| Timmah! said: I agree with Twesterm completely. 20%, though comparatively low when compared to other countries, is still a high number from the perspective of a software company. If you were running a retail store and 20% of the goods you had on your shelves were stolen instead of purchased, you'd either go out of business or have to jack up the prices of your goods. This is the case with software. Just because a number is lowER when compared with other numbers does not mean that it's low. |
There's a big difference though: if your physical products are stolen you are losing them for good, thus losing their retail value.
But if a software product is pirated, it does not automatically mean that the user of the pirated software would have bought it from you. I own a pirated copy of AutoCAD because I like messing around with all kinds of software, but I would never buy an original one.
Thus, not each pirated copy used in the world amounts to a lost profit for the author or publisher. That's a big difference.
