BSA: Bogus Stats Again
from the and-here-we-go-again dept
Well, it's the middle of May, so it's time for the BSA to do their yearly ritual of putting out their bogus stats on how much software "piracy" is costing the industry. They do this every year... and every year the numbers are quickly debunked. In fact, a few years back the numbers were debunked by the very research firm that collected the data for the BSA. Basically, the BSA takes every report of pirated software and counts it as a loss. It also fails to count how much legitimate software was purchased after people got hooked on unauthorized copies of the software. In other words, the numbers are totally useless. However, it looks like the press may finally be catching on. Rather than trumpeting the "loss" numbers, most of the press reports are focusing on the supposed percentage of software that's unauthorized -- which actually is a pretty meaningless number when you think about it. The Associated Press report even included a single sentence noting that critics have pointed to problems with the BSA's numbers, but still noting that "$180 billion" could be lost in the next four years. I guess it's progress that the headlines aren't focused on the loss number, but the press still doesn't bother questioning where the BSA came up with its numbers or how accurate (or inaccurate) they may be.
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The numbers are bogus, yes...
As a designer, though, I can tell you that all good designers do use adobe photoshop, and that more than half of the designers I know use pirated copies. If pirated copies were not available, they would have to purchase the software.
I would guess that the 180 billion is closer to 45 billion, which is still a VERY large number.
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Re: The numbers are bogus, yes...
Or use GIMP or one of many other applications out there.
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Re: Re: The numbers are bogus, yes...
nope... I have not heard of one designer that uses Gimp . I have heard of developers and more tech savy people using Gimp, but not professional designers. I would guess that 99.99% of professional designers use adobe products
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Re: Re: The numbers are bogus, yes...
I think that is about a likely as seeing the CAD industries shy away from Autodesk. The problem is not only file portability, but usability. Few of the other programs match the efficiency of Photoshop, just like there is very little software which is on par with what Autodesk offers, as horrible as Autodesk is.
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Costing Software Companies Money
So, Microsoft should worry a lot more about me than about someone using a pirated version of WinXP.
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What about the impact of piracy on competition?
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gimp
I do think adobe is a great program. I do not think anyone who uses gimp or something other than adobe would have used adobe, as far as piracy numbers. But pirating photoshop? Too bad for adobe, I believe if they didn't cripple the software so much perhaps use would be more widespread.
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If not Gimp, there would be something else, simply because photoshop is out of the price range for most burgeoning graphic designers/photographers. I think Photoshop is one of the best examples of piracy helping a product rather than hurting it. Most designers I know started out working on pirated copies of ps. Then, when they were able, they bought it, or their companies did.
Best, Emi
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I like to think of this as the "starter software subsidy program", under which clever people acquire ... extended trial versions of popular s/w titles, in order to further their knowledge of the program's workings, and subsequently qualify for a job using it.
you can just feel the s/w execs fuming over that statement, and in fact the whole concept: all these evil people committing these egregious acts of piracy, feeding its marketplace with experienced users who go out in the workforce creating a demand for their product.
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media and numbers
The real problem with this is that no one even bothered to do the basic math. 50,000 kids means 1,000 kids per state per year. 1,000 kids per year means nearly 3 per day. You don't even need a calculator to do the math here, just a small amount of skepticism.
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Of course, some might point out that the BSA is irrelevant to the subject of free markets. Which is right enough, to the extent that free marketeers have always ignored the most basic principle of unregulated markets: businesses accomplish their goals any way they can, including dirty tricks such as the stealth foundation and funding of predatory groups like the BSA.
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We don't care how much the software industry is lo
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These numbers will always be inflated
Five or so years ago the PC gaming community was larger than it is today. Now most game developers focus more on game consoles and release(maybe) the same game on the PC half a year later. Everyone used to pirate games back then for the PC. I think the numbers they show for the loss of PC games nowadays are funny because I don't even think the PC gaming business is breaking $1 billion/year anymore in revenue.
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Photoshop
Generally I can find free alternatives to software I don't want to pay for, and I've only come close to pirating software once--when I needed MatLab, for one assignment in a computer science class. Mathworks used to offer month demo-versions, which is why the instructors included it, but the company had gotten wise to the fact that a lot of schools did this, and discontinued demo versions, instead offering several hundred dollar student versions. Which I would have bought if I were ever going to use it again. There are plenty of open source alternatives to the program, which I will use if I ever need to the kind of stuff MatLab does in my work, so irritated am I at the tactic. Professors across the country were using this program on the assumption that there was a free demo version, and students who really needed it for their work would buy it. It turned out that my father's coworker had a copy, so I used that instead of pirating it. But if he hadn't and there were no pirated versions, I would have skipped the assignment rather than pay MathWorks a red cent.
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