This study clearly has shock value as it combines seemingly objective data
and emotive language. I have noted a number of misquotations of its
findings in various news announcements and tried to find out how this figure
of 37% is really computed.
But first of all, as to credibility of source: does the Business Software
Alliance (BSA) have any vested interest in artificially inflating or
deflating this figure? The International Planning and Research (IPR)
organisation which seems to have advised the BSA says that 'BSA educates
computer users on software copyrights; advocates public policy that fosters
innovation and expands trade opportunities; and fights software piracy.'
The BSA report at http://www.bsa.org/resources/2001-05-21.55.pdf concludes
that 'To ensure a high level of confidence, member companies of BSA reviewed
the results of the study and their input was used to validate and refine the
study assumptions'.
This sounds like an inherently highly risky procedure for obtaining the
truth. But to press on...
The methodology, from what I can understand of it, compares the number of
computers sold to each country with the amount of software sold to that
country (lots of various 'adjustments' for replacements, maturity etc the
bases of which are not explained). The number of computers sold is then
multiplied by a number (again, all highly convoluted, but no hard details as
to where these magic numbers come from) to give a figure for the demand for
software given the hardware sales. The difference between this demand
figure and the amount of software actually sold is the amount of 'piracy'.
This is in fact a gross simplification of their actual methodology but seems
to be the essence of it. It relies a lot on magic numbers.
In comparison to the coyness of the description of how all the magic numbers
are computed, the final data, *is* displayed in glorious detail per country,
per year, dollar loss, etc.
If the way the magic numbers were arrived at is fair and above board, then
it would make sense to publish details of the process in order to boost the
confidence of the report and to show that not only does it make an emotive
point, but that it has good grounds for doing so. Otherwise, given the
source, one may be tempted to dismiss it on the grounds of possible
self-interest by the authors (if they wish to fight software piracy, they
could hardly publish a report which says that software piracy doesn't exist,
could they?)
I spoke last summer to a technical manager of a medium-sized company in one
of the so-called 'black spots' of software piracy fingered in the report.
He told me that when they up-sized, the company had moved from MS Office to
Star Office, because the latter was being given away for free. He also told
me of how the company sourced shareware and freeware because he didn't trust
'black-market stuff'. Shareware is usually an order of magnitude cheaper
than commercial stuff, and you often get to keep in touch with the folk that
created it as well. He and I have remained in contact and swapped some
interesting resources, so it isn't all talk.
His approach sounded eminently rational to me: if you're poor, buy the
hardware and find free- and share-ware on the web. All of a sudden, the
conclusions of BSA report sounded a lot more risky to me.
Jurek Kirakowski, HFRG, Ireland http://hfrg.ucc.ie/ http://hfrg.ucc.ie/jk/ [jk via risks-digest Volume 21, Issue 44]
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