Pirated Software

Factual Questions
21

That’s a very good point, but there’s always the counterpoint that said individual becomes enamored with 3D graphics, studies it in college, then opens up a shop where he purchases 3D Studio Max (which doesn’t suck, at least it didn’t when I was able to use a fully paid for version of it :slight_smile: ) for his entire design team.

I did state that even my example fell into a grey area. I should reiterate that I am against piracy of all kinds, even the example I gave. I just feel that there are different levels of piracy. I am much less bothered by the 14 year old downloading a piece of software that costs more than his first car will, than the small business who decides that copying their one copy of MS Office for everyone is okay.

22

Doubtful, since the server has no idea what computer are requesting updates. When I reinstall my wintel boxes I need to download a whole bunch of patches and updates, and the server can’t tell if my copy is legit.

23

So, wouldn’t the same thing be applied to the software companies? You can’t just apply a standard to just a selected group of people.

24
      • It is possible: the OS CD itself can have an embedded serial number, the OS can inspect various hardware on the PC such as drive types and BIOS string, and MS can record and track how many times you update your OS, and what PC data comes with each update request. If updates are done to different PC’s nonsequentially, it is fairly obvious that a single-user license CD was used to load the OS onto several different computers.
        -Not that I know they do this, but it would surprise me if they didn’t, if only just for research purposes. The fact that they have not yet denied updates to illegal installs probably has much to do with the problem of ensuring that they only deny illegal installs the updates (they could assume the first install is the “legitimate” one, but that might not be correct). - DougC
25

Well, MS says that their Windows Update thingie doesn’t send micrsoft any system information, so if they are spying on it that’s another thing they can be busted for.

I have owned many cracked versions of software over my years of computer use. I have actually done what many crackers “say” they do (and for all I know many follow through with it): I try the software, then buy it.

Exception to the rule so far: MS Visual C++, which I won’t buy until the day I can actually write software worth distributing (for free or money, doesn’t matter to me). And, erm… oh, my copy of Windows 98, which isn’t really cracked per se since there isn’t anything secret that must be done to copy an operating system (at least there wasn’t then, and there probably isn’t now either). But, come to think of it, my VC6.0++ isn’t cracked, either, since there is nothing to do to it. They are just copied CDs.

And since XP generates hardware-specific information it seems possible that they can be copied, too, though I doubt it. I would imagine that the software serial number is hard-coded in there and when it generates this key that information can be extracted. I honestly don’t know, though. I mean, I know it is possible, I just don’t know if they do it.

But, yeah, I really like having cracked programs available. I would have never left front page express if I didn’t find out how much I liked Dreamweaver, and I also was happy to purchase Flash4 after trying it out for several weeks. Macromedia got my money.

Same thing with EditPadPro, a great text editor. I had no qualms about paying their user fee.

Hmm, I am certainly aiding the IMHO portion of the thread which wasn’t even requested… sorry.

26

I’m a bit confused. Is this General Questions, or Make-Up-Some-Stuff-And-Post-It?

If the former, then I’m constrained to ask for a citation from Tuckerfan on his “buried somewhere in the government report” offering.

And I’m also going to suggest that most of the responses above have no business in a GQ thread, inasmuch as they do not even purport to offer a factual answer to the question posed in the OP.

I cannot speak for the industry as a whole. I can, however, offer the general methodology used by my former company, which did develop software and did have a concern about piracy thereof.

Based on negotiations we entered into when we discovered companies were using our product without license, we formed the general rule of thumb that roughly 30% of the purchasers chose to purchase our product, or bring themselves into license compliance, while roughly 70% chose to delete the unlicensed software.

Given that, when we estimated our losses due to piracy, we assumed 25% of the revenue from pirated products would actually go into our pocket.

We estimated the actual amount of priacy based on such things as calls to our technical assistance hotline, and random audits of companies using our software, which our license permitted us to do.

The above is anecdotal, of course, in that it describes one company’s approach, and not an industry standard. But the question defies additiional rigor: there is no industry standard.

However, to the extent that factual information was desired… here is some.

  • Rick
27

This analogy is even more tired than “I wouldn’t have paid for it anyway.”

If you steal something, the original owner doesn’t have it anymore. At 2 AM the dealer had five BMWs on the lot; at 4 AM he only has four. He has lost several thousand dollars worth of merchandise.

If you copy something, the original owner still has it. Say you go down to the dealer at 3 AM with your Spaceman Spiff Duplicating Machine, and drive off with an exact copy of that BMW M5. The world is now a richer place because instead of five BMWs, there are six. The only thing the dealer has “lost” is the opportunity to sell you a BMW; he can still sell the five he had at the same price.

Of course, you can’t make an exact copy of a BMW for free, but you can with software.

28

I hope we can get the mods to move this to GD.

