Slashing software prices 'would not stop piracy'

Dom

The Business Software Alliance says re-education is more effective than discounts
Price cuts are not the way to curb software piracy, says a senior executive from anti-piracy group the Business Software Alliance (BSA).

"The BSA believes that the best way to combat software piracy is to effect long-term change by continuously educating businesses that they have to respect intellectual property by using only legal software within their organisation," said Ajay Advani, chair of BSA Malaysia.

"It is by changing mindsets that we achieve the most lasting change. People have to understand that morally and ethically it is wrong to use pirated software," he told CNETAsia. The BSA's members include large firms such as Adobe and Microsoft.

Advani was responding to queries from CNETAsia on the Malaysian government's plans to place software, CDs, DVDs and Video CDs under the same price controls that govern essential items and food such as cooking oil, rice and chillies.

In a previous interview, Jeffrey Hardee, BSA vice president and regional director, Asia Pacific, said he was flatly against lowering prices as means of curbing piracy.

He said that legitimate software makers could never compete with pirates in price, as pirates have almost no costs to recover. In addition, he said that software firms already offer price breaks, such as student discounts and multi-user bundles.

Earlier this week, Malaysia's Bernama news agency reported that authorities are mulling such tough measures after software makers, movie and recording studios had repeatedly declined to lower the prices of their wares.

Certain members of the government believe that the software and recording industries are partly to blame for Malaysia's pariah status as a hotbed of disc piracy, as they set prices too high for ordinary folk to afford.

According to various media reports, the government will meet copyright owners this week to discuss the matter before considering passing it into law.

The Malaysian government has long blamed high prices for helping to fuel piracy. The country, along with other Asian counterparts such as Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines, have been under constant scrutiny by intellectual property rights groups around the world for being breeding grounds for pirated material.

Last month, a Malaysian minister even called for a boycott of legitimate material in a bid to get manufacturers to loosen their iron grip on pricing.

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Source: ZDnet

digitalwanderer

ROFLMFAO~~~~~ In short, I disagree.

DriveEuro

No one is gonna pay for stuff when they can get it free.

Matth

Worthwhile manuals and a greater sense of ownership would be a start!

Or alternatively, if not prepared to increase the perceived value, then reduce the actual price - even if that means unbundling anything other than self-support.

The poor bl**dy home user that picks a product by CHOICE seems to end up subsidising those who get bundled software with a machine - to be honest, if I needed a new machine and software, the software bundles would probably swing it.

The only thing MICROSOFT on my machine is the OS - my Office suite is a cheap OEM of Lotus/IBM Smartsuite

nForcer

I'll be honest - I stopped buying software when the OS itself was 300 dollars. Yeah I know it does 'this' better and 'that' better but for the millions of copies sold to consumers, forget the amount of site-licenses, is it REALLY worth charging 'that' much? nuff said.

FuNsTeR

i buy some software if i feel they deserve my money .... microsoft .. no chance

ToshiroOC

If games were $20 each like they used to (hooray for Serious Sam) I wouldn't hesitate to buy them instead of considering, :ahem:, other options, but when $70 is being demanded for a game that might be even worse than a $20 game, thats when I start to think things are pretty off track here.

digitalwanderer

Total agreement, applications and OSes are even more ridiculous.

ToshiroOC

I can understand $100 for Windows, there's a massive amount of development work that goes into making Windows happen, and the salaries of thousands of programmers do have to be paid. But for stuff like Word, which is orders of magnitudes simpler than most modern games, why should I be expected to pay several times what a game would cost for it? I can understand the reasoning behind the pricing, because most consumers will just bite it and buy it, but it doesn't make it "right" in my book...

AlternateVirus

BSA wants money, of course they going to say this stupid crap and i agree but also disagree, reduced price will not stop piracy but it will reduce it.

Mac Daddy

Posting late to this thread ...... BUT ...... I agree with you on this one ..

And also with AlternateVirus .

Reduced prices would indeed REDUCE piracy but not eliminate it.
In a lot of cases in order to unlock the the Multiplayer Inet features of the game you have to own a registered copy(Thinking of BF1942 here).

I think reduced prices would indeed reflect an overall increase in consumer purchases.
As I have said before the Public is not responsible for the marketing departments of software companys.
But I feel it is in their(the software companies) best interest to address the issue of pricing ....

Software in most cases is extremely overpriced ...
It's no wonder that "WE" as consumers sometimes are inclined to pursue alternative means.
(Not that I would encourage that on the forums of DriverHeaven of course)

The_Neon_Cowboy

i would if it was cheap ....