| reply to time to choose
Re: i guess they realize Oh, and the BSA are nothing more than well-paid liars. From the linked article:
quote:
"They can't force developing countries like us to solely use legal software since we can't afford it. They want us to gradually reduce our use of it."
quote:
It said the losses due to counterfeit programs amounted to almost US$8bn. ... The problem is particularly acute in Indonesia. Counterfeit software makes up 87% of software on the market in Indonesia, according to BSA figures.
If the question is not one of whether or not the assumed "purchasers" made a choice whether or not to pay the asking price for the "legitimate" version of the software, but whether they simply CANNOT AFFORD to pay that price - then the BSA's claims of "losses" simply cannot be true. There never would have been that number of legitimate sales, at that price, anyways.
But at least with "piracy", those particular "popular" products gain market-share and awareness within those markets. I'm sure that MS (secretly) is very glad that Windows and Office are being "pirated", rather than Indonesians simply all switching to a Linux-based solution for their computing needs.
Think of it this way - if your computer's operating-system software, cost you as much as half a year's normal wages, would you pay that? Especially if you could easily purchase an "alternative" copy, for not more than a few hours' worth of wages?
At least in first-world numbers, that would be akin to MS choosing to charge something like $50,000 US dollars for a copy of Windows XP. Would *you* pay that much? And if you couldn't, then would you choose to pirate it, if it was de-facto required, to communicate with your friends and associates living in other countries, and to have business-to-business communications with other commercial companies (at work)? And if so, then would the BSA really be justified in claiming "billions and billions" (to quote the late Carl Sagan) dollars worth of lost sales? Perhaps the *true* reason that the sales were "lost", was simply because the prices were too high in the first place.
Greed has "unfortunate" side-effects now doesn't it? |
