BSA Creates Piracy Statistics 675
JakiChan writes "According to this story on Yahoo! news the BSA commissioned a study that decided that 39% of all business software is pirated, down from 40%. The decline is attributed to the BSA's enforcement techniques. 'The piracy rate was calculated by comparing the researchers' estimates on demand with data on actual software sales.'" In other words, some guys sat in a room and decided that people probably wanted to buy ten copies of software, but only five were sold, so the piracy rate must therefore be 50%. By a similar process we can calculate that 99% of all ocean-front homes are pirated.
And in other news... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:And in other news... (Score:3, Funny)
ObSimpsonsQuote (Score:5, Funny)
Re:And in other news... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:And in other news... (Score:4, Funny)
2/3 of the human body consists of water
17% of the sides on regular dice are two-eyed
0% of all prime numbers are even (tricky)
And finally...
25% of all statistics provided in this post are false
Re:And in other news... (Score:5, Insightful)
Regular dice have six sides with one through six spots. That means that each regular die (singular for dice) has one side with 2 spots, which is 1 out of 6, or 1/6 or 16.66666666% - not 17% - you were close, but incorrect.
That's two of the four statistics which works out to 50%, which means your final statistic is also incorrect (it's not 25% of your 'factual' statistics are incorrect) which means that in reality 75% of your statistics are incorrect.
Thanks for playing, we have some lovely parting gifts for you.
Re:And in other news... (Score:5, Funny)
Given the number of stops we make on long car trips with my daughter, I'd put that number closer to 99%.
Re:And in other news... (Score:5, Interesting)
Regular dice have six sides with one through six spots. That means that each regular die (singular for dice) has one side with 2 spots, which is 1 out of 6, or 1/6 or 16.66666666% - not 17% - you were close, but incorrect.
The dice number would've been incorrect if it said 17.0%, but 17% is imprecise enough to imply a range between 16.5% and 17.5%.
Same thing for 2/3. And no, 2/3 does not automatically indicate infinite precision 0.66666... 2/3 equals base-three 0.2, which is broad enough to cover the whole range of 50-75%.
Re:And in other news... (Score:5, Insightful)
He rounded correctly, just with a lower precision. You on the other hand chose to be more precise, but rounded incorrectly.
Re:And in other news... (Score:5, Funny)
Ergo, children are not human. It all makes sense now.
Re:And in other news... (Score:4, Insightful)
Dice have 5 sides with 2 spots on them...
Nobody said only 2 spots
Re:And in other news... (Score:3, Insightful)
There is an infinite number of primes.
There is only one even prime: 2.
1 (or any finite number, for that matter) divided by infinity is 0.
I believe the poster knew this would be missed by some readers which
is probably why he wrote "(tricky)".
Re:And in other news... (Score:3, Insightful)
lim (x)
x -> 0
which can be, for all practical purposes, considered zero. But it is not.
Re:And in other news... (Score:5, Informative)
Your statement would be better rendered "1 divided by x as x goes to infinity limits to zero." (I'd like to write the actual symbols because I've heard the limit symbol said a couple of different ways; that's my personal preference.)
If you want to get all mathematical in someone's face, do it right.
Re:And in other news... (Score:4, Funny)
Indeed. It always pays to study the classics to see how things have been traditionally done. Even the most tired cliche became that way because of its inate broadbased appeal.
I think you'll discover that if you want to get all mathmatical in someone's face history records that nothing beats a pi.
KFG
Re:And in other news... (Score:5, Insightful)
The last US presidential exit polls said the same thing.
Of course they make it up! (Score:5, Interesting)
They have to, since they don't actually go after larger businesses, only the tiny, five-or-six-person mom and pop shops.
When I was unfairly let go from my previous employer, I decided to hit 'em hard by contacting the BSA. As I was the Network Manager, I could tell them about pretty much every piece of pirated software, and I did. I went to the BSA site and filled out a report documenting hundreds of missing licenses for MS Office, MS Exchange, a number of Adobe products, and a few from Macromedia (all of their big vendor companies). I even documented how Lotus SmartSuite is installed on about 300 computers, yet we only had 4 legal copies, not to mention all the small shareware-type shit (like SnagIt and WinZip) that was installed on almost every PC without one legal license in the place.
