BSA Says Software Theft Exceeded $51B In 2009

alphadogg sends a NetworkWorld.com piece going over the Business Software Alliance's latest stats on software theft around the world. "Expanding PC sales in emerging markets is increasing the rate of software piracy, according to the Business Software Alliance and IDC. The rate of global software piracy in 2009 was 43%, meaning that for every $100 worth of legitimate software sold in 2009, an additional $75 worth of unlicensed software also made its way into the market. This is a 2-percentage-point increase from 2008. Software theft exceeded $51 billion in commercial value in 2009, according to the BSA. IDC says lowering software piracy by just 10 percentage points during the next four years would create nearly 500,000 new jobs and pump $140 billion into 'ailing economies.' ... In the United States, software piracy remained at 20%, the lowest level of software theft of any nation in the world. ... The PC markets in Brazil, India, and China accounted for 86% of the growth in PC shipments worldwide." The BSA president said, "Few if any industries could withstand the theft of $51 billion worth of their products." It's unclear whether that was a brag about the industry's robustness, or a result of the industry's low cost of goods sold.

Comments

Don't worry, they are working on a solution

[gregory311]

In not very long, all software will be accessed via the web only. No pay, no play. Problem solved.

Re:Don't worry, they are working on a solution

[ducomputergeek]

Which is funny, because this is what our main competitor "runs in the cloud" and we're fielding calls daily with their customers wanting to know how soon can they deploy our locally running software because it's faster and they can still work even if their internet connection goes down.

Re:Don't worry, they are working on a solution

[Anonymous Coward]

IDC says lowering software piracy by just 10 percentage points during the next four years would create nearly 500,000 new jobs

Yeah, half-a million jobs for India and China.

As an unemployed American software engineer who was laid off from Microsoft after our project development was offshored to India -- fuck 'em, I say. The Pirate Bay is providing me with the latest in cracked, malware-free installs of Windows 7 and Server 2008. I run Linux at home, but I sell the Windows discs to high school kids for five bucks a pop. Great for beer money.

Re:Don't worry, they are working on a solution

[Monolith1]

In not very long, all software will be accessed via the web only. No pay, no play. Problem solved.

That will be fun for those of us in airgap environments with no connection to the internets.

Re:Don't worry, they are working on a solution

[turgid]

You'll just have to use cracked pirate versions or that smelly, dirty, un-American long-haired-hippy Free Software.

Re:Don't worry, they are working on a solution

[Shakrai]

If you put $51 Billion into the system and the net result is 500,000 new jobs, you're talking half a million jobs at $102,000 each! Even with benefits, you could hire an American for that,

Your math is wrong, let me help you:

500,000 jobs x $13,000 for Indian workers = $650,000,000 in wages.
$51,000,000,000 - $650,000,000 = $50,350,000,000 in dividends for shareholders and bonuses for executives

Re:Don't worry, they are working on a solution

[natehoy]

Good point, but...

You're off by an order of magnitude on the wages for the workers. Either they have to make $1,300 each, or the total has to be $6,500,000,000, in which case the executive bonus budget won't buy full-time attention from a single inbred asshat (sorry! typo - I meant "talented leader").

Re:Don't worry, they are working on a solution

[u17]

I say great that people saved $51B thanks to unauthorised copies. Imagine what they can spend it on instead!

Re:Don't worry, they are working on a solution

[Shakrai]

Ah, yes, I left a zero off that number. My bad. I shall now precede to bang my head against the keyboard until bloody.

Re:Don't worry, they are working on a solution

[rudy_wayne]

Your math is wrong, let me help you: 500,000 jobs x $13,000 for Indian workers = $650,000,000 in wages. $51,000,000,000 - $650,000,000 = $50,350,000,000 in dividends for shareholders and bonuses for executives

Sorry, but the math is still wrong.

First, the actual amount of money lost by the software industry is very close to zero. As in ZIP ZILPH NADA NOTHING. This is because piracy does not equal lost revenue:

1 - There is no software so important that you can't live without it (this also applies to movies, music, etc)
2 - A substantial portion of the population will never buy your product. Never. If they can get it for free they will take it, but otherwise they will simply do without it (see number 1)
3 - Because of points 1 and 2, uncrackable DRM/Copy Protection would produce no significant increase in revenue -- certainly nowhere near the absurd number claimed by the BSA.

Second, even if you eradicated piracy and the software industry really did realize increased revenue of $500 Gazillion dollars (US), the number of jobs created would be very close to zero. We're not manufacturing widgets here. If sales of Photoshop increase sharply they don't need to hire more programmers.

Re:Don't worry, they are working on a solution

[Znork]

If you put $51 Billion into the system

Except you don't put $51 Billion into the system, you take it from elsewhere. Which means 500K to 1M jobs are lost in other industries, with the funds transferred to the software industry.

Copyright and other IPR are fundamentally taxation systems. They artificially transfer funds from one place in the economy to another; saying $51B more to IPR industries creates more jobs is equivalent to saying that $51B more in taxes would create more jobs.

Of course, calling it 'property' instead of 'tax' makes it much more palatable in political circles.

