36% software worldwide pirated / remaining 64% is broken

[Taro Toporific]

36 pc software worldwide is pirated: surveyJuly 8, 2004 / AFPWashington --- Some 36 percent of the software installed on computers worldwide in 2003 was pirated, representing a loss of about $US29 billion to companies, a survey has showed.
The survey, conducted by research firm International Data Corp. for the Business Software Alliance (BSA)....
....the losses were greatest in the United States ($US6.5 billion), followed by China ($US3.8 billion), France ($US2.3 billion), Germany ($US1.9 billion), Japan ($US1.6 billion) and Britain ($US1.6 billion).

[Big Booger]

Honestly I doubt it represents a realistic loss.. especially if we are talking about consumers. They'd just look to a free or near free alternative.

Now corporate piracy is another story.

It's funny how the BSA and all these surveys make piracy out to be the killer of their industry.. i mean they made $51 billion dollars this year, and are complaining because they could have made $80 billion????

only 51 billion dollars' worth was legally purchased.

And I like how they don't emphasize the most important point:

Last year, the BSA said the piracy rate was 39 percent, down from 40 percent in 2002.

Down to 36% this year.. so the trend is a DECREASE in piracy by 4 percentage points.

If the software developers wanted to decrease piracy one quick and easy way would be to decrease the cost of the software. Make it so cheap that the benefit of piracy would be far less than actually paying a small amount for the software in question.

[Taro Toporific]

If the software developers wanted to decrease piracy one quick and easy way would be to decrease the cost of the software. Make it so cheap that the benefit of piracy would be far less than actually paying a small amount for the software in question.

That's the idea of Japan SourceNext Corp that has "23 percent of all Japanese software shipments - beating out Microsoft and Symantec - and 8 percent of software revenue" as I postied in this old thread: How to give birth to a horse in a convenience store?

Via the 6 July issue of The Register...
Open source miracle horse stuns MS Japan
StarSuite - Sun Microsystems' Japanese Office knock off based on the open source OpenOffice. In one television ad, Fujiwara is so overcome by the $18 StarSuite price tag that she pops out a foal near the magazine rack of a corner store.
"We convey a concept of our $18 strategy as surprising and moving in the ad," said Nori Matsuda, the president and CEO of SourceNext. "The ad basically says, 'Anything can happen.'"
SourceNext started in 1996 with a limited software portfolio. The company, however, managed to attract a lot of attention quickly with a typing tutor game that led to more than $7m in revenue by the end of 1997. Since that time SourceNext has added hundreds of software products to its lineup and should cross the $100m revenue mark this year. The company currently claims 23 percent of all Japanese software shipments - beating out Microsoft and Symantec - and 8 percent of software revenue....
The other secret is SourceNext's unorthodox sales model. StarSuite is just one of 150 products that SourceNext sells on a $18 per year subscription model. This low price has allowed the company to tap sales channels its rivals can't match....

How to give birth to a horse in a convenience store?

[Caustic Saint]

Honestly I doubt it represents a realistic loss.. especially if we are talking about consumers. They'd just look to a free or near free alternative.

It's even more unrealistic if they're counting all the warez kiddies. No 15 year old is going to pay for PhotoShop, but lots of them will download it. Can you really consider it a loss of the person in question never would've bought the software in the first place?

[GomiGirl]

What is not shown is the breakdown of the large vs small software development companies.

Sure I have ranted about this before ad nauseum but it is not the large companies that suffer from piracy effects - Adobe will sell enough copies of Photoshop to legitimate businesses to keep shareholders happy.

Small b2c software companies are the ones that really depend on the $20 for each copy of their software.

It is similar to the rip off LV handbags sold in markets in Thailand. LV are not suffering from these pirated goods as it actually increases the brand awareness and one day somebody will want to own a real one.

Calvin Klein I think had quite a few interesting words to say on the subject - but I can't be bothered looking for it at the moment.

But stealing clothes (which is what piracy is in reality) from a small boutique actually affects the owners and their business viability.

[Socratesabroad]

[voltage]

I agree, those numbers are probably greatly exaggerated since most people who get bootleg copies of the software are unlikely to have bought it in the first place.

This is not to say I support illegal activity
but it's like the RIAA bitching about how billions and billions of dollars are lost when people download music when they would have never bought that shit anyways, though I agree that MP3s do hurt the record industry far more than illegal software hurts Microsoft.