I documented the "plan" we had in case of audit...it seems you can refuse them entry the first time they drop by for a visit, but they come back later that day with sherrifs and a warrant to force the issue. More than enough time for use to ghost a pirated-clean image on all the machines (using a pirated copy of ghost, of course). We even went to the trouble to compile a list of every machine that had pirated software so we could quicly decide which ones would need ghosting first.
Finally, I documented the little utility one of the members of the IT staff was forced to write ("it's written, or you're out of a job") to bypass the licensing restrictions of MS Terminal Services. I even gave them a link to the company's website where they could download it (it was up there so the salesmen could get it at home).
And, what happened? Nothing. For three months I called every week to see what the status was, and was told each time that there was nothing new to report. It was in the hands of the member companies. Finally, I was told that one of the member companies had decided not to pursue.
When I asked why, I was told they didn't have a reason, but it could be because: "the member company may already be investigating or negotiating with the company, the company may have some kind of site license, or the member company may have some other kind of relationship with the company in question." None of these were the case (I still have contacts in the IT department).
No, the truth is, the BSA simply can't walk into a large company and tell 500 people to get off their machines for a day while they're audited. It's logistically impossible. So, they advertise lots and lots of threats, send out "truce" notices, and make a lot of people worry about nothing.
Mod parent down!! (Score:4, Funny)
Peace ribbon?
You can't fool me -- this is clearly yet another goatse.cx troll, only rendered in ascii.
Years of repeated slashdot exposure mean that today I'd recognize that savaged sphincter anywhere -- even if it is hiding in a couple of ascii characters.
subjective world views and causal myopia (Score:5, Informative)
He has a point, but it must be strange looking around and having a paradigm of fear/distrust spin on what he sees.
Reminds me of this saying "If a pickpocket meets a saint, he sees only his pockets".
The other subjective view is where they attribute the reported 1% decline to their own efforts. Sounds more like either statistical fluctuation or just a noisy unstable way of measuring year to year.
Re:subjective world views and causal myopia (Score:5, Insightful)
There's lots of stuff I want that I don't buy. For instance, I really, really want a decked-out 2 processor G4 Macintosh with all the goodies, 4 GB of RAM and 300 GB of Hard Drive space. But I haven't bought one. By their logic, I'm PIRATING that Macintosh right now.
Re:subjective world views and causal myopia (Score:5, Insightful)
You're right, I hadn't thought of that. Their method is _so_ nonsensical and immeasurable that it should be disregarded outright. Producing a number out of that process is being disrespectful to numbers.
Re:Good idea? Bad idea? (Score:5, Interesting)
If Intel and AMD combined sell 100 million CPUs this year and Microsoft only sells 60 million seats of Windows, then 40 million computers are using pirated OS. Same sort of thing with Office, etc...
Re:Good idea? Bad idea? (Score:5, Insightful)
OSS, Linux, StarOffice or whatever, and folks that retire a machine and migrate the software they paid to use all skew that number
It would be a pretty easy way to boil up numbers for 3rd world countries, just figure out how many computers get sent there in a given year, figure out how many copies of legit software get purchased, simmer on high for 5 minutes and Voila! cooked books.
Re:subjective world views and causal myopia (Score:5, Insightful)
Having said that,
The BSA's reviews are misleading for several reasons, but one that I never see mentioned is that pirating actually results in MORE software sales, not less.
How is this?
I've 'heard' of the following happening fairly regularly.
1. Person decides they want to try out a particular piece of software who has no knowledge (high school, hacker, middle age, etc - anyone).
2. Person sees what software they can get for free over the various channels.
3. Person downloads several different types of software to try them all out.
4. Person decides on a favorite.
5. Person proceeds to use software.
6. Person decides to use software for a business related function where revenue will be generated or their work checked.
7. Person buys software.
Note, in many cases, a lot of software purchases come from people who would not have otherwise had the desire to learn a piece of software (say music creating warez), or the funds to buy a professional piece of software (say windows 2k server, or office etc) but was able to develop the skills to use them. Once they can use them, then it isn't a stretch to purchase the software because you have the skills.
Pirating, in some cases may deprive software companies of revenue. But in many others pirating actually helps distribute knowledge about the software and increases the computer knowledge of the software in questions.
One of Microsofts chief marketing advantages is that their software is easily cracked. Why? Because everyone uses it - I would think that most students would especially fall into this category since they can't afford the products or are too young to have the means (high school/junior high) but kids who grow up using Microsoft products will buy microsoft products.
