Is there software piracy?
Yes.
Is there a lot?
Possibly. Depends on what it's relative to. "A lot" could be 200 copies of Photoshop, or 500,000 copies of Windows XP.
Should we question anyone who says they have accurate figures regarding software piracy?
Hell yes we should.
I'm curious as to their source of numbers. Oh, there's a PDF file in the article. I'll go read that. Be back in a bit.
Huh, or not. Dunno if it's my PC but the PDF link is going no where. Blank page, no download prompt. Just seems to be lagging out my fire- nevermind, there it is. God that took forever. Probably something to do with the unnecessary showy pictures on the front.
Okay, page 17 shows that their basic piracy equation is Piracy %=Pirated software units/total software units installed.
And they obtain this data using annual surveys, this annual survey in question being 6,200 responses (3,600 consumer, 2,600 worker) across 24 countries which my calculator tells me is about 258.3 responses per country on average.
Overlooking that's a small size, I also call into question the reliability of the survey. For one, you're relying on people understanding a degree of technical language to distinguish between one software type and another - something I know that a lot of people won't understand. Some will, no doubt, and humanity is only becoming more tech savvy as we push forward through time, but people still get confused.
I have a friend, lovely lass of 18, struggles to use Excel and Powerpoint (but can use facebook flawlessly, surprise surprise). She wouldn't know what she was doing with this survey. She's not the only one either. A number of my university classmates aren't exactly tech wizzes and if I asked them what the difference between hardware and software was, I'd be honestly surprised if they gave me the correct answer. Oh yes, we have our people like myself who understand the difference between one and the other, but these are people who grew up around computers in the technological age. I can't imagine the prospective numbers for those older than myself are any better. Not saying those who have hit the big two zero and gone beyond are all technologically illiterate, not at all. Merely that I suspect the ratio of those who are to those who aren't isn't leaning in one direction as much as the youths.
Second, it's reliant on accurate reports. A great fictional physician once said "Everybody lies." Surveys are no different. Relying on user reports rather than hard data is flimsy at best, especially when you're going on such a small number per country.
It hardly gets better from there. For countries that weren't surveyed, they either use old data (shouldn't be included in an up-to-date report, should merely be referred back to) or 'proxy' countries. Which, again, appears to be relying on those flimsy 260-some responses from the countries they did bother to survey.
I'm not saying that looking at piracy data is bad. Not at all, people should be interested in such things and I'm sure it's a useful tool for investors, but I've barely spent 10 minutes reading this report and already I'm seeing numerous holes in their data collection. I can't believe they actually published this tripe.
