Thread: BSA Admits Overinstallation “Most Common” Form of Piracy in Developing Countries

Business Software Alliance’s (BSA) 2010 Global Software Piracy Study finds the most common form of piracy in developing economies is to illegally install purchased software on multiple PCs, and not purchasing bootleg copies as one would expect.

The Business Software Alliance continues to single out developing countries in its annual Global Software Piracy Study, this time accusing them of rampant overinstallation.

“The most common way people in developing economies engage in software piracy is to buy a single, legal copy of a program and then install it on multiple computers — including in enterprises,” reads the 2010 BSA Piracy Study.

Think about this for a minute. We’re not talking about people purchasing bootleg copies of software on the street corner, or illegally downloading copies online, we’re talking about people not buying enough copies to satisfy the BSA.

And again the top five countries (in the same exact order) are: Georgia (93%), Zimbabwe(91%), Bangladesh(90%), Moldova(90%), and Armenia(90%).

Unsurprisingly, again the the top five countries with the with the lowest rates of piracy are: the United States(20%), Japan(20%), Luxembourg(20%), New Zealand(22%), and Australia(25%).

It’s clearly obvious why – income. According to the CIA, Georgia ranks 151st in per capita GDP while the US ranks 10th; Zimbabwe ranks 226th while Japan ranks 38th; Bangladesh ranks 195th while Luxembourg ranks 3rd.
You get the idea.

The Social Science Research Council (SSRC), a U.S.-based independent nonprofit organization, released a report a few months ago that said piracy can best be seen as a “failure of affordable access.” Media Piracy in Emerging Economies said that high prices for media goods, combined with low incomes, and relatively cheap digital technologies are the main ingredients of global media piracy.

Regardless, in response to this latest BSA study, the SSRC’s Joe Karaganis said that if overinstallation was such a problem in developing countries why couldn’t software vendors solve the problem themselves by limiting multiple installations?

Could it be that the BSA needs those figures to inflate the $58.8 billion it attributes to the global commercial value of PC software piracy?

Moreover, is it really any surprise that the countries with the least amount of software piracy have the highest rates of income and vice versa?




Source = ZeroPaid.com : BSA Admits Overinstallation “Most Common” Form of Piracy in Developing Countries

So I guess income does correlate linearly with the level of piracy, after all. How unexpected! I actually think "overinstallation" shouldn't be considered piracy in the first place. If I can install a PC game that cost me $50 on as many computers as I wish, why wouldn't I be able to do the same with a professional 3D graphical software that cost me $4000....