In fact, if fewer people pirated software, the market for software would be much smaller because fewer people would know how to use the software, and who pays $100 + to buy something they don't know how to use?
Re:subjective world views and causal myopia (Score:3, Insightful)
Second, you also neglect that even if the situation works as you portray it, many smaller companies and OSS are hurt by this very pirating. Pirate A wants to edit an image. HE goes and gets a pirated copy of Photoshop and uses it. He would never buy Photoshop, because it is extrrmely expensive. But if he did not pirate PhotoShop, he may have used the Gimp, or Paint Shop Pro, or some
Re:subjective world views and causal myopia (Score:4, Interesting)
No, becasue then they'd lose sales to "honest" people. Also, it costs nothing to distribute or support pirated software -- the pirates do that. And they don't have any erosion of retail price.
Example, consider developing countries, where close to 100% of software is bootleg (I hate the word "pirate" -- no one is being killed on the high seas, they're copying bits), MS has virtually 100% market penetration. Similarly for other big names, like Adobe Photoshop. No one even considers using cheaper (at retail) software, becasue everything is the same price, about $1/disk.
A few years later, companies come to depend on MS software, designers on Photoshop, and now the US govt starts to pressure the local govt to crack down on piracy. Within a few years at least half the previous users of bootleg software have gone legit, and are on the upgrade treadmill. Notice that lower priced, even locallly produced software never gets a chance to compete.
Re:subjective world views and causal myopia (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, I'm sure their software sales would be way higher if no one had a PC.
What is worse... (Score:5, Insightful)
Damn pirates! (Score:5, Funny)
Did they... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Did they... (Score:5, Insightful)
A 5-person shop now may buy one copy of MS Word, and make 4 copies because they can't afford 5 full copies. That does NOT mean that MS has lost the sales of 4 copies. It means the company was willing to fork over the cost of one copy of Word for 5 users to use it.
Now let's assume that software wasn't copyable at all (BSA and Microsoft just had an orgasm), and compliance with licensing agreements was perfect and the computers themeslves magically enforced them 100% accurately. That same company may now very well buy NO copies of MS Word, and go to a cheaper product because the cost of 5 copies of the product is not an acceptable value for the product they get.
Software piracy isn't like shoplifting a pair of socks. When you steal the socks, the store has lost the property and the sale of that property. When someone copies software who would never in a million years actually buy it, the software company has NOT lost a sale or property.
Same thing with movies and MP3s... I've downloaded some stuff for free that no way in hell I would have EVER forked over a nickle to buy. If there were no downloads of those items, I would have done without rather than purchased them.
Yes, some piracy does result in lost sales of product.... but not all of it by a long shot. Is piracy wrong? Of course, but it is a fiction and disinformation for BSA, RIAA, or any other group to suggest that each pirated copy of something represents a lost sale. That is BS that needs to be flushed.
Re:Did they... (Score:5, Insightful)
I will readily admit to 'pirating' copies of Bryce (for instance). I am not a graphic artist, nor designer, nor am I ever going to use the software in any way related to my job. I just happen to like playing with rendered landscapes for my own amusement and desktop pictures.
Did Bryce lose a sale? Nope. I never would have paid for the software, and I never will - particularly not at their multi-hundred dollar price point.
However, there may be a benefit here - some of my friends, graphic artists, have seen Bryce on my computer and since gone out to buy copies... sales that Bryce would never have seen if these people had not gotten a chance to try the software.
I'm actually more in favor of free "LE" versions of software - crippleware - with most of the features but not all, enough to be usable as a hobby and give you a chance to learn and like the program and persuade you to buy the full version... or not if you don't need it/can't afford it.
-T
BSA needs this to exist (Score:3, Informative)
The BSA would HATE for strong copy protection to be enforced, because it would shrivel up and die shortly thereafter. If the software vendors would release crippleware versions of t
Re:Did they... (Score:5, Funny)
It has to decrease (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It has to decrease (Score:4, Informative)
This is the funny part. in the super gigantic corperation I work for/in if such a statistic were real I would see a part of it. over the past 2 years I preformed 2 software audits at random. my first software audit was the first in this state that anyone can remember. and I checked both currentl computers and the closet full of discarded ones that supposedly had "Comapny secrets" on them deemed by some idiot CIO...
