The Pirated Software Problem in the 3rd World

RockDoctor writes "Dark Reading carries an article by one Nathan Spande who works in Cambodia. Locally he finds that OpenOffice.Org and MS Office are the same price ($2), or $7-20 by downloading. He discusses why the economics of OpenSource don't work in this environment, and how it contributes to global computer security issues through the "little extras" (trojans, spambots and other malware) that typically accompany such "local editions" of software. The economics of software outside the west are very different to what most people are used to."

Nice Suttle FUD in the article.

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of the big group releases do NOT have Trojans and other crap inserted. the big release groups pride themselves in having a clean release.

I love how the article has BSA FUD stuck in to add that little flair of "security problems".

good luck trying to stop that

[fbhua]

This means fundamentally changing the way people live.

Let's take the case of Bangladesh. We have about 150 million people here, although a large chunk of that figure aren't your potential customers.

Facts:

- All foreign-produced movie DVDs and audio CDs are pirated. Yes. All. You can't legally buy legit copies of this stuff there.
- All home / office use software is pirated, unless you're working for a top multinational company. Purchasing a computer implies that it would come loaded with whatever software you prefer.
- All games are pirated

The prices are astonishing. It costs about 1 USD for CDs, 2 USD for DVDs. It doesn't matter what's the content.

How do you promote any software when Adobe Photoshop is the default image editor? When a software developer can choose any tool he wants with zero licensing and distribution costs, guess which platform wins out.

People want the best software and want access to the latest music and movies. It's been very low priced since forever. I can't imagine how would anyone go about asking them to change their consumption habits.

No "piracy is theft" argument doesn't work here. People feel that they have the right to rip-off any foreign-produced stuff because those companies are profitable anyway.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Well, he's partly right

[cathyy]

He's right about the difficulty in getting legitimate copies of software. He's right about there being a virus, trojan, and spyware problem, too. He's wrong about the reason. It's not infected pirate copies of software. As the previous poster said, those copies are clean.

It's the people who buy the latest best copy of Norton anti-virus...pirate...and never get a virus definitions update because they can't register their program. They think they are safe and protected, because they are running an antivirus program.

It's the people running pirate Windows and IE and Office with no updates or patches, because even if they can register them (and typically they can't), they don't have the bandwidth to download security updates.

And I'm not talking about mere individuals. I have observed the counterfeit Windows version message on the computers in hotels, and not a cheap ones, either. What else are the corporations supposed to do when legitimate software can't be had, and your English isn't good enough to make calling Microsoft to buy a license to legitimize your pirate copy a viable option?

How do I know all this? I, too, live in a third world country, specifically Thailand. I have looked for legitimate software. I have seen pirate software in major foreign-owned stores like Tesco and Carrefour, as well as in the well-known locales for pirate software like Chatuchak and Pantip.

Re:Nice Suttle FUD in the article.

[reynaert]

Most of the big group releases do NOT have Trojans and other crap inserted. the big release groups pride themselves in having a clean release. Right, but he's not talking about big release groups. He's talking about cd's sold on Cambodian markets. I can quite imagine one of those vendors wanting to operate a spam network on the side.

Re:for the love of ...

[WS Tu]

And we can think it in another angle...
The software in Combodia is not scarce, therefore it is almost like water or somthing very cheap there.

And now the only scarce thing for them is the job. I would never suprise people want to use MS office since the employers (may be they never heard about OpenOffice) would like to give offer to who know to use MS Office.

Re:How Microsoft Kills Competitors

[Mr. Shiny And New]

I'm not sure this reasoning makes sense; There is no material difference to Microsoft between one pirate user and one non-user. This isn't like a retail store that sells goods, where stores raise prices to cover a certain percentage of shoplifting. If someone pirates a Microsoft product, Microsoft is harmed in the "lost sale" but they still make money on their other sales. And in a region where basically ALL software is "pirate", Microsoft can essentially forecast zero sales and be done with it.

Anyway, the so-called "economics of open source" obviously won't apply in a region where none of the "economics" of software apply; as someone else mentioned it's really Microsoft's business model that falls apart here. Microsoft's supposed high prices aside, Microsoft isn't making any sales in regions with very high piracy; but one day they will convince the powers that be to crack down on it, and the users will suddenly realize the trap of Microsoft software; just look at what happened recently in Russia: Schools are switching away from all non-Free software because they can't afford the costs, and their governments are making them stop pirating software. Then it will be abundantly clear what the difference is between the two "economies" of software.

Re:Nice Suttle FUD in the article.

[Anonymous Coward]

I can quite imagine one of those vendors wanting to operate a spam network on the side.

I'm in Thailand, and I assume the situation is pretty similar. Copies of new release software go for about the same price here anyhow. What you're saying is possible, sure, but I think pretty rare. The guys who sell this stuff are just not that sophisticated - they download it all from the net and burn the CDs on a handful of PCs. Some places burn the CDs on demand - you have to wait 10 minutes for an unlabeled disk with a poor quality photocopy for a cover. Of course, you still have to worry about the hackers who created the image.

By contrast the DVD rackets are clearly organized crime of the highest calibre. The product there is in general very good quality, packaging would pass for original, pricing is around $2/dvd. I've heard it said that stuff comes from southern China, but it's hard to tell.

Re:Nice Suttle FUD in the article.

[kingduct]

The street vendor is just a poor person trying to make a buck. He or she almost surely doesn't even own a computer. Now, the person pressing the CDs is another matter altogether -- there I could imagine trojans. Certainly in Ecuador computer viruses are out of control, but I've always attributed that to the fact that since fewer individuals own computers, many people are sharing each machine.

Re:Nice Suttle FUD in the article.

[cursorx]

True, at least of Brazil. Pirate software always comes clean, and tech support is usually stellar (I'm not kidding, some of these guys will give you their phone number and walk you through any problems you might have).

Re:Nice Suttle FUD in the article.

[QuickFox]

virii do happen

Viruses [linuxmafia.com].

Re:Nice Suttle FUD in the article.

[numbski]

It doesn't work out of the box in Wine, but almost everything works in Crossover Office. Wine comes pretty generic, presuming that you would prefer not to use any Windows cruft at all. Crossover comes default presuming you want things to just work. And work it does.

Worth the money if you must have Windows software IMHO.

Re:Revolution

[Chandon Seldon]

That's a whole bunch of different questions, and you're trying to get at something that really isn't there.

Not every company can afford to hire programmers to write their internal use software.

First, companies contract programming firms for custom work all the time. That's normal, and it's nothing special. It works exactly the same as internal programming, completely separate from the issue of Free vs. Proprietary software.

From a practical standpoint, an architecture firm doesn't necessarily want to hire someone to write a CAD application internally.

And every company with a web page doesn't want to write their own web server. If people need software it gets written.

Why is it not valid for them to pay someone else (like a commercial software company) to do it for them? How is that different than contracting a construction job to someone else? Why should such software come for free?

Why is it not valid for them to work with their competitors to develop the application as Free Software? How is that different from a bunch of companies in the same office building getting together to have a parking lot built? Why should the people who want the software have to pay for its marketing costs?

Seriously, the leap to Free Software just isn't that big a deal, except that it gives people more options. Today, if you wanted a new feature in AutoCAD, you'd have to convince the developer to add it - with some developers that's impossible. If you want a new feature in Apache, you hire a programmer. In the AutoCAD case your competitors *always* get access to the feature. In the Apache case you have a choice - you can keep the feature to yourself if it's a big enough differentiator to warrant the maintenance cost of a fork.