Piracy Stats Don't Add Up 258
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:in other news (Score:1, Insightful)
I call shennigans.What about circus bears?
Reasoning (Score:5, Insightful)
Is this really going to change things? (Score:3, Insightful)
First Impression (Score:2, Insightful)
If the author of the article wants to be taken seriously, he may want to do more than a basic spell check. I would think strong written skills would be reasonably important as a journalist. Perhaps not.
Re:Think of the people you're hurting. (Score:4, Insightful)
Who cares about CD's when you only listen to music on your computer, portable MP3 player, or cellphone ? You can blame it on piracy all you want, but it's not going to change a thing; if you don't adapt to the market you have no chance to survive.
It happened to other markets before, think about photo labs & photo films vendors, they are extincting as well because people are only interested into digicams now. The same is happening with music, CD is an outdated format and thinking you could still make a living out of selling CDs in 10+ years is just foolish - even if piracy were to stop.
Re:this is rather good (Score:5, Insightful)
That comment seems reasonable to me. Assuming the 2000 PCs sold was a fairly random sample (as opposed to, say, some guy selling them in the lobby of some Linux conference or something), and that none of them came with Windows (old or new) installed, only having 100 licenses purchases for that bundle almost certainly does point to piracy. An OS with around 90% desktop market share that only sells enough licenses to account for 5% of computers would be a colossal statistical anomaly without some explanation, and in this case piracy seems a reasonable one. It becomes less reasonable if they claimed that there were 1900 copies pirated because it fails to account for other OS choices that may have be used.
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.
That is what the music industry is doing. In fact they are worse, because I'm fairly certain they're going "1700 songs were pirated -- at $12 a CD..." despite the fact that there may be multiple songs on a CD downloaded, etc.
Pirated software is not a full loss (Score:5, Insightful)
Additionally, one must consider the fact that if an application is popular among pirates, it is also likely to sell more copies of its software, simply because more people spread the word about this particular software.
Last but not least, some people do buy software only after using it for some time. A perfect example is Photoshop. It's a typical application that requires a lot of time to learn and costs too much to just "check out" (and I'm aware of the trial version). Some of the graphics artists who find out that this really is a useful and valuable tool, may also purchase the application. So for starters, they help spread the word of Photoshop and they also become potential buyers.
For the LAST time... (Score:2, Insightful)
Election infringement is NOT theft, you still have your election after all!!! Calling this a "stolen" election is playing right into the hands of giant corperashuns.
Service infringement is NOT theft, you still have your services after all!!! Calling it "theft of services" is playing right into the hands of giant corperashuns.
Sincerely yours,
Brickheaded Literalist
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:this is rather good (Score:5, Insightful)
No piracy. No lost sales.
One thing that nobody seems to talk about.. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:this is rather good (Score:2, Insightful)
No way windows would have 90%+ market share if not gor the EasyPirate(TM) feature.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:For the LAST time... (Score:5, Insightful)
Calling those theft are just helping ruin the English language.
Re:Pirated software is not a full loss (Score:1, Insightful)
Think in marketing terms (Score:3, Insightful)
Your busines should be making people entertained by music
Concentrate on the client, not the product!
Favor? (Score:3, Insightful)
Favor? These laws make it illegal for me to play DVDs I buy if they use CSS. Obviously, this means I won't buy these DVDs. I don't know how that works in the copyright holders' favor...
Re:First Impression (Score:3, Insightful)
Anyone who thinks the article's author really meant the word 'sighted', is as clueless as he is. 'Sighted' in this context makes no sense; especially when it's a homonym for a word very commonly used in that context.
Re:this is rather good (Score:1, Insightful)
Particularly when you consider that loss is only what money the company puts into the product, which is only a fraction of the retail price.
Re:this is rather good (Score:3, Insightful)
Whether piracy is wrong or not isn't the point (Score:4, Insightful)
In reference to this specific article, however, the salient points would appear to be:
1) The RIAA are using deceit and subterfuge as weapons.
2) A body that has influence on policy decisions noticed.
This naturally hurts the RIAA, but to what degree, and for how long, remains to be seen, and might be a more fruitful use of the
Re:this is rather good (Score:3, Insightful)
2. I have the same box that I originally installed XP on. Although all of the actual bits that make up the PC have been replaced at least once. --- Sort of a "Same broom, several different handles, several different heads" kinda thing.
I really dont think I have violated their license, as it had no connection to a specific PC and I only ever have had it installed on one PC, despite that PC changing.
I could easily buy a new PC and then install that copy onto the new box, as long a I wiped the old one I haven't pirated XP, but that would be counted as a pirated copy using the "PC brought with no copy of XP" argument.
Statistics used by any arm of the government should not be produced by those who have a vested interest in a particular result of that report. Statistics are lies when they aren't based on facts.
Re:For the LAST time... (Score:5, Insightful)
Informative? Hrm...