Re:Don't worry, they are working on a solution

[TooMuchToDo]

Ah, yes, I left a zero off that number. My bad. I shall now precede to bang my head against the keyboard until bloody.

Don't bother; we can outsource that to India cheaper as well.

Re:Don't worry, they are working on a solution

[turbidostato]

"Not even the embedded software in your life support device?"

Which we all know is rabidly pirated all over the world, yessss

Let Me Add to the List; I'm Good at This Too

[eldavojohn]

They left out several data points they discovered that were simply too shocking to print:

• There is a tight statistical correlation between the rate of software piracy and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.
• Cracking a single piece of software is such a complex process that it can cost up to one hundred thousand kitten souls in the process.
• If piracy dropped 20% in one year, the resulting productivity would yield one observable unified field theory for all of modern physics.
• If piracy dropped 30% in one year, Jesus and Muhammad would come back to life and smoke a peace pipe thus ending pain and suffering all over the world. Just 30% for that!
• The Center for Astrological Thought concluded that extraterrestrial life forms avoid our planet simply on the grounds that they cannot sell and enforce their software licenses here.
• Software piracy creates an unknown yet to be found negative force that exists in the dimension in which we can travel through time. Every time a piece of software is pirated, seventeen thousand Negatosmas are released into this dimension prohibiting time travelers from the future of ever traveling back before that point.
• Said Negatosmas have also created a food source for the Time Devil which caused him to mutate into the Super Time Devil which now makes time travel a cat and mouse game flirting with disaster ... but also a very popular reality TV show in the future.
• In 2009, Michael Jackson's last words were "End software piracy" as the stolen copy of Windows XP that regulated his IV's drip failed because he had just passed the 30 days he had to authorize his copy.
• Because of software piracy, Pluto was delisted as a planet. The government stepped in at the last minute to save this victim.

Clearly we can only take such outlandish claims with the utmost sincerity. So what's up, software pirates? Why are you holding us back? The burden of proof is on you to disprove any of the aforementioned claims. Until you do they are all true because the BSA said so.

Re:Let Me Add to the List; I'm Good at This Too

[swordgeek]

"If piracy dropped 30% in one year, Jesus and Muhammad would come back to life and smoke a peace pipe thus ending pain and suffering all over the world."

And of course, this would be OK because cancer is caused by software piracy. Of course, those pesky pirates keep promoting the lie that it has to do with smoking.

Re:Let Me Add to the List; I'm Good at This Too

[Rogerborg]

You know that oil well that just blew out? Well, nobody is saying that BP are using pirated software, and nobody is saying that they ain't, but has anyone seen the original box and proof of purchase? Have you?

Re:Let Me Add to the List; I'm Good at This Too

[interkin3tic]

They left out several data points they discovered that were simply too shocking to print:

Well, they're just being modest. After all, they are one of those few industries that "could withstand the theft of $51 billion worth of their products" (where theft here is defined as people not giving them money they feel entitled to.) If you were one of these "super industries" you'd probably see that there's no reason to overkill a point.

Not to brag, but I am in fact one of the few people who can survive having aproximately one trillion dollars stolen from me. Tragic, I know, but I have not been given a trillion dollars despite being better looking, better in bed, smarter, better looking, and better at heating up a hot pocket than most CEOs out there.

Re:Let Me Add to the List; I'm Good at This Too

[KiloByte]

In 2009, Michael Jackson's last words were "End software piracy" as the stolen copy of Windows XP that regulated his IV's drip failed because he had just passed the 30 days he had to authorize his copy.

Except, you know, only non-pirated versions suffer from this flaw. Unless that copy was literally stolen, that is -- but I have yet to hear about a case when someone actually pilfered boxed software.

Re:Let Me Add to the List; I'm Good at This Too

[fermion]

If you have not seen the , watch it.
Shoot a policeman
then steal his helmet
then go to the toilet in his helmet
then send it to the policeman's grieving widow
and then steal it again
The whole point of value added product is that it is easier for the consumer to buy the product rather get it in another way. For instance I often pay 6X the amount for a soft drink because it is easier to buy a small cold bottle than carry it around. Am I stealing money from coke when I buy a big bottle and keep it a cooler? Likewise, many families buy various pastries instead of making them at home, at a fraction of the cost. Would these families be stealing when they use their own time to make the pastries rather than paying the excessive store prices?

Sales stats show that the industry understands this reality. Most firms are making products people will choose to buy. Some are trying to legislate closed market rules to protect their obsolete products, but fortunately, as we see in the video, they are rightfully and increasingly ridiculed.

Re:Let Me Add to the List; I'm Good at This Too

[jc42]

I promise to amend my ways and delete all pirated software and replace them with Linux and Linux equivalent products. From now on, It's Linux all the way :-)

And we might point out that the linux crowd long ago solved the software piracy problem. The piracy rate for linux and other FOSS software has been close to zero for years. (It's slightly nonzero due to the corporate users who violate the license.)

You'd think that the RIAA/MPAA/etc. would have noticed that the Free Software crowd has no problem with piracy, and would want to adopt their successful tactics. Anyone know why they don't?