Other than the once in a while violation of winzip being past it's 30 days and no registration key I found almost no software copyright violations. one person had on one of the really old machines a copy of claris works from home. everything else met our licensing.
So, the BSA IS a worthless entitity... their wild-ass guess... err.. estimate... is so far off they stink. Yes I know that smaller shops probably have a much higher level of copyright violation, but in my time as a freelance consultant to many small machine shops, accounting firms, and Credit Unions I only saw a small amount such as
that I was able to correct for the owners of the companies for less than $1000.00 (old software is dirt cheap if you know where to buy the used copies..)
I routenely tell all my clients that if they get a BSA letter, they call ME first their lawyer second and third, throw it in the trash with the rest of the useless junk mail.
Re:It has to decrease (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's face it, demand is down for closed source. OSS is a legal alternative to high prices and piracy. Good job BSA convincing us casual copying is bad and helping draw excelent free publicity to the open source movement. It's the best publicity stunt you have done for us. Thank You Very Much!
RIAA & BSA have something in common (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:RIAA & BSA have something in common (Score:5, Insightful)
Though I'm guilty of using that argument myself, I only attribute it to my MP3 collection. I just don't have the cash lying around to purchase $5,000 worth of CDs, and right now I don't have the space to store all of them (half the time, the liner notes are more interesting than the CD, but I digress).
The difference being; I'm not making a product / money off of my MP3 collection. I use it for my personal enjoyment, period. When people download high-end image / video / audio editing applications, there's a good chance that they've got monetary interests. If that's the case, why should they have the right to make money using pirated (not duly paid for) tools?
I'll grant you it's a case of bad versus worse, but there is a legitimacy to the piracy claims and certainly people making money freely off somebody elses hard work has to be a limit.
Re:RIAA & BSA have something in common (Score:5, Insightful)
There are lots of people who *do* use some of those programs for personal enjoyment. Photoshop is one of them -- some serious amateur photographers/desktop publishers want to be able to edit their photos digitally 'just like the pros do.'
What about people who are pirating the software to learn? I know...ermmm...some people... who pirated professional software development packages when they were younger in order to learn software development to obtain employment skills, and later when he became employed as a developer he PAID for those tools by buying a full copy of the latest version. What about that guy?
Re:RIAA & BSA have something in common (Score:4, Interesting)
That's one point. Here's another, sticking to the high-end software slant
When you pirate high-end software you couldn't afford, that's also one less sale of the low-end clone.
Say you need some image manipulation software, but you can't afford Photoshop. What if you could have afforded something else, say Paintshop Pro? We all know you can afford Gimp. Pirating a copy of Photoshop you couldn't have afforded anyway hurts noone? No, it hurts lots of people, including the competitors (you could argue it especially hurts the competitors, since you were their target demographic) and the handling/distribution company of their is one.
Not that it excuses music piracy, but in general there's no "competitor" to that song you like. It's liked for its individuality. I'm leaving sound-a-like bands, covers, remixes, live-albums and such out of the argument. If there's some one particular recoding of a piece you want, it's not that case that you can get the 95% of the full performance you needed most for less by turning to a competing artist.
Re:RIAA & BSA have something in common (Score:4, Insightful)
> Whether or not you could have afforded what you have stolen is irrelevant.
It is in terms of whether it's illegal what you do. Where it is relevant is where companies asses the damage caused by the copying.
The assumption is that every student who downloads $20 000 worth of software would have boought it otherwise, which is not true. In reality the student would have most likely used free tools (possibly switching to linux in the process) or simly not bothered making that really cool picture where he did that really cool thing
Anyway. point is that it *is* a relevant argument in terms of damage, though not for reasons of legality.
The difference between illegal copying and stealing is that the only loss in copying is the sale which did not take place, there is no physical loss as there would be if you stole a car...
Ponxx
Re:RIAA & BSA have something in common (Score:4, Insightful)
What the college student has done, in this example, may be immoral or illegal. But given the assumption that the student wouldn't purchase the software whether it was available for copying or not, it is quite reasonable to state that the actual damages to the companies in question amount to - nothing.
Any fines applied to the student will be punitive in nature, and the proceeds will go to the state for violating the law - not the 'wronged' businesses. Which is as it should be since the businesses suffered no harm.
