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%."
Doesn't seem very valid (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:If it wasnt for piracy (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: Economic benefits by sending billions to U.S?? (Score:1, Interesting)
How can a company that is created in lets say, Argentina and has some innovative product compete against the WMDs of the super companies: marketing, adds, paid "researchers" and gossipy columnists, cutthroat lawyers, etc etc.?
True competition died a long time ago in capitalism (have you seen the film Tucker?). Bug companies rule. If somebody has any great superprofitable idea, the idea and the one who had it is in turn bought by the huge capitals.
This article is ridiculous. But not stupid. This is how all the imperialist scams are sold to "developing" (read semi-colonial) countries.
BSA = BS (Score:3, Interesting)
May 19th 2005
From The Economist print edition
Software theft is bad; so is misstating the evidence
IT SOUNDS too bad to be true; but, then, it might not be true. Up to 35% of all PC software installed in 2004 was pirated, resulting in a staggering $33 billion loss to the industry, according to an annual study released this week by the Business Software Alliance (BSA), a trade association and lobby group.
Such jaw-dropping figures are regularly cited in government documents and used to justify new laws and tough penalties for pirates--this month in Britain, for example, two people convicted of piracy got lengthy prison sentences, even though they had not sought to earn money. The BSA provided its data. The judge chose to describe the effects of piracy as nothing less than "catastrophic".
Intellectual property
But while the losses due to software copyright violations are large and serious, the crime is certainly not as costly as the BSA portrays. The association's figures rely on sample data that may not be representative, assumptions about the average amount of software on PCs and, for some countries, guesses rather than hard data. Moreover, the figures are presented in an exaggerated way by the BSA and International Data Corporation (IDC), a research firm that conducts the study. They dubiously presume that each piece of software pirated equals a direct loss of revenue to software firms.
To derive its piracy rate, IDC estimates the average amount of software that is installed on a PC per country, using data from surveys, interviews and other studies. That figure is then reduced by the known quantity of software sold per country--a calculation in which IDC specialises. The result: a (supposed) amount of piracy per country. Multiplying that figure by the revenue from legitimate sales thus yields the retail value of the unpaid-for software. This, IDC and BSA claim, equals the amount of lost revenue.
The problem is that the economic impact of global software piracy is far harder to calculate. Some academics have shown that some piracy actually increases software sales, by introducing products to people who would not otherwise become customers. Indeed, Bill Gates chirped in the 1990s that piracy in China was useful to Microsoft, because once the nation was hooked, the software giant would eventually figure out a way to monetise the trend. (Lately Microsoft has kept quiet on this issue.)
The BSA's bold claims are surprising, given that last year the group was severely criticised for inflating its figures to suit its political aims. "Absurd on its face" and "patently obscene" is how Gary Shapiro, boss of the Consumer Electronics Association, another lobby group, describes the new ranking.
Re:hmm (Score:5, Interesting)
It's getting to the point now in my life where I'm financially stable and can afford to buy the odd game. But, even as such, I usually try before I buy, and that means piracy. For example: I just played through F.E.A.R. It took me about 8 hours to beat it. And, upon starting up again, I've realized that it has no replay value whatsoever. $55 for 8 hours? Thanks, but no; I'm glad I didn't buy it. It's uninstalled. On the other hand, Age of Empires III I downloaded, played, and liked; and I'm going to go buy it.
I origionally pirated my copy of Neverwinter Nights; but because I enjoyed it so much, I ended up buying the retail version, both expansion packs, and paying for all the downloadable premium modules. And I'm talking as they became available; not years later in the ultra-mega-pack for $40. I probably have close to $180 invested in Neverwinter Nights.
Every time I feel guilty about this policy, I end up buying a game and being pissed off about it. The latest example was Doom III - I bought it, and played it, and it too has lackluster multiplayer and no replay value.
It basically boils down to if you make good games, I'll buy. But, if you put out crap, I won't.
However, it should be noted that this only goes for 1.) Games and 2.) MS Office. Now that I work for tech support in the CS department of a university, I have access to the MSDN Academic Alliance copy of Office, so that's now legal, but I used to pirate it. However, I also used to feel bad about it; since I knew that the only reason I was pirating it was because I needed to be able to create word documents for specific purposes (resume comes to mind), and it's what everyone else uses; I'd have been technologically happy with Open Office. But it's to the point where I've found free programs to replace all the little things I used to pirate.
For example; CuteFTP - now I use FileZilla. Eudora - now Thunderbird. Nero - now I use burnatonce; though I'm still looking for a free (beer; possibly speech too) CD Burner that doesn't suck - burn at once burns images, and does it well, but doesn't do anything else. Photoshop - Gimp. Norton Corporate AV - now AVG Free. I don't even remember what I used before Exact Audio Copy. And I want to know where VLC has been my whole life.
