Software Industry Shifting Piracy Strategy 305
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%."
Software Piracy Rate? (Score:4, Insightful)
hmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Question (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet another flawed "OMG look at all those stolen CD's we could earn so much money with this stuff" study.
Perhaps if Microsoft stopped charging $200 for Windows and $2000 for Visual Studio, more people would buy their products legit.
False assumptions (Score:5, Insightful)
It's interesting that these BSA studies always assume that the money that is not spent on software is not spent anywhere else either.
And what will be the cost of enforcing piracy? (Score:5, Insightful)
I highly doubt it... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think so. They are assuming that there is a limitless demand for IT professionals that is not currently being satisfied. I don't think this is the case. These countries have a host of other economic and political problems that lead to many things, including not respecting other countrie's copyrights (oh no!) and having limited jobs for IT professionals. If they suddenly enforced copyright (and by this, it is implicitly meant the copyright of other countries) I don't think there would suddenly be a huge demand for copyright-enforcing bureaucracy.
I just don't see why people who are used to making copies without obtaining permission will go along with, and support, such a system. Frankly the point of the whole article is "other countries have this nifty law that lets the government tax ethereal things... and it lets companies sue lots of people for ethereal things! These countries are rich! Do you want to be rich? All you have to do is impose laws that manage ethereal things (like ideas), and *poof* you have wealth out of thin air!"
I don't believe in generating fictitious wealth using laws. It's barely sustainable for the countries that are doing it now; I just don't see how it would make sense for countries that don't have a history of such laws.
What does BSA stand for? (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem that these people fail to see is that third-world countries can't afford to pay the "normal" (i.e US) prices for software. The numbers the BSA is throwing around is just mind-boggling... $ 400B in economic growth, what the fsck ever. I don't think most of those people would actually replace their pirated copies with the original, just because they can't afford it.
The message they're trying to convey is "OMG that's all we're missing out on because of piracy?", but it doesn't hold water. I'm not condoning piracy, but it really pisses me off when I see the "guys in the suits" blabbering inane propaganda and throwing around numbers to justify their existence.
And if the study includes PC games in the "pirated software" category, this makes it even worse, because the numbers will be again vastly inflated. In third-world countries, copies cost anywhere from $1 to $3, so anyone who goes out and buys games wouldn't leave without at least 3 DVDs, even they never play the games they bought. Which wouldn't be true if the prices were in the $35-55 range.
Re:hmm (Score:2, Insightful)
This is wonderful and you're a great person for giving money to people that are working hard to make you happy.
The trouble is with the 80% of the people out there that aren't like you. They're selfish, short-sighted, and simply have the "you made it, I want it" philosophy. They enjoy the game that someone else worked to create and never will do anything for that person that helped make their life a little more enjoyable.
See, most slashdotters are (moderately) bright. They can be trusted to behave the way you do because they know money will keep the good games, gadgets, toys, and tech, coming. But most of the public aren't that bright. Piracy laws are for them.
"So how does piracy actually HURT software vendors?", you might ask. Well, what they lose is their time and effort. It's sort of like someone taking money out of your wallet. You haven't actually been hurt, but all that effort and work that went into earning that money was for naught. A bit of your life was wasted.
People that work hard to make software waste their time in a culture full of piracy. Oh, they figure it out soon enough and move on to other things.
Re:Question (Score:4, Insightful)
Which ultimately means "all your base are belong to the USA".
2.4 million new jobs (Score:2, Insightful)
Or will that be lawyers who earn their money in patent cases?
Somehow something is very very wrong with the reasoning that if people would have paid for what they pirated there would be a lot more money in the economy. If every one had unlimited money, then yes, ok, but then there would be unlimited money already. The whole point of money is that you can spend it only once.
Money that is not spend on a software product, because it is obtained illegally, is not mysteriously "lost", and can not be magically "recovered" by a reduction of piracy.
I can understand that a software company prefers people paying, and that that helps the financial situation of that particular company. But you can't just add up all virtual losses, and state that that is the total amount of money that will magically pop up when everybody would be paying.