Max
Re:RIAA & BSA have something in common (Score:3, Interesting)
When I read your post WRT IP and then saw your signature, the first thing that came to mind was the great irony;
Re:RIAA & BSA have something in common (Score:4, Insightful)
No.
See? I can make unsubtantiated assertions just like you.
But how about this? Had I not been able to pirate your s/w product Foo, I would not have it to to use, and you would not have my cash. But, if use a "stolen" copy, I may, in the future, decide it is valuable enough to purchase. I will likely speak about your product to friends, who may decide to buy it. And then you'll make some money.
The issue for anyine selling s/w is not so much whther I do or don't copy it, it's whether I (or anyone else) can or cannot copy it. That's what creates the illusion of scarcity. Sadly for IP selllers, copy prevention is damn hard, and chosing to base a business model on a now next-to-impossible condition is a Bad Idea.
Comparisons between IP and physical property fail because the notion of exclusive use and scarcity is not a natural condition for IP.
The supply/demand economics of private IP is largely based on providing value for your money; if you have to rely on artifical exclusion then you're willingly assuming a big risk.
Re:RIAA & BSA have something in common (Score:5, Insightful)
Copyright violation is neither piracy nor theft. It is a civil matter, not a criminal one. If you have a problem with this I'm sure you can either a) change the law to make copyright violation a criminal offense, or b) move to some other country, one where your blather actually makes some sense.
"Dilution of the value of the product", my ass. Time to take some economics courses, boy.
Oh, and by the way - *there is no such thing as intellectual property*. It's just another buzzword brought to you by our friends in Corporate America. In fact, according to the Constitution, it's an oxymoron - neither a copyright nor a patent is every treated, in any way, like actual physical property.
Which should be obvious to you. Stealing your couch is a criminal offense called 'theft'; violating your copyright is a civil matter, one I'll never go to jail for.
Max
Re:RIAA & BSA have something in common (Score:5, Insightful)
For the first 200 years of US Copyright law, you would be correct. I urge you to look carefully at the recent changes, particularly the DMCA of 1998, HR 2281. That law *replaced* and *superseded* the existing copyright law, and fully criminalized things that were either legal before, or else were only civil matters before.
Since 1998, copyright violation has been a criminal offense, and that's why so many people have been opposed to the DMCA.
You *can* go to jail for copyright violation. You don't even have to commit copyright violation if the work is in a digital format with any encryption... Merly making a tool to read the content can land you in jail.
Piracy is fun! (Score:2, Insightful)
They call that a drop? (Score:5, Insightful)
[1] The article says: "The study estimates that 39 percent of business software products in use last year were not legally obtained"
According to RIAA maths (Score:4, Funny)
Point of view (Score:5, Insightful)
In this case, it's apparent that the BSA and it's leaders are rapacious, greedy, amoral takers of other people's goods. They should be put away for their own safety and ours.
Normally, I would agree with you.... (Score:4, Insightful)
There is a great tendency for organizations to develop a certain mindset (either positive or negative), and then they hire in people that exhibit that mindset in some way, and fire/get rid of those that dont "fit in". In the HR world, its known as hiring "right types", and you can usually determine the companies opinion on this by looking at how they operate.
Over the course of time, people in the organization start to believe everything that their co-workers and bosses are saying to them, and hence, they develop views in sync with the company/organization. In this case, I would bet that the BSA, since one of its primary goals is to destroy piracy, they only hired in, and then hightened/enhanced this strange, rapacious behavior. I can almost guarantee you, however, that inside the company this is the norm.
More accurate method (Score:5, Funny)
As a pirate (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe I'm missing something, but . . . (Score:5, Interesting)
Pirating? (Score:5, Funny)
Free Software (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm No Scientician Or Anything. . . (Score:5, Interesting)
. . .but it seems to me that in any proper study you make reference to margins of error (which the Yahoo! story didn't mention), and I find it hard to believe that the reported 1% drop falls outside the margin of error.
This is all really silly.
Just 1%? (Score:3, Insightful)
The truely funny part of this... (Score:4, Insightful)
Free software (Score:5, Interesting)
Microsoft has just started letting people use Office at home if their employer owns a copy. Free software is ready for business, and MS knows it.
Now I know why MS software is buggy (Score:3, Flamebait)
Rob Enderle, a technology analyst with Forrester Research, added that while music and movies remain stand-alone products, software is increasingly packaged with technical support and regular updates. He said a pirated copy is sometimes worthless without those services.
