Commercial Software Piracy

[R.Daugherty]

Commercial Software Piracy

Oh, that's interesting, Alex. I knew the Chinese were working on a homegrown version of Office. Very possibly this will be it. List price at $99 per user per year is same as Sun's Java Desktop, and they have their own OLE embedding type technology, patent pending. lol I'll say this, but it's a waste of time to try to tell American business anything. Americans look at China and give away everything they know in the perpetual hope of selling to hundreds of millions of people. It will never happen, but instead China is now selling what used to be our own products to hundreds of millions of people, Americans. If it wasn't so sadly ironic, it would be funny. rd

[Guest.Visitor]

Commercial Software Piracy

Dave400, I've always had a lot of trouble believing the "money lost due to piracy" figures. They tally every duplicate copy ever made and assume it's lost revenue. First of all, many of those copies never get installed and many, if not most, of those end users would never be using the product had they been required to pay for them. Therefore, those installs are NOT lost revenue. How can you lose something you would never have had? I often try shareware software. About 90% of what I try I will eventually uninstall because it's not as good as their competitor or just junk. I've literally tried 7 different video editing software but always come back to Pinnacle Studio. I've removed the other 6 copies. Had those other 6 products not been shareware then I would have been included in the number of illegal copies for all 6 vendors. So, as a general rule, I take any piracy numbers and multiply it by about 10% and then those are the numbers I'll believe. "dave400" wrote in message news:6aea955e.44@WebX.WawyahGHajS... > While Vietnam has the highest rate of Piracy, with China and Russia not far below, when looking at the > > RETAIL SOFTWARE REVENUE LOST TO PIRACY (Millions) > > > * China $2,400 > * US $1,960 > * Japan $1,473 > * Germany $934 > * Russia $492 > * Vietnam $49 > * India $342 > > There appears to be significant piracy occuring within the US > > BSA 2003 Global Study <http://global.bsa.org/globalstudy>

[dmjae2004@yahoo.com]

Commercial Software Piracy

I've always had a lot of trouble believing the "money lost due to piracy" figures. They tally every duplicate copy ever made and assume it's lost revenue. Chuck, I dont believe that is how the BSA methodology works. In fact it appears to be the reverse. A quick glance at the methodology shows Software piracy is measured in this study as the amount of business application software installed in 2002 without a license. ..... The difference between software applications installed (demand) and software applications legally shipped (supply) equals the estimate of software applications pirated. Perhaps its time to become a believer

[dacust]

Commercial Software Piracy

Dave said: I dont believe that is how the BSA methodology works. In fact it appears to be the reverse. But the post in red, I guess it's a quote : Software piracy is measured in this study as the amount of business application software installed in 2002 without a license. ..... The difference between software applications installed (demand) and software applications legally shipped (supply) equals the estimate of software applications pirated. I'm afraid that to me, this supports what Chuck was saying. Yes, it's only measuring business application software, but it's not taking into account that many, if not most, of these are not lost sales. They were only installed because it could be done for free. If they had had to pay for them, they would have just done without. I think the 10% figure Chuck came up with is probably a fair one. -dan

[dmjae2004@yahoo.com]

Commercial Software Piracy

Daniel, I think the 10% figure Chuck came up with is probably a fair one. Sorry, yes the text is red was a quote from the document in the linked page. In my mind the percentage of the numbers is irrelevant to the point I was trying to illustrate. Which is there appears to be just as much lost revenue in the US software piracy then in other countries. But on the numbers I think both you and Chuck have assumed something in the methodology that I dont know is true. i.e. If there is evaluation software that has expired was it included as implemented or not. Was it included as leaglly shipped software ?.... I dont have such a deep understanding . But given BSA do real site audits, I expected their numbers to be closer than 10%. Also looking in the report they have assumed that all Open Source is Licence free and hence not included as implemented. But based on my own experience I am suprised at the 10%. You are suggesting that 90% of the value of the unlicence software you have on your desktops (including non IT people) is evaluation software ? The Tally Systems tool will enable you to scan upto 100 PCs if you havent got some form of software asset management in place. http://www.bsa.org/usa/antipiracy/Fr...udit-Tools.cfm David

[dacust]

Commercial Software Piracy

You have some good points. Especially when pointing out that you thought the figures at least show a valid comparison between various countries. I'll agree, percentage-wise. So, speaking just for myself, I can say that of the software I have illegally loaded in the past, there's way LESS than 10% of it (maybe 1-2% ?) I would have bought if I couldn't have loaded it free. For arguments sake, let's pretend I have AutoCad at home. No way I would buy it. However, if I ever use it commercially or make money from anything I do on it, I'll pay for it. I carefully do anything I get paid for in Paintshop, Visio or other packages I have bought and paid for. I mainly have AutoCad just to see what it can do. If I ever need it, they got a sale they might not have if I wasn't familiar with it. We're pretending all this just for argument's sake, remember? My guessing at 10% is knowing that the figures most often quoted are by agencies/companies in whose interest it is to convince others that it is a problem that needs government intervention. Being involved in statistics myself, I am very leary of these figures. I bet the figures they quote is any time they find an illegally installed package on a system. That's fair to count that as illegal. But how many of them would have actually bought it? In companies, most illegal software is on the system because the company WOULDN'T buy it so the employee puts it on themselves because they like it better than the one the company provides. Or it will make their job easier, but it isn't cost-justifiable. I wonder how many times there is a US company that deliberately installs software illegally? Probably seldom. More often out of inadequate controls. I wonder how many companies in China knowingly install illegal software because they know they can't be prosecuted? It's very tempting to say I bet there's a lot more there than here.... So are the figures balanced after all? Should companies be fined for ALL illegal installations, even by an employee that was told not to? Yes. Are the dollar amounts of lost sales inflated? In my opinion, absolutely. Are the comparisons between countries flawed? Possibly so.