If it wasnt for piracy (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Question (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:hmm (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the problem the grandparent and others have with this whole thing, is we know some people use piracy to benefit everyone, and some just steal, but nobody REALLY knows how many do which.
Re:Software Piracy Rate? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Question (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I highly doubt it... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:hmm (Score:4, Insightful)
I understand supporting authors and I do as much as I can. Some times it's by buying merchandise and not the main product (in the case of anime fansubbed, since I don't wish to support the company who do vile English tracks). I also get that some people won't pay for stuff, but can you count these as lost sales since they never would of bought it in the first place?
Re:hmm (Score:5, Insightful)
So how does it take money from them if someone makes a copy of their software? They will not get any money from this person under any circumstances. If they can't steal a copy, they certainly will not buy one.
As people here say so often, "piracy" can actually help producers. Someone copies a few games from company X. Eventually they may actually buy one. Why didn't they get it from company Y? Because they know that this lot makes stuff they like.
Re:Software Piracy Rate? (Score:3, Insightful)
But I never lied to my customers or threatened them or took them to court for the price of a song. True pirates (i.e., those that bulk-copy a product and sell it) are easy to deal with, if you can find them. Hell, most of them are actually the same CD/DVD pressing plants that make legitimate stuff. It's hard to get reliable numbers on such things, but certainly that kind of blatant, felonious activity costs them significant sales. It's pretty clear-cut, in that case, that you're dealing with criminals, out to rip you off for a profit. They should and do go after those types.
However, the problem with casual copying of software and other media by ordinary consumers is that the customer and the {quote-unquote} "pirate" are one and the same. If the "pirates" (i.e. P2P users and the people that burn CDs for friends) would simply never buy software or music, and if people that buy music would never illegally copy it why, none of this would be a concern since there would be two distinct groups. Those who infringe copyrights, and those who don't. But it's not that simple
Re:hmm (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:If it wasnt for piracy (Score:1, Insightful)
Maybe it's because once a young user turns into a pro user (who doesn't write code), they suddenly realize that to run their business they can either wait for open source engineers to code in the features they need, except that it would be more economically viable for the business to simply buy Photoshop so that the already-present desired features could be put to revenue-generating uses immediately?
Re:hmm (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Would these misers have been willing to splash out for the product anyway? Probably not. For example, a copyright infringer with 1,000 albums on his/her hard drive would never have been able to afford more than a couple of percent of that. In fact, being miserly, they probably wouldn't have bought more than five albums, if that, coming to a grand total of $15*5 = $75 lost sales at absolute maximum. Of course, the RIAA would count this as $15*1,000 = £15,000 of lost sales.
2) To what extent is this countered by the increased exposure of the target demographic to the product? Say the above miserly copyright infringer uploads 2,000 copies of assorted albums to other people. Now say just 5% of recipients are honest (probably a low figure), and go out and buy just 5% of the albums they receive. The money spent is then $15*2,000*0.05*0.05 = $75 - cancelling out the original "loss" to the copyright holder. (No I didn't fudge my numbers, it was just a flukey estimate)
3) (This one applies to music) How much of this actually goes to the artist? Since the misers who are forced to buy albums if the filesharing networks close aren't exactly publically-minded citizens, they'll just get their albums from the stores. By Courtney Love's arithmetic [salon.com], the record label gets about $50 profit from the $75 spent, whilst the artists get a total of $2.38 profit. Now, if the albums are downloaded and then paid for, the recipients are likely to be individuals who are sympathetic to the plight of musicians, and hence will often donate via a band's site or buy from an ethical label [magnatune.com], as I did just last night (despite being a poor student). Result: the artist is likely to get at least 1/2 the loot, a 1500% increase over the other system
4) (This one applies to software) What happens when people want to use a superb tool like Lightwave in a professional context? They have to license it, or recommend that it be licensed. So, by not shooting down the bored teenage downloader who'd never be able to afford this $800 software, Newtek is able to sell several copies to the company he/she ends up working for. It's like farming only not.
