GreGorGy
BULLSFAN
To a degree, I can however appreciate this. On shareware and smaller developers, you're screwing the guy - which could be many of the members here. Is it to the tune of 400-million? I dunno...
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Unlicensed software costs SA R4 billion
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To a degree, I can however appreciate this. On shareware and smaller developers, you're screwing the guy - which could be many of the members here. Is it to the tune of 400-million? I dunno...
Sapphiron
Honorary Master
I would love to see an analysis of the price of a piece of software, vs the % of unlicensed installs.
I would predict that the BSA don't have those numbers, despite needing them to come to their overall numbers. That's because they pulled them out of their "Turd Aquarium"
I would predict that the BSA don't have those numbers, despite needing them to come to their overall numbers. That's because they pulled them out of their "Turd Aquarium"
km2
Expert Member
Indeed.
I think you'll find that it's the major software vendors who are actually running the strongest campaign to exterminate the local channel and not the pirates, be it via the iTunes/App Store, Windows Store/Office 365, Steam, Adobe Creative Cloud. You may look on the pirates as "parasites" on the large multinationals, but they look at the local channel taking that cut in the same way and they have a far more effective way to ensure over the next few years that that revenue instead goes entirely to them. Perhaps if we're very lucky they'll graciously consent to at least pay VAT on it.
LCBXX
Honorary Master
Another year, another BSA article quoting massively bloated numbers.
Arthur
Honorary Master
What a lot of ordinary users don't see is the channel between them and the vendor.
Of course the trend towards subscription and SaaS is changing that, but historically by far the largest portion of volume software sales has gone through the channel.
For some online purchases some vendors provide an agterskot or rebate to the channel even where the payment is processed directly by the vendor.
Of course the trend towards subscription and SaaS is changing that, but historically by far the largest portion of volume software sales has gone through the channel.
For some online purchases some vendors provide an agterskot or rebate to the channel even where the payment is processed directly by the vendor.
grim
Expert Member
Value of unlicensed software <> value of lost sales due to piracy
GreGorGy
BULLSFAN
That's a far cry from your previous assertion. The scene (excuse the word) has changed. The channel is the vendor is the payment gateway.
km2
Expert Member
Absolutely, and I think both users and software companies would be quite happy to try and move that relationship from "don't see" to "doesn't exist". Especially when dealing with local vendors who are acting as distributors for SaaS products, and that act as an extra poorly trained layer for getting support vs dealing directly with the service provider themselves. When people do see the channel in action who thinks favourably of them? Who looks at Ster Kinekor for console games and thinks "gosh, I'm so thankful they're there"? Sure, it's better to have Ster Kinekor than not having console games distributed locally at all but there will be no tears for them when the switch is flicked to digital distribution.
I think then it's dangerous to champion how much the local channel gains from buying software from large multinationals, when those same multinationals are just counting down the days till they can essentially eliminate the majority of the local channel.
I don't think we need to encourage a system of kickbacks to some group that provided nothing to the end user even if they're a South African company.
This must have been one of those irritating popup surveys that I have seen and immediately culled with extreme prejudice when visiting Microsoft websites using Chrome/Firefox from a Linux PC.
I do hope that Internet Explorer uses are equally harassed with such irritating and pointless surveys, otherwise these surveys are not only biased and factually incorrect but also make the assumption that any non-Microsoft OS or non-Microsoft browser must be flying the pirate flag.
Nerfherder
Honorary Master
Was just going to say that....
Paying for all that overpriced software would just be sending all our valuable rands overseas.
Arthur
Honorary Master
Perhaps so. But quite a few vendors have a pretty sophisticated way of quantifying these losses.
The price per license varies by customer type (commercial, academic, government, etc), volume, license type, whether maintenance and/or support are included and for what term and type, and so on.
In large markets like the USA, the consumer segment might very significant, but in others like SA it is far less so.
It certainly used to be the case that Microsoft internally got very granular about this in order to arrive at as accurate a view as possible ... total PC shipments, PC installed base, attach rates and number of naked machines, OEM and DSP sales, etc, etc, all mapped against a very detailed segmentation by customer type, user type, industry, organisation size, etc. There is a very large amount of detailed information available from >100 countries worldwide, not just internally but from industry surveys. I think most people would be astonished to see how much effort is put into ensuring that the numbers are tested and refined so they are as realistic as possible.
Of course smaller companies might just thumb-suck a figure.
BSA members share only very broad and global figures at the BSA (members include intense competitors) and these are rolled up by the BSA itself to arrive at an overall piracy figure for a particular geography.
It might sound improbable, but BSA figures have historically been conservative and generally understated.
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Moral and ethical issues of pirating aside, stating that piracy is costing SA billion is false.
Situation A. All consumers pay billions to software companies.
Situation B (current), Many consumers choose not spend the billions and pirate software instead.
Now you claim that since software companies is not getting the billions in Situation A that SA is losing those billions. That statement as false since if the consumers don't spend the money it doesn't just disappear down some black hole, taking our low savings rate into account the money consumer saved by pirating is spent on other items, possibly items where more of the money spent stays in SA.
Then there is the fact of these so called losses, is most cases it is calculated by a similiar formula - number of instance of pirate * license fee of software= loss amount
Anyone who believes that to be the case should take economy 101 and learn about supply and demand, at price nil (pirating) the demand for software will be far higher than what would be the case where the price is the normal software retail price, so the above formula is incorrect as you would have far less users of the software than those who currently choose to pirate the software.