Re:Let Me Add to the List; I'm Good at This Too

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

If piracy dropped 30% in one year, Jesus and Muhammad would come back to life and smoke a peace pipe thus ending pain and suffering all over the world. Just 30% for that!

And if it dropped 40% they would smoke each other's pipes, thus ending the entire gay marriage debate.

Re:Let Me Add to the List; I'm Good at This Too

[laughingcoyote]

Of course, when you take a pastry from the bakery, in your hypothetical scenario, they are deprived of that pastry. If they have 100 pastries, and 99 get stolen, they have only one left to sell. The above analogy was far better, in that, just as with any type of copying, by cooking your own you are making copies of the pastry without depriving the bakery of the originals, even if it is a flawless copy of the bakery's recipe.

I'm sure the bakery would rather you not do that, or that it be illegal to get pastries in any way but buying from them. But that doesn't mean they should be able to prevent you from doing so, if you have the technical skill to make a perfect copy of their pastries without taking any from them.

Re:Let Me Add to the List; I'm Good at This Too

[ianezz]

So what kind of logic is that? If I point at your car and say "Give it to me" and you go "Ok" and hand me the keys then there'll be no theft

Poor analogy, indeed, since you can't create exact copies of someone's car for cents.

Due to poor ISPs, that would only promote FOSS

[tepples]

In not very long, all software will be accessed via the web only.

That won't happen until Internet speeds go way up and prices, especially for satellite and mobile broadband, go way down. Otherwise, people will switch to apps under a free software license because people can run free software while riding a bus or carpool or while living in a less population-dense area.

Re:Due to poor ISPs, that would only promote FOSS

[Z00L00K]

Just wait for the patent trolls to take their toll of free software and hardware platforms able to execute free software.

Anyway - most of the figures presented by BSA is vapor since they are assuming that people actually would have purchased the software they are running. Reality is that they wouldn't.

Lost sales?

[Anonymous Coward]

My question is always: how much of this would have been purchased if it hadn't been stolen?

Specifically, I'm referring to things like college kids downloading the full version of Photoshop. There's no way those kids are shelling out $500 (or whatever it is) for a full Photoshop license. If they steal it, they just wouldn't have it at all.

From the article, it sounds like it's a case of people acquiring alternatives to software they would purchase--for instance, Windows, or graphics design firms pirating Photoshop. I would wager that nations like China have the highest instances of these sorts of offenses, and that medium-sized businesses are the largest culprits of software theft.

Re:Lost sales?

[jayme0227]

There are certainly some instances of that, but there are also instances of people running pirated versions of Windows instead of paid versions. I had a tech friend put together a PC for me and he had said the version of Windows I had was legit even though I didn't have to pay for it -- obviously this wasn't the case. If it hadn't been for his pirated copy, I would have certainly purchased a copy of Windows.

Re:Lost sales?

[kimvette]

Specifically, I'm referring to things like college kids downloading the full version of Photoshop. There's no way those kids are shelling out $500 (or whatever it is) for a full Photoshop license. If they steal it, they just wouldn't have it at all.

. . . which results in reduced future sales because they would either go with a less expensive package like Paint Shop Pro, or better yet, go with Gimp. Today's piracy leads to tomorrow's sales and business-wide deployments and that is very likely how a big factor in how today's big players got to where they are now.

So, go ahead and clamp down on piracy - those of us who don't "steal"[sic] and instead choose open source will win because open source will gain a larger foothold in the market, and the more poor, starving students who use open source today will be strongly encouraging their employers/businesses/etc. to choose open source as well.

Re:Lost sales?

[Andy Dodd]

Yup - "IDC says lowering software piracy by just 10 percentage points during the next four years would create nearly 500,000 new jobs and pump $140 billion into "ailing economies." "

The question is - WHERE would that money come from?

Chances are, if somehow forced to "go legit" on a particular piece of software, rather than cough up the money, people in third-world countries would instead:
1) Choose an OSS alternative
2) Choose a more reasonably priced commercial alternative (PSP instead of Photoshop for example)
3) Choose no alternative, i.e. choosing to simply forgo that functionality altogether

Re:Lost sales?

[Totenglocke]

Exactly - people take the money they don't spend on overpriced software and use it on other things (eating out, nice clothes, something for the house, a new computer, new tv, whatever) and if those people were forced to pay for those items (and were somehow unable to simply choose not to use them), it would simply mean that $51 billion would disappear from the rest of the economy and go into software. Claiming that it would result in jobs is a fallacious argument because they are ignoring all the money that wouldn't be spent on other things as a result of people spending more on software.

The solution? Stop overcharging for software (which is a huge motivation for the average person to pirate software such as Windows or Office) - charge reasonable prices and people will be much more likely to buy your product than pirate it. I think Malwarebytes is a great example of not overcharging - most AV software wants $60 and then $50 a year for updates, meanwhile Malwarebytes charges nothing to get the software and only wants a one time fee of $25 for a lifetime license to use on all of your personal computers. That's why Malwarebytes is the first AV product I've ever paid money for instead of just using free alternatives - because they charged a reasonable price instead of gouging people like their competition does.

Re:Lost sales?