In conclusion, the positive side-effects of wide-ranging copyright infringement will often outweigh the negative side-effects, especially in industries where the content producers are getting shafted or where the product is most lucratively licensed in a professional context. There's probably an equivalent argument for films but my brain's dead.
Speaking of ruptured braincells, there's at least two errors in the above calculations. I'm too tired to figure out how to correct them, so I'll just say: please give bonus points to anyone who finds three mistakes
Re:Software Piracy Rate? (Score:4, Insightful)
Are you trying to say that a software program is analogous to the result of a mathematical equation? If I know that the answer to X+10=20 is "10", and I make you pay me to tell you the answer, and don't allow you to tell anybody else, then I am restricting the flow of information. But, as far as I know there is no equation for which the answer would be the machine code for a word processing program. Software is not information. Software is a tool that is the result of information, and is often used to produce information. Difference.
RedHat makes money by intentionally holding back information about what is essentially free software. I don't see how that bolsters your argument.
And the fact that duplicating software is virtually free does not imply that the software itself should be free. Producing and maintaining software is costly.
I'm thankful that there are people out there who are willing to give their time and energy to produce free software tools, but that doesn't necessarily mean that I think that others should have the same philosophy. I do think that the big software guys are charging way too much money for some of their basic products. I'd like to see more full-featured home applications with sub $100 price tags...and not watered down "here's every feature you need except that ONE thing" versions.
Re:hmm (Score:2, Insightful)
The way to reduce piracy is to reduce the price of CD's, improve the physical package to give the tangible product more value and eliminate the copy protection crap. By handicapping their products, the vendors are just insulting and impeding their own customers.
Record companies justify the ridiculous profit margins by complaining about the high cost of promotion. Well we have a new medium that offers very low cost promotion. It is called the internet. It is time for media companies to take a hard look at their business model.
When will they release a study that finds... (Score:3, Insightful)
Thats the real truth. Even the pirates understand that
You think they pirate software because they're trying to undermine their local economies?
The pirates arent going anywhere because the companies keep treating people like cash batteries. They're people that deserve a fair chance to enjoy $5000 software packages.
Jesus would pirate software
Re:Global everything (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Software Piracy Rate? (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, the BSA has a very interesting way of doing it. Decide on the accuracy for yourself.
In effect, they take the total number of computers sold, decide what percentage of those computers "should" be running a given piece of proprietary software, then look at the number of copies sold. The discrepancy between these numbers is the "piracy rate". This type of statistic-making in essence ignores free software/OS's, other types of freeware, "home-rolled" alternatives written by the user themself, and the like. (So, despite the fact that I'm in full compliance with my OS's license by downloading and installing it for free-according to the BSA, I've got a pirated OS!)
Re:hmm (Score:2, Insightful)
Your dilemma boils down to one of two mutually-exclusive choice:
Using one of their programs is not "giving into their monopoly." Open Office exists, and therefore Microsoft Office has no monopoly. Your aversion doesn't really seem to be based on anything tangible - i.e., Bill Gates raped me when I was little - but some kind of moral principle.
Principles are cool. Everyone needs 'em. But, can you articulate what yours are? I noticed how you short-circuited your principles for convenience by supporting/using the Xbox. If the sacrifice of whatever principles you hold is worth a game system, is it worth a job? You are willing to sacrifice the chance to start a career in the business of a wealthy relative that will (hopefully) forever bring prosperity to you, but you are not willing to sacrifice a game console.
Sort out your priorities. (I wouldn't choose the console over the job.) Articulate your beliefs. (Microsoft is evil? Whether it actually is or not, can you empirically prove why, at least within the bounds of your morals?) Define how much of your moral fiber you will sacrifice to convenience. (Once again, the Xbox over the job.)
Also remember that this isn't just a job to "earn money" - this could be the start of a career. Your family friend sounds influential - and who you know matters just as much as what you know. Do well, and it'll be a shiny gold star on your resume and will make the rest of your life much easier. Don't do it at all, and try getting the requisite job experience for a job you want without a job to get said job experience from.
