Software piracy remains a problem

I wonder if people were schooled on Open Source alternatives how they would classify the same losses.

EDIT: I was once in a foreign country where my host needed their computer fixed. A technician from a reputable store in that country came over. He proceeded to pull out those CD jackets with almost any sort of non-gaming software you could imagine. The brazen nature of the way they operated shocked me.

Would be interesting to see which companies suffer the most from piracy. Although thinking about it there might have been an article posted on myadsl previously.
 
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milomak said:
I wonder if people were schooled on Open Source alternatives how they would classify the same losses.

Would be interesting to see which companies suffer the most from piracy. Although thinking about it there might have been an article posted on myadsl previously.
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I think the key thing to remember is that these articles emphasise the losses to just the IT industry, rather than talking about the country as a whole. So if I take my spare R800 and spend it on Windows XP, R300 would go to the local channel and R500 to Microsoft the multinational corporation. On the other hand if I'd just pirated Windows and spent the R800 on a fancy restaurant all R800 would have gone to the local restaurant industry.

In theory while the local channel would hurt, South Africa would gain more by pirating because the restaurant generates more local employment than giving the R500 to Microsoft International. But that doesn't sound so nice in the press releases. :D

(obviously this only applies to piracy of international products, not local ones)
 
The BSA released an economic impact study in January this year which found that reducing software piracy by 10% would create more employment and increase IT spend to R6bn.
...
However, because the worldwide PC market grew fastest in high-piracy countries,
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Doesnt this article contradict itself? First it says "less piracy more jobs" and then onto "countries with high piracy expanded the PC market so much so quickly...". And of course expanding pc market means more jobs...
 
piracy will never go away completely.
 
The country would save so much more money if it moved over to Open Source Solutions. That way you dont have to worry about paying silly orgs like BSA.
 
Bull**** - none of the "big" software suppliers are based in SA. They might have local agents, but every cent profit they make leaves the country !!!:(
Because of all the money leaving the country, our trade defecit increases, which in turn causes the reserve bank to hike interest rates even more !!!!
My advice . . . pirate as much as you can . . . it is good for the country:p;):p;):p;)
 
In RSA we ALLL are or know pirates. Do we all know money thieves?

I could be wrong but I dont think that RSA's piracy is second lowest in the region because of intervention by the law or any anti piracy actions.
I mean how many times have you heard about piracy busts?

Its simply because we dont have fast and cheap internet. At the moment piracy cost pirates money due to our expensive internet. If you download anything it cost you close or even more than actually buying it from a shop.. :p

Unfortunately we ALL either are or know people that download, copy or buy pirated movies,series,games etc.. Similarly do we all know thieves that steal money? I think not (hopefully). Thus piracy I would say will increase as our internet get cheaper. It will get alot worse before it gets better because face it, our government....onions and beetroot,.. Ivy...ICASA.. :sick:

Then again some argue that piracy is a necesarry evil, almost like advertising or getting people hooked on media first. Then when they change their ways they are very supportive and active buyers of legal media.. Nevermind the losses due to piracy, the profit from movies and games is still HUGE and increasing. But thats another discussion. :rolleyes:
 
adcadc said:
Bull**** - none of the "big" software suppliers are based in SA. They might have local agents, but every cent profit they make leaves the country !!!:(
Because of all the money leaving the country, our trade defecit increases, which in turn causes the reserve bank to hike interest rates even more !!!!
My advice . . . pirate as much as you can . . . it is good for the country:p;):p;):p;)
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Keep your voice down if you want to voice stuff like that. (Yeah I see you are new here).
 
Tns said:
piracy will never go away completely.
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Just make Kill Bill more than a movie and piracy should drop by around 50%. Make open source alternatives to all the rich people's software and guess what... we have a full-scale Linux Revolution with close to zero piracy. Sounds good to me.
 
stormy said:
I could be wrong but I dont think that RSA's piracy is second lowest in the region because of intervention by the law or any anti piracy actions.
I mean how many times have you heard about piracy busts?

Its simply because we dont have fast and cheap internet. At the moment piracy cost pirates money due to our expensive internet. If you download anything it cost you close or even more than actually buying it from a shop.. :p

Unfortunately we ALL either are or know people that download, copy or buy pirated movies,series,games etc.. Similarly do we all know thieves that steal money? I think not (hopefully). Thus piracy I would say will increase as our internet get cheaper. It will get alot worse before it gets better because face it, our government....onions and beetroot,.. Ivy...ICASA.. :sick:

Then again some argue that piracy is a necesarry evil, almost like advertising or getting people hooked on media first. Then when they change their ways they are very supportive and active buyers of legal media.. Nevermind the losses due to piracy, the profit from movies and games is still HUGE and increasing. But thats another discussion. :rolleyes:
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I agree. Taking a 4GB game as an example, this would cost 4xR65/GB =R260 to download plus seeding -> ~R300 to download a game. Most games cost around this region. I don't play games so I don't lose out on this one but isn't it actually cheaper to buy games then?
 
I would like to see how/where/what they used to calculate the R1.9bn, together with with "10% reduction will create more employment" claim
 
Piracy is good for your country.. hehe.. thats actually true! I forgot about that one!
 
actually piracy creates jobs

look at all the pirate websites, they generate millions and millions

look at this way, if the world was a safe place and everyone got along you would not need armies or police or security guards, imaging the impact of those jobs loses

its the same with piracy, it creates jobs, the ppl who create software, movies, games etc are still stinking rich they are not just not as stinking rich as they should be :)

piracy has its place in life just like crime (im not talking about violent crime)
 
This article pops up in its various forms about 4 times a year!

We discussed the same thing already once since the beginning of the year.

Anyway... the worst pirates are those companies which charge 2-3 times the value of the software compared to what we would pay for it in its home country.

Microsoft is also one of the worst offenders often charging more for the software than the value of the hardware which it runs on.

Until you deal with these industrial size pirates, the small time pirates are not going to go away, because they just cannot afford to stay in business or turn a profit with these prices.

The BSA is a criminal organisation using Mafia style tactics in a protection style racket to preserve the interests of its mob bosses. The Government ought to ban them and open up the industry properly to free competition.

And +1 for the promotion of Free Software. If people were educated about the alternatives out there, this "figure" would probably be much much lower (not that I agree with the accuracy of these figures anyway).

The public are not THAT stupid!!!
 
Another thing that contributes to piracy is the price of software. One tends to forget that $1 is like R1 for Americans, and not R7.65. That would explain why piracy is so high in places like Zim, where Z$6m equals about R60.

Imagine what a R550 PS3 game costs over there! Piracy ftZIMw!
 
If they drop the price of software to affordable levels, more people will buy instead of pirate, thus increasing the turnover, extra employment, and less piracy! Economics 101, which it seems the BSA and software makers have failed! :p

/me notices last two posters also tackled same issue... me is typing too slow! ;)
 
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