[man_of_mr_e]

Yes, but what you're really talking about is the difference between trespassing and theft. Copyright infringement is more like trespassing. When someone trespasses on your property (not counting possible destruction of property) they are depriving you of the right to control who can and cannot go there (and possibly making money off the use of the land).

Nobody says "Hey, Stop that thief! He walked on my land!"

Re:Lost sales?

[mlts]

I am going to be a devil's advocate here:

Lets say someone comes out with a 100% secure DRM. A theory could be that ACTA mandates a Fritz/Clipper like chip in every computer sold that locks software to machines, or the main OS of all computers is put under a hypervisor like the non-updated PS3s with the "Other OS" feature, with a remote kill switch that frys the machine if it thinks there there is any tampering.

What will happen? One of five things:

People would find substitutes. Developers will work on an open source solution en masse, and the software battle would shift from licensing and DRM to patent enforcement. Here, bigger companies might get behind a product so it isn't this easy one-way battle companies have with no opposition that they do with copyrights. For example, GIMP would get donations and developers. Patent enforcement is harder to enforce than copyrights, and the whack-a-mole war would begin with a program that gets slightly modified and renamed. A utility that is a clone of a commercial product may get sued out of oblivion, but if it were open source, each fork of it would have to be sued, and all it would take would be one single developer to perform a fork and call it a different name. And even though copyright infringement may be sued for millions of dollars, there are no cases of a patent violation for noncommercial use being sued into oblivion. So we would see programs spring up that are functionally identical to the commercial applications.

People will do without. If music programs got so expensive that average musicians couldn't afford them, people would go back to hardware mixers and discrete devices. People would write apps for Android and the iPad so the device can do basic music functions (loops, sampling, etc.)

The company turns into a niche vendor. The commercial product might still sell for unpurchasable prices, but only a few people in a narrow market would buy it. Yes, this would be lucrative for some businesses (AutoDesk is a good example), but there are other products which cannot thrive just on a narrow market segment. Adobe for example. If Acrobat was both rendered unpiratable and too expensive, then businesses would move wholesale to Microsoft's XPS, and print shops either install XPS to PDF converters, or they would lose out to the shops that do.

Of course, the worst thing is that this would do is create a digital divide. People who know how to use the commercial programs and who don't. In IT, this used to be common when Solaris was commercial. You would get people with Linux experience, but without the experience of Solaris/AIX/IRIX/HP-UX directly, they were always on the bottom of the list compared to someone who managed to get in a high end rendering lab and learn the basics of these operating systems.

The extreme worst case is that the commercial products be considered as premium/luxury brands, and are bought for status. If someone has a copy of a full version of a commercial application, it is considered far more stylish than any competition.

History has already shown us examples of what happens when too much DRM happens. Competitors who don't do copy-protection start coming in and grabbing large pieces of the pie. Lotus 1-2-3 got bit by this. Novell also got hit by this when people could install Windows NT, set up their domains and filesharing without having to worry about the hair-pulling license keys that Netware 3.x and 4.x had. Need more users to share files in NT Server? Just increment the number, but make sure to have a filed receipt of the CALs used, so when the BSA comes for an audit, you can show that you are authorized to use the amount of licenses.

Of course the exception to this are games, but its because people are used to games being locked down. Console DRM is almost bulletproof (XBox 360s are moddable, but get kicked off XBL left and right, PS3s are effectively uncrackable (yes, they got cracked for a little bit of time but Sony didn't just patch the crack out, but also locked

I hate these Reports

[Reber Is Reber]

I always think these are stupid, why not throw in the fact that 90% of pirated software is never actually used more than like once or twice if even used at all. Or the software doesn't even function the way it was intended to or it flat out doesn't work. How about the fact that the software most likely wouldn't even be bought in the first place so they aren't actually loosing any money from this because it would not equate to earned revenue. Why doesn't someone come out with a useful report that actually shows these facts. Douches.

To make the point yet again...

[Nematode]

Few if any industries could withstand the theft of $51 billion worth of their products.

It's a good thing your products aren't being stolen, then...just copied unlawfully.

The industry could do a better job of being sympathetic, if it wasn't so obviously dishonest about its victimization....

BSA Says Software Theft Exceeded $51B - Meanwhile

[RobertM1968]

BSA Says Software Theft Exceeded $51B - Meanwhile...

The IT world says "security issues in Windows requiring IT or Tech work exceeds "Theft" figure many times over".

...nope, I am not complaining... I work in the tech field... as much as I would love to hate Microsoft, I have to hate the fact that I love them. I for one am thrilled that .NET and other "technologies are so easy to exploit. I'm also happy I have karma to burn ;-)

I am very curious how they come up with these figures though. At an average of $100 a piece of software, that's 510 million pirated copies a year. At $200 avg, it's 255 million copies... and so on. Wow... didnt realize it was such a serious issue...

Or maybe...

[Dunega]

The BSA president said, "Few if any industries could withstand the theft of $51 billion worth of their products." It's unclear whether that was a brag about the industry's robustness, or a result of the industry's low cost of goods sold.

...that your datapoints are wrong.

