Software piracy = $48 billion
 

They dont say if this was a annual 2007 number or total up to 2007

http://global.bsa.org/idcglobalstudy2007/

Question:

Say you created some software how in the world would you protect it or make it very easy to copy?

And that does not even include shareware...

I love those numbers.

It doesn't matter what you do.. With software, they will figure out someway to crack it and use it. Take games for instance, the only games I've ever seen that don't fall victim to theft on a large scale are the ones that require you to log into a main server to play online.

I think maybe in the future cloud storage systems might help because then the software is no longer living on your computer but rather on a the host server that you access. I think that's the real reason behind Microsoft pushing that technology.

I've been getting into game development and see no way to get around the piracy other than make the users log on to play on your servers. Then you will still get password thieves and so on, but they won't last long.

Other wise just either accept the piracy or give it away for free and make money by ads or something.

I think that would include shareware hacks?

Why is there nothing that makes it harder to steal this stuff?

MS has spent a shitload of money on this problem (they lost a ton of money to it too) funny thing is even if a app is $2 people will search high and low on how to hack it.

I mean think about photoshop alone how much cash they lost.

What about if your game reg required users to be connected and you check reg numbers say every 7 days any with large amount of same registration number you disable? Or something in those lines?

You mean I was supposed to PAY for Windows XP? Hmm....

The way they calculate the losses is bullshit.

You mean, how much money Adobe made from Photoshop being pirated.

yes exactly everyone is making a fortune when you rob them, right on!

It's actually a tricky issue, it costs them no $$ to distribute pirated software, no $$ to support it, yet it gives them benefits... the logic is more clear with software like windows, if it was impossible to copy windows, many people would jump ship and would use linux instead... which obviously isn't good for microsoft... same with most other software, if faced with a choice between giving it away for free or letting customer use competitors product, it's probably better to give it away for free...

i always ask designers that i am interested in hiring about their version of photoshop. the large majority of them are proud to tell me they use a hacked version and are happy to send me a key gen or wtf ever it is they use to hack it.

i don't hire them

You lock them out, just like Strongbox does on pay sites.

Pretty simple concept.

Piracy is bad and costly, it costs people their jobs and destroys companies at the min. hurts them from expanding as they deserve, between stolen music movies software and fake handbags (yeah I know) its a planet of billions being stolen every year like its legal.

There is no positives to the companies that are getting robbed.

Online registration became a must with XP I think

Only problem I think with software is that the rules are always in some local file, so once someone figures out a good file or someway to go around it your screwed once again.

Im hoping someone that knows something about this can chime in.

or you just know ppl that work for microsoft and they give you codes for free ;)

same goes for knowing ppl that work for cell phone companies.. they make you free accounts and sell them, and it last for 3plus months.

there is always a way around this stuff :)

maybe make games and sell them overpriced.. and than open a company that hacks them and sell them for cheaper.. (real price) making ppl believe they are getting a deal.

Well the game engine I'm using is able to stream info from the web and even SQL data bases. So it can be set up with the same kind of protection as say a paysite members area.

This means I can just do simple user ID vs IP logs checks ect.ect. Just like you do with a traditional paysite system. The game will be set up as multi player only, so the users won't be able to play unless they log into the system.

I'm also going to be releasing a limited free version, but it will be an entirely different set up, so it couldn't be hacked to gain access for the full game.


As for Photoshop losing money..Well I agree to a limited extent. With PS people hack it just because they can and it's easy to do and easy to get. However I really don't think that relates to direct sales lost. I mean sure there are people whom would buy it if they couldn't steal it. However many users would just use Gimp or the likes.

I think much of the piracy with PS is done buy people that just do it because it's there but I don't think it would lead to direct sales in the bulk of it.

With Windows on the other hand, unless you have a Apple, you almost need it because while the open source OS's are ok for the geeks, not many other want to use them. So with the Windows OS's I think it's theft is heavily related to sales, simple because the people need it.

Then again if MS wasn't charging $200 to $300 for the fucking hacked up OS more people might be inclined to buy it.

I mean I bought XP but to be honest, I'd never buy Vista, not with all it's bugs.

