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

NJ5 on 12 May 2009

How do they calculate this? Oh, it comes from the "Business Software Alliance", a lobby of software companies.

From wiki:

These estimates have been criticized as being exaggerated and many flaws of the methodology have been pointed out; some of the figures seem to be guesses rather than solid data, and some data may not be representative. The calculation of the losses, in particular, assumes that each piece of copied software represents a direct loss of sale for software companies, a very contested assumption.[6] The study's assumptions have been described as being unworthy of a first year student of statistics.[7] InAustralia, a draft government report has described these statistics as a "self-serving hyperbole", "unverified and epistemologically unreliable".[8]

Anyway, as WereKitten said, these numbers by themselves are meaningless even if true. A lot of the pirating has no consequence to the companies' bottom line.



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Timmah! on 12 May 2009
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.



Pristine20 on 12 May 2009
Zucas said:
20% is still just crazy considering how much software is sold here. And people wonder why video gaming can still be so expensive. Even further why all these other things go on that could be avoided simply if some people had some god damn respect. Pirates be damned if you ask me. Because of the selfishness of some, the rest of us have to pay... literally.

One of the loopholes of capitalism I suppose. Hopefully we'll continue to crack down on this and more things like PS3 that have yet to be pirated such that we don't have to worry about this in later years. I just hope we continue to crack down more on piracy in the rest of the world. Piracy is definitely something holding the industry back from continuing to expand. All I know is if you are participating in this, then you are a problem. If I had it my way I'd deal with you personally.

 

And what if the pirates never had enough money to begin with which is usually the case? They won't have bought the games anyway so I hold nothing against them for finding "a way" to enjoy their entertainment. If you guys think the salaries of game devs would go up, I have to burst out laughing at your ignorance. If pirates all bought games and games made more money, the only salary going up will be the bonuses of CEOs and nothing more.

Maybe you didn't realize it but US CEO to Employee pay ratio: 400:1, UK: 22:1, Canada 20:1, Japan: 11:1. this is straight from NBC news a couple days ago on "The Today Show"



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outlawauron on 12 May 2009
lanjiaona said:

lol pathetic americans
spending too much money
this may be the reason that cause the recession

Did you just call American pathetic for actually legally buying software? You MUST be kidding.



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ameratsu on 12 May 2009

Another day, another piracy thread on VGchartz.



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Onyxmeth on 13 May 2009
twesterm said:
ChichiriMuyo said:
Woo Twesterm with almost exactly the response I expected. Dude, it's the lowest in the world. Maybe you need to reevaluate what your definition of "stupid high" is. I can't even imagine what sorts of adjectives you'd use for the likes of Zimbabwe, Armenia, Georgia etc. with their 90%+ piracy rates.

 

10 people got killed in constuction site A because someone messed up and 100 people killed in contruction site B because someone made the same mistake.

Yes, many more people died in B but the amount that died in A is still stupid high.

I know that piracy is higher in the other areas but 20% is still a really high number.  Just because NA has the lowest number does not mean that the number is an acceptable amount.

Your analogy is not in tune with the article. It states the US's 20% equals more lost revenue than any other country. Here's how the analogy should go:

20 people out of a construction team of 100 are killed in an accident. 20% of the team is dead.

8 people out of a construction team of 10 are killer in an accident. 80% of the team is dead.

Which is the worse tragedy?

 



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ChichiriMuyo on 13 May 2009
Timmah! said:
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.

No they wouldn't have.  They would have just gotten a free version of Linux and used programs like WINE to run non
-linux software.



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wfz on 13 May 2009
Onyxmeth said:
twesterm said:
ChichiriMuyo said:
Woo Twesterm with almost exactly the response I expected. Dude, it's the lowest in the world. Maybe you need to reevaluate what your definition of "stupid high" is. I can't even imagine what sorts of adjectives you'd use for the likes of Zimbabwe, Armenia, Georgia etc. with their 90%+ piracy rates.

 

10 people got killed in constuction site A because someone messed up and 100 people killed in contruction site B because someone made the same mistake.

Yes, many more people died in B but the amount that died in A is still stupid high.

I know that piracy is higher in the other areas but 20% is still a really high number.  Just because NA has the lowest number does not mean that the number is an acceptable amount.

Your analogy is not in tune with the article. It states the US's 20% equals more lost revenue than any other country. Here's how the analogy should go:

20 people out of a construction team of 100 are killed in an accident. 20% of the team is dead.

8 people out of a construction team of 10 are killer in an accident. 80% of the team is dead.

Which is the worse tragedy?

 

 

It's also worth noting what NJ5 just posted....



Kasz216 on 13 May 2009

Go US if true.

This is odd though.

We have a high GDP and high PPP.

However we also have a higher proliferation of personal PCs per capita then most countries. Also we have a larger Gini coeeficient.

So if piracy was connected to wealth you would think we'd have a comparitavly higher rate.  Since some people in the US who own PCs would not own PCs in any other western country. 

It may be due to America being the strongest purveyor of capitalism.

We attach value to just about everything.



bodhi14 on 13 May 2009

I guess Americans actually care about the software industry...



 

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