Theft != Piracy

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously. They talk like people stole the $51 billion from their pockets. When you steal from a company, you are depriving them from twice the value of the item that you stole (the lost sale to you, and the lost sale to someone else for that particular item). When they claim their losses from theft, they claim the second loss (the one that's physically quantifiable). But with software, there's no physical product. If I pirate an item, they only lose my sale. I don't deprive somebody else from being able to purchase it (since copies are for all practical purposes free). And since they don't count the lost sale to me in the case of physical theft, why should they here? So nobody stole $51 billion. Total losses due to piracy === $0. Now, opportunity cost may be $51 billion (they had the opportunity to sell the person who "stole" it, but didn't), but not the loss... There's a fine line between them, but there is a line none the less...

Poor buggers

[AmonTheMetalhead]

And don't forget all those communists running linux! The bastards!

Re:Poor buggers

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

Hey! I resemble that comment.

News flash!

[natehoy]

BSA discovers way to increase size of anus, so they can pull larger numbers out of it.

Re:News flash!

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

You can find out more about this remarkable technological advancement at the following URL:
http://www.goatse.cx/

Re:This just in:

[RobertM1968]

Software industry has lowest per unit cost/fixed cost ratio in the world...

Even if you count the 90-day tech support contract that comes with a legit copy of a program?

Which support is that? All OEM copies of Windows are (tech) supported by the hardware manufacturer - not Microsoft. Same with OEM Office provided by hardware manufacturers if memory serves. If it comes pre-installed, Microsoft doesnt support it.

While that may be different (and likely is) for other software vendors, I am sure (based on other statements by Microsoft) that a large chunk of the figure cited pertains to Windows and Office installs. Regardless, in those arenas, the costs are probably similar. You buy a retail copy, you pay more and Microsoft supports it. You buy a computer with Windows, then the hardware manufacturer supports it, but Microsoft takes in less because they charge the hardware OEM less.

Re:This just in:

[Hadlock]

This just in: BSA hasn't done anything profitable for the software industry in the last year, and it's time to make up numbers and release reports to justify their 6-figure salaries to their masters

Would the IRS accept this writeoff?

[mykos]

In my line of business, if we have a loss that we have numbers for, we put it on our taxes. I suggest they do the same. I'm sure the IRS will be more than willing to audit the hell out of them. Oops, I mean, accept their numbers without question.

Re:Would the IRS accept this writeoff?

[Fnkmaster]

Most definitely not. Allow me to explain: If a product in inventory is stolen, you, i.e. the company that owned the goods, can write off the cost of goods associated with that product as a loss from theft.

Similarly, if a person owns a car and it's stolen (and not replaced by insurance), they can write off the depreciated value of the car at the time of its theft.

But you can't write off losses associated with products you didn't actually make because somebody illegally copied your software.

Just like you can't get a tax deduction for "donating" unpaid services (because you'd have to record pay for them, i.e. income, then take a deduction for a donation - net tax impact is zero). However, you can potentially write off other expenses actually incurred as part of a charitable endeavor.

So if you had a bunch of software, in boxes, ready to ship to stores, stolen from your warehouse, you can deduct the cost of replicating the CDs, printing the boxes and so on. But you can't deduct the retail or even wholesale price of the software units stolen.

Since there were no direct costs associated with producing the copied items in this case, you can't deduct them.

Otherwise, everybody would "lose" stuff to theft all the time for the tax benefits. And Uncle Sam isn't *that* stupid. There are certainly tax loopholes out there, but they require a bit more cautious execution to benefit from, or they tend to get legislated away eventually.

For the last time... It is not "theft"

[cheeseandham]

Sorry, it shouldn't have to be said, but it winds me up
When software is pirated, it is not permanently depriving the original owner of the item.

In the UK - "A person shall be guilty of theft if he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it." - Theft Act 1968
I'm not educated in such matters but it seems that the US and other countries take a similar view

(Right, I can breathe again)

$51 Billion dollars?

[Enderandrew]

That's like 50 licenses for Adobe Creative Suite 5!

Re:$51 Billion dollars?

[natehoy]

Wow, where'd you hook up with the discount? Are you sure it's legit? That seems cheap.

Re:The horse is dead, Jim!

[Attila Dimedici]

Postulate:

Units of pirated software installed != Units of lost sales.

Better questions:

How many of those using or at least possessing a pirated copy of a given piece of software would actually pay for it if it were not available in pirate form?

How would that ratio change if the software were priced differently?

If prices were lower, would piracy decrease?

How would profits change in response to the above?

Answers? *shrug*

Additional important question:
How many copies of the software were sold because someone was exposed to it through a pirated copy?

Customers and users hate the cloud.

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd think that marketing folks would, you know, interact with customers now and then. If they did, they'd find out that what you're saying is absolutely true.

Aside from a small number of online pundits who advocate its use, although they themselves don't have to maintain or even use such systems, everyone hates cloud computing.

Cloud-hosted systems end up being horrifically shitty. Their performance is poor. Their reliability is poor. Their usability is poor, because cloud environments are so fucking restrictive. It doesn't cost any less than dedicated hosting. Getting reliable, on-time support is nearly impossible. Data security is basically non-existent.

Data loss is a real problem, because all sensible relational techniques and ACIDity have been thrown away in favor of moronic hash tables. The only thing stupider than a cloud computing advocate is a NoSQL advocate.

