Software Industry Shifting Piracy Strategy

Sensible Clod writes "The U.S. software industry's strategy against global software piracy is shifting to focus on claimed economic benefits of copyright protection in response to a new study released by the BSA, according to an article at Internet News. The study concluded that countries with high software piracy rates have more to gain economically by protecting intellectual property rights. The study even claims potential global gains of '2.4 million new jobs, $400 billion in economic growth and $67 billion in new tax revenues' by cutting the current global software piracy rate of 35% by 10%."

2.4 million new jobs

[slasho81]

[...] countries with high software piracy rates have more to gain economically by protecting intellectual property rights. The study even claims potential global gains of 2.4 million new jobs [...]

How do you gain economically by protecting intellectual property rights? 2.4 million new lawyers.

Outsourcing.

[Anonymous Coward]

2.4 million new jobs, $400 billion in economic growth and $67 billion in new tax revenues All in India.

We've seen this math before

[Jason1729]

2.4 million new jobs...

I think they mean 24,000 new jobs which in the US earn $100,000/year each. Outsourced overseas, that would be 2.4 million jobs at $1000/year each.

That's the same math they use to count a single 40x CD burner as 40 burners when they bust a piracy ring.

unpublished results also say that IP will ...

[Jerry]

cure cancer, the common cold and aid. IT will also result in zero-point energy power plants, and FTL vehicles. The benefits if IP patents just keep rolling in...

Whoa! Cool! Magic numbers!

[ScrewMaster]

Also, 127.92 million manufacturing and engineering jobs will be lost because nations with tough IP laws lose the competitive edge brought by investment (both foreign and domestic) in R&D and technological development, 143.84 million additional lawyers will need to be trained to enforce newly implemented IP laws, and 538 trillion dollars will be lost over the next thirty years as the economic output of heavily-IP-restricted onetime global heavyweights drops to next to zero.

See? Making up numbers is fun, and very educational. But I'll bet mine are just as accurate.

Re:hmm

[cryfreedomlove]

Your argument is so solid that you should convince some game authors to encode it into their licensing agreement. I can just see it now:

You have to pay for this software. Unless, of course, there are no circumstances in which you would pay for it. In which case, you may copy it for free.

Re:Question

[Urusai]

Works for the USA! Since we sent billions to Iraq, gas prices have gone up and American oil companies have made out like bandits. Talk about a tax windfall for social services!

Now, if a country like Chad or Bhutan started pumping money into the USA, the resulting inflation could potentially make every man on the street a millionaire in the local currency. It would also make it easier for Americans to buy the fine products of Chad and Bhutan (copra? dirt?) which would boost the fortunes of copra/dirt magnates, who would then be able to patch the roof on the shack they keep their field laborers in, possibly doubling the standard of living for these often neglected folk.

Re:Software Piracy Rate?

[Kjella]

I think you are both a bit too much in the extremes. No software piracy would mean there'd be a much more working market with software with different quality and price tag, with GIMP at the bottom with $0. That is *not* to say that GIMP would be "bad" (it could have the bottom 95%), but any commercial software worse than GIMP just wouldn't sell as it has a negative value. Many more people would start out with GIMP, and going from GIMP to the "next level" would cost $$$. That provides a lot more incentive for the few user/coders (or stuff like rent-a-coder) to have it done. Whereas today, many people start with Photoshop even if they never need it. I'm sure they have learner's editions and the like if your goal is to become a graphics professional. For those who never have that goal, getting those people on to alternate programs (including GIMP) would be big boost. One of the issues is the inherent standardization on Photoshop as a format. If people had to actually pay, you'd see a lot more acceptance of "No, I'm not paying $700 for that, here's my GIMP file".

It's rarely the "huge rewrites" that get OSS going. Most of the time, it's the people that are at "the edge", where GIMP does 98% (and not 50%) of what they need, and they have this itch to scratch... Photo professionals wouldn't dream of dropping Photoshop. But a lot of people would, and even better, piracy is highest among teens and students which are learning to become professionals. Catch that market and you'll see results five or ten years down the road. OSS has time to wait for that. No, it wouldn't be the end of Photoshop. But yes, the GIMP would have a huge boost. But can we please have a name I don't feel embarassed to mention. I explicitly have to capitalize it to make it seem like an abbreviation because talking about "the gimp" is just well, awkward. It's like having programs with abbreviations like NIGGER, RAPE or SLUT. "Rape can make it easier than anything else on the market." "Gimp will make sure you never have to pay for overpriced software again." "Nigger will let you do the same in half the time at a quarter of the cost." See my point here? Guess not.