Piracy Stats Don't Add Up 258
arenam writes to tell us Australian IT is reporting that a recent briefing for the Attorney-General's Department prepared by the Australian Institute of Criminology draws certain piracy statistics into question. From the article: "The draft of the institute's intellectual property crime report, sighted by The Australian shows that copyright owners 'failed to explain' how they reached financial loss statistics used in lobbying activities and court cases. Figures for 2005 from the global Business Software Association showing $361 million a year of lost sales in Australia are 'unverified and epistemologically unreliable,' the report says."
in other news (Score:5, Funny)
In other news, the sky outside appears to be a "blue" color, and when dropped, most objects behave in a "falling" manner.
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- Greg
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Re:in other news (Score:5, Funny)
For the LAST time... (Score:2, Insightful)
Election infringement is NOT theft, you still have your election after all!!! Calling this a "stolen" election is playing right into the hands of giant corperashuns.
Service infringement is NOT theft, you still have your services after all!!! Calling it "theft of services" is playing right into the hands of giant corperashuns.
Sincerely yours,
Brickheaded Literal
Re:For the LAST time... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:For the LAST time... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:For the LAST time... (Score:5, Insightful)
Informative? Hrm...
Ok, first off: "pro-piracy blowhards"; what does that mean? Do you mean someone like myself who feels that copyright law is no longer serving its purpose as intended by the constitution, and that its abuse is harming the value of copyrights as a tool for regulation? Or, are you simply arm-waving at the teens who haven't yet considered the implications of their actions, and are just downloading whatever they want because it's the path of least resistance?
Personally, I think the two are connected. I think the average teens that download music or movies or whatever, in violation of copyright, are doing so because the copyright system has never seemed like something that matters to anyone they know. It's not equitable, so there's no sense that you are "stealing" or depriving anyone of anything. Artists tell us that they're not being compensated for their work (in fact many of them go into debt when producing music specifically), and we constantly hear of large studios (for film, television and music) abusing their power in order to manipulate markets and deprive artists of the fruits of their work.
Under that sort of system, how is it shocking that most people would rather "steal" than pay to support the system? Now, if we had a system of automatic licensing, and zero penalties for revenueless electronic duplication, THEN I think you would see an increase in the number of people who wanted to support the system. After all, if you know an artist or two who really benefit from the system, you're going to feel that it's worth it. If you know an artist for two who get screwed by the system....
As for theft vs. infringement: there are three offenses. The first is a violation of federal law, such as the DMCA. That's a federal crime, but it's not theft. There is copyright infringement. That's a sort of logical theft, but under the law, the two are very distinct. Be clear about which you are talking about: the law or the common expression. Then there is license violation. That's a strictly civil matter between two parties over an agreement which is broken, and which is theft in exactly no ways. Theft under the law has nothing to do with copyright infringement. That's just the way it is.
It's important to point out that words like "theft" simply muddy the watrer, and combine concepts which should not be combined.
Roll it back to 28 years (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:For the LAST time... (Score:5, Insightful)
Calling those theft are just helping ruin the English language.
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Like that sentence...
You're right about the rest though
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Hint: expression takes human judgment. Language isn't logic.
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If you want to use analogies with crimes.
Copyright infringement is to theft as assault is to murder.
No one argues that assault is murder. Even though both are a crime, I'd rather be punched in the face than shot in the face.
One I can of course sue the other in a civil court and the other... Well... The other all I can hope for is a criminal case because I won't be around to care or enjoy my court settlement.
And downloading is not "piracy"... (Score:3, Funny)
...unless you say "YARR!" while you're doing it.
Epistemologically (Score:3, Funny)
Perhaps the most suitable punishment for lying lobbyists (is there another kind?) would be to be beaten over the head with philosophy textbooks until they coluld tell their episteme from their noesis.
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Re:Epistemologically (Score:5, Funny)
Bush used this word three days ago. Granted he was trying to discuss the beliefs of Episcopalians, but technically he did use this word.
Silly pirates... (Score:4, Interesting)
"Some industry groups were reluctant to work with researchers, because of concern about data leaking to competitors."
All I could think of was..."Ha..ha...we have more pirates then YOU DO!"
Seriously what kind of "data" could piracy statistics be used by the competition?
Re:Think of the people you're hurting. (Score:4, Insightful)
Who cares about CD's when you only listen to music on your computer, portable MP3 player, or cellphone ? You can blame it on piracy all you want, but it's not going to change a thing; if you don't adapt to the market you have no chance to survive.
