Microsoft has just launched a new Anti-Piracy Day Campaign (quote from custompc.co.uk):
Meanwhile, in the US, Microsoft has announced that it’s taking legal action against 20 software resellers in nine states, which it says ‘allegedly sold pirated copies of Microsoft Windows XP Professional and multiple versions of Office.’ Microsoft’s attorney, Sharon Cates, explained that ‘it is important to take the economic advantage out of pirating and counterfeiting in order to protect partners and customers.’ She also added that ‘Microsoft will continue to work to protect the channel, through resources and initiatives, from businesses that operate dishonestly.’
Microsoft says that ‘the collective impact of piracy in the U.S. is serious,’ and cites the findings of the Fifth Annual BSA/IDC Global Software Piracy Study, claiming that ‘software piracy and counterfeiting cost the U.S. economy more than $8 billion US in 2007 — roughly the equivalent of paying for the entire National School Lunch Program.’
They even have a great video with Rob Mckenna the Attoney General for Washington State is acting as a sock puppet for MS propaganda by making weak claims based on unvetted statistics. (the video is on the bottom of the article) I know Washington loves MS, but can we please stop shilling for outdated business models through fear mongering and start supporting alternatives for the future of this state. I expect MS lawyers to shill but not our AG.
Arcticstoat on slashdot makes a good point it is Microsoft's old products that are killing their new products:
Interestingly enough, unauthorized copies of Vista might not be harming the company all that much: reader twitter was among several to contribute links to a related story at Computer World which highlights Microsoft attorney Bonnie MacNaughton's acknowledgement that pirates prefer Windows XP over Vista and Office 2003 over 2007.
Maybe the issue is the quality of the new products and the unavailability of the old products that is causing the problem.
Michael Masnick also has a great point on how this day of propaganda is inconsistent with Microsoft's own claims about piracy:
Microsoft announce that today it's celebrating "antipiracy day",... Odd, then, that this would be the same company that in the past has admitted that it greatly benefits from piracy of its own products, in establishing worldwide standards and in competing against open source alternatives. The company, apparently, is a bit conflicted.
Read More at:
Well, Masnick correctly highlights that Microsoft benefits greatly from piracy but I simply don’t see the conflict of interest.
For one, their announcement highlights commercial piracy, which is a direct competitor to their legitimate copies on the market.
P2P piracy on the other hand does in most cases not take away from their profits because it helps keep out cheaper products from competitors as well as ensures that once the user needs a legitimate copy he or she will choose Microsoft products.
It’s a thin line to walk between scaring the consumers into paying for their products but not scaring them enough so that they look elsewhere and Microsoft is pretty good at it.
You have a good point Jan on commercial counterfeiting. Going after commercial counterfeiting or people selling software they do not have a right to distribute is understandable. If anyone should be making profit off of Microsoft’s software from direct sales it is Microsoft.
The part the bothers me is the video of the Washington state AG misrepresenting the economics of sharing as stealing and “if you can reduce software piracy by 10% you can create $41 billion is economic growth.” This is simply false. It assumes that the reduced piracy will = new sales. Here are a few of the reasons the logic is bad:
1. If someone file shares because they can’t afford the authorized copy “stopping” the piracy does not give them the money they do not have to buy an authorized copy.
2. If one file share a product that is no longer available like XP I am not likely to buy Vista if I can’t get the copy of XP.
The study, Microsoft’s press release quotes, claiming $8 billion in revenue loss in the US is not a counterfeiting or unauthorized sales study it is a study that calculates lost revenues by counting the number of unauthorized copies regardless of how they were acquired and assuming that each unauthorized copy equals a lost sale. Here is the exact methodology:
1. Determine how much PC packaged software was deployed in 2007.
2. Determine how much PC packaged software was paid for/legally acquired in 2007.
3. Subtract one from the other to get the amount of pirated software.
Then calculate the value of the pirated software.
Misusing statistics like this undermines the credibility of their campaign and turns the campaigning into mere scare tactics.
I wholeheartedly agree. The flawed statistics are simply scare tactics but apart from misuse of statistics in public forums in general the making up of numbers for piracy just seems to be almost routine by now.
For example, there recently was a very nice article on Ars Technica which highlighted how $250 billion lost to piracy come out of nowhere.
I suppose I should be outraged but I just didn’t except them to do better.