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| Half of PC users are pirates, says study |
| By Thom Holwerda on 2012-05-22 09:51:09 |
| "Over half of PC users worldwide have admitted to using pirate software last year, according to a study by the trade group Business Software Alliance. BSA's ninth annual Global Software Piracy Study has shown a sharp increase in software piracy, especially among emerging economies. In the UK, more than one in four programs users installed in 2011 were unlicensed." If people decide en masse not to adhere to a law, said law is worth about as much as the paper it's written on. Laws become functional not because of the Queen's signature, but because the people decide to adhere to it. It's becoming ever clearer that as far as digital goods go, the law is not functional - for better or worse. |
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| Pirated = without DRM = no issues |
| By darkixion on 2012-05-22 10:08:47 |
|
Sometimes it's the only way to get the software working. I've had too many issues with DRM, including having software locked out after too many activations (having rebuilt the PC or reinstalled the OS a few times). These companies wage war against legitimate paying customers, who are the only ones affected by the increasingly problematic DRM. But download an illegal game or film, and you don't get the "activation failed" message, or "failed to verify authenticity", or unskippable warnings at the beginning of every DVD. Instead, only paying customers see those, exactly the people it isn't targeting. |
 - Score: 13 |
| strange |
| By emphyrio on 2012-05-22 10:17:31 |
| Though I freely share films/music/books I can't remember when I've last pirated software. I manage fine just using the free alternatives for work and the drm-free games from gog/humble bundles. |
| - Score: 8 |
| Comment by Kroc |
| By Kroc on 2012-05-22 10:45:35 |
|
The market is not functional, the law is fine; just because people feel more self-entitled to things they don’t own now than they did before does not mean that the law is lacking. Copyright has not ceased being copyright, but the market has failed to sell to people effectively. Taking something that — let’s face it — is not necessary for survival, because you object to how the owner chooses to sell it to you is childish and immature. That behaviour being common is not justification neither. If people in general lack any fortitude these days (myself included of course) that’s not a legal matter, it’s a moral one. |
| - Score: 1 |
| Comment by Risthel |
| By Risthel on 2012-05-22 10:47:58 |
| Ahoy! We're swashbucklin' the DRM :) |
| - Score: 4 |
| RE: strange |
| By Verunks on 2012-05-22 11:02:03 |
|
I think that the problem with free alternatives is that they are not used in workplaces, for example if you use microsoft office at work you don't want to use openoffice at home because you don't want to learn two different things or even the other way around if you learn to use microsoft office at home it's a bonus when finding a new job, not many will care if you know how to use openoffice same can be said for an artist that use photoshop instead of gimp/paint.net, a video editor that use premiere/finalcut/sony vegas instead of windows movie maker or a 3d artist that use 3dsmax/maya instead of blender these softwares usually cost hundreds of euros that can't be afforded by home users so people just pirate them |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE: Pirated = without DRM = no issues |
| By MOS6510 on 2012-05-22 11:15:16 |
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I wouldn't call it war, they are not trying to get rid of customers or create all this DRM hassle to annoy users. To me it does seem they don't really care about their product. Perhaps the creators do, but not the other departments. For example if you make a great movie you want you audience to enjoy it. Other people put these warnings in front of the movie, trailers of other movies. It's annoying enough if you just want to watch the movie, but even worse if you quickly want to jump to a scene to look something up or show it to someone. Or perhaps worst of all the inability to transfer the media to another device. It either ruins the experience or it at least makes it less enjoyable than it should have been. If you download a movie you can watch it on any media without all the added annoyance. |
| - Score: 7 |
| RE: Comment by Kroc |
| By CapEnt on 2012-05-22 11:36:16 |
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What's ownership anyway? The real problem is how to explain for people that they should pay for something that could be replicated infinitely for almost free. Common people doesn't care for development cost or production cost, they only cares for the final product. They are used to pay for physical things. I really doubt that someone commonly ask themselves how much money was toasted in developing their car or their TV set, they pay for the final product, and usually they can't copy that product with a mouse click. But intellectual products like music, movies and software has a final product that is free to make copies. |
| - Score: 7 |
| Comment by Alex Hitech |
| By Alex Hitech on 2012-05-22 11:51:26 |
|
Laws become functional not because of the Queen's signature, but because the people decide to adhere to it. This is both true and not. Laws obligate people to act in certain ways, since otherwise the order will be gone, and anarchy would rule the world. Therefore, laws are usually prohibitive, forbidding citizens from some activity. And yes, this is good, since it equals citizens - well, at least it should, - and leaves them more time to spend on other, legal activities. However, since laws are prohibitive, people always will be unhappy with them. No matter how good or bad the law will, there always will be someone not happy. Even if the next law will cease all other laws, allowing citizens to do what they like to, there will be many people (including myself) who will rightfully claim this situation leaves them unprotected. Overall, laws are good. If they don't suit, they can be changed - in legal ways. But while a law is in action, citizens absolutely must adhere to it. |
| - Score: 2 |
| Falacy |
| By kokara4a on 2012-05-22 11:52:33 |
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I don't believe that it's half the PCs worldwide. I think it's much more. I live in a country where vast majority of home-owned PCs run entirely on pirated software. And when it's pirated, the tendency is to have as much as can fit on your hard disk. I have friends that have 3D Studio installed without being used at all. Or Photoshop being used only for image rescaling. And games, lots of them. However, the biggest fallacy is to think that if there was no way to avoid paying for software they would buy every application that they pirated. I mean, software is fucking expensive even for a first world country (and mine isn't). MS Office Professional alone is more than the average monthly salary. If you make a living you could justify the cost even if it's many month's salary, but not for home use. Our government buys expensive licenses for MS software, many more that are actually needed and at prices that are higher that if you go to a computer shop and buy individual license. It's fucking disgusting. I guess that's the price we pay for having widespread piracy outside of government. And for having corrupt and self-serving politicians. In any case, I think this is a missed opportunity for free software. Pirated software is free and usually works better for most people (not for me - I use only free software although I can pirate commercial software, but unfortunately I'm not a majority). If pirated software was difficult to obtain or could put you in jail, free software would have a big advantage. |
| - Score: 3 |
| RE: Comment by Alex Hitech |
| By Thom_Holwerda on 2012-05-22 11:56:12 |
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> Overall, laws are good. If they don't suit, they can be changed - in legal ways. But while a law is in action, citizens absolutely must adhere to it. This is a flawed assumption, because it is based on the premise that the people can change laws. The reality of the matter is that they cannot. Not everybody is created equal in a democracy, and we see this every day - companies with large amounts of money and experience in Washington/The Hague/Brussels/etc. wield far more influence than the people do, to the point of the people's power being negligible. The most powerful tool of the people when it comes to influence is to simply ignore bad laws. It happened with soft drugs in The Netherlands, it happened with segregation in the US, it happened with gay rights in The Netherlands, and god knows how many other things. This ability to ignore laws is the most powerful tool the people has at its disposal. Claiming the people must always adhere to a law just because it is a law is a very dangerous and scary thought indeed. |
| - Score: 7 |
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