Half of World's PCs 'Use Pirated Software'

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Considering half of world's PCs are in China, I can honestly say I am not surprised. ;)

The survey of 15,000 PC users in 32 countries showed Chinese users have the most relaxed attitude to piracy. As many as 86 percent of computer users in the country acquire their software illegally most or all of the time, the survey showed.
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Over there software is sold by the pound!

But seriously its pretty easy to get a lot of the software, you don't even need to be that tech savy.
Not surprising at all.
 
The lower the standard of living, the higher the amount of piracy. You don't have to be a sociologist to figure this out Steve.
 
USA is still number 1 in sheer stolen wealth though...and that is ALSO funny because its true.
 
AdamNesvick said:
The lower the standard of living, the higher the amount of piracy. You don't have to be a sociologist to figure this out Steve.
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That's liberal bullshit. The cost of software overseas is cost-adjusted to the income levels. People just don't want to pay for software they can get for free.

The Chinese are the biggest offenders, and their government will do nothing to stop them.
 
kirbyrj said:
That's liberal bullshit. The cost of software overseas is cost-adjusted to the income levels. People just don't want to pay for software they can get for free.

The Chinese are the biggest offenders, and their government will do nothing to stop them.
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your joking right?
 
Don't worry Steve.. I am all hush hush about who made a copy of all those floppy you gav.. I mean.. I found on the side of the road with your help. You're safe! The cops will never find them.. I hid them well..

floppy-disk-car.jpg


floppy-disk-car-closeup.jpg
 
kirbyrj said:
That's liberal bullshit. The cost of software overseas is cost-adjusted to the income levels. People just don't want to pay for software they can get for free.

The Chinese are the biggest offenders, and their government will do nothing to stop them.
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And the reason why people all over the world (aside from China) pirate software?

I'm going to go with crap for an economy and shitty wages.

And the only thing I have noticed on the cost adjustment between here and the UK, is the monetary symbol for the currency, decimal number is almost always the same.

Example http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=SW-131-MS Windows 7 in the UK costs 149.99, over here from Newegg http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116997 it costs $189.99, now if you convert the pounds into dollars, they are actually making $90 more from the UK sale with a grand total of $239.74, and when I was living there, I was earning 3/4 less than what I make here, so yeah I'm not surprised piracy is still popular.
 
Outamyhead said:
And the reason why people all over the world (aside from China) pirate software?

I'm going to go with crap for an economy and shitty wages.

And the only thing I have noticed on the cost adjustment between here and the UK, is the monetary symbol for the currency, decimal number is almost always the same.

Example http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=SW-131-MS Windows 7 in the UK costs 149.99, over here from Newegg http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116997 it costs $189.99, now if you convert the pounds into dollars, they are actually making $90 more from the UK sale with a grand total of $239.74, and when I was living there, I was earning 3/4 less than what I make here, so yeah I'm not surprised piracy is still popular.
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I don't know about china but Europeans get burned hard on just about all software. I had to buy MW2 on steam for my teenaged brother-in-law who lives in belgium. 59.99 euros for that game. At the time it ended up being around $100. Pretty unfair in my mind. After that if he wants games I just buy them in the states. Then again my wife just went to belgium for medical stuff thats free over there but in the $10K range stateside. Plane ticket was $1500. Ironies of world economy I spose.
 
Dear all,

One of the alternative ways of researching this issue for software companies focus in conducting normal sales activities is that --> They are now engaging more and more through App Store model.

Before some start blasting Apple, as customary note yes it begins with FreeBSD ports and Linux repository, Apple and many commercial entities are now very determine to implement it. What it does is having a complete cycle from start to end processing of software purchase with certain operation engagement acceptable to such software development entities.

In plain English, certain software companies know they have good applications, are downloaded, software purchased with good and reasonably fast statistics for review, and app store framework and implementation that address common-sense protective mechanism for their products. Lesser piracy issue maybe.

Obviously App Store model has other issues in actual implementation, so it is only one of the ways as stated.
 
