Only 20% of software in US pirated, lowest % in the world.

[Timmah!]

WereKitten said:

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.

NOTE: Lower and low are two very different things!

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.

 

Not every piece of pirated software represents a loss for the software company, but when you're talking about so many pieces of pirated software out there, this does equate to a pretty large loss even if only 30-50% of the pirated software would have been purchased anyway. For expample, I know several people who have built their own computer and use a pirated OS, this is software they would have purchased if they were not able to so easily find pirated software.