OPINION ON PIRATED SOFTWARE

by: Megs S. Lunn

STOP PIRACY!

The issue of pirated software is one that the software industry fights on the daily basis. The major centers of software piracy are in places like Russia and China where salaries and disposable income are comparatively low.

Given that people in developing (like the Philippines) and economically depressed countries will fall behind the industrialized world technologically if they get cannot afford access to new generations of software, is it reasonable to blame someone for using pirated software when it costs two months' salary to buy a legal copy of MS Office?

Yes, because piracy and other means of producing copies and renditions of protected intellectual work, is illegal, immoral and unacceptable.

What approach could software companies use to combat the problem apart from punitive measures, like pressuring the government to impose sanctions on transgressors?

The first approach that software companies, like any other enterprise that produce intellectual property, or IP, is to reinforce that IP Infringement (violation of a law or a right).

The issue of IP protection is not about cost or price, but protecting the work that developers have put into a piece of software is valued just as a painting or a sculpture.

Economically depressed countries and economies do not fall behind the industrialized or the technologically connected ones, because they cannot afford software - but because they never developed the skills to produce IP and place themselves in a level field with other economies.  For countries like India, whose citizens comprise a large population of the think-tank behind our connected world.

Second, the number of users and the range of devices which run an application or software has expanded that their developers are able to lower the price point of these products, to a level that makes it reasonable to buy than to copy.  This is a classical supply-side/demand-side economics.  Make it usable on more devices, more people can buy and therefore pricing can be lowered.  Invertly, develop more devices to use software and applications - PCs, laptops, tablets and smart phones; connected automobiles and appliances, then the demand for software and applications grow to a critical mass that its developmental costs can be spread across more users, therefore lowering its offering price.

Third, the advancement in connectivity has made software affordable and accessible to a point that buying it is not longer much as an issue as knowing how to use it.

MS Office now comes included when you buy a new PC and Windows Phone; it is downloadable free for use in an Android or IOS Device.