I stopped pirating software a little after every Tom, Dick, and Harry could just jump on Kazaa, Napster, or a torrent site. I loved having to work for my software via IRC channels and FTP servers. Pirated software was a commodity and you had to have something to offer before you got access to their server. It felt more underground and was alot more rewarding. Time period was around middle to end of the 90's.
 
kirbyrj said:
That's liberal bullshit. The cost of software overseas is cost-adjusted to the income levels. People just don't want to pay for software they can get for free.

The Chinese are the biggest offenders, and their government will do nothing to stop them.
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Ok let's make the test:

In Poland:
Windows 7 HP box - 175 euro average salary 800 euro/month
PS3/X360 game - around 54-50 euro(60 recommended)
PC box game - 25-30 euro (ok those are cheap)
steam pricing - european standard

I have a feeling you can buy a buy a bit more than 4 Windows boxes or 15 console games per month with average American salary :D
 
People Pirate because they can. It's that simple. If you know there is a way where you can get something for free, your going to do it. It doesn't matter if you have a job or make good money or not. I have known many people who says they would not download software illegally but is funny as soon as they become aware of where to get it and how to use it they always download something illegally.

In any case I do not blame the people who download software or even the Groups of people who releases pirated software but the computer industry itself... These days any new computer comes with a DVD/CD/Blu-Ray recordable device and the media for it is sold in large quantity at dirt cheap price. Really..... What do you need a 25 pack of DVD-R's for that could possibly be legal?
 
kirbyrj said:
That's liberal bullshit. The cost of software overseas is cost-adjusted to the income levels. People just don't want to pay for software they can get for free.

The Chinese are the biggest offenders, and their government will do nothing to stop them.
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I swear, every time I hear the word liberal I know someone has been watching Fox 5. I would be using Linux by now, had if all my applications I like using were ported over to it. I still want Steam ported over to Linux.

I find myself installing more and more open source software lately, and it's purely by accident. I'd imagine this piracy issue will fade away, once an OS like Linux becomes mainstream. Though when that happens is anyone's guess.

BTW, how do you cost adjusted for people who are flat broke? Some people don't understand that if it wasn't for piracy, some of us wouldn't be able to get into certain areas of computing. The way the industry is moving, going to friends house to use Photoshop on his PC is considered piracy.
 
shatterstar said:
What do you need a 25 pack of DVD-R's for that could possibly be legal?
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Backing up all my Linux Distros :)

Actually I can easily go through several 25 packs a month at work, since I create the production software disk we ship to customers, and the demo disk too.

As for home, I find a 100 pack lasts quit a while, even when I make home movie DVD's for family members, or recordings of the kids school fuctions.
 
shatterstar said:
People Pirate because they can. It's that simple. If you know there is a way where you can get something for free, your going to do it. It doesn't matter if you have a job or make good money or not. I have known many people who says they would not download software illegally but is funny as soon as they become aware of where to get it and how to use it they always download something illegally.

In any case I do not blame the people who download software or even the Groups of people who releases pirated software but the computer industry itself... These days any new computer comes with a DVD/CD/Blu-Ray recordable device and the media for it is sold in large quantity at dirt cheap price. Really..... What do you need a 25 pack of DVD-R's for that could possibly be legal?
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Or people pirate because they can't afford the price tag, as their wages are f#@king awful, if you haven't been unemployed for a while, lived in a European country, working for minimum wage, or for the fun of it, all three, you probably wouldn't grasp the reality of the situation, yeah even England was a shit hole when I lived there, and I was living with my parents too.

The main legit reasons I can think of having 25 DVD-R's would be:- system backup, saving photo's, saving iTunes/music/media, saving important documents, daily backups if you work from home, sending photos to family and friends without wasting an entire forest in the process.
 
piscian18 said:
I don't know about china but Europeans get burned hard on just about all software. I had to buy MW2 on steam for my teenaged brother-in-law who lives in belgium. 59.99 euros for that game. At the time it ended up being around $100. Pretty unfair in my mind. After that if he wants games I just buy them in the states. Then again my wife just went to belgium for medical stuff thats free over there but in the $10K range stateside. Plane ticket was $1500. Ironies of world economy I spose.
Click to expand...