I may have a flawed logic, but I would ask "Would these individuals who pirate software actually purchase the software if they couldn't pirate it?" I'm leaning toward "no", and if this is the case, then how can you quantify the cost of piracy?

It doesn't cost the software distributor any money to distribute pirated copies, so there's no money lost there.

The software company doesn't spend any time or resources providing support to owners of pirated copies (I'm not 100% on this, though).

The software company may even derive benefits from these "pirates" in terms of brand loyalty.

With a digital product and digital distribution, it may not be so easy to conclude "we are losing such and such per year" to piracy.

A quick caveat -- I don't feel that this excuses software piracy, but I feel that considerations like these should provide the proper impetus for software distributors to research new ways in deriving benefits, financial or otherwise, from software pirates.

That's such a bullshit number... the vast majority of people who pirate software would have never ever bought or actually needed it.

A 15 year old girl using a pirated photoshop = $700 profit loss?

I don't think so, Tim.

I never said everyone. I said Adobe Photoshop, and without Piracy, Photoshop would not be as large as it is. Without Piracy some other major photo editor and probably for sure a graphics editor could have taken hold, knocking them from the current kings that they are. Without Piracy, millions, yes millions, could have never tried the software for years, and finally been forced to upgraded when they decided to correct the problem with CS.

I think the its than just people who wouldnt pay for it theory is flawed. I went to a photoshop class and the instructor asked a room of about 100 people what they current version of ps was. After he was done he said now who actually paid for it maybe a third of the hands only went up. What I dont understand these big companies are large campaign contributors why they havent pushed for much tougher laws.

and 1/3rd of those were telling the truth, and they also bought it at a discount student price as well probably :2 cents:

"Photoshop" has brand name association as good as "kleenex" due to piracy.

I use the GIMP :)

I'm not sure how your example elucidates the flaw in my reasoning. In fact, it might even support the idea of derived benefits through brand loyalty of software pirates.

When enough consumers have access to a software product like Photoshop, this creates a demand for for things like Photoshop classes, and with Photoshop classes comes an enhanced accessibility to a product like Photoshop. With this accessibility comes more interest in the product, and theoretically, more paying customers.

Edit: I believe TheDoc is referring to the same concept.

Exactly...

Exactly...


And not to give it all to Piracy, the software is bad ass and has always been worth buying, and lots of people did exactly that.

the biggest problem with reports like this is that they take the highest cost for all these sales
they ignore the fact that not all the people who downloaded the software would have actually bought the product
and they ignore the fact that some of those downloads are people who are recovering a copy of software that they bought and lost.

The arguement is seriously flawed to say that someone who downloads xp would have paid the full suggested retail for the product. (instead of getting a molp or oem copy).

it sort of like when the MPAA argues that when you download season 1 of lost it is losing the full retail price of the dvd.

I don't condone piracy in any way....but these numbers assume that everyone with a pirated copy of photoshop would have paid full price to get it, if it weren't available for free.

The vast majority of these "warez" users would not use photoshop at all, or use a cheaper alternative (like paintshop)

This is just one example. There are lots of other alternatives out there for just about every piece of major software.

So while piracy is a problem, eliminating all piracy worldwide wouldn't put $48 billion into the bank accounts of software makers.

I think more would pay than you believe. Im going to go to a store and steal something and say when they catch me well I wouldnt buy it. Im sure they will let me go. lol

1. Who ever coined "security's a myth" was smart.
2. Cloud computing is fine and dandy for collaboration.
3. I'll be damned if I need an internet connection to open a piece of productivity software to verify my installation each time I want to use it.
4. As other's have said, people who use hacked versions of high-priced, closed-source software; i.e. adobe & ms products, continue to help lock in the majority of the rest of people to continue using such software.

Piracy doesn't cost any companies anything.

The people who pirate software wouldn't buy it if they couldn't pirate it. Businesses who are afraid of lawsuits always buy their software. End users can't always afford.

So if anything, piracy promotes the use of your software.

And a company like Microsoft has nothing to worry about; 95% of the world's computers are running Windows, and when you buy a computer it already has Windows on it and Microsoft took their money.

Stealing physical things costs the company money... you can't compare the two.

A bunch of tainted brains, stealing is stealing dont you get it? Who cares if they would or wouldnt buy it!

