BSA 2010 Piracy Report: $58.8 Billion

Glyn Moody writes "The annual BSA report on software piracy is out, with even bigger numbers: 'The commercial value of software piracy grew 14 percent globally last year to a record total of $58.8 billion.' Yes, they're using the old 'commercial value' trick: 'The commercial value of pirated software is the value of unlicensed software installed in a given year, as if it had been sold in the market.' Except, of course, that the main reason users in developing countries — the main focus of the report — resort to piracy is because they can't afford Western-style pricing. It's also fun to see the BSA trotting out the old 'reducing piracy would generate lots of new jobs and taxes for local governments' — except that it doesn't, because the money not paid for software licences does not disappear, but is just spent elsewhere in the local economy."

Comments

reducing the BSA would generate the most jobs

[poetmatt]

Getting rid of the BSA would do wonders for local economies around the globe. If we didn't have this grandstanding of false piracy people could get on with their lives instead of watching as government lobbied by the BSA bends over for them and does their bidding, going directly against the desires of their constituents.

Re:reducing the BSA would generate the most jobs

[mister_playboy]

confuse and obfuscate public policy

You talk of "stealing" software... seems their obfuscation is working.

Re:reducing the BSA would generate the most jobs

[Barbara, not Barbie]

Actually, it could be argued that FULL cooperation with the BSA would generate the most local jobs, as companies would then be forced to shift to open source to avoid the expense and hassle of complying with proprietary licensing.

Let's be honest - if it became impossible to run pirated versions of MS-Windows and MS-Office tomorrow, this would be the year of the linux desktop, and any money that would have been spent on licensing could be spent locally instead, on deploying open solutions, training, and customizing.

So, if you really want to support open source and your local economy, report software piracy today!

Hell, even in developed countries

[Sycraft-fu]

A lot of the copying of commercial software is done by people who can't afford it. You'll get students that want to play with 3DSMax or something but can't really swing the $3,500 asking price so they'll download it. That is NOT a lost sale, if it was impossible to copy, they'd simply do without because they haven't the money.

I'm not saying that copying doesn't result in some lost revenue. I'm quite sure that there are sales that would be made if copying was impossible, but aren't because it is. However it is not 100% of copied software, not even close.

I'd imagine the more expensive the software in question, the lower the loss overall. For a $1 phone app, sure I can believe that a significant number of people would buy it, if copying it wasn't possible. For a multi-thousand dollar software package? I bet it is extremely low. The places that can afford it don't mind and want to be legit, the people that copy can't afford it period.

This BS inflated figures don't help anyone, particularly because I think people are starting to wise up. They are realizing that if the numbers really were as big as the anti-piracy orgs want to claim, it would be a real problem.

Software DRM knob turned to 11

[bmo]

I'd like to see Ballmer's previous threats to crank WGA and OGA to 11.

I'd love to see DRM schemes that turn computers with illegitimate copies of software into smoking heaps.

It'll never happen, though. Copyright infringement is too important to the industry incumbents to actually stop it. File sharing locks out alternatives, both commercial and free. Why pay for an alternative when you can crack the market leader for free? If the world suddenly discovered there was software besides Windows, Microsoft Office, Autocad, and Photoshop, there would be more competition.

Ending piracy would end much of the market distortion that favors the incumbents at the expense of the rest.

Do it, guys, if you have any balls.

--
BMO

Buying a Naked PC? You must be a pirate!

[Snorbert Xangox]

A few years back, when last I looked, the BSAA (local Australian tentacle/surrogate of the BSA) were treating each PC sold as representing a certain quantity of licensed software that would be in use. They then compared this with some software license sales figures (the accuracy of which is another question), and if there were more deemed licenses in use through new PC sales than there were actual license sales, (guess what! there were!!) then that was their damning evidence that teh piratez were stealing Christmas.

This meant that some 40 staff desktops and 120 teaching laboratory computers at my workplace (a university CS department) which were bought with no OS license and installed with Debian, actually contributed to the BSAA's frothy-mouthed argument that rampant piracy was costing Australia many quality local jobs employing drones to process purchases of software produced overseas by US companies... that incidentally booked most of their profits via subsidiaries based in Ireland, thanks to its low low rate of corporate tax at that time.

So there you have it:
- I am a pirate
- my work was full of piracy
- you probably are a pirate too

because I/they/you have the temerity to buy machines with no OS to run free operating systems and free applications.

Re:stealing

[bmo]

>If I write a piece of software and it gets 100 paying users and zero pirates, I'm no better off than if I get 100 paying users and 1000 pirates. Count the paying users, not the pirates.

If you write a piece of software and you get 100 paying customers and 1000 warez kiddies, you have 1000 future customers when they need to buy something for work.

--
BMO

Re:Why it is stealing

[Bobb Sledd]

And yet their calculation of how much piracy cost is still inaccurate and arbitrary at best. If Adobe decided that Photoshop should cost $150,000 and I decided to pirate it, it doesn't mean they lost $150,000 in software sales. Simply because I don't even make that much and could never afford the product at that price no matter what.

But what is also missing from the equation is the benefit Adobe gains if I *do* pirate their software. If I am a home user, and I pirate Photoshop, and I learn the software and become quite good with it, and if I land a job doing graphics, my employer will ask what software I want to use. I will more likely say "Photoshop" because that is what I know. Thus, in that instance, they actually got a sale they probably wouldn't have otherwise, because I would have just learned Gimp or some other free graphics editor, and just suggested to use that instead.

Sound impossible? I just described my situation exactly.