2003 Piracy Stat Are Out...Wow.

No surprises on who the leader in software piracy is, but the numbers alone are mind blowing...


July 07, Reuters - World software piracy losses double in 2003. Software manufacturers lost $29 billion to piracy in 2003, more than double the previous year's losses, and about 36 percent of software installations worldwide are pirated copies, an industry survey showed on Wednesday, July 7. In dollar terms, the losses were greatest in Western Europe, where piracy cut revenues by $9.6 billion in 2003, followed by Asia and North America, the study by the Business Software Alliance (BSA) and International Data Corp (IDC) showed. The BSA, a trade body, blamed the rapid spread of piracy on so-called peer-to-peer networks, in which Internet users illegally swap software and other files such as music for free or at discounted prices. Vietnam and China had the world's highest piracy rates, accounting for 92 percent of all computer software installed in each country, followed by the Ukraine with 91 percent, Indonesia at 88 percent, and Zimbabwe and Russia with 87 percent each. By region, about 53 percent of software on computers in Asia was pirated in 2003, compared with 70 percent in Eastern Europe, 63 percent in Latin America, 55 percent in the Middle East, 36 percent in Western Europe, and 23 percent in North America.

Source:

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle...6&section=news

Hey, Horsie, that link has issues...

Is this it?

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle...6&section=news

Somehow a break got inserted into horse's link...

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle...4&section=news

I am proud to say that *this year* I did not contribute to those statistics!!! lol

That is... thanks to open source... :)

Oops...

Anywho... It would be interesting to see what types of software are being pirated at what rates. I guarantee Photoshop would be right at the top of the list.

OMG!

I would really love to know where these people get their figures from............if you tried to produce that crap in a court of law over here you would get 6 months to two for contempt..........even 3-7 for conspiracy to pervert, and perjury.

How can they even substantiate these losses?.............sales our EVP marketing promised? BAH!

Yes, in countries such as India, they will have NOT HAVE MADE sales, but they would never have made those sales anyway, because the consumer cannot afford the price.............now, if they produced a hindi/gujurati/punjabi only version...............cantonese/mandarin (for China)..................those would be pretty useless elsewhere, and would get round the grey import problem.

The truth is they have lost virtually nothing, because if it came to paying anything like the full price, no-one would buy it?

I do not believe that file sharing has anything to do with it...............that is just RIAA braindead crap?

They did not sell because consumers choose not to buy.............ask yourselves, how much software do you have that you actually use or really need............do all the *nix boys use M$ Office? and so on..............

Yes, people will "play" with a pirate edition, but could they live without?, the answer has to be yes.

Adobe are going the same way.............as soon as I see the TV adverts it is a sure sign :D

Just my thoughts

The only people that are to be blamed are the ones who own the company, and who write the software. There are hundreds of crack sites on the internet that will give you keygens, so p2p networks don't have much to do with this.

The problem is that the way that software is now being registered is just not working. Many people make keygens for fun, and people. just by downloading a trial version and entering a fake license key can own the software, without paying anything. I mean, common, even my grandma could turn trialware into a full licensed version.

what other software makers do is, tey hunt for keygens, and release small updates to their software. When you enter the license key from a crack site, you'll get an announcement that you need to buy the software. This way, software piracy is very low, because crackers need to come up with another keygen. But the number of software writters that do this is extremely low, that's why piracy is so easy to be done.

the industry needs to find a way to solve this problem, and this is by making a better way to license software, and take out those crack sites. another thing that works really well is the hunting for keygens and putting them in the software, so they cannot be used as a valid license key.

my two cents

I agree with Nihil, someone who cannot afford to buy windows XP (or any other app) was never going to buy it in the first place, so a free copy is their only hope. I read figure of millions of windows copies being pirated in china alone, but does this mean that all the folks who used them would have bought the software if they had to? I seriously doubt it.

While I do not condone software piracy the bottom line is that the amount of revenue actually lost to software piracy is nowhere near like the figure touted.

I just read in the papers today, that in the netherlands (abot 33% illegal software), the numbers went down for the second year in a row..
Seems to be a different story ;)

also the origional source for all this crap http://www.bsa.org/globalstudy/

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While I do not condone software piracy the bottom line is that the amount of revenue actually lost to software piracy is nowhere near like the figure touted.