I've also stopped downloading TV programs and Movies. Movies basically because I never go to the movies anyway (baby) and anything that's good, I'll buy when it's on DVD (I'd rather sit at home comfortable and be able to pause). TV - now that I have Tivo, I don't miss anything; and I've sort of gotten over the need to archive everything; but should I want to archive, I can always use TiVo desktop, a program to strip the DRM from the files, and re-encode the MPEG2.
So, basically, I'm pretty much proof of "if it's reasonably priced, I'd just as soon buy it". I'm also proof of "If you put out crap, and claim that piracy is hurting your sales, you're wrong: it's either too expensive, or it just sucks".
~W
Re:Software Piracy Rate? (Score:2, Interesting)
All software is essentially mathematical algorithims
The definition of algorithm is A step-by-step problem-solving procedure [reference.com]. All software is created in response to some "problem" - i.e., running the ol' Gutenburg press is tedious - and all computers follow a series of instructions.
Therefore, software is nothing but an algorithm. Or, more accurately, the the application of an algorithm.
Yeah right (Score:2, Interesting)
Software pricing is heinous as is music and video pricing.
Lower the price and people won't really need to or want to pirate software.
Re:Software Piracy Rate? (Score:5, Interesting)
"Basicly piracy is the last thing that keeps Free Software from world domination."
And that is precisely why I oppose software 'piracy'. I live in a country where I can buy any software I want for less than 20 bucks at the local CD store. The parliament here has yet to ratify the Berne Conventions on copyright, so we exist in a sort of a grey zone. There's no legal reason to respect software EULAs.
But the use of proprietary software has created many other difficulties, not the least of which is a cargo-cult mentality. Software is not something that one configures or, heaven forfend, writes; it's something you go down to the store to buy. If something goes wrong with it, you just buy something better. If there's nothing there that does what you want... well then, software can't do that.
That's all well and good as far as it goes, but it does absolutely nothing to develop the local economy, improve educational opportunities, or to impress on people just what kind of amazing things they could be doing with software in this country. This place is poor in resources, but doesn't lack for smart people. The only way people here will ever find really well-paid work is to sell their skills overseas, and the only way they can do that is to leverage the Internet, and the only way they can do that is if they understand the software, and the only way they can do that is if they wean themselves from the proprietary tit.
Free Software costs time and effort, and will always be more expensive (though ultimately more valuable) than pirated software.
Re:hmm (Score:2, Interesting)
Would these misers have been willing to splash out for the product anyway?
Does it matter? As an (apparently) wise person posted before me, if they won't pay for it, they shouldn't have it. It's only "too expensive" if too few people buy it.
How much of this actually goes to the artist?
Doesn't matter. Giant, big-name publishers don't provde revenue for the artist per se, but they provde advertising for the band's conserts, their primary form of revenue. Would you shell out big bucks to see a (insert band name here) consert if you hadn't heard any of their music? They also help in getting the artist's music on the radio - modern radio would be impossible if individual stations had to license individual songs from individual bands, and this is one place where an oligopoly actually makes sense.
Nothing "costs too much" if enough people buy it to make its production profitable. If $15 is too much for a CD, don't buy it. Don't steal it. Don't infringe its copyright. Leave the people who will pay that much in peace, and watch as billions are saved in legal costs by your attempting to save yourself a few hundred.
Re:Software Piracy Rate? (Score:3, Interesting)
Also, Adobe isn't making a big deal about college kids using pirated $300+ Photoshop. Why? Because Adobe still wins in the end, those college students graduate and then when they get jobs the company will probably use Photoshop CS2 because that is what the employees want to get the work done. Using a pirated version for a couple of years is not that big of a deal if that person will learn to use it and the place of employment will pay for Photoshop for decades ahead.
And as you say, the same thing goes for MS Office.
On the other side, it would be great if the companies would crack down and make it harder to pirate their software. There are open source alternatives that might not be as good now but if more people turn to them, there will be an increased level of development and support for them.
Re:Software Piracy Rate? (Score:1, Interesting)
My constant conflict with open source software is that I feel its great for home users, the poor, schools and other individuals/organizations that can't afford 300 dollars for windows and 700 dollars for photoshop. The problem is how do I pay my bills? If you're lucky enough to write something popular like mysql, apache, bind, freebsd, or the like you get money on book sales, speaking engagements, and maybe even technical support. Most of us won't be that lucky. I'm not the ceo of redhat who makes raw profit on other people slaving away at linux software. I know thats not what OSS is all about to some people, but those same people should look at the people you elevate. If you truely feel strongly about OSS software and have good intentions, don't support those kind of people. If you're out to make a buck as well, help redhat make lots of money. It will help you too.
In addition there will be a lot of out of work programmers who need other jobs and can't buy the products these other companies sell. Saving money doesn't automatically mean it will get spent on workers or make prices lower. Economics doesn't work like that. If anything, the ceo of mcdonalds will save money on marketing and buy another island somewhere.
I open sourced several pieces of software, but it wasn't because i'm an idealist. I just couldn't see people paying for it, but thought it might still be useful to someone. I know its possible people would steal my software anyway, so i don't bother with the GPL typically. I just use the BSD license and save the heartache.