Because when you call in they check to see if you have a registered copy!
Eventually, they'll have so many bugs that copying will be worthless and nobody will use their software at all!
[/troll]
Sorry, it had to be done.
Thats a bunch a hogwash... (Score:3, Insightful)
What a horrible methodology (Score:5, Insightful)
Interesting that they came up with a piracy rate of 95% in Vietnam - given their probable margin of error, it's entirely possible that MORE THAN 100% of software in Vietnam is pirated. People in Vietnam WRITE software, just so they can steal it from THEMSELVES.
Kudos to the writer of the story, though, for NOT passing along the hugely overinflated "lost profits" number the report obviously included:
Spiralling piracy?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
"It is welcoming news to learn that the worldwide software piracy problem has improved significantly..."
and
"However, it's critical to recognise that the industry is facing a spiralling Internet piracy problem."
are not mutually exclusive statements. I wonder if that trick would work in board meetings. "Cost projections have improved significantly" sure sounds a lot better than "Costs are spiralling out of control"!
BSA stats, RIAA stats and SPAM stats (Score:5, Insightful)
For a group of people eager to believe that the "spam plague" allegedly costs us all billions, it is more than a bit hypocritical to summarily dismiss whatever numbers the BSA or the RIAA come up with.
It's all a matter of what you love to hate. When you're decided on that, the numbers will follow.
Re:BSA stats, RIAA stats and SPAM stats (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm pretty sure we all find spam to be terribly annoying, but I for one don't think it costs me much more than time and energy... Granted, I'd rather NOT have to expend those in an effort to keep my penis from growing so large it frightens everyone I meet.
Acronyms (Score:5, Funny)
Decrease from 40% to 39% - I'm Sorry! (Score:5, Funny)
I guess I was slacking last year. I'll do my best to get that back up to 41% next year. I PROMISE!
This quote is rather telling (Score:3, Insightful)
So software ISN'T only expensive because of rampant piracy then? Must be profiteering after all.
Window into the BSA (Score:3, Funny)
"Well, overall sales have seen a decline since the stock market crash and the attacks of Sep.11. We also saw declines during the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. This can be attributable to one thing: Piracy."
"How do you suggest we get our sales back up."
"Well, Bob in accounting kicked around some figures for how many units must be sold for Microsoft to meet its 100% margins, and apparently we're currently 40% below that target."
"Same as last year. Let's call it 39% just so that people think we're doing something. Now, how do we sell that much software?"
"That's the ingenious part of my plan. MS's 100% margin is based upon the case of their complete ownership of the market and complete compliance with their new Software Licencing 2.0 scheme... err, paradigm."
"Yes..."
"So obviously without viable commercial alternatives to Windows, the %100 figure represents the ideal, natural state of the market."
"Go on."
"What is the difference between the ideal sales market and the real market? Why, piracy of course. Whether it is pirated copies of Office or pirated SCO code, it all comes down to illegal piracy. Pirates pirating pirated piracies. Pirates. Pirates! Pirates! Piraaaaaates!"
"Bradly, you're locking up again. Come on back to us Bradly. Bill, would you slap Bradly please."
"Gladly."
SMACK
"Oww. Thanks. So because of this discrepancy, we should make it illegal to not meet our sales target. Then everyone from local law enforcement to the FBI will be out there trying to help us meet our sales goals. If we play our cards right, we can even be entitled to compensatory damages from the governments of the world who, after all, represent the population who is doing this pira... illegal activity (p..p..pirates. Pirates!)."
"Brilliant work Bradly. We'll get back on track towards Government 2.0 in no time."
"Thank you Mr. Ballmer."
BSA doing us a favour (Score:4, Insightful)
The only useful purpose the BSA serve is to provide silly stories like this to make me laugh on a dull mid-week afternoon. Thanks!
How the demand estimate was created: (Score:3, Interesting)
1. I'd estimate the number of companies and the number of employees that require the work with computers. This is a tedious, but relatively straight-forward process, and Yahoo! business profiles would be everything I needed.
2. I'd take this number, and assign to it the same number of operating systems, word processors, e-mail programs, antivirus programs and maybe something else. I'd also arbitrarily determine the share of people why may need to use a spreadsheet and a presentation program, etc...