Cloud computing is the biggest failure our industry has seen. It's even a bigger failure than Windows. At least Windows sort of works, some of the time. Cloud hosting never works. It's always a failure, regardless of who is using, and where it's being used.

Re:Customers and users hate the cloud.

[Aeros]

I agree..I hate using apps online except in rare circumstances like gmail. Plus there is the whole trust factor.

Re:Customers and users hate the cloud.

[aztracker1]

Yeah.. we should switch to internet searches backed by a SQL database... stop using Google and their BigTable, and Map/Reduce crap... give me an ACID RDBMS that's robust... After all, one hammer should be enough for all nails (and screws, and bolts).

Re:Customers and users hate the cloud.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the GP was talking about how Windows, while it may have been successful for Billy, has caused huge problems for just about everyone else, especially the users. Windows definitely is a failure when it comes to cost, reliability, security, and basically every other factor you want to consider.

Cloud Computing is the same. Amazon might benefit from it, but basically everyone using it directly, or using an application hosted on it, suffers quite badly.

Re:Customers and users hate the cloud.

[mlts]

For a car analogy, NoSQL reminds me of people who take a reciprocating saw to a car, removing all airbags and safety systems, all but one disk for brakes, cutting the roof, trunk, and doors off, then saying that their vehicle is far faster than anything else on the track, comparing their vehicle to factory stock models with all their safety systems intact.

There is a reason why SQL-based RDBMS servers are slower than NoSQL. And that is because they ensure that the data is consistent and not lost/corrupted if two things access an entry at the same time.

Eventual consistency is a nice concept. However, it assumes that a tablespace will quiesce sometime. And a lot of these databases are hit 24/7, so there is never a time that the entries (can't call them transactions) that are in flight actually are assured that they are written to disk. Of course, a failure or unexpected shutdown can happen anytime, and entries in flight that can't be considered completed, or be able to be rolled back are corrupt entries which require time to find and fix, assuming they can be detected.

If I value the integrity of data stored in a database, I'm going to use an RDBMS that is designed and built from the ground up on tried and true concepts (ACID mainly). Even if it means that it would cost more than a NoSQL solution.

Re:Customers and users hate the cloud.

[Altrag]

Mostly right, but forgetting a very key concept -- NoSQL and full RDBMS serve different purposes. If you need high data integrity, then full ACID commitments and whatnot are great -- but you'll pay for it in speed.

On the other end of the spectrum, if you need maximum speed and have the ability to pre-cleanse your data, then then NoSQL is a much better fit to your needs.

Not to mention, "NoSQL" is just a general term covering basically anything that doesn't use an SQL-like command syntax. Hit up the Wikipedia sometime. NoSQL covers a huge variety of technologies spreading from single-server small-end databases designed for quick, easy programming, all the way up to Google and Amazon's back-ends that are designed for huge amounts of read requests and (comparatively) small amounts of writes.

Consider. If your accounting software fails to provides inconsistent numbers to your accountants, you're going to have some trouble. He probably doesn't care if the DB can only handle 1000 queries per second.. If Google takes an extra 30 seconds to update the results for an "OMGPonies!" search, no-one really gives a damn.. as long as it gets there eventually its fine. But they REALLY need it to handle millions of queries per second. Amazon is somewhere in the middle -- their listings don't really need to-the-millisecond updates, but things like the shopping cart does.

Completely different needs take completely different solutions. Someone who says "NoSQL is always a bad solution" is just as wrong as someone who says "NoSQL is always the solution". Just like most situations where you have two or more viable options.

Bullshit

[whisper_jeff]

Sorry, but as soon as I see numbers like $51 BILLION in software theft being thrown around, I pretty much immediately ignore everything that is to follow because the number, pure and simple, is bullshit. Can I prove that it's bullshit? Nope. Of course not. And that's the point - nobody can prove that it's bullshit so they can bandy it about with impunity knowing it won't be challenged. But, just as I can't prove that it's bullshit, they can't prove that it's remotely valid. And, therein, is why I ignore reports like this - when numbers can't be challenged to ensure their validity, then the person coming up with the numbers can fluff the numbers to help ensure they prove whatever point they are trying to prove.

Bullshit. Pure and simple.

Rainbows and unicorns...

[DarthVain]

It must be nice to live in a make believe land.

Don't forget Canada, we be all evil and stuff up here!

I am pretty sure you can draw a strong correlation between the fact that the average income in those countries is about 100$ compared to about 50,000$ in the USA. Last I checked a retail copy of Windows 7 is about 200$.

If your having a hard time drawing a conclusion as to why all the piracy, well your not really trying.

Isn't that like saying

[js3]

Isn't that like saying I lost 100 billion in lottery winnings? How can you lose money you were not going to get in the first place?

Do your bit to avoid piracy use free software

[RichMan]

The more people who use Linux and OpenOffice the less people will be stealing from the BSA members.

So is the BSA pushing the use of free software where people find it to costly to use commercial software?
Somehow I don't think so. But that is the real solution to the piracy.

End all software piracy now...

[number6x]

Jut use Free and Open source software. Why risk using pirated anything?

