SP2 into a Windows CD, right? Just do it once and you'll never have to wait for SP2 to install again. Here is a tutorial:
http://www.theeldergeek.com/slipstreamed_xpsp2_cd
"It ain't a war against drugs.it's a war against personal freedom" --Bill Hicks
Netcraft confirms it.
"Hello 911? I just tried to toast some bread, and the toaster grew an arm and stabbed me in the face!"
To be fair, iTunes' DRM is the most reasonable DRM scheme so far. Apple just needs to license their DRM to other manufacturers and they need to release iTunes for more platforms. Until they do that, I'll continue to try MP3s via P2P or request music via digital cable and buy CDs as I find tracks I like.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Ok, lets settle this once and for-all. I do believe piracy is wrong but I'm not sure how piracy affects the economy. Claims like these are certainly a cry out to pass more strict laws in punishing those who do pirate software and the like. But are these actions necessary?
I'm just not too sure. Piracy is illegal and it should stay that way (duh) but do we need to pass more strict laws and are these statistics showing everything? Are these statistics based strictly off of pirating software or is open source software considered?
Geez, you're right. Curses upon all those people who have been spreading that myth!
Nobody, not even the radical fanatical (whatever labels you want to attach to him) Richard Stallman, suggests copyright prevents butterflies from flitting around. The scientific question is: if there were no copyright protection for creative works, would creative output increase or decrease?
What would happen is that people would create pieces of art for the sake of art. Since TFA is about software, people/businesses would create software for its use-value, rather than its exchange-value.
You may believe that the overall quantity/quality of art & software would plummet, but you would need to back that up. Fact is that art is an input to creativity as well as an output. Copyright limits the amount of art that can be "fed in" to the process. It is therefore perfectly reasonable to expect that without this limit, the same approximate amount of art would come out of the aggregate population.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
and one of them has to go hungry?
Wow. Seems a bit of an exaggeration, eh?
The fact of the matter is that if somebody steals the carpenter's chair, he can no longer sell it to somebody else. If somebody pirates your software, on the other hand, you can still sell it to whomever you please. Plain and simple, the carpenter is worse off.
I'm not arguing that piracy is ok--far from it in fact. But saying piracy and theft are the same things is ludicrous.
The GP was probably talking about SolidWorks, SolidEdge, CATIA, ProEngineer - these packages generate engineering drawings and models, not just cute images. They are priced accordingly.
If it is just the case that one believes copyright should remain as it is, and one pirate, then definitely it's true, but what about the inclusion of the belief that the person you're pirating from is an immoral pedophile sinner-type, who do not deserve for the law to support them? Would it be moral to pirate the work of a pedophile? What about a neo-nazi? Or a liberal?
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
I never said we should pass more laws against piracy, and I never said the BSA isn't full of shit. I said that piracy is bad and people need to only get software they can afford, even if that means they're limited to free stuff. There's lots of free software available of really good quality (my software is all free, even though I could afford to pay for proprietary stuff) so I don't see why people "need" to pirate.
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
Why don't you back up to the point you were at before you started shooting your mouth off and putting words in mine, reread what I actually wrote and then try again.
The scientific question is: if there were no copyright protection for creative works, would creative output increase or decrease?
...The auditorium was half full though, which was a bit sad. Come to think of it, original, live music, for $2 a seat, and there were so few to attend. But I digress...
Depends on what you mean by 'creative output'. If it is shit like Britney Spears, then I say - let them burn.
What I would name 'creative output' is doing very well, thank you. I just went to a jazz concert sponsored by the Embassy of Germany, and the ticket was $2. That is less than 1/4 of a decent meal in town, for you to compare. The band (5 people) looked very well fed and happy, too.
Picture an improvisor of Bird's skill being legally allowed to revamp, rewrite, record, and release any tune heshe wanted without having to clear rights. It'd be like Dial-a-Song, except probably Dial-a-Dozen-Songs
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Some software vendors realized this, and offer "free for non-commercial use" licenses. For example, Maya is a very expensive bit of software, and they offer a free personal learning edition which is feature-equivilent to the basic version of the software, and not time=limited (it does add a watermark to your renders though). I started out a while ago using this free personal learning edition of the sofware, and now I have a legitimate license for it.
Just because a company is stupid doesn't limit their legal rights. The Maya personal edition is enlightened - and hopefully the folks who developed that strategy are richer for it. But Adobe isn't enlightened (news at 11, anchored by Dmitry Sklyarov) and doesn't have a personal-use version of Photoshop (they'll sell you Elements, of course). This should be bad for the company in terms of not developing a market, but instead so many people think it means the company doesn't deserve its copyright protections instead.
The numbers work like this - if a million people infringe on Photoshop instead of using GIMP and just 1% of those people contribute to GIMP mailing lists and just 1% of those people become GIMP developers, that's a hundred new developers and ten thousand people helping out on mailing lists.
In a world where FLOSS depends so heavily on the size of its user base to achieve quality and so heavily on copyright to achieve its integrity (GPL) we ought not make light of copyright infringement or activities which decrease the user base.
I don't want to see copyright weakened to the point that the GPL is no longer enforceable.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
At least that is true. If all software were free as in beer, there'd be no piracy. As you raise the price incrementally, I assume you would get more piracy. You also get people that simply don't like the inconvenience of registering or activating software and having to use the CD to play games, so they'd rather use pirated software. Or who don't want to take 15 minutes to read and agree to a license.
Spell cheek you've failed me four the last thyme!
Imagine what would happen if 50% of these warez-Photoshop users went will a cheaper or free package? Maybe Adobe wouldn't completely own the market. What would happen if 60% of China used Open Source rather than warezed goods? It could change the world.
Spell cheek you've failed me four the last thyme!