Top software pirates revealed by BSA study

Using the same methods of calculation the BSA use for working our piracy, I can confirm that the cost of people reading the BS figures that the BSA releases costs South Africa a trillion million gazillion rand a month in lost revenue. These stats are as official and legit as the BSA`s stats.

Since 'BSA President and CEO Robert Holleyman' misuses the technical legal definition of the term "thief" in his propaganda, I will also. Robert Holleyman... you are a thief. You wasted my time by me having to read the disinformation you spread.... and we all know that wasting is the same as theft, so you are a thief.

When you learn the legal definition of "theft" and understand the legal difference between copyright infringement and theft. We will start taking you seriously, but until you do... ure kinda a liar every time you call copyright infringement theft. Since you are a "leader" in the web sheriff world you should understand the technical difference. If you dont, you are an idiot and should not be in the position you are in, and if you do, then you are just plain evil and manipulating and you should be exactly in the field you are in.

+10000000000000000000000000000000
 
Actually thats also not true either. There was a study done a while ago with "World of Goo". Its price was very low on release and at some point they were selling it for "minimum of $1" (you could specify your own amount). It had no DRM and yet it was one of the most pirated games at the time.

People are even pirating iPhone apps that costs $0.99.

+1 Haven't seen anyone recoil in horror pointing at someone screaming "Pirate... PIRATE!!!...." if its easy, people will do it, its the way of the world...
 
I am sorry but what?

"Ipsos Public Affairs conducted the research for BSA by surveying approximately 15,000 PC users in 32 countries. This included 400 to 500 in-person or online interviews per country."

Only 15000?? BS Survey then. Not enough people. I bet those that use legal stuff are your mom's and dad's at home who would never do these sort of surveys.

Roughly 478 people per country :-/. Not enough to be accurate at all.
yeah the maths dont make sesnse. 15000 extrapoaltes to 6 billion, fuk me
 
How come we feature so badly on this list?

Because very few people in South Africa can afford the bandwith to become software pirates. Africa is probably the only continent where bandwith costs > software costs.
 
I don't get why people need to pirate software. There are free alternatives for most of the big software packages. And if you need the advanced features that paid-for apps have, then buy it you cheapskate!

I have started preaching this in my own family. In my own household we have no pirated software at all.

I bought Windows and use mostly open source tools for the rest (Open Office, GIMP, etc.).

My wife was a bit skeptical moving to Open Office, but now she's creating documents like a pro. Still need to teach her GIMP for her photography though.
 
lol, they could always try making more software affordable.

No chance of that mate. How do you think that the BSA get paid their salaries? The irony is that MS and alike benefit from piracy. If a poor student (as may of us once were) uses a pirated MS Word to prepare tuts etc at varsity, he will become familiar with the product.

When he graduates and is in a position to make a purchasing decision on behalf of his employer, which product do you think he will choose? I believe that all business software should be free for personal use. I also believe that the BSA should stop wating their time and ours.
 
I wish Microsoft would just secure there software so it cant be pirated, or do a proper drive to take people for all their worth and publicly shaming the pirates.

The more they actually fight piracy the more people will start to look for alternatives. As for the Games argument, if I write a game I wont target a 1-5% market when there is a big fat 80% sitting there for the picking, if the people pick something else the developers will follow.
 
. . . he graduates and is in a position to make a purchasing decision on behalf of his employer, which product do you think he will choose? I believe that all business software should be free for personal use. I also believe that the BSA should stop wating their time and ours.

Why aren’t schools, Universities and Colleges not encouraging the use of FOSS and Linux? When familiar with Linux, Unix you can easily work and find you way on a Windows box. Most non ICT literate people I’ve met where ignorant to the fact that there’s several other alternatives to MS Windows.
 
I have a question for everyone who claims that reducing the cost of software would reduce piracy.

What if I created an anonymous payment system where you could deposit what you think the software you have pirated should be worth, and I then forwarded that on to the owner of the property/distributor/whoever, would you pay?
 