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I gotta agree, chances are these user's weren't going to buy it anyway's. And whilst they aren't making direct money from OS purchases exactly, they are making smaller amounts of money from after the user pirates the OS and need's to pay for upgrade's, etc etc that come with whatnot.

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There are hundreds of crack sites on the internet that will give you keygens, so p2p networks don't have much to do with this.

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Also true, there are number's of "warez network's" and people who spend literally all their time finding key code's to these type of thing's. Network's of site's and user's who devote their time to it, which is sad. But yeh, many thing's contribute to pirated software aside from p2p program's/application's.

In my many years, I have learned one thing about statistics, and that is numbers can be made to say whatever you like. That said, even if this was half true, I'm still impressed with the level of theft.

PS
Yes, a break got thrown in there though I'm not sure how. I removed it and the link now works fine. Thanks for the heads up.

:)

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I just read in the papers today, that in the netherlands (abot 33% illegal software), the numbers went down for the second year in a row..

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Seems to be a different story

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Not necessarily,

That could be due to increased sales of new pc's, with software pre installed. Who is going to use a pirated copy of win 98 when there new box has xp pre installed. For example.

all i have to say is, hell yeah. Im sick and tired of software companies ruling the information. Buying out freelance programmers / programs. This is good news to me. I dont care if you have a job at a software company and need the income to feed 12 babies or whatever, get a different job if its that big of a problem. like on the movie antitrust "Human knowledge belongs to the world, like aspirin" etc. And i bet you, about half of that money lost comes directly from m$. They lose more and more money with each distro. They need to realize that as their software gets better, so do the hackers, so do the pirates. Go piracy.

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BSA members include Adobe, Apple, Autodesk, Avid, Bentley Systems, Borland, Cisco Systems, CNC Software/Mastercam, Entrust, HP, IBM, Intel, Internet Security Systems, Intuit, Macromedia, McAfee, Inc., Microsoft, RSA Security, SolidWorks, Sybase, Symantec, UGS Corporation and VERITAS Software.

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source: http://www.bsa.org/ (the group who did the research)

Not exactly what I'd call a non-biased group.

Not that I'm saying software doesn't get pirated. Technically, I think I'm using a pirated copy of Microsoft Visual Studio 5.0. I have the official CD from MSDN but I think the licence is only applicable to the person who had the MSDN subscription. I'm not about to go out and buy a full copy of 5.0, 6.0, or .net because I don't really need it right now. Of course, microsoft recently released a beta of a "hobby" version of .net c++ and .net VB that "could" be free when finished. I'm not testing it right now, but I can't wait to try it out.

I'm not sure if it's been said, but there is another reason that cracked copies of software might be sitting on a hard drive, Warez Collecting. I've heard people brag about their hordes of pirated software inside chat rooms. In the past, I had my own nice collection of cracked games. I never installed them or played them, but I traded them for other games. I wasn't about to go out and buy games that wouldn't run on my computer.

Also, I have used pirated software because I couldn't find a legal copy. Anyone have a copy of OS2 v2.1 sitting around that I could use on my 486 laptop? Didn't think so. (well, I did eventually find a copy at a legit used computer store)

Neither one is a good excuse, but it's the truth.

"it wont be long before someone owns the information, you cant stop it" - again antitrust. Well, pirates attempt to stop people from totally owning the information. You people that claim to be unix and open source users get off your ass and stop trying to support the anti-piracy acts and be yourself. No one wants to pay $60 for software that is entirely inferior as well as proprietary.

I HAVE A DREAM!

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its code: We hold these truths to be self-evident that all software is created equal.

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Microsoft the sons of former software pirates and the sons of former software company owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the OS of Windows, an OS sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of justice and open-sourceness.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the price of their software but by the contents of their hard drive. I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Redmond, with its vicious monopolists, with its founder having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right down in Redmond little programs will be able to join hands with big programs as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every freeware application shall be exalted, and every monopoly shall be made low, the in-between programs will be made plain, and the screwed up programs will be made straight, and the glory of the Tux shall be revealed and all of the Internet shall see it together.

:D