[R.Daugherty]

Commercial Software Piracy

Plus we went through this stuff years ago on our PC apps. Not only would very few have actually used it if they had to pay for ripped off software, but is at least some mitigating factor in establishing market share, mind share, and opportunities if the softtware is good and used for people to upgrade and buy support. Obviously there has to be some sense of responsibility to software companies for that approach to work, and there is not much of that sense in most of the world, but in America Lotus proved that copy protection loses more market share than protects. rd

[Guest.Visitor]

Commercial Software Piracy

Dave400 asked: "You are suggesting that 90% of the value of the unlicence software you have on your desktops (including non IT people) is evaluation software ?" No. What I am saying is that 90% of the illegal software is software that would not be on those machines if they had to pay for it. Therefore, it should not be considered lost revenue. chuck Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of my employer.

[dmjae2004@yahoo.com]

Commercial Software Piracy

I wonder how many times there is a US company that deliberately installs software illegally? Probably seldom. More often out of inadequate controls. I wonder how many companies in China knowingly install illegal software because they know they can't be prosecuted? It's very tempting to say I bet there's a lot more there than here.... So are the figures balanced after all? Daniel, These figures are contained in the report. And yes percentage wise China is second at 92% while the US is 23%. But in regards to the impact on lost jobs I see the actual cost vs the percentage as more relevant. This is about the third time I've read a reference that implies it is not illegal to copy software in China. But as I posted on an earlier link it is technically illegal with increasing pressure for the government to enfore the law. In addition the Chinese government passed legislation last month that enables private ownership China legalises private property

[B_Sing]

Commercial Software Piracy

I've been reading some things about intellectual property in regards to trade with China and other countries. While there seem to be new "bad deals" that pop up all the time, I hadn't given much thought to piracy until recently. I've been to Russia, and I've been to their CD stores. They're all over the place, they're real stores with real fixtures, and they'll sell you a CD full of the latest and greatest commercial software for $3. They've got racks and racks full of these CDs, many with several top-dollar software packages from various mainstream companies on a single CD. For $30, you can get $50,000 or more worth of current-version software. From what I read, it's like that in other parts of the world too. Now think about it. We're filling places like WalMart with tons of imports, and we've got trade deficits with places like China. That means they're not buying as much of our stuff as we're buying of theirs. Why would they buy it from us when they can just copy it? And their governments let them get away with it! I bet they even collect taxes from it. That sucks bad. Think of the lost revenue, even if it was 1/10th of what they steal through piracy. They would actually have to pay for our innovation or do it themselves. What a concept! So we have to buy their products because we can't just clone them, but the same is not true for selling some of our products to them. That sucks. Good thing people are trying to do something about it, but kinda late, huh? And we'll see how far it gets. Sorry, had to get that off my chest. Rant complete. Brian

[dacust]

Commercial Software Piracy

Dave says: "This is about the third time I've read a reference that implies it is not illegal to copy software in China." My mistake - I am guilty of reading others saying it often and took it as fact. I usually don't do that, but sure did this time. My bad. As to : "But in regards to the impact on lost jobs I see the actual cost vs the percentage as more relevant." I agree it's the percentage that counts. But I still say the dollar figures are grossly exagerated, so the overall impact is less than the industry makes it out to be. I'm still thinking it's more of a loss of profits in China than it is in the States. China's legal actions show me that they are learning to compete in the world market..

[Guest.Visitor]

Commercial Software Piracy

Dave400, Enforcement is the key. In the '80s and early '90s before the SPA and Microsoft, U.S. corporate America was guilty of massive copyright violations. It wasn't until some big name companies had their offices raided by the FBI and SPA that corporate America took notice and started enforcing the rules internally. So we, as a country were guilty of these same infractions less than a decade ago. If the Chinese government turns their heads away from enforcement then it will never happen. chuck Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of my employer. "dave400" wrote in message news:6aea955e.53@WebX.WawyahGHajS... > I wonder how many times there is a US company that deliberately installs software illegally? Probably seldom. More often out of inadequate controls. I wonder how many companies in China knowingly install illegal software because they know they can't be prosecuted? It's very tempting to say I bet there's a lot more there than here.... So are the figures balanced after all? > Daniel, > > These figures are contained in the report. And yes percentage wise China is second at 92% while the US is 23%. But in regards to the impact on lost jobs I see the actual cost vs the percentage as more relevant. > > This is about the third time I've read a reference that implies it is not illegal to copy software in China. But as I posted on an earlier link it is technically illegal with increasing pressure for the government to enfore the law. In addition the Chinese government passed legislation last month that enables private ownership > > > > China legalises private property <http://in.rediff.com/news/2004/mar/14china.htm>