This isn't a Nuremburg decision. No one will fault you for following orders, meshing with the system, and making everyone's lives more productive. Someone will fault you for blowing off a giant opportunity because of a radical stand on intellectual property.
Re:hmm (Score:3, Insightful)
Game (esp those with multiplayer component) is one of them. I am not a gamer. But, I find quite a few of my friends who never buy any software before have change habit. First, they are now working and have decent income. More importantly, once they enjoy the copied game and notice there is a multiplayer they will just pop to the game shop to buy the game. They at the end find it worthwhile.
The other sort of software targets corporates which has little scope for personal use (numerical package, design tools etc). At work, people do occasionally use "trial" software. But, once the guy tests that out and finds that useful, boss usually will have no hesitation to buy it. The reason is simple: if the IT dept roll out a project, the user may or may not want it... but, "tried out" software is a bottom-up process. If the engineers at the bottom find that useful, why don't just go ahead.
For other softwares, the winning formula has yet to be found.
Re:Software Piracy Rate? (Score:4, Insightful)
This is the problem with many economic "beliefs". They are limited in scope. Companies that pay for Photoshop now would get a free (new and improved) GIMP and have lower overhead costs, which allows them to charge less or hire more. The people who pay less for their services also save money so have more to do things with. And so on, and so on. Not to mention that there'd be more people that could or would learn it, start companies, and so on and so on.
It's such a highly non-linear feedback driven system. Simple analysis won't do.
Re:False assumptions (Score:2, Insightful)
So if you cut the supposed piracy rate by 10%, you mean to tell me that you're going to need another 1.2 million code jockeys, and 1.2 million factory-types to write and package this stuff?
BULLSHIT! And anyone on this site with a half-ounce of brains knows it too...
Re:hmm (Score:3, Insightful)
Note the critical point there: I was so happy with the, ah, "unlimited trial version" that I *WANTED* to become a customer, and get the real thing with all the trimmings -- over and over and over. None of which would have happened without borroware.
BTW that tagline of yours is old enough to vote
I think this is the first signs of a more cohesive (Score:4, Insightful)
A few years back, I decided to abandon all software I was not either entitled to use (open source, freeware, paid licenses, etc...) and could not afford to own.
For a while It was a real bitch, but then things changed. While I've been a Linux user since the mid 90's, I really didn't fully explore OSS until about 2000. What I found was that a lot of software is simply not necessary. Using the software I had in more creative ways, or simply learning (again) to work without some software has had clear benefits to me, both in terms of dollars saved and in terms of just being able to work in the first place.
Today, I own a coupla pieces of commercial software and the rest is all OSS. That more than piracy is resulting in lost sales. If they really succeed in cutting down on piracy, the OSS side of things is just going to get a lot worse for them and they know it.
The only solid way to keep the proprietary, "pay as often as we can get you to pay to compute" model sustainable is to change the rules of the game such that OSS alternatives are driven back underground. This continues to happen where multi-media applications are concerned, but that's not enough. Getting Ogle from another country really does not affect anyone as the DVD player devices are all bundled with some goofy player anyway.
Getting OpenOffice, GIMP, web browsers, development tools, etc... back out of the mainstream will make a big difference. I suspect the approach will be to slowly move legislative opinion in this direction, then deal with citizen complaints through "access programs" very similar in nature to what the big phama companies do today.
Can't afford that lifesaving drug? Simple, if you beg and prove you really, really are gonna die without their property, they will "give" it to you rather than do the right thing.
Software companies are going to end up trying the same things, IMHO.
I regularly write my elected representatives about OSS issues. I let them know I write OSS software and why and what value the growing body of OSS software brings to anyone willing to participate. Participation can be as simple as just using the software of your choice or as involved as developing, training, distributing, etc... We all benefit.
Oh, the one biggie I always mention is the fact that OSS is unique in that value received is more than value contributed for everyone involved because no material goods are required to make use of the combined result. This is important because many industry (closed industry) lobbiests equate this value proposition as an "unsustainable ponzi type scheme" that does more harm than good as it takes advantage of contributors without "closing the value chain". Translation: We can't compete with free and the world (read government) needs us here.