If you really have to use a commercial product, then pay for it.

Re:End all software piracy now...

[AlgorithMan]

look at how the BSA "calculates" their numbers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Software_Alliance#BSA_annual_software_piracy_study using open sources will not stop them from claiming piracy was on the rise, because in their "calculations" the use of open source software IS piracy!

Re:Even Less Accurate Maths Than Usual

[jayme0227]

Software piracy rate is calculated by taking the total "value" of pirated software(a) and dividing it by the total "value" of all software that makes its way onto the market(a+b). Hence, for every $175 in software value that makes its way onto the market(a+b), $100 is paid for(b), and $75 is pirated(a). Whether or not you agree with this metric is another story entirely, but the math works.

Rate = a/(a+b) = $75/$175 = 43%(or close enough)

Re:This just in:

[chilvence]

Software industry has lowest per unit cost/fixed cost ratio in the world...

Even if you count the 90-day tech support contract that comes with a legit copy of a program?

Nobody who isn't a corporate buisness cares about that, and I should know, because I do that 'tech support' (read: fixing the damn thing) for everyone I know indefinitely. I claim 500 hours of stolen time back from Microsoft! Few if any individuals would be able to withstand that amount of lost wages!

Re:This just in:

[conspirator57]

yeah, tech support that is only necessary because of all the bloatware "features", ease of exploitation (shoddy product), and DRM / product licensing headaches. and like another poster pointed out, support cost is eaten by the hardware OEM most of the time, since so few people buy boxed copies of windows. My next copy (since I play certain games which only function on windows) will, however, be boxed because of how terribad OEM "system restore" CDs are. And i'll never need the "support".

Pry my Photoshop 4.0 on emulated 68K Mac out of..

[itomato]

You'll have to ensure I can't get where I want to go by using unsupported methods.

I'll be cranking out .DOC, .GIF and .PSD files until I can't run Word 6.0 and Photoshop under BasiliskII any more. Granted, I'm the sort of person who'll convert them into .ODT, .PNG, and .XCF files with open tools after that, where they may find their way into the greater 'cloud'.

The goocher here is the 'Tools Gap', where a generation will be learn remote client-server applications use vs. the way it's been since the Home Computer Revolution.

I still have access to the same Web of Internets as the 'Cloudies', and may create some of what is consumed therein, unless the door closes on external methods, which will take decades, if at all.

(And yes, there's a floppy drive within reach.)

Re:This just in:

[Anon-Admin]

Microsoft tech support is simple, I have had to deal with them a few times and it goes like this

MS: Hello, this is Rajie how may I help you

Me: This copy of windows blue screens when I plug in the mouse

MS: Have you tried removing the mouse drivers and reinstalling?

Me: Yes

MS/ME: 30 min of removing and reinstalling the mouse drivers several times to make sure It is done right.

MS: You need to reinstall the system then call me back

Me: Ok, Ill do that.

Me: Hang up, reinstall the system no 3rd party drivers, base config, Microsoft mouse still blue screens

Call them back and I am told

MS: Sense reinstalling the OS did not fix the problem you should reinstall the OS.

Me: What? I did that and it did not help

MS: Yes sir, this is a hard drive problem and you need to reinstall the OS.

Me: This is a mouse problem not a Hard drive problem!

MS: No sir, this is a hard drive problem. From now on you need to handle this through e-mail. The allotted phone time is used up for this contract. Thank you

Me: F- this, Wipe system and install Linux, problem solved.

Re:BSA Says Software Theft Exceeded $51B - Meanwhi

[fotbr]

I think your average price for a piece of software is FAR too low.

Windows: $299+ (retail, not upgrade)
Photoshop: $600+ (retail, not upgrade)
MSOffice: $300+ depending on professional/small business/enterprise
AutoCAD: $3000+
Oracle: $$$$$$$ Based on their site review ("how much does it look like your company can afford")

Three major flaws

[nickovs]

As far as I can tell there are three major flaws in the calculation of this figure:

Firstly, it appears to assume a 100% conversion rate between "pirated copies" and "lost sales". As has mentioned repeatedly in other comments, this is impossible to justify.

Secondly, it seems to presuppose that the Average Selling Price that would be achieved in emerging markets like China and Brazil are the same as the current ASP that they get in the Western world where more of the software is purchased legitimately; this too is unsupportable.

Thirdly, they ascribed zero value to the marketing benefit of people "stealing" software in order to determine if they like it and then going on to buy a copy. Repeated studies in the music market have shown that people who download music buy more music and while the situations are not identical it is clear that many people get hold of pirated software to try it and then buy the software for the support that comes with a legitimate copy once they decide that it does the job. Killing illegal copies of software would therefore likely damage sales that they currently make while possibly bringing in some new sales.

Having run software businesses in the past I appreciate that seeing your hard work ripped off can be a serious problem but the BSA spreading mis-information and unsupportable assertions as if they are fact does nothing to make people believe that they are anything other than a bunch of self-serving scaremongerers.

I dream of a day...