Where is the affordability vs piracy graphs? I would like to see it. For instance, you could get Windows 7 home for US$50 in the US, while in SA it is R700. Thus more than double, while the average income in SA is probably a tenth of the US. So do you really expects SA to have lower piracy rates than the US?
 
Imho the BSA is justifying their cushy offices to M$ - look what we did M$ - now pay us handsomely so we can buy a new espresso mach.....we mean stamp out piracy..., what bollocks.

@ Garyvdh - you forgot the 'A' mate, its Bull $h1T ALWAYS ;)
 
Where is the affordability vs piracy graphs? I would like to see it. For instance, you could get Windows 7 home for US$50 in the US, while in SA it is R700. Thus more than double, while the average income in SA is probably a tenth of the US. So do you really expects SA to have lower piracy rates than the US?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...Order=BESTMATCH&Description=windows+7&x=0&y=0
http://www.walmart.com/browse/Compu...=48_0&ref=428746+4293871607&refineresult=true

OEM Versions (DSP):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...r=BESTMATCH&Description=windows+7+oem&x=0&y=0

So here, Windows 7 Home Premium DSP is about R1000 and in the States is $99. So while it is cheaper there by 30%, its not by a huge margin. You'll also find that its not MS selling at higher prices here, but the distributors, because the markets are much smaller than the US and they need to make higher profit to sustain their business.

Anyways, people tend to pirate because they can and R300 wouldn't make any difference to whether people would buy it.
 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...Order=BESTMATCH&Description=windows+7&x=0&y=0
http://www.walmart.com/browse/Compu...=48_0&ref=428746+4293871607&refineresult=true

OEM Versions (DSP):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...r=BESTMATCH&Description=windows+7+oem&x=0&y=0

So here, Windows 7 Home Premium DSP is about R1000 and in the States is $99. So while it is cheaper there by 30%, its not by a huge margin. You'll also find that its not MS selling at higher prices here, but the distributors, because the markets are much smaller than the US and they need to make higher profit to sustain their business.

Anyways, people tend to pirate because they can and R300 wouldn't make any difference to whether people would buy it.

As soon as someone puts artificial limitation on something I am up in arms. When Win7 came out, you could get it for $50, but only if you live in the USA/Canada. I tried multiple times to buy it, and falied each time. Where I wanted to upgrade all my computers to Win 7, I currently only have 3 Win 7 computers (2 of which is new laptops which came with Win 7). So in effect I only upgraded 1. The rest are all still on XP. So in the end, who is the loser?
 
Instead of calling people thieves left and right, lets look at the anti-competitive practices to build monopolies, that Microsoft has been using and abusing for years and have even been found guilty of. Example is the case about their IE browser which the European Union ruled should be unbundled from windows in Europe. Another example is to not allow their software like office to be compatible to OpenOffice and the like. How many $ do you assume other companies lost due to MS unethical business practices?
That is why I use Linux. The copy of Win7 I have came with the PC, and open source software with it suits my needs fine.

"The box of my new PC said said MS XP or better, so naturally I installed Linux."
 
Instead of calling people thieves left and right, lets look at the anti-competitive practices to build monopolies, that Microsoft has been using and abusing for years and have even been found guilty of. Example is the case about their IE browser which the European Union ruled should be unbundled from windows in Europe. Another example is to not allow their software like office to be compatible to OpenOffice and the like. How many $ do you assume other companies lost due to MS unethical business practices?
That is why I use Linux. The copy of Win7 I have came with the PC, and open source software with it suits my needs fine.

"The box of my new PC said said MS XP or better, so naturally I installed Linux."

I love Linux and use it instead because its better than Microsoft for the places I use it or Open Source products like Libreoffice because I dont have 2K to spend on Microsoft Office not because of the reasons you mention, to do so would be childish.

Complaining that Microsoft is bad because they included IE, then install a OS that not only includes a browser but also a host of other software like Office, graphic utils like Gimp is kind of two faced, by your argument Linux should also only include the OS and nothing else. Besides no one held a gun next to people's head saying the must use Microsoft and nothing else. You are free to install Opera, Firefox, Chrome and so on.
 
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