I remember this issue being raised, once or twice, on Steam's forums and the reason given was that their contracts required Steam to match regular store prices, which were hyperinflated compared to US prices on the games because of the import duties and such.
 
Why do people pirate? When I was younger I go $10 allowance a month, and yet I didn't pirate I saved money and bought the games I wanted. I don't get why people have to pirate. Even people on this forum pirate, its just sad how low you can get.
 
The people in these countries get the means to pirate things for very cheap
I mean, who wouldn't pay 5 cents for a DVD-R?
With stuff like this readily available, it's very easy to make the distribution of pirated software attainable. I wouldn't be surprised at all if there were booths like the ones at the mall in these countries just loaded up with pirated software for distribution.
 
xIronCrossx said:
Why do people pirate? When I was younger I go $10 allowance a month, and yet I didn't pirate I saved money and bought the games I wanted. I don't get why people have to pirate. Even people on this forum pirate, its just sad how low you can get.
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Software is sold with no return policy and the way games are pushed out the door these days with alpha or beta QA levels, there's a decent chance it won't run stably on your system. How many real items would you buy from a store if they offered no return policy, no demo model, and couldn't guarantee it would work properly in the first place?
Don't forget, there's also the same item available for free next door.


I pirate to demo, and it's saved me a TON of money over the years on crappy software. Software companies releasing unfinished, unstable, falsely advertised pieces of crap have no problem trying to take my money.
 
Outamyhead said:
Or people pirate because they can't afford the price tag, as their wages are f#@king awful, if you haven't been unemployed for a while, lived in a European country, working for minimum wage, or for the fun of it, all three, you probably wouldn't grasp the reality of the situation, yeah even England was a shit hole when I lived there, and I was living with my parents too.

The main legit reasons I can think of having 25 DVD-R's would be:- system backup, saving photo's, saving iTunes/music/media, saving important documents, daily backups if you work from home, sending photos to family and friends without wasting an entire forest in the process.
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Why not just pirate the 25 DVD-R's? Oh, because there is real world consequences. If the ability to pirate software easily was gone tomorrow, there wouldn't be any justification as to 'why' because the act itself wouldn't be practical. Therefore, people would either choose to miss out or prioritize what software they wanted to buy. This popular pic sums it up:

090720-download-a-car.jpg


Basically, if car piracy was practical and there were no real world consequences, there would be all kinds of justifications for pirating cars. "My car broke down so I used this one.", "I couldn't afford a car, so I pirated it.", "I just wanted to take it for a test first before I bought it."

People pirate things because they can, only after that does a pseudo-justification follow.
 
In China, most of the pirated movies can't be obtained via any other method. They're not released there in any way.

As for software, well the middle class is on the their way up and don't have an excuse. But there are still hundreds of millions of people living lives that are hard for forum-goers here to comprehend, and as much as it may be "liberal bullshit" :rolleyes: to suggest that citizens of the richest country in the history of mankind might be out of touch with real-life wages and costs in 3rd world countries...it's still the damn truth.
 
Honestly I do not pirate software like I used to.

Reasons:

1. Pirating software is a pain in the arse (unless you do it regularly). Most applications have a free alternative that work pretty well, especially for personal use. Photoshop -> GIMP. WinZIP -> WinRAR (or builtin) MS Office -> OpenOffice etc etc etc

2. I have more money... Honestly I now have a real job and can pay for any software that I really need and use.


Reasons why I would still pirate if needed:

1. Temporary/limited use for niche software that is more expensive then worth aka more then $40 for a non-commonly used app (aka non used every week at least).
 
Kueller said:
Software is sold with no return policy and the way games are pushed out the door these days with alpha or beta QA levels, there's a decent chance it won't run stably on your system. How many real items would you buy from a store if they offered no return policy, no demo model, and couldn't guarantee it would work properly in the first place?
Don't forget, there's also the same item available for free next door.


