Flawed BSA Piracy Information
Piracy isn’t anything to take lightly but it is also not something to take overly seriously. The BSA or Business Software Alliance likes to count all possibly pirated copies and simply multiply by sticker value. As someone who has spent many years in the business I can tell you that is not the case. Now the Economist is taking the BSA to task over these numbers and their tactics: The Economist Rails on Flawed BSA Piracy Study
I kno w that “back in the day” I would download or get copies from friends of anything I could get my hands on. Because I wanted to use it? Because I wanted to learn it. Almost from the beginning of my technology work supporting end users and helping get the most out of software they did pay for has been a large part of my life.
These days some software vendors have “educational” use licenses and some now offer developer, partner and training licensing. Ironically Microsoft’s Action Pack subscriptions, Developers Network and Certified Partners has gone a long way in legitimizing the use of software for the sake of learning enough to support our clients. I say ironic because when it gets down to brass tacks the BSA is Microsoft with just enough seed money from small vendors to not make it the BSA out to be something other than Microsoft’s private goon squad.
But back to why it is disingenious to count retail value for every pirated copy. Many who use or have used pirated software, like myself way back when, or a college student today, fall into categories where the activities are covered by these various low cost or free licenses. Does Microsoft loose $500 for that copy of Office a college student pirated? No. Many colleges have agreement with Microsoft such as the one they made with Indiana University years ago that gave IU students access to almost everything Microsoft owns from $5 at the campus bookstores. More likely the Student got the pirated edition because it’s fun to stick-it to The Man and Microsoft certainly is that.
Another thing is that pirated software is often installed briefly, long enough to learn something or determin e if it’s even usable. Unlike any other product on this planet if a software package doesn’t do what it claims too bad. By breaking the seal on the CD and clicking “I Agree” during the installation normal consumer protection rights went right out the window unless it’s so bad an AG or consumer class action is warranted. As more people read these draconian EULA’s or End User License Agreements the less likely people are to shell out cash without so much of a test drive and where demonstration versions are not available the wary buyer has little other recourse but to either try it via a pirated copy or take the plunge with their dollars and hope the vendor’s claims are on the level.
What is almost as bad as piracy is actually buying software that you cannot use because of the “piracy protections” built into the software. There has been more than one instance in recent memory of software vendors messing up their serial code validation scheme or activation methodology making it literally impossible to even install the software. There are also issues when you’re dealing with multiple licensing schemes, keeping track of it all in a large Enterprise. Our phone system for example required entry of 272 separate codes just to do an upgrade. Thankfully after 2 such upgrades they’ve figured out how to make serial code pairs that activate more than one feature set per which reduced the number of codes to around 30 on the last upgrade 2 weeks ago.
Believe me, when I buy software, especially “enterprise” software I absolutely take into account what type of licensing activation the vendor uses. And it has in fact cost vendors my sale.
It is also why my server room is 4 to 1 in the Linux to Windows servers. Aand why a huge portion of our offerings are built on open technologies and tools running on Linux servers.