3. I would come up with a number for the aggregate usage of the appropriate software. Then, I would create a formula to calculate the average age of computers in companies (based on their accumulated depreciation and depreciable life), and calculate what share of computers needed to be replaced last year.
I'd do all this, and make a huge mistake. I would not consider that some of the users would opt for freely downloadable software, such as Open Office or the office suite from Software 602, and that some other users would migrate their old software onto new computers (the way I still do it with MS Office 97). As a result, my estimates for demand, and thus the estimates for software piracy would be vastly overblown.
Defeating the statistic (Score:5, Insightful)
1. The economy is/was in a downturn.
2. BIG corps can more easily afford to ride this out.
3. BIG corps usually can afford licensing of software etc etc...
Now, assuming a lot of tiny tiny companies haven't sprouted that would pirate software, wouldn't it be somewhat obvious that software piracy would be down?
Just playing devil's advocate.
Laughable (Score:5, Informative)
It starts from the premise of looking at software industry growth rates from 1996 to 2001 and predicting that even without piracy reduction, the growth of the software industry would be *greater* (in percentage terms) from 2002 to 2006.
Obviously after the bubble burst the IDC guys spent the last of their stock earnings on crack.
BSA? (Score:5, Funny)
Must be all those 12-17 yr old boys working on their computer merit badges...
Wait, what? (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's a tip (Score:5, Insightful)
When the fruit of your efforts is less than the margin of error, it's time to rethink your strategy.
Well, by this we can... (Score:3, Insightful)
Or put another way in more slashdot terms:
1. Get corporations to pay lawyers to do stuff.
2. Lawyers harass legitimate purchasers of software.
3. Lawyers claim 1% success a year.
4. ??? (loop back to #2)
5. Profit! (and retire when no more %'s to go)
Now isn't that cynical.
In reality I'd say software piracy is a problem. I don't know how many times here I've seen folks claim that they pirate software because its so darn expensive. Well, sometimes there is a reason that software is expensive, it takes time and money to do right. Then folks will say that software is buggy and not done right so they shouldn't have to pay for it. Well, don't use it! Novel idea huh? It sickens me how often folks think that deserve stuff without paying for it.
Its really a simple idea folks. If you are unwilling to pay the price for something, you don't get to have it. It doesn't matter if you don't like the rules, they are the rules.
Which brings me to another point. OSS or free software. Use it if you don't want to pay for commercial software. No one is forcing you to use commercial software. Simpley owning a computer does not give you the right to use commercial software without paying for it. However, there are a lot of folks out there that write software that you can use for free. Use that.
Whining that your favorite game only runs on a certain platform isn't an excuse to pirate the software. There are many emulators, use those if you absolutely need to run the software. Otherwise tell the company that you want a version that runs on your platform.
Quit whining that life gets hard when you have to use OpenOffice.org to read word files and it isn't perfect. You look like a fool when you whine that something isn't up to your standards because its buggy so you won't pay for it then use it anyways.
Arrrr, matey! (Score:3, Funny)
By a similar process we can calculate that 99% of all ocean-front homes are pirated.
Of course they're pirated! I mean, think about it - smooth sailing conditions, easy access to major waterways for a quick escape, plenty of places to dock your ship, and lots of booty in those million-dollar homes. What self-respecting pirate wouldn't take advantage of that opportunity?
WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
The bottom line is that these guys are claiming to have discerned a 1% drop in an area of the piracy chart that must inherently be extrapolated from real world data. Given that even the interpolated statistics based on the real world data would already have a margin of error of more than 1%, there's no F-ing way that you can discern a 1% variance in data they haven't even measured.
How convenient that the first two letters of the association's acronym are BS.
Conspiracy hats on everyone (Score:3, Funny)
Here's some conspiracy thoughts:
Somewhere deep in the bowels of BSA headquarters there's a group of people who have this all planned out.
BSA Drone #1: Okay, first year we'll say piracy dropped a small amount thanks to our efforts. This will convince the companies and congress that our efforts are successful, but we need more help.
BSA Drone #2: Right, then during year 2 we'll get some more laws passed and get people used to more extrememe copy pretection.
BSA Drone #1: Right! They bought into the XP activation, now we can roll out the next step.
BSA Drone #2: Which is...?
BSA Drone #1: Tying activation to a bank account! It's the only way to be sure they're not pirates! Then when we have that in place we'll report a drop of 5% and complain loudly about OSS making it impossible to do audits.