In anticipation of such move, I’ll address Mr2001:

BMW paid engineers, analysts, designers, road testers, and marketeers to develop the look, feel, and functionality of that M5. They did so, believing that they could gain the revenue from selling six of them. You, with your Spaceman Spiff machine, have robbed them of the chance to sell six, because you’ve created one that didn’t exist before, and now the owner of your illegally created M5 has no motive to buy one from BMW. It’s true that in terms of physical inventory, BMW has lost nothing. But there is an opportunity cost lost to them of selling their car to you.

You may argue that you’ll take a free car, but not one you have to pay for. In your case that may be true, but it’s obviously not true for everyone: after all, people do buy BMW M5’s.

But what fool would buy a car if he could get it for free? Your Spaceman Spiff machine will be working overtime, churning out cars both for people who would have otherwise bought a real car, and people who are just getting one because it’s free.

The BMW folks have no motive to develop an M6 now, because thanks to you and Spaceman Spiff, their expected return is much less than it should have been.

  • Rick
29

http://www.bsa.org/resources/2001-05-21.55.pdf

Sorry, it is a pdf, but I didn’t see an html link. They fully explain their methodology in the last two of the 8 page document, though unfortunately my ability to summarize this is profoundly lacking. Can someone pick up the slack here for our dear OP?

This is the source of MS’s claims on piracy, as they note on their website http://www.microsoft.com/piracy/

Sorry I cannot summarize the data, but I am not very clear on it myself and if I don’t leave work now I am going to miss Buffy on FX. :wink:

30

I’d like to speak up for just a moment.

When a large corp like Microsoft reports lost revenue to piracy, in many cases it’s based on the biggest sector of piracy: corporate copying. In these cases Microsoft can identify how many non-licensed installations have occured.

Some of these are determined by audits on companis that have licenses and don’t abide by them, some are from companies that are turned in by employees.

In the grand scheme of things companies know they cannot completely defeat piracy, and in a lot of cases they don’t go after the end user with his single computer (or dual installation from one legitimate copy).

Where the bulk of the focus comes from is Corporations using non-licensed media, and people selling the fake copies (like the ebayers, web wares guys, or people selling knock offs).

Additionally a lot of these numbers come from foriegn countries as well. Just to give you an idea:

In the US the percentage Windows activation attempts that fail due to piracy: 3-7%
In Hong Kong: 60%

That’s 60% of all windows copies that are submitted for activation/registration can be identified as coming from a pirated source.

31

I don’t like to do that when the GQ is still on the table, despite the very low signal to noise ratio in this thread. Instead, I’ll ask people to stick to actual facts and keep the pontificating on either side to GD.

Burn, I’ve seen similar stats, and they make sense to me, but I’ve never been able to find a citation. Have you got one?

32

Kind of, I was in Hong Kong performing the anti-piracy training for the launch of Windows XP.
Some info from Microsoft.com:

Other exact number that I have seen are not available for public consumption at this time. But based on internal reports I have seen numbers correlating to my statement above.

Oddly enough the largest portion of pirated softwae is no longer Asia, it’s Eastern Europe at 63%.

33

That pdf file has very comprehensive stats on which countries sucked, though the most recent data is from 2000.

I’ve read the thing a few times and I’m feeling rather stupid because I can’t figure out how they get their demand estimates. They calculate piracy by ([some factor]*Demand)-Supply=piracy, which sounds reasonable enough, and they also broke software down into different categories, as well as who was pirating, to account for different rates among different sectors of the population.

Again, sorry I couldn’t find html, but I know many of us have adobe. It is free fer chrissake. :slight_smile:

34

The RIAA likes to exagerate as much as possible about piracy effects.

  1. Back when tapes were the major sellers of music, the RIAA claimed phenomenal amounts of home taping piracy. Fact 1: Less than 4% of all tapes sold were blanks. Reduce that by the number of people who were using the blanks legitimately and it couldn’t have been hurting them at all. (Unless a whole lot of people were taping over those old Hootie and the Blowfish tapes.)

  2. The RIAA cites the retail value of CDs when citing losses due to theft. The actual cost of the CD and packaging (the latter makes up most of the prod. cost) is less than a dime. (Which explains why CDs cost a lot more than the more expensive tapes, right?) Most of the cost is shipping etc. (Note: I am not talking about royalties, record company overhead, etc. These do not add to the physical cost of replacing a stolen CD.) Still comes to less than a dollar. But they multiply by $15, not $1.

This crap of course makes things worse for them in the fight against piracy. I just want to the the RIAA reps. in a room and scream in their faces “Stop being sleazeballs, act ethically and you will reduce you piracy problems!” DIttp the MPAA, cable companies, etc. Make people feel worse, not better, about stealing from them.