Back on topic: The IP battle is imporant here in the US because we have outsourced darn near everything else, yet we still consume an awful lot per capita. Unless the world can be convinced that IP is viable, we are going to become increasingly hard pressed to restore that balance in the coming years.
On one hand, I'm not looking forward to us having to figure that out. And IP is an easy out. On the other, I sure don't want OSS going anywhere because it's primary value to me is not the cost savings, but the near total computing freedom that comes along for the ride.
One of my favorite computers happens to be an older SGI computer. OSS keeps that machine viable. Any of us, who know what we are doing, can take pretty much any combination of computing hardware we can get our hands on and be productive with it. As time goes on, I find this to be quite compelling in that I can continue to compute just the way I want to, not how I am told.
IP takes all of that away and I KNOW that's a bad thing, simply because being left with no alternatives means near total control of our computing environment. History has shown time and time again that scenario never is
Re:Software Piracy Rate? (Score:4, Insightful)
You're assuming that most users of Photoshop have the coding skills necessary to make useful contributions to FOSS apps like GIMP, which is simply not the case. Remember, in this particular example you're talking about artists, not programmers. Most graphic artists I know wouldn't know how to write code if their life depended on it, but that's ok -- writing code is not what they do. They're artists, not programmers.
Now, to zoom out a bit more and look at the broader picture, the vast majority of PC users dont' know the first thing about programming. Whether you're talking about "regular folks" like my sister, who just wants to be able to email, surf the web, and download music (that's a different rant, let's not get off-topic), or professionals who do graphic design, web-site design, etc., keep in mind that most of them are not programmers. They want tools (software) that let's them do their job, and that's pretty much it. Many of them are not the "roll your own" type, nor are they willing to -- let alone capable of -- making modifications to FOSS software that they may be using.
Programmers create software; everyone else uses software. The proportionate discrepancy between coders and users will always be larger in favor of users, and there's nothing inherantly wrong with that. You can't realistically expect every end-user to have the skills to make code-level modifications to their software, and as long as most users lack these skills, piracy will continue unabated, Photoshop will continue to be the default graphic-artistry app, and GIMP will never get its day in the sun.
Sad, but true.
Re:Software Piracy Rate? (Score:2, Insightful)
Both patents and copyrights fail miserably in their purpose then. And the whole term "intellectual property" is just propaganda: an attempt to make people think as property something that is not property.
Re:Software Piracy Rate? (Score:3, Insightful)
You are ignoring the statistics.
In a world of 6,500,000,000+ people and where free software can be copied millions of times all it takes is 0.000001% of companies/people/users coding. It is a statistical certainty that this will happen.
Similar statistics and the economic network effect are the reason why M$ is able to tax the world the ridiculous sum of $40,000,000,000+ per year for basically ten programs and various forms of crippleware.
IP law is currently broken and is getting even more broken as the world's population increases.
---
It's wrong that an intellectual property creator should not be rewarded for their work.
It's equally wrong that an IP creator should be rewarded too many times for the one piece of work, for exactly the same reasons.
Reform IP law and stop the M$/RIAA abuse.
The only thing that is different... (Score:2, Insightful)
What's new?
Software Piracy (Score:1, Insightful)
I highly encourage it. Why should I have to pay for something I can't afford when it can be copied?
What job do you have? I make shit for money and my prospects aren't looking to improve soon. Companies
spend millions on advertising and piracy is common, even sometimes allowed in order to increase market share (office, windows, adobe).
So piracy is ok when it fits a corporate model and illegal and immoral when it doesn't? Give me a break the corporations are fucking all of us over.
Why do you think gangsta rap is so popular. It's about have and have nots. No amount of moralistic legalistic bullshitting
will change that. Of course the well-off and privileged can't understand it. But the majority of us can.
Why can't a poor person in China, or anywhere have an equal right to own any piece of software produced? Especially if that is creative software. The answer is: if they can, they will and you can't do shit about it. The US is basically enforcing economic imperialism on the rest of the world through patents and IP.
I hope someone steals your tv, they would be doing you a favor.
fuckers.