Piracy Stats Don't Add Up

arenam writes to tell us Australian IT is reporting that a recent briefing for the Attorney-General's Department prepared by the Australian Institute of Criminology draws certain piracy statistics into question. From the article: "The draft of the institute's intellectual property crime report, sighted by The Australian shows that copyright owners 'failed to explain' how they reached financial loss statistics used in lobbying activities and court cases. Figures for 2005 from the global Business Software Association showing $361 million a year of lost sales in Australia are 'unverified and epistemologically unreliable,' the report says."

Re:First Impression

[Xiroth]

Uh, no. They are saying that they've seen the report, not that they're referencing it in an academic sense, which wouldn't make sense as they're not.

Re:Think of the people you're hurting.

[bmo]

"What difference does it make ? You know you are going bankrupt anyway because people aren't interested in CD's anymore."

Psst, hey buddy, the post in question is plagiarized and it's 4 years old.

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=77984&cid=6925 930 [slashdot.org]
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/10/2/103735/275 [kuro5hin.org]

YHBT.
HTH.

--
BMO

I'll save everyone some time...

[_Hellfire_]

http://www.google.com.au/search?q=define%3A+episte mological [google.com.au]

You're welcome :)

Re:this is rather good

[Valacosa]

That's not even taking into account site licences. Any computer I have ever bought on behalf of the university I worked for was purchased without an operating system. The university has an academic site licence for Windows, and students can get a legit copy for free as well. Why then would I shell out $200 for the convenience of having Windows preinstalled?

But man does that have the potential to screw up the piracy stats!

Re:There is only one number they can be sure of

[dbIII]

It's how much they pay politician to pass laws in their favor

Bribing politicians is illegal in Australia and we have actually put corrupt polititions in jail so we don't have a powerful lobby system like the USA. It is also a lot cheaper to run for office than it is in the USA so large donations are not as necessary. That said - people have got residency visas almost immediately after donating to the right party so corruption does still exist - it's just there are checks and balances that keep it down and make it a big risk.

One thing I think that helps is that all adults have to vote - not even silly rules about stripping citizenship from convicted felons.

Bunk

[Anonymous Coward]

The real problem is with things like, "1700 copies of XP were pirated -- at $200 a copy, we've lost $340,000!!!" Because that's just bunk. Most of the people who pirated XP would never have paid for it, so it is not a lost sale.

So if I understand you correctly... If these hypothetical 1700 out of 2000 pirate consumers who go out, hypothetically buy a computer for several thousand dollars and then pirate Windows XP suddenly had no chance of pirating Windows XP thus forcing them to buy Windows for the extortionate sum of $200 they will either:

a) Morph into Nerds and install Linux?
b) Not buy a PC at all because after spending $1500 plus for a PC spending another $200 for the OS way to much to ask?

There is no chance at all in this or any other parallel universe that they might cave in and shell out the 200 bucks for a legal copy of Windows? I am sure some of those hypothetical 1700 pirate consumers would have been put off buying a PC if it meant atually paying for Windows XP and that some others would have gone the way of Linux. However, since most normal consumers don't dislike Windows with the same religous zeal as many Nerds do (myself included) I think that the majority of those hypothetical 1700 pirate consumers would (complaining loudly of this outrageous annoyance) shell out the extra 200 bucks if they couldn't pirate Windows XP because the cost of the OS is such a proprtionately small part of teh PC+OS package. Arguing that all or even most pirate consumers represent lost sales thus making software piracy a victimless offence is also bunk, to some extent softare piracy does translate into lost revenues for software companies.

Re:There is only one number they can be sure of

[celotil]

Hmmmm, wonder if that has anything to do with Australia starting life as a British penal colony? Sorry, couldn't restist. /don't have anything against Down Under

No offence taken, mate. According to the state records of New South Wales, our first policemen were convicts. :)

The following is from The NSW State Government Archives [nsw.gov.au]:

Historical Background

In August 1789, Arthur Phillip established a night-watch which came under civil control. It consisted of eight of the best-behaved convicts in the Colony. This was the first Police force in the country.

Re:First Impression

[psmears]

Uhh... are you sure about that?

• The article is in Australian IT, connected to The Australian [news.com.au] newspaper.
• The report in question is a draft of a confidential briefing. So it hasn't been published, and so can't be "cited" in the conventional sense, by The Australian or anyone else.
• It's quite common for newspapers to mention that they've seen unpublished material that they're writing about, usually with the phrase "seen [telegraph.co.uk] by [atimes.com]"
• However, in Australia/NZ the phrase "sighted by" seems to be more [cryptome.org] common [abc.net.au] in this context.

I'd say there's a very good case for "sighted" being the word that was intended...