That said, even if pirating could possibly be more beneficial to SA than buying the softwarem if you use the software you should abide by the terms of the software producer, you as consumer have no right to decide you are entitled to someone else labour without compensation, and doing so you are depriving many people of the fruits of their labour and the reward due to them for risks they took to create the software.
Situation A. All consumers pay billions to software companies.
Situation B (current), Many consumers choose not spend the billions and pirate software instead.
Now you claim that since software companies is not getting the billions in Situation A that SA is losing those billions. That statement as false since if the consumers don't spend the money it doesn't just disappear down some black hole, taking our low savings rate into account the money consumer saved by pirating is spent on other items, possibly items where more of the money spent stays in SA.
Then there is the fact of these so called losses, is most cases it is calculated by a similiar formula - number of instance of pirate * license fee of software= loss amount
Anyone who believes that to be the case should take economy 101 and learn about supply and demand, at price nil (pirating) the demand for software will be far higher than what would be the case where the price is the normal software retail price, so the above formula is incorrect as you would have far less users of the software than those who currently choose to pirate the software.
That said, even if pirating could possibly be more beneficial to SA than buying the softwarem if you use the software you should abide by the terms of the software producer, you as consumer have no right to decide you are entitled to someone else labour without compensation, and doing so you are depriving many people of the fruits of their labour and the reward due to them for risks they took to create the software.
Arthur
Honorary Master
It's naive to think that software vendors believe that every pirated installation is a lost sale.
Certainly Microsoft does not. It understands very well what is a real lost sale vs what would not be a sale.
It also very carefully tracks PC sales into sectors and segments, by industry and by usage type, etc. It does not consider a PLC controller, for example, as a candidate for Office. But is does believe that a certain percentage (say 45%) of PCs at say a university are probably platforms for inter alia word processing. Etc. When you crosscheck in the numbers of students in an educational sector, the PC installed base in that segment, the annual news sales, factor in PC retirements, competitive usage, shareware and freeware download and install rates, etc, etc, etc you begin to build up a pretty accurate picture.
And so a picture is built up.
Certainly Microsoft does not. It understands very well what is a real lost sale vs what would not be a sale.
It also very carefully tracks PC sales into sectors and segments, by industry and by usage type, etc. It does not consider a PLC controller, for example, as a candidate for Office. But is does believe that a certain percentage (say 45%) of PCs at say a university are probably platforms for inter alia word processing. Etc. When you crosscheck in the numbers of students in an educational sector, the PC installed base in that segment, the annual news sales, factor in PC retirements, competitive usage, shareware and freeware download and install rates, etc, etc, etc you begin to build up a pretty accurate picture.
And so a picture is built up.
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Nerfherder
Honorary Master
They may... but they still don't have the right numbers because the number they quote is too big. Its imaginary money, its more money than is available in the software economy.
If you have a shop selling CD's and some guy sets up shop in front of your store an starts selling counterfeit cd's, you can quantify that loss. Every CD he sells to one of your customers is an exact amount of money you lost.
Some kid mucking around on photoshop that he got odd a torrent site is never going to be any loss for Adobe.
However if a company is bidding at half the price of their competitors because they are not paying any licencing fees then yes they are stealing.
So how are the BSA measuring that ? It must be a guess because compliance is high in the business world and if you are caught there are heavy fines.
Sure is happening on a small scale but as soon as a business gets any real work they will find themselves complying or closing shop.
So the BSA's numbers are mainly counting my mother-in-law's pc with a cracked version of office that she turns on once a year.
KleinBoontjie
Honorary Master
In other news: Pirated software makes millions for ISP's
Wonder what my open source is costing the country?
Wonder what my open source is costing the country?
Arthur
Honorary Master
Hehe. Your argument of course makes perfect sense - if that's what they're doing. It's been a good many years since I was involved, admittedly.
Two interesting sources of information - which of course must be taken with an appropriate pile of NaCl, are confidential "ratting reports" by employees/ex-employees, and by resellers and consultants with some knowledge of the organization's environment.
The consumer market in SA, into which your and my mother-in-law fall, is relativity miniscule. Counting her Office 2000 FPP on a bootlegged Windows XP and the thousands like her barely registers in the piracy scale.
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Not even then.
I know that the end markup is less than 10%. I can get any quote of any price list and it will be cheaper for me get the product somewhere else. Now true I don't know the markup they add. I know it's quite substantial as they can give these discounts to mass retailers but I doubt it's close to 40%. In any case I can't give a crap about a sector that screws over the little guy. Some of the little guys are actually making more money from pirated goods than they ever could with legit software.
This is of course assuming it goes through the channel at all. A lot of software is bought directly from the developer. Large corporations buy volume licensing which doesn't go through the channel. I would also like to know the methodology used by the BSA. It wouldn't surprise me if they inflate the figures by including free alternatives as unlicensed.
Oh I am well aware that they know. Problem is still that they don't know the formula to use. Not every word processing pc that's one under pirating model will be one under paying model. The pc's sold doesn't give an accurate idea of which software will eventually be installed and if piracy wasn't an option then free alternatives may still be. Any formula they use would be riddled with speculation. Assuming though it's completely accurate it's still a moot point. The figures quoted to the public will not be the internal figures but are simply the pirated figure multiplied by cost.
Arthur
Honorary Master
Agreed.
Maybe I didn't clarify enough. The BSA's figures are a roll-up from member vendors plus their own projections for the total software market.
The final figure also assumes zero piracy (as they must) - and no market in the world has that as far as I know.
Maybe I didn't clarify enough. The BSA's figures are a roll-up from member vendors plus their own projections for the total software market.
The final figure also assumes zero piracy (as they must) - and no market in the world has that as far as I know.