I pirate to demo, and it's saved me a TON of money over the years on crappy software. Software companies releasing unfinished, unstable, falsely advertised pieces of crap have no problem trying to take my money.
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Then get a clue about the game before buying it. There is no reason to pirate games. If you are that scared of wasting money then don't buy it on release day, let other people test it who buy it and seek their opinions. Like I said, if I managed to get by with $120 a year for video games, how is it so hard for everyone else to get by with even more money? Just don't buy random games that might interest you, look into them before. But who am I kidding that is asking to much of everyone, rather just pirate it and play it :rolleyes:
 
The majority of people that use Photoshop, 3DSMax, Maya, etc outside of a business or educational enviornment downloaded it illegaly.

In this case its beneficial for the software company because no way would those people have spent $500-$5000 for a piece of software. But because they did download it they are now ready to use it in a business enviornment who will purchase it.
 
xIronCrossx said:
Why do people pirate? When I was younger I go $10 allowance a month, and yet I didn't pirate I saved money and bought the games I wanted. I don't get why people have to pirate. Even people on this forum pirate, its just sad how low you can get.
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Piracy helps the industry more than it hurts, pretty much everyone in a media major at my college, found out they enjoyed it by pirating photoshop when they were younger. Same with the IT guys, try purchasing a copy of windows 7 @ $300 on your $10 a month allowance to play around with some old hardware. How about learning Photoshop? Only $3,000. I don't pirate software anymore because now that I am in college I can get "discounts" that bring this software down to reasonable levels (only $100 for MS word, what a steal!). I will still pirate games occasionally. If they turn out to be good (like Mass Effect), I will buy them, if they turn out like crysis 2, I wont.
 
I have to admit, when I was on a PC, I pirated all the time.

Then again, I was in high school/college back then.

Now that I'm mostly Mac, and I have a job, I purchase nearly all my applications.

I don't know if it's because there are a lot of talented indie developers on the Mac that I can feel like my money is going towards a good cause, or maybe it's because I just have a job and can afford it.
 
Heres the other thing that grinds my gears. From the begining computers and the Internet have always been about being able to spread information. Always.

But then various businesses looked at the computer and the Internet and thought "hey we could use this to make a bunch of money cause its so easy". But then they want to change the rules to better suit and protect them. If they want to come here they should play by the rules set forth before they got here. Not this DMCA & Protect IP Act crap. If they think digital is dangerous then stay away.
 
xIronCrossx said:
Then get a clue about the game before buying it. There is no reason to pirate games. If you are that scared of wasting money then don't buy it on release day, let other people test it who buy it and seek their opinions. Like I said, if I managed to get by with $120 a year for video games, how is it so hard for everyone else to get by with even more money? Just don't buy random games that might interest you, look into them before. But who am I kidding that is asking to much of everyone, rather just pirate it and play it :rolleyes:
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Other people testing the game wont tell you how it runs on your hardware. My friend purchased Halo Reach on a friend's recommendation. His internet is flakey in a way that gets his account flagged for exploiting the credit system (he gets a bunch of 100ms long disconnects), so the game is unplayable at his home. He has no problems with other online games at his home.
 
xIronCrossx said:
Then get a clue about the game before buying it.
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Last time I did that I wasted $60 on a turd of a game called Halo(oh yes I said it, the Halo series sucked). CDs are by far the worse $15 for 12 songs and only 2 or 3 or worth it

Try before you buy, it always pays off in the end.
 
DarkStar_WNY said:
I remember this issue being raised, once or twice, on Steam's forums and the reason given was that their contracts required Steam to match regular store prices, which were hyperinflated compared to US prices on the games because of the import duties and such.
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oh no, I don't blame steam. The publishers dictate the pricing though Valve does make suggestions and negotiations or so I'm told. That's why Indie games tend to be more reasonably priced and go on sale more often than not. It's just messed up. I'm told theres a huge underground market for people in Australia importing games illegally and paying people in the states to purchase games for their steam accounts. I've been propositioned in this manner a few times. Though I'm told Australians tend to get the worst end of the scale on software prices. game prices surpass the $100's there in some cases.
 
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