It happened to other markets before, think about photo labs & photo films vendors, they are extincting as well because people are only interested into digicams now. The same is happening with music, CD is an outdated format and thinking you could still make a living out of selling CDs in 10+ years is just foolish - even if piracy were to stop.
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Psst, hey buddy, the post in question is plagiarized and it's 4 years old.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=77984&cid=6925 930 [slashdot.org]
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/10/2/103735/275 [kuro5hin.org]
YHBT.
HTH.
--
BMO
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Think in marketing terms (Score:3, Insightful)
Your busines should be making people entertained by music
Concentrate on the client, not the product!
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There is only one number they can be sure of (Score:4, Interesting)
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Bribing politicians is illegal in Australia and we have actually put corrupt polititions in jail so we don't have a powerful lobby system like the USA. It is also a lot cheaper to run for office than it is in the USA so large donations are not as necessary. That said - people have got residency visas almost immediately after donating to the right party so corruption does still exist - it's just there are checks and balances that keep it down an
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Hmmmm, wonder if that has anything to do with Australia starting life as a British penal colony? Sorry, couldn't restist.
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No offence taken, mate. According to the state records of New South Wales, our first policemen were convicts. :)
The following is from The NSW State Government Archives [nsw.gov.au]:
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- have
to vote" - really? How is this enforced? What's the penalty for not voting?Re: (Score:2)
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have to vote, else, face severe fines
and probably jail time.
Voting is a legal obligation, I hope
something like that is enacted here
in Mexico too.
-gca
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I don't know what the penalties are for not appearing, but I have a vague recollection that you can be fined.
John
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they enforce it simply by checking your name off the list of registered voters when you turn in your ballot.
Favor? (Score:3, Insightful)
Favor? These laws make it illegal for me to play DVDs I buy if they use CSS. Obviously, this means I won't buy these DVDs. I don't know how that works in the copyright holders' favor...
Reasoning (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Reasoning (Score:4, Interesting)
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In court, they do not even try to equate them, their figure is more in the line of 1 download = 100 to 1000 lost sales.
Wasn't that uploads?
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Sure it is. Hell, I lost $4 million in record sales last year because I haven't put out an album and don't have any musical talent. I wonder who I can sue.
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Fair Enough
> and don't have any musical talent
That is no barrier to releasing an album - see most of the charts for further info.
Is this really going to change things? (Score:3, Insightful)
First Impression (Score:2, Insightful)
If the author of the article wants to be taken seriously, he may want to do more than a basic spell check. I would think strong written skills would be reasonably important as a journalist. Perhaps not.
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Anyone who thinks the article's author really meant the word 'sighted', is as clueless as he is. 'Sighted' in this context makes no sense; especially when it's a homonym for a word very commonly used in that context.
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You tell me which makes more sense.
1) Use of the word "sighted" instead of "seen" when "seen" is shorter, more common in English and more easily understood by readers. In other words, your contention is that we have to believe that the writer deliberately chose an unusual verb in English to describe something rather simple.
2) Another ignorant writer who
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Sighted is used correctly in this instance.
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A spell checker wouldn't have picked that up anyway as both "sighted" and "cited" are valid, correctly spelled English words.
The correct word to use in this context is, in fact, "seen".
Pirated software is not a full loss (Score:5, Insightful)
Additionally, one must consider the fact that if an application is popular among pirates, it is also likely to sell more copies of its software, simply because more people spread the word about this particular software.
Last but not least, some people do buy software only after using it for some time. A perfect example is Photoshop. It's a typical application that requires a lot of time to learn and costs too much to just "check out" (and I'm aware of the trial version). Some of the graphics artists who find out that this really is a useful and valuable tool, may also purchase the application. So for starters, they help spread the word of Photoshop and they also become potential buyers.
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Now, most software includes a CD, a slender manual and a huge glossy box. Let's assume there's an application with a retail price of $799. If someone nicks a copy
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That's not completely true:
Pirates want support for steam. [arstechnica.com]
Windows Genuine Advantage [microsoft.com] was created to prevent having to provide support for pirates.
Those are the only two cases I found quickly, but I'm sure there are others.
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First off, you have to choose your region. Fine, that's not a big deal. Then if you're not allowing cookies, you're required to. Ok, I enabled those for that site. Now? Nope, site doesn't work in firefox. I get a blank page. So I open it in Internet Exploder and what do I get? No it still won't let me buy Photoshop. Instead, it tries to make you buy the suite. "Before you choose, consider getting Adobe Photo
I'll save everyone some time... (Score:3, Informative)
You're welcome
Report for the AG, not by... (Score:2)
Did They Check (Score:4, Funny)
Did they check their ass? That's usually where these statistics are pulled out of.