.... or even unzip the software.. So much of it just gets traded for the sake of trading.

Let's use a hypothetical example:

You, EscortBiz, create and distribute a software called EscoDraw for $10.00 per copy. It's a promising graphics arts application that's quickly becoming popular because of some nifty features and ease of use. You distribute this product digitally, which means you don't have any overhead in terms of printing, packaging, and shipping physical discs. You set up a support center that verifies the legitimacy of a user's EscoDraw installation, and so you aren't spending any time or resources to provide support to freeloaders.

Now, let's say that 500,000 copies of EscoDraw have been installed on user's computers, but only 10% of these users actually paid for it. That would mean you generated $500,000 dollars. At first glance you would say, "but I lost 4.5 million dollars to piracy!" For the sake of this example, we'll assume (and it certainly is a flimsy assumption) that this pirated 4.5 million dollars is a measurable loss.

Let's fast forward two years. You've released another version of EscoDraw, and it's become the gold-standard in graphic arts applications. There are now "The Complete Idiots Guide to EscoDraw" and "Learn EscoDraw in 24 Hours" books. There are high school and college courses that teach EscoDraw, and now large media firms have adopted EscoDraw. Pirates and legitimate users alike have created unofficial support forums and tutorials for EscoDraw. Your software has become so popular that even if, still, only 10% of users actually paid for their EscoDraw copies, you now have 2,000,000 users. So for this new version of EscoDraw, you would rake in $2,000,000!

Let's rewind this example for a second and say that instead of allowing those original 450,000 users to pirate your software during its' initial release, your software came with killer DRM that was uncrackable, and so the only users with the first version of EscoDraw are those 50,000 users who paid. With a smaller user base you would not generate as much exposure, there probably won't be any "Complete Idiots Guide to EscoDraw" books, no unofficial support forums and tutorials (since all paid users have access to your support resources), and no high school/college courses that teach students how to use EscoDraw. In other words, your software would not be as accessible, would not be as popular, and therefore would not be as profitable. You may have saved yourself from that "loss" of profits from the freeloading 90%, but in the long-run you might not grow as prosperous due to a stale user base.

You ask, "who cares if they would or wouldn't buy it?", and I say, "anyone who understands that they can turn this negative aspect of digital distribution into a long-term positive."

Again, this is not an endorsement for software piracy. It's an endorsement for a forward-thinking mindset and long-term business strategy.

Great post.

There are ways to stop it but it needs figuring out and takes the will to stop it online. Maybe things like banning advertising on sites promoting illegal sharing or even just banning the sites all together. Maybe even amending the TOS on the domain registration would help. If you promote theft of goods or violation of copyright you might lose your Domain. Let's see Torrentspy get around that one.

And yes it would need something this draconian to be effective. Add $48 billion to the money lost in music, porn and films and you can see why it needs to be draconian. Will anyone have the balls to do it?

About the most stupidest logic I have heard. So I was not going to pay you for your traffic so I can steal it. This also goes for your car and anything else I want to steal from you. You said it was all right so it must be fine in your book. :winkwink:

Exactly...



Exactly...

Exactly. And if lots of people did not buy it you would not be able to steal it. It would not exist. Exactly...

People who steal things like software are always coming up with the same weak stupid arguments. Even to the effect of it should be free so they can make money out of advertising or running classes. Bottom line is they leech off those who do buy and pay for the product to be produced in the first place. Exactly...

They care. Because if we did not pay for it they would not have it to steal or it would not be as good. The thieves need us to buy so they have it to steal. Then they think up bull shit reasons it should be free.

piracy shmiracy

Well that's completely untrue. Take some of the latest video games for example. Quite a few gaming companies are completely frustrated or just flat out stopped making games for PCs. Instead they only release them on console systems or release them on PCs much later. It's not easy pirating games on console systems. So games make these companies an unbelievable amount more when released on consoles vs PCs.

That excuse is used a lot by pirates, "oh I wasn't gonna buy it anyway and neither was anyone I shared with on p2p". That just helps them sleep better at night. Instead of sharing it on p2p, they should've just stole it from the store, that would've cost the company less. There's a good reason it would cost you almost nothing in court for stealing software vs what it would cost for pirating and sharing.