When Piracy Becomes Legal
Wednesday, October 17th, 2012 3:35:09 by Syed Hassan Bokhari
Closing down one of the biggest torrent websites, The Pirate Bay, did not seem to have any major effect on how the world downloads pirated material off the internet, but instead of taking into consideration the real reason why people opt for free stuff is the reason why these methods fail to work.
In ‘underdeveloped’ nations, software companies need to realize that purchasing an original copy of something is just out of the question and unaffordable in every circumstance. For example, someone living in Pakistan, no matter how rich or poor, would never consider buying a Rs.4000 original CD of the Windows operating system and that marketing strategy has killed of any potential revenue Microsoft could have generated in that part of the world.
What companies need to realize that they cannot charge the same amount in every part of the world, what they would be in the United States because in most places, it is just not something people can spend half of their salaries on.
Pakistan is one of the best examples in this regard as everything is pirated and has to be due to the extremely high costs of purchasing ‘legal’ versions. And seeing how big of a market Pakistan just is, Microsoft is outright ignorant in this regard and not capitalising on the opportunity to design a customized version of their OS for the Pakistani market goes to show how deprived their vision for allowing people across the world to use the highly famous software really is.
Not just Microsoft, but any other major software provider that has continuously criticised countries like Pakistan along with many others due to the high level of piracy are failing to realize that there is a lot of potential for technology to develop in this regard, but taking the socioeconomic factors on board is of undeniable importance.
Piracy may be directly stealing from the company that created the content, but there is no denying the fact that it becomes legal and of a necessity when it costs more for most people to actually buy it than run their homes.
Tags: legal, microsoft, news, piracy, Pirate Bay, windows
Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=34152
Posted by Syed Hassan Bokhari
on Oct 17 2012. Filed under Editorial, Latest News, Opinion, Pakistan, Sci-Tech.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0.
You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
Thanks , I have just been looking for information about this subject for ages and yours is the greatest I have found out till now. But, what about the conclusion? Are you sure about the source?|What i do not understood is actually how you’re no longer actually much more neatly-favored than you may be now. You are very intelligent.
Just because you are in a position where you can only have something if you steal it does not make the theft legal.
People buy Hardware that is not just eqully but at times premiumly priced ! Like a secondhand hardware there are cheaper older versions of softwares available !! Just because stealing is easy wen it comes to software ! its not at all justifiable in any circumstance ! Stealing someone’s merc. cuz i could not have possibly afforded it would have still been a crime !
That would have been justified if we had a stolen hardware issue as well, but fortunately, that is not the case because due to time, it becomes extremely cheap and affordable. But same is not the case with software.
It would have been unjustified had it not been a need, but these things have become daily necessities in everyone’s life. Nowadays, even buying a computer is cheaper than most software!
Piracy isn’t stealing. If i steal your car, i’ll have your car and you won’t have anything. If i pirate a software from you, we both have a copy.
Please read up on the piracy debate dear @Intelektual. Also, Mr Bokhari, TPB hasn’t been shut down. If anything, as of yesterday, it’s become unstoppable because of their shift to cloud based hosting. Read the article at http://j.mp/WCsf67 please.
Mr Bokhari (and this is a completely subjective evaluation) your definition of Piracy is too narrow, and your recommendations: vague, and incomplete. Simply asking one company to slash its prices less than half isn’t a real answer when you’re not even considering the cost involved in making the software. Overhauling Windows for a domestic Pakistani market is quite an undertaking, and even if they do pull it off, most of the people won’t understand rich Urdu language used to replace the English: try teaching your Urdu competent parents how to use Gmail in Urdu. In short, why spend so much money tailoring an OS to a country that’ll always pirate it in the end.
Lastly: piracy isn’t just related to software, there’s the music and entertainment industry as well. There’s also piracy in books, quite popular here in Pakistan!
@Intelektual The point is to criticize the marketing strategies of known software companies in a third world country.i.e. They are not investing enough to make their software cheap enough for us, thus forcing us to get pirated softwares!
I am really happy to read this blog posts which carries tons of helpful information, thanks for providing such statistics.
seo tutorial
To miss randomness, mr Bokhari raises a legit point. Most, if not all, capitalism( referring to ms and etc) breeds is ruthlessness, insensitivity and sophistry. And pls lets not delve into sharp cookie commenting and finding fault in benign but genuine thoughts, just for the sake of fault. If you are that much ‘patriotic’ go and pit yourself against the “western masters”.
These companies are cash hoarders and will rather bury themselves alive under the pile than ever understand what Bokhari felt. I guess they are not that dumb either as even their charity is based on selfish political interests. As far as overhauling goes it should be not that big of deal. It is rather the incapacity of english for having a ‘ poor expression’ than the richness of Urdu–or the incompetence of a ‘certain class/Macauley children’ here in our country, of understanding and being proud of their own language. Who basically are identity and conscience LESS.