BSA Claims 35% of Software is Pirated

hdtv writes "Business Software Alliance says 35% of packaged software installed on PCs globally is pirated, and estimates the losses at $34 bln. From the article: 'The countries with the highest piracy rates were Vietnam (90%), Zimbabwe (90%), Indonesia (87%), China (86%), and Pakistan (86%). The countries with the lowest piracy rates were the United States (21%), New Zealand (23%), Austria (26%), and Finland (26%).' TechDirt analysis debunks some of the myths: 'The BSA claims that all of these "lost sales" represent real harm to the economy. It's the same bogus argument they've trotted out before, which is easily debunked. Much of that unauthorized software is being used to make firms much more productive than they would be otherwise -- probably benefiting the overall economy quite a bit.'"

At least 35%

[Winckle]

Personally I think 35% is a very conservative estimate.

Re:Ironic

[tysonedwards]

Yes, actually. The BSA is offering bounties to sell out your friends, family, coworkers and ex-employers. Max payout that they are offering is $10,000.

Re:bah

[datasetgo]

Well turn that around a bit. I HAVE been in the graphics professional industry for a long time and I have to say - the largest amount of piracy I have ever witnessed has always taken place within ad agencies and boutique design shops. When I've found this happening, I've always raised hell about it.

In one small shop I had just joined a few years ago, I demanded that we get legal and it cost nearly $45k to do so - with just 12 people. That's not an insignificant amount of potato chips to Adobe, Quark, Macromedia and the like, if you ask me. With a thousand or so design shops in this town, I could easily see that number skyrocket.

And I tell you, that is VERY typical for the design industry - hypocritical to boot. Designers and photographers hapily bend customers over the table over rights and usage fees for the work they produce. And yet a very LARGE portion of them use pirated software. And when confronted, they give you snotty attitude and excuse after excuse to why they shouldn't have to pay for it. THAT is BS.

These days I'm on my own - I use both open source (where I can) and commercial software and pay for it. I KNOW what it takes to produce good software and choose to support the developers - both small and large- that work hard to do it. Not because of the BSA. Because I know it's the RIGHT thing to do.

And besides, I've learned to never trust a carpenter that doesn't own her own hammer.

Re:free advertising^W dominance

[kerrle]

Actually, Microsoft decried piracy as early as Altair Basic - their "An Open Letter to Hobbyists" is fairly famous for this.

Re:Paid the Windows tax, Running Pir8 XP Pro

[baadger]

An OEM key won't work with a retail version of XP because major OEM installations don't use Activation.

Most OEM versions of Windows are now activated via OEM BIOS verification, a method called SLP, rather than WPA. The solution to get XP to activate via this method is to copy the OEMBIOS.* files from the OEM version (probably on the recovery disc or on the hard drive) onto your retail XP CD (or into your installation if you've already installed it).

Theres information on this here [pcreview.co.uk]