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anysiaI have been reading up on this B.S.A. and it's claims of billions of dollars lost and it's witch hunt striving to prevent software piracy. I find their numbers suspect for several reasons.
I and many others, will use open source, freeware and shareware rather than spend huge chunks of money on 'big name' brands that don't do any better and in some cases, do worse than their open source/free-shareware counterparts. So B.S.A.s math as to the ratio of computers to software licences is bogus at best. Asinine comes closer.
Also, there is the subject of abandonware, software that is no longer sold, supported or even remembered by it's original distributors (yes, that happened to me when I emailed a company about an older program. "What was that title? Are you sure we made that?" while I was looking at the original manual for it.) that is being kept hostage under 'anti-piracy' laws. There are older games (and apps), that are no longer or ever going to be distribuited again kept in a 'dungeon' by (in some cases) companies/people that had nothing to do with it's developement, as what? Proof against nuclear fallout? A cure for a plague? No, for no other seeable reason than "I have it and YOU can't!"
Fine, BSA and ESA should go after warez sites. Newly developed titles should be bought, and their programmers/creators paid for their hard work. BUT don't you dare, in your Brownshirt/Big Brother methods decide that just because I, and many others choose to use freeware or shareware instead of puking money out on software from well known buggy sources that we factor into your paranoid delusions of 'software pirates'.
I and many others, will use open source, freeware and shareware rather than spend huge chunks of money on 'big name' brands that don't do any better and in some cases, do worse than their open source/free-shareware counterparts. So B.S.A.s math as to the ratio of computers to software licences is bogus at best. Asinine comes closer.
Also, there is the subject of abandonware, software that is no longer sold, supported or even remembered by it's original distributors (yes, that happened to me when I emailed a company about an older program. "What was that title? Are you sure we made that?" while I was looking at the original manual for it.) that is being kept hostage under 'anti-piracy' laws. There are older games (and apps), that are no longer or ever going to be distribuited again kept in a 'dungeon' by (in some cases) companies/people that had nothing to do with it's developement, as what? Proof against nuclear fallout? A cure for a plague? No, for no other seeable reason than "I have it and YOU can't!"
Fine, BSA and ESA should go after warez sites. Newly developed titles should be bought, and their programmers/creators paid for their hard work. BUT don't you dare, in your Brownshirt/Big Brother methods decide that just because I, and many others choose to use freeware or shareware instead of puking money out on software from well known buggy sources that we factor into your paranoid delusions of 'software pirates'.
