World Software Piracy Losses Climb to $29 Billion | Reuters.com

You know, these sorts of articles always confuse me, because they don't take into account that not everyone that pirates software would actually BUY it. In fact, I'd argue that most people that pirate software do so because they can't afford to buy it. If they couldn't pirate it, they'd find an alterative, or simply go without.

Plus, they also use the full retail price of the software when they calculate the "losses" (a word I have serious issue with, because it's not like they're stealing software off the shelf, so from an accounting perspective, there is no "loss"), when a great deal of commercial software is sold below retail price. Many people I know opt to buy supposed "educational" edition software as an alternative to piracy.

There's also a fairly major issue that they leave out ... that someone who pirates the software is still using it, and learning it. When they can afford to buy software, what software do you think they will buy? They're earning customer loyalty, even if that person isn't technically a customer yet.

Oh, there's also the fact that a lot of these pirates are KIDS.

Still, at least this article is critical where it needs to be, calling the BSA on the carpet for how it arrived at its figures, as well as the fact that it didn't take into account alternative software, like shareware and open source programs.

But here's the part that really gets me. Apparently, no one has done the BASIC math yet. If the piracy rate is now 60% of sales, doesn't that tell you that if you dropped the price of the software a bit, you would probably gain MORE in sales?