[natehoy]

I dream of a day when piracy is gone. When software vendors, content publishers, authors, etc are free to lock their product down to the point where it cannot be used. I dream this dream, you see, because once we rid our society of time wasting movies and television, brain-rotting terrible music, and fucked-up insecure software, we as a species might actually be able to do something useful with our existences.

So, please, BSA, MPAA, RIAA, etc. Bring it on. Make your product so locked down no one wants it. Protect your intellectual property to the point where it has no value. Die, so concepts and ideas can flow freely again.

F/OSS will move on, creating product that benefits its users rather than its shareholders, unencumbered with having to fight off patent assholes every 5 minutes who contribute nothing and demand everything. Musicians will still play music. Artists will still create art for its own sake. And the rest of humanity might awaken from our slumber and decide to spend more of our time on useful pursuits.

If we spent 1/10 the effort on science and real life that we spend as a society debating who should have won American Idol, I'd have my goddamned flying car by now. And it would run on a free renewable energy source whose exhaust fumes would be oxygen and fresh-baked muffins.

Please, for the love of (insert_deity_here), RIAA, MPAA, BSA! We're counting on you! Redouble your efforts to make your entire industries irrelevant! Get out of the way so we can evolve as a species!

THINK OF THE CHILDREN!

Re:BSA Says Software Theft Exceeded $51B - Meanwhi

[RobertM1968]

I think your average price for a piece of software is FAR too low.

Windows: $299+ (retail, not upgrade) Photoshop: $600+ (retail, not upgrade) MSOffice: $300+ depending on professional/small business/enterprise AutoCAD: $3000+ Oracle: $$$$$$$ Based on their site review ("how much does it look like your company can afford")

Hmmm... Windows 7 Ultimate Full Retail is only $285, Home Premium Full Retail is $185, and only $99 for Home Premium OEM (which anyone can install same as any other copy) (newegg.com)

Your MS Office prices are also equally as skewed, as it starts at $119 for MS Office (Home and Student) and $235 for Business. All full retail copies.

You missed the:
"At $200 avg, it's 255 million copies... and so on."

At an average of $300 it's 170 million copies - and so on.

Especially because per Microsoft's figures (if 2009's are anything like last years) a very large portion (over 60% I think) of the piracy is for Windows and Office. You can find those claims here on slashdot and elsewhere... what you would need to do is look at the BSA figures for 2008, and compare them to Microsoft's figures for 2008 to come up with the percentage.

words have meaning

[Tom]

"Few if any industries could withstand the theft of $51 billion worth of their products."

That's because in a theft you lose the item in question, so $123 gazillion of theft means you produced, but can no longer sell, them.

On the other hand, your $456 fantastillion in piracy means that people who didn't pay have a copy - as do you, and sales continue. That's quite a bit of a difference.

And let's not even talk about the bullshit way that they come up with these numbers. I sell software, too. I just don't live in a dream world where I believe everyone in the world is a potential customer, so every unauthorized copy is identical to a lost sale.

Re:This just in:

[sheph]

Have you ever called MS support for anything? They're the reason I started learning about computers in the first place. I couldn't rely on them to fix my problem.

Alternate explanation

[roc97007]

"The BSA president said, "Few if any industries could withstand the theft of $51 billion worth of their products." It's unclear whether that was a brag about the industry's robustness, or a result of the industry's low cost of goods sold."

Or, it could be an open admission that they're making it all up.

Re:Lost sales? Invest in future sales...

[poly_pusher]

This is a very important point that is often overlooked.

The counter-argument is that many software companies offer student discounts. Very significant student discounts. However, any student studying graphics today needs many different apps from many different vendors, they also need to upgrade each year to the latest and greatest version. So even though software is priced well for students you can easily be talking about a grand or more per year and at the same time the students still need good hardware which you can't pirate.

I pirated a lot of software while in college. I got a job and now I own thousands of dollars in software that I upgrade every 1 - 1 1/2 years. Had I not been able to find all that software for free and invested the vast amounts of time learning it I'd probably be working as an insurance broker and would not have bought any of the software I now own.

Quit paying the BSA for a service that alienates your future clientele and remember, the software that is too difficult to pirate will never be purchased by the "student" because the "student" in question didn't become familiar with it...

Re:This just in:

[Chris Burke]

No kidding.

I was going to call them parasites, but after reading about the website that sells pubic lice, I decided I didn't want to compare the BSA to such a relatively reputable and useful business endeavor.

Re:This just in:

[sjames]

Granted. Perhaps they should make those available as torrents so they can cut their losses.

Read below for the simple truth...

[BlackBloq]

And for every imaginary dollar spent only 1% of that would actually be spent, because 100% of 15 year olds who downloaded CS5, wouldn't have ever bought the thing.

A copyright registration costs $35

[tepples]

We also pay an intagible tax for intangible assets such as patents, trademarks, goodwill, etc.

I couldn't find anything with Google about an analogous tax in my home state of Indiana. But perhaps if California got a real intangibles tax, its Governator might be able to lean on the software and movie "industries" to pull it out of the hole that it's in.

It can't cost anywhere near what the fees are to obtain and maintain a patent for a patent clerk to review an application.

This article is not about patents nearly as much as it is about copyrights. The U.S. copyright registration fee is only $35, which is more like a title fee than a property tax.