Piracy Built the Romanian IT Industry

An anonymous reader submitted a link to a Washington Post article about a very interesting press conference. Romanian President Traian Basescu stood up in front of international press and discussed the role pirated Microsoft software played in bringing about the IT industry in the country. The other big player at the press conference was Microsoft chair Bill Gates. Gates' company was opening a technical center in Bucharest, and he declined to comment on the president's remarks. Romania passed anti-piracy laws nearly 10 years ago, but nearly 70 percent of software used in the country continues to be of an illicit nature.

Comments

News Report

[Fifty Points]

This just in: Romania destroyed by what appears to have been a bombardment of chairs. More at 11.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Romania...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, MS owes Romania. You see, MS has been using the vampire method of business: sucking the blood of their customers. A clear rip-off of the vampire business model.

To whom is piracy most damging?

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in Romania, and the fact is that many people here, after spending 500$ on a decent PC, find it hard to pay another 400$ on software (cheap computers here come with no software, or FreeDOS or Linux, and in some cases illegal Windows). So most people run pirated versions of Windows at home. In contrast, most bussinesses have legitimate licenses.
But I do not think this hurts MS too much. My reasoning is that if forced to pay for Windows, most people would spend a little more time learning to install and use Linux (it's really not that hard this days). And in the long this would result in more users proficient with Linux, and some bussinesses might also switch (not having to train employees).
So software piracy is bad, but not necessarily for the software maker.

Re:I guess the only surprising thing...

[Anonymous Coward]

From an old CNN article:

"Although about three million computers get sold every year in China, people don't pay for the software," Gates reportedly said. "Someday they will, though. And as long as they're going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade."

Piracy kickstarted the US publishing industry

[Frankie70]

US refused to pass any copyright laws in the publishing industry
till the time there were enough US authors whose rights needed
to be protected. When Charles Dickens visited the US, he saw his
books sold legally all over the place & he wasn't getting a penny
out of these sales. He complained to the US Govt repeatedly but
of no avail.

But publishers who were "pirating" his books in the US made
enough money to kickstart the publishing industry in the US.
Then a time came when there were enough US authors whose
rights had to be protected & that's when the relavant laws
were passed & enforced in the US.

Something similiar is happening in Romania wrt the software
industry.

Re:I guess the only surprising thing...

[suffe]

With a monopoly in effect there is no subsidising. You think the price of Windows reflects actual costs? It reflects the price the market will bear.