BSA Drone #2: So stage 3 is requiring all government and big business customers to go 100% closed source. Brilliant!
BSA Drone #1: Let's get a taco.
I don't think they're right. (Score:3, Funny)
My two cents... (Score:4, Insightful)
About a week after I got my license I got a nasty letter from the BSA. It made a lot of threats. Said that they had the right to inspect my place of business (my home) and gave be a "chance" to get all my software license up to date before they came to tear my compters apart.
My reaction was fairly normal. I ignored them. A couple of weeks later I got another nasty letter. This time I made sure my door locks were solid. I made sure I could find my ammunition and guns in the dark. And, I took every bit of software that I had from BSA members and threw it out. I am now 100% pure open source software.
After reading through a couple of BSA letters and discussing them with a lawyer it becomes obvious that most small business can't afford to *own* software made by BSA members. The legal liability for missplacing a software license is greater than the value of the business. Misplace a license, lose your house, your savings, your kids college fund, your ability to buy perscription drugs...
Stonewolf
Moderately off-topic (Score:3, Funny)
I guess pirated software was okay as long as it was *someone else's* profits that were being ripped off..
Re:fuck you (Score:5, Funny)
I disagree - my statistics show that only 39% of /. trolls think that *BSD IS DYING, compared with 40% last year, therefore *BSD IS LESS DEAD that it was last year.
Oh, and for "statistics" read "numbers that I pulled out of my ass
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Huh? (Score:3, Informative)
Basically "a couple million people WANT an ocean-front house, but only a handfull have been sold." Compared to "hundreds of thousands of people WANT MS OFFICE, but only a hundred copies were sold, so the other copies MUST be pirated just because the people wanted them".
They don't take into account that they really don't know if those other hundreds of thousands of people actually HAVE a copy of MS OFFICE.
got it?
good.
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Informative)
In effect, their piracy statistic is more made-up than most statistics, since they're just making up a number of how much pirated software is out there based on what they *think* would have sold.
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Funny)
Excellent logic no?
Re:I object to the word "pirate" (Score:3, Interesting)
*cough*
I'm sorry?
If i go to the trouble to write software, and choose not to release it under a public license, what the hell gives you the right to rip me off?
Re:I object to the word "pirate" (Score:3)
I know the parent was a troll, but sadly a lot of people believe this.
The fundamental argument, whether you're willing to admit it or not, is that the creators of software (or music for that matter) should not be paid for their creations.
Whatever justification you believe is a valid defense for illegally obtaining software, it all comes down to the fact that the creator of that product is not being justly compensated. I don't care if nothing is PHY
Re:BSA (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Speaking of impossible to gauge... (Score:3, Insightful)
If someone uses software without paying for/licensing it, then they are pirating it in one way or another. The point isn't that the company is necessarily losing money, it's that the person doesn't have the right (legal or arguably moral) to use the software. Probably 60% of the software pirated in North America (and here I'm just pulling numbers out of a hat) is NOT revenue lost for the companies who create it, bu
Re:let's get it out of the way, right now! (Score:5, Funny)
Side note.
Adding a decimal point increases the truth of any statistic. 82.34% of people say so.
Re:Well then.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Help! Someone explain Michael's analogy! (Score:3, Insightful)
What he is pointing out is that sometimes people want things but don't (or aren't able to) obtain them at all.
In the software arena, if 100 people want a word processor, and 60 buy a word processor, that does not necessarily imply that 40 people stole a word processor. They might not have obtained a word processor at all.
How is this interesting? (Score:3, Interesting)
Mainframes, AS/400s and UNIX, oh my!
We're starting a MAJOR effort where roughly 80-90 percent of all new web and middleware (messaging, etc) development will be happening on Linux (and J2EE predominately). We'll still have some MS, but MUCH less.
Our server types include blades, standard 2-way, and some 4+ processor machines. How many have Linux pre-installed? NOT ONE! We've bought over 200 Intel servers THIS
Re:How is this interesting? (Score:3, Funny)
Oh god - holodeck accidents, Time travel incidents, and the Borg are in YOUR future!
Re:Piracy and cultural values about "theft" (Score:3, Insightful)
Software piracy is seen not as theft but more as sharing. It's scary how little OSS software gets used. Occasionally you'll see