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BSA Claims Half of PC Users Are Pirates
judgecorp writes "Despite continued pressure on business users to buy legitimate software, the Business Software Alliance (BSA) reports that the campaign seems to be failing. Well over half (57%) of users surveyed in a global survey admit to using pirated software. That's a big increase from the same survey last year — when 43% admitted to using pirated software. The BSA surveyed 15,000 people in 33 countries."
Only half?
Doesn't that indicate that perhaps a different approach is required? This sue-happy, mafia-style campaign isn't working so perhaps that's not the right way to go about it. I don't have the solution but clearly neither do they.
The Boy Scouts of America have been using that TLA for a lot longer than the Business Software Alliance has existed. The former should sue the latter for damaging the reputation of their acronym.
Not all of the 43%. Some of us have learned from the Ernie Ball story and moved off closed source entirely.
The truth shall set you free!
Do you know what the article doesn't tell you?
How the question was phrased, which makes a helluva lot of difference in the results of any poll.
"Tell me, sir, do you still pirate software?"
"Well... uh... no."
"So you admit that you USED to pirate software?"
"Well... no."
"So you admit you pirate software now, but didn't used to?"
"Well... uh..."
"So how often do you beat your wife?"
"UK is firmly below the global average, with just 27 percent of computer users admitting they have acquired software illegally last year. This translates into an approximate £1.2 billion loss by the software industry." - "People who use software without paying for it" != "People who would pay for it if they couldn't get it for free". Only a group like the BSA (and it can't be coincidental that their acronym so nicely fits with BullShitArtists) would use stats like that.
You can bet that BSA surveys are rigged to generate the highest numbers possible. After all, if "piracy" was declining they couldn't really insists that all of the draconian laws and penalties were needed.
Cops figured this out decades ago - no matter that crime stats have been falling for ten years, somehow the police always need more people, more equipment, and tougher laws.
Any survey by the BSA - or any group with a vested interest - is automatically suspect.
Three Squirrels
I haven't needed to pirate anything in years, everything has a free and good-enough equivalent now. What does anyone pirate today?
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
As usual when someone with an agenda throws statistics at you, you can rest assured that they've manipulated them in such a way to achieve their own goals. In this case, it's rather easy to see what they are doing. Worldwide? When I was in Africa 2 years ago, the hotel I stayed in had a computer in the community room. Windows Genuine Advantage warnings kept popping up. I fixed that for them... much to the bemusement of the Microsoft employee that was staying their with us. After traveling to several other locations we found that, at least to our limited exposure, ALL the software on EVERY computer was pirated. The Microsoft guy was appalled. I asked him where he expected these people to buy his software? Shipping to that part of africa was somewhere in the neighborhood of $500... There were no walmarts, or any sort of software vendors. The fastest data connection I came across was at a coffee shop at it was 56k. So you can be fairly certain that the entire continent of Africa's piracy rate is well above 99% Take the population of Africa... oh and China... and India... are you starting to get the picture? Did their poll ask people if it were possible for them to buy the software they needed in the first place? I doubt it.
I would, in fact, argue that the current traffic laws *are* broken as currently used.
Speed limits are rigged to bring in ticket money. There's a section of highway I drive daily that's marked as 45MPH (with an advisory limit of 35)... that is completely safe at 65MPH+, and regularly driven at 70. I was once passed by a Mustang I swear was doing at least 120. There are no pedestrians (it's an overpass, no foot traffic), no sharp turns, no visibility problems, no oncoming traffic, nothing that makes such a low limit (for a highway) logical. And since it merges into 65MPH traffic after just a mile, I would argue that 35MPH is in fact completely *unsafe*.
It's also been demonstrated that traffic lights with red-light cameras are almost always set to LESS safe timings to boost revenue. As for "rolling stops", yeah, those shouldn't always be illegal as well. Go on and tell me that it's unsafe to slow down to a crawl long enough to see that there's NO ONE else on the road, then continue on. Blowing through a stop sign's obviously a Bad Thing, but I see no reason to come to a complete stop when I'm the only one on the road.
So if the laws that are being broken are primarily being broken in ways that harm no one, they are obviously in need of at least revision. Should we completely throw them out? Of course not. But should we improve them? Yes.
Your point about South Africa does have merit - obviously something as harmful as rape shouldn't be legalized (although I'll not that "33% of men" is only 16% of the population, so while your general idea has significant merit, your particular was perhaps poorly-chosen). I suppose one could argue that no man-made law can violate natural law, and thus you cannot legislate away the "right not to be raped" or other such natural rights. However, as copyright is clearly an artificial legal construct, I don't think natural law is particularly relevant.
OK I clicked on the link below (it said "Reply to This".)
Now what? Where is my cash reward?
thegodmovie.com - watch it
Not fully. I fully respect that companies need a way to make profit.
This is not a problem with the law, its often a problem with the companies. Asking way too much for certain products or having a horrible distribution scheme. Say about bittorrent what you wish, but if I actually look for some software, I find it, usually having to only look for 1 site. And it doesn't annoy the fuck out of me during installation.
What the majority believes may be wrong some times.
This is a well-known let's say 'urban legend', refuted several times throughout history but which keeps coming back as a way to stress just how dark the Dark Ages were or to make a Mayan discovery look more spectacular. Educated people over the millenia have always known that Earth is round, and belief otherwise is just that - a dogma imposed by some religions, methinks as a simple yet powerful way to describe how precious and rare life as we know is. See the "Myth of a flat Earth" page references for some amusement.
There will also always be nutcases that deny common sense and science, some of them might even go as far as to negate Darwinism in American schools, but I do hold hope that humanity can work around those.
You described a case when free software competes with commercial software. But imagine following scenario:
* There is an entrenched piece of software by company A used by most people that costs 700$.
* There is a startup company B producing similar thing that costs 50$.
Now in case you pirate the software produced by company A, that's not a lost sale for company A. That's more a lost sale for company B.This kind of behaviour will lead to demise of company B and company A will become a monopoly. Add to this network effects and zero distribution costs and file format lock-in etc- they will only speed things up.
What I want to say is that software market in general is easily dominated by big established companies. It's almost impossible to compete with established players, even if you sell a similar/better product for less. And piracy is one of the things responsible for that.
Now markets where you need to offer support or adaptation/localization of software (enterprise markets) are somewhat different. And that's where Linux shines.
--Coder