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Filed under: Business, News

BSA loves irony, disproves link between piracy and malware

I know, sometimes it's hard to believe that the "BS" in BSA stands for business software when they publish reports like the one Wired shared with us this week. Entitled Software Piracy on the Internet: A Threat to Your Security, the BSA's latest tour de force is fine example of propaganda gone wrong.

Wired highlights this quote from the report: "Globally, there is a significant evidence to link software piracy with the frequency of malware attacks. While this correlation has not been measured with precision, the evidence from industry sources suggests that markets with high software piracy rates also have a tendency to experience high rates of malware infection...."

Not measured with precision? Adam and Jamie would call this thing busted on that point alone.

What the hell, fellas. In addition to your own admission that you weren't particularly careful in how you calculated your figures you obviously didn't look too closely at your charts.

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Filed under: News

Study: 41% of all PC software installed is pirated

PiratesIf you live in the US, you live in a country where about 20% of all software installed on PCs is pirated. Globally that number jumps to 41%. At least, that's the finding of a study from IDC and the Business Software Alliance.

The study claims that the piracy rate actually fell in most of the 110 countries studied, but because PC shipments grew the most in countries like China and India with high piracy rates, the number jumped from 38% in 2007 to 41% in 2008.

The biggest problem with studies like these is that they try to put a dollar amount on the "losses" from piracy. In this case, the report suggests that software companies lost out on $53 billion due to piracy. But that's only true if every single individual that installed a bootlegged copy of your software would have purchased it otherwise. I'm pretty sure that's not true.

While part of the reason piracy is rampant in countries like China is because of lax enforcement of copyright laws, the average household income certainly plays a role as well. People in developing nations generally can't afford to purchase licenses for expensive software like Microsoft Office or Adobe Photoshop. Of course, the solution to piracy might not be to convince everyone to pay up, but to convince people that open source and free alternatives such as GIMP and OpenOffice.org can meet their needs. Then problem solved. Microsoft and Adobe might not make as much money, but they can't claim they lost that money to piracy.

Yes, yes, I know. There are some things that Office and Photoshop and other commercial applications can do that GIMP, OpenOffice.org and other open source alternatives don't do as well. But I'm tired of seeing these reports which assume that the only alternative to piracy is to purchase the software, music, or movies.

Filed under: Business, Finance, News, Analysis

Study finds global piracy rates hold fast at 35%, Russian and Chinese scallawags belay a bit

Piracy Rate by Region

The fourth annual Global Piracy Study, conducted by tech market research company IDC on behalf of the Business Software Alliance, was released this morning. The researchers estimate that again this year, 35% of all software on PCs worldwide is pirated. This is despite claimed advances in legitimate sales in traditional problem areas like China, where the government's decision to license operating systems and other software is uses on state-owned PCs has resulted in a 10% drop in three years (a drop from 92% to 82%, but still). Other developing markets, though, seem to be taking up the slack. Nearly one third of countries surveyed has piracy rates topping 75%, and while developing markets account for fully 30% of global PC sales, they only account for 10% of software revenue.

Perhaps the most surprising finding was that, despite the world's lowest piracy rate--21%--the estimated value of pirated software in the US is the highest on the list. IDC estimates that the US accounts for US$7.3bn in piracy losses. That raises a red flag in my mind: are we really buying (or not) that much more software than other countries, or are we getting ripped off paying for software that sells for less elsewhere?

Even taken with the XXL grain of salt BSA funding requires, these are big numbers.

Filed under: Time-Wasters

Don't copy that floppy

The MPAA recently ran a contest which pitted college and high school students against each other in a battle royale to produce the most striking anti-piracy PSA. The winners are fairly unimpressive, but watching the winning video made me think about anti-piracy PSA's from the past. Leave it to YouTube; This may be the cheesiest 10 minutes of anti-piracy propaganda footage ever. "Don't Copy That Floppy"



Check out the leather pork-pie hat on that guy! He certainly schools those two youths on the dangers of software piracy. How could anyone expect this video succeed in stopping its target audience from copying anything, ever? I find this video guilty. Guilty of being an incredibly effective waste of time, that is!

Filed under: News, Windows, Office, Microsoft

Microsoft takes aim at license dodging users

Companies with Volume License Keys (VLKs) should watch out, according to recent statements from Microsoft's license police monitors. Spokespeople for Microsoft say they're on the lookout for situations which don't add up, such as companies with several server licenses and a few hundred employees but with only a small number of client access licenses.

According to PC Advisor magazine, a popular outlet in the UK, "Most companies comply, but up to 3 percent don't. Under the new programme, if Microsoft doesn't receive a response after 14 days, the company will send a succession of three "escalation" letters over three weeks. The last two letters warn the case could be turned over the BSA, which could pursue legal action."

The BSA claims as much as 27 percent of software used by businesses is unlicensed and, when it finds violations, issues fines that are many times the cost of valid licenses. Audits are no fun, and given the complexities of software licensing for large numbers of employees, it's not unusual to find small discrepancies in any large audit.

Featured Time Waster

The World's Hardest Game 2.0 - Time Waster

So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do. Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game. The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...

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