By Martin Brampton, 7 May 2008 16:52
COMMENT
Software piracy may well be a very bad thing. But does it justify inflicting misery on legitimate software buyers, asks Martin Brampton.
A phrase often crops up in connection with housing - "peacefully enjoy". It nicely captures the expectation of someone who has bought or rents a property.
There is no reason not to apply the same notion to any purchase. When we buy a software product, we hope to enjoy it in peace.
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I thought of this phrase recently when my Windows XP machine died. So far as I know, it was not my fault. The software just stopped working in such a way there seemed no alternative to complete reinstallation.
That was bad enough but worse was to come. Before the installation got far, the licence code was demanded. Now Microsoft prints the code in rather small type, and insists that it be stuck on the machine.
It's dark and rather uncomfortable under my desk, so retrieving the code was not an easy task. Two attempts were needed because I misread one of the letters in the half-dark.
But that was not the end of my troubles. Towards the end of the installation, the software said that it needed to be "activated". Otherwise it would not work. That could be done over the internet, and the machine was certainly connected.
Unfortunately, the software seemed unable to use the connection and insisted that telephone validation was required. To do this, it gave me a 54-digit number that I was expected to key into the telephone.
At the end of that, a mechanical voice read out another 42-digit number that had to be written down and keyed into the computer.
Well, this does not seem much like "peaceful enjoyment" to me. After all, I never wanted to have to reinstall the software in the first place, and it is software to which I have a legal right, having paid the asking price in the proper manner.
There is a lot of talk about the awfulness of software piracy but little seems to be said about the gross inconveniences that vendors seem willing to inflict on legitimate buyers.
This all seems part of a wider pattern, where the publicity machines of the likes of the Federation Against Software Theft (Fast) pump out comments that suggest the civilised world is about to end unless ever more draconian legislation is passed to halt the immense losses suffered by vendors.
Yet how real are these losses? Microsoft has said it alone is losing £250m annually in the UK from piracy. If we accept that figure seriously, then it is quite remarkable that Fast proclaims on its homepage that in the past five years £1.8m has been levied in fines, and Fast has recovered no less than £5.5m. That is more than £1m per year.
Should we conclude from those figures that the alleged problem is being wildly exaggerated, or should we suppose that Fast is extraordinarily ineffective in its recovery actions?
And in the particular case of Microsoft, Fast's £1m per year is dwarfed by the fines totalling €1.68m imposed on Microsoft because EU judges determined that the company had abused its monopoly position.
If the judges are correct, then we are entitled to assume that software is costing more than it might by virtue of Microsoft's restriction of competition.
In fact, even Fast's claim that every breach of a software licence constitutes theft is contentious. Andy Burton, founder of asset-management firm Centennial and a director at Fast, has said: "Most companies today I believe fall foul of compliance issues because of poor management rather than malicious behaviour."
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Comments
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1. Austin Holdsworth
I think Microsoft has to rethink its Windows licensing strategy.
It's fair to say that most consumers, including SMB and home users, are knowingly using hooky versions because the combined price tag of Windows and Office is too high. But this also includes students and self-learners everywhere. Granted, there are discounts to "official" students. Most student techies will learn their trade by dabbling with software at home.
Eventually, open source alternatives will become de facto for those people who want to increase their knowledge and skills.
Pricing out this next generation of IT decision makers is not great strategy for maintaining market share. I think it's possible that MS may need to move to a free-for-non-commercial use licence to keep this important user base for the future.
2. Karen Challinor
Before you have to go grubbing about under a desk to retrieve your licence key again may I suggest you invest in a backup utility to allow you to create an image backup of the system at a point when it is working and further to create backups of your data at regular intervals.
After all, according to Microsoft, XP is on the way out, and there may come a point when you cannot activate your software after a reinstallation
But back to the article, you say:
"The revenue that is supposedly lost is pure illusion, since in many cases the users of copies either could not or would not afford the official price".
I can't afford a Ferrari and there's no way I could purchase one at the official price. Your argument seems to say that should I go out and "obtain" one by a means that doesn't deprive an existing owner of their vehicle, then I should not be regarded as having comitted a crime as all I am doing is getting more Ferraris on the road and thereby pumping up the image of the company
Can't see the police wearing that one somehow.
3. anonymous
Karen,
If you find a way of copying an existing Ferrari (i.e. cloning), WITHOUT taking someone else's away from them, then theft hasn't been committed. The Police would be powerless to intervene. Full stop.
Ferrari, and other makers, might form FACC (Federation Against Car Cloning), and make a lot of noise, but ask yourself what they, and legitimate car owners, have actually lost.
The answer is nothing.
The same applies to software, IF and only if, Martin is right about people only copying software they can't afford/don't really want to buy. That surely doesn't apply to o/s and office-type applications, which no one would copy 'just in case' they wanted to use it...
4. Robbie Richmond
There is no excuse for someone to use pirated copies of software, even if they 'cannot afford it'.
If someone can't afford a Windows licence, use Linux. Can't afford Office? Use SunOffice or OpenOffice or Microsoft Works. There are countless alternatives for less money - and perhaps less functionality - so this can't be a legitimate excuse.
Neither is the fact that the piracy happens through incompetence - if I drive a car incompetently, and end up speeding, how would that be taken as an excuse? Like it or lump it, software companies have a right to be paid for their intellectual property - that's the law.