Software Piracy in Canada Declining?

Is software piracy in Canada really declining? Statistics can always be interpreted to prove what you want to them to prove. A recent study showed that software piracy in Canada declined by some 3 percent in 2009. That, say authorities, means their efforts to stamp out piracy are working.

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According to Mark Twain, there are lies, damn lies and statistics.

Is software piracy in Canada really declining? Statistics can always be interpreted to prove what you want to them to prove.


A recent study showed that software piracy in Canada declined by some 3 percent in 2009. That, say authorities, means their efforts to stamp out piracy are working.

The Business Software Alliance attributed the decline – which it says works out to about $943 million in commercial value of pirated software saved by software makers – to better consumer education, more legalization programs implemented by software companies, and stricter enforcement of licensing rules.
 
As usual, I beg to differ.  I think the decline is a result of changes in business processes and how software is now distributed.

To understand piracy, I believe, you have to understand the nature of businesses that use software. Back in the old days – a decade ago – all software was distributed on disks and you needed a numerical key to access it.

In Canada, most businesses are small and entrepreneurial businesses, which means they tend to be cash strapped. So it was common for them at one time to buy one legal disk of software and then distribute it across multiple computers. Since each user required a separate license, you had “rampant piracy”.

But that was the old days. Today, versions of many of the most popular software products are available as open source (or collectively produced and distributed), which means they are free (or operate by donation) in most cases. So, as an example, many companies use Open Office to rationalize Mac and PC systems, or to simplify the often bloated MS Office software.
 
Also, much small business today is done via the Internet, which features on-demand, or rental, software.  Software as a Service or cloud computing, as it’s also called, is cheaper, easier to access, and much more dedicated than the old feature heavy disk-based software of old.
 
Large businesses still tend to use traditional software because they’re afraid of putting their information on the cloud, so probably haven’t changed the statistics much. But then they didn’t previously either because they were afraid of being noticed by the software police.  

Perhaps if we want to see the changing nature of software use, it’s best to look at where software is most pirated. According to the Business Software Alliance’s annual worldwide study, the rate of software piracy declined in 54 countries last year but rose overall worldwide because there was much more “illegal” activity in countries such as China, India and Brazil – countries with large populations that are growing their economies at breakneck speed.

But the highest rates of software piracy were in very poor countries like Georgia, Zimbabwe and Moldova, all three of which had piracy rates of 90 per cent or more. I might add that they probably also had the lowest rates of cloud computer usage because they have terrible Internet connection.

So, before taking at faith statistics people use to justify their jobs or existence, most people might want to look a little deeper.

If you torture it long enough, a statistic will always tell you what you want to hear.