Yes of course... (Score:3, Funny)
More slashdot obfucscation (Score:3, Interesting)
Let's discuss the real issues, shall we?
More elephants! (Score:2)
Another elephant in the room is "are technical measures to prevent copying actually being circumvented in massive quantities by potential customers?", and another is "do we need additional legal
Whether piracy is wrong or not isn't the point (Score:4, Insightful)
In reference to this specific article, however, the salient points would appear to be:
1) The RIAA are using deceit and subterfuge as weapons.
2) A body that has influence on policy decisions noticed.
This naturally hurts the RIAA, but to what degree, and for how long, remains to be seen, and might be a more fruitful use of the
"sighted"? (Score:2)
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No, no. He means that John Howard saw the draft.
He was reported as saying, "Yeah, that's a draft. Now where's my draught?"
Pursuant to recent articles:downloading music (Score:2)
Therefore, I propose a new way to answer software piracy articles, such that the flooding hundreds of discussion posts will all align nicely.
I propose that we post answers like, "software wants to be free - the
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How many Ferraris do you expect to aquire from being a programmer, and in how long ? How many multi-million dollar mansions do you expect to own from the proceeds of programming ?
Do you think you or anybody else is really worth that much more than anybody else, that they receive these things by governmental fief ? Do you really thi
Re:this is rather good (Score:5, Insightful)
That comment seems reasonable to me. Assuming the 2000 PCs sold was a fairly random sample (as opposed to, say, some guy selling them in the lobby of some Linux conference or something), and that none of them came with Windows (old or new) installed, only having 100 licenses purchases for that bundle almost certainly does point to piracy. An OS with around 90% desktop market share that only sells enough licenses to account for 5% of computers would be a colossal statistical anomaly without some explanation, and in this case piracy seems a reasonable one. It becomes less reasonable if they claimed that there were 1900 copies pirated because it fails to account for other OS choices that may have be used.
The real problem is with things like, "1700 copies of XP were pirated -- at $200 a copy, we've lost $340,000!!!" Because that's just bunk. Most of the people who pirated XP would never have paid for it, so it is not a lost sale.
That is what the music industry is doing. In fact they are worse, because I'm fairly certain they're going "1700 songs were pirated -- at $12 a CD..." despite the fact that there may be multiple songs on a CD downloaded, etc.
Re:this is rather good (Score:5, Informative)
But man does that have the potential to screw up the piracy stats!
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That argument is repeated over and over, yet there's no way to test it.
Let's assume a theoretical universe where it is absolutely, positively, categorically impossible to pirate XP. Not "difficult". Impossible.
Let us further assume that, just like in this universe, XP has 90%+ market share.
What's more likely:
1. Something else will take market share.
2. Sales of PCs without operating systems are almost entirely unhea
Re:this is rather good (Score:5, Insightful)
No piracy. No lost sales.
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No idea if this has been accepted in a court of law yet, though.
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2. I have the same box that I originally installed XP on. Although all of the actual bits that make up the PC have been replaced at least once. --- Sort of a "Same broom, several different handles, several different heads" kinda thing.
I really dont think I have violated their license, as it had no connection to a specific PC and I only ever have had it installed on one PC, despite that PC changing.
I could easily buy a new PC and then install t
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No way windows would have 90%+ market share if not gor the EasyPirate(TM) feature.
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Site Licences already mentioned,
Transfering os from an older system to a new one. certainly legal if you bought a retail licence and didn't Xp allow you to install on 2 PC's (Desktop / Laptop).
buying a copy for a better price from elsewhere.
Ubuntu installs and other Linux versions.
Other Windows Versions 2000, ME or 98SE (st
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No, it didn't.
"You may install, use, access, display and run one copy of the Software on a single computer" (emphasis mine).
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>period of six months or so, and a control group which maintains normal habits, then
>analyze how much each group spends on music.
And if they spend more, what do they spend less on. Add in things like movies, games and also non purchable costs such as going to the movie, concerts and so on and see how it is all affected. Then we are starting to get closer to any effects and who it affects and in what way. After al
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Aye, and most of those do. Lack of demos/evaluations/express editions is a strawman argument for warez, usualloy combined with an artifical inflation of need. It's much easier to say "I couldn't afford $1000 for Photoshop" when in reality you were
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I've bought expensive software before, including a CAD package that was over $2k. All software I've ever used, even the commercial s
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Pork sausage... (Score:2)
That is true, you can't download unlicensed copies of expensive bottles of luxury liquor off the internet, so theft!=piracy. However, the following logic: 'Baloney! The
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See how easy it is?