Ok, first off: "pro-piracy blowhards"; what does that mean? Do you mean someone like myself who feels that copyright law is no longer serving its purpose as intended by the constitution, and that its abuse is harming the value of copyrights as a tool for regulation? Or, are you simply arm-waving at the teens who haven't yet considered the implications of their actions, and are just downloading whatever they want because it's the path of least resistance?
Personally, I think the two are connected. I think the average teens that download music or movies or whatever, in violation of copyright, are doing so because the copyright system has never seemed like something that matters to anyone they know. It's not equitable, so there's no sense that you are "stealing" or depriving anyone of anything. Artists tell us that they're not being compensated for their work (in fact many of them go into debt when producing music specifically), and we constantly hear of large studios (for film, television and music) abusing their power in order to manipulate markets and deprive artists of the fruits of their work.
Under that sort of system, how is it shocking that most people would rather "steal" than pay to support the system? Now, if we had a system of automatic licensing, and zero penalties for revenueless electronic duplication, THEN I think you would see an increase in the number of people who wanted to support the system. After all, if you know an artist or two who really benefit from the system, you're going to feel that it's worth it. If you know an artist for two who get screwed by the system....
As for theft vs. infringement: there are three offenses. The first is a violation of federal law, such as the DMCA. That's a federal crime, but it's not theft. There is copyright infringement. That's a sort of logical theft, but under the law, the two are very distinct. Be clear about which you are talking about: the law or the common expression. Then there is license violation. That's a strictly civil matter between two parties over an agreement which is broken, and which is theft in exactly no ways. Theft under the law has nothing to do with copyright infringement. That's just the way it is.
It's important to point out that words like "theft" simply muddy the watrer, and combine concepts which should not be combined.
Roll it back to 28 years (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Pursuant to recent articles:downloading music (Score:3, Insightful)
How many Ferraris do you expect to aquire from being a programmer, and in how long ? How many multi-million dollar mansions do you expect to own from the proceeds of programming ?
Do you think you or anybody else is really worth that much more than anybody else, that they receive these things by governmental fief ? Do you really think that it is just and right, that for just a few years work, you can afford to retire and never have to worry about income ever again ?
How much is enough for you ?
and don't give me crap about "the market". It's just greed, pure and simple.
Always been the American way though, at the expense of your fellow countrymen and the truth, and other less fortunate lives. Ironic really from such a quasi-religeous society, that your main idol of worship is Mammon.
Does a farmer get paid every time his grain is used in a product - oh, that's right, he has to grow some more.
Does a house builder get paid every time someone walks into a house - oh, he has to build more.
Do car manufacturers get paid every time you start your engine - no, they have to make more.
Do doctors get paid every time you take a breath - That's right, they have to actually earn their income.
Apparently only persons in the media deserve a free and unfettered income for life from a few dubious contributions to society.
Real art is priceless, the rest is worthless.
Now don't make the mistake of presuming that I believe people shouldn't be allowed to try and get rich by their own efforts. I just object to government mandated gravy trains. Otherwise a car maker could copyright the wheel, doctors could copyright surgery, a house builder could copyright the brick, and a farmer could copyright grain. Starting to blur the line with patents here, but have you heard of Monsanto ? [gmwatch.org]
Re:Pirated software is not a full loss (Score:3, Insightful)
First off, you have to choose your region. Fine, that's not a big deal. Then if you're not allowing cookies, you're required to. Ok, I enabled those for that site. Now? Nope, site doesn't work in firefox. I get a blank page. So I open it in Internet Exploder and what do I get? No it still won't let me buy Photoshop. Instead, it tries to make you buy the suite. "Before you choose, consider getting Adobe Photoshop as part of Adobe Creative Suite Standard." No, that's not what I came here for, fuckers. So you click "add to cart". What do you think happens? It adds Photoshop to your cart? No, it doesn't. It throws a popup window in your face asking your to reconsider getting it as part of their stupid Suite for an additional $150. NO DAMMIT! I already told you I don't want your stupid suite! Finally you can check out. A process I imagine is similar to most online stores from here out. I don't know, I'm not actually buying it as I have all the creative talent of a brick in the mud. I just wanted to see what it would be like.
So let's review:
Required to select region (other sites can accurately detect this).
Required to enable cookies.
Required to use Internet Explorer.
Required to select region (again).
Presented with a page that has no option to select "Adobe Photoshop" by itself. The only highly visible link is for buying their stupid suite.
Forced to hunt for the elusive product that I really wanted (I clicked a link that went to www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/) originally, but you can see where that got me.
Click on Products -> Photoshop Family.
Click on Adobe Photoshop CS2.
Click Add to Cart.
Get smacked in the face by a popup asking me if I'm sure I don't want some stupid suite for $900 instead of what I originally clicked on for $749.
In short, it's probably easier to download for free (illegally) than to buy it. And of course, cheaper.