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Software piracy figures keep on rising

5 October 2005 9:54 by James "Dela" Delahunty | 9 comments

Software piracy figures continue to jump to new heights as the business of software counterfeiting remains a multi-million dollar problem for software companies. Software and entertainment media remain in the top list of goods to counterfeit along with clothing, currency and other financial instruments like credit cards, according to Canada's Gieschen Consultancy. The value of pirated software hit $6.2m in August, down from $91m in June but totaling $185m in the first half of 2005.

Overall intellectual property theft was up a massive 370% in August due to the increased spending over and after the summer. Up to 25% of all the counterfeit goods were sold by street sellers or at car boot sales and other events. Of course, Microsoft has not been dethroned as the company who's software is pirated most. Following closely behind is Sony, Adobe, Autodesk and Macromedia.

The United States has the most reported intellectual property violations in august with over $76m in seizures. France was in second place at $9.7m and the UK's �4.9m came in at third place. According the Business Software Alliance (BSA) and market researcher IDC, 27% of all software in use in the UK is pirated, costing the software industry about �1bn. "If the UK achieved a 10 per cent reduction in software piracy, an additional �10bn could be raised towards UK GDP while 40,000 jobs could created in the IT sector." said Najeeb Khan, spokesperson for the BSA.

Source:
Silicon.com

Permalink to this article

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Discuss this article!
j0j081 (Junior Member) 6 October 2005 4:15
hmm the SBA (Software Business Alliance), they are the ones who sent my ISP a letter earlier this year over something I downloaded. [ + quote]
Lethal_B (Moderator) 6 October 2005 5:05
oh how my heart bleeds. software is generally way too expensive. nowadays you can get ANY software on bittorrent. it will keep on rising. but unlike music and videos (which are downloaded out of control anyway) this will be unstoppable. [ + quote]
gbswales (Newbie) 6 October 2005 9:40
I really dont understand why the industry bleata about piracy - they have been ripping off consumers for years with high prices, poor quality and non-existant support. They continually add bells and whistles that nobody wants, which in turn make the product less stable than before, - all to be able to charge a higher price and persuade users to upgrade! When windows found that people werent upgrading quick enough MS found the solution - simply withdraw support for their legacy products and force consumer hands. Most software isnt worth more $30 tops given that distribution by other than electronic means is almost unecessary - some of microsofts packages now cost as much as the machine they run on! Lastly piracy is NOT lost business as the pirates would simply turn to open source or freeware instead if they had to pay the industries silly prices - this means the industries figures of what they "lose" are grossly inflated on the assumtpion that each instance of piracy equals a lost sale. I reckon if piracy could be completely eliminated tomorrow by some technical means - less than 10% of the business would come their way. [ + quote]
jacsac (Member) 6 October 2005 12:27
How many programs would I actually pay for? None. When I first bought my burner I bought a dvd burning program the guy at compusa said I "needed" to burn movies. Before I opened the box I researched here. Needless to say I returned it and customer service got a fricking earful. Besides could you imagine if chevy put out a truck that needed fixing right after you got it and continously needed to be fixed. People would boycott that shit. Yet microshaft has made it a science to produce buggy programs. [ + quote]
jacsac (Member) 6 October 2005 12:27
How many programs would I actually pay for? None. When I first bought my burner I bought a dvd burning program the guy at compusa said I "needed" to burn movies. Before I opened the box I researched here. Needless to say I returned it and customer service got a fricking earful. Besides could you imagine if chevy put out a truck that needed fixing right after you got it and continously needed to be fixed. People would boycott that shit. Yet microshaft has made it a science to produce buggy programs. [ + quote]
nlm1976 (Junior Member) 6 October 2005 20:05
It's all a load of crap! Don't they realize the more they try to prevent pirating, the more priating will be done?!?! These are supposed to be smart people, so why are they so dumb?!?! [ + quote]
chesty (Inactive) 6 October 2005 20:55
Whenever I think about Bill Gates Microsoft corporation and windows xp I really could not feel sorry for a greedy palooka Like Bill Gates. I mean windows xp is grossly overpriced crashes a lot even with the best of hardware regardless if it's a Intel or Amd equipment. I assemble my own computers and windows xp takes about an average of one hour to download into the computer harddrive. God The frickin' thing is as slow as molasses in a vermont winter. To add insult to injury Bill gates is such a paranoid poophead when it comes to piracy of his crappy product. He reminds me of DAFFY DUCK. You can't even make a backup copy of a windows xp operating system cd rom. The cd rom costs an average of $85.00 to $ 115.00 for windows xp standard in the united states. That cost is included in the cost of assembling a computer EACH per computer. I almost forget to mention windows xp is frought with security integrity and and microsoft's MICKEY MOUSE use of program patches . What a MICKEY MOUSE SETUP!!!!!!!! Actually windows xp is grossly overpriced and a ripoff and by rights i would not give more than $35.00 or $40.00 dollars for it. Bill gates sure runs a racket!!! In conclusion i do not feel sorry for ilk like bill gates when chinese made clones of his poopy operating system show up on the blackmarket for a fraction of the cost. You can't get much by the microsoft server when activating windows xp. It can even detect bootleg versions of the program !! [ + quote]
myndphuk (Junior Member) 6 October 2005 23:29
Quote: It can even detect bootleg versions of the program !! No, only certain bootleg versions, not all of them ;-) [ + quote]
Phantom69 (Senior Member) 8 October 2005 0:40
i personaly am thinking of switching to linux as Windows has too many problems and y'now what the funny thing is... in a way it is because of microsoft that all the piracy has started... Mac is too crappy to have file sharing and stuff + all of its software is basicaly shareware... Linux is innocent and as far as i know pretty much has no file sharing apps so that leaves windows... Everything that is pirated is probably pirated on a windows computer, all the software is available for Windows, it is microsofts fault for creating such a popular OS... PS: i stick with windows because it is the most compatible and all my games are made for it... Such as Halo which i have to say is one of the few/many great things coming from microsoft... (why "/": because there are upsides and downsides to Microsoft products) over and out... [ + quote]