Software Piracy: Is there any gray area in theft charges?

Software Piracy: Is there any gray area in theft charges?

By Zatni Arbi

JAKARTA (JP): The reason I never touched on the problem of
software piracy before was that it was a fairly controversial
issue.

A reader of PC Magazine once put it aptly when he wrote:
"Software piracy is a problem akin to a lot of other social
problems that we have, such as teenage sex and smoking in public
areas. It's easy to say why it is a bad thing, but it's not that
easy to stop people from doing it."

How true it is! However, the article by Joanne Kelley of
Reuter, which appeared on this page last Monday, has prompted me
to say something on behalf of the end-users, many of whom belong
to the pirate gangs.

Like a lot of other articles with the same stance, Kelley's
article entitled Pirates steal billions in PC programs contains a
logical flaw that has been pointed out time and time again by
computer users and columnists alike on so many occasions.

The article says that pirates steal as much as US$7.4 billion
from software makers by illegally copying and using illegal
copies of their products. The question is, is that really
stealing? Are pirates taking away anything that is already in the
possession of the software publishers?

The truth is, not many computer users even in the U.S. can
afford to pay hundreds of dollars for each software program they
use--let alone here in Indonesia. With less than $600,00 per
capita income, how could we expect computer users to buy original
software that costs more than that?

The logic should be: If pirates don't copy the software,
they're not going to buy it either. It means that there wouldn't
be any significant increase in revenue for software makers even
if their world were free from pirates. The reason for this is
simply the fact that computer software is expensive. It is expen
sive in the affluent United States of America, the home of 90
percent of top software makers in the world. It is even
excruciatingly more expensive here in Indonesia, where software
distributors and dealers tend to be obsessed by big and immediate
profits and the government indiscriminately levies all sorts of
taxes.

Literacy rate

So, if there were no pirates, there wouldn't be so many
computer users around. Now, what would happen if only a limited
number of users got to use each new software program on the
market? Would computer literacy rate be as high as it is now?
Perhaps not. Now, if we can agree that sans software piracy there
wouldn't be a high computer literacy rate around, would there
then be a high demand for legal, original copies of the software?
I don't think so.

The reverse may just be true. People get the original software
only after they are sure it's a worthwhile investment. And they
can judge the worth of a software package by using the pirated
copy for a fairly extended period of time.

Take my own case as an illustration. In the good old days I
was able to buy software based solely on the recommendations made
by computer magazines. Now that my resources are scarcer, I have
to buy a software package only after I've mastered it and I know
for sure it will be useful for my job. As a case in point, I
recently got myself an original copy of PageMaker 5.0. Through my
articles, you know how much I knew about this program before I
got the original. And I'm sure I'm not unique among computer
users all over the world.

Being costly is not the only problem with original software
programs. Their shorter life-cycle is another. New versions come
up before you have the chance to even master the old ones. As I
mentioned before, a new version of CorelDRAW! has appeared every
year. Upgrade cost is around $199 in the U.S. New versions of
leading disk utilities from Symantec and Central Point Software
are released almost yearly, too. Can you include the upgrade cost
of software programs in your annual computer expense budget? If
you're an employee, your boss will sack you. If you operate your
own business, you'll go bankrupt in no time.

Free support

Kelley's article claims that pirates cheat the industry. What
about the reverse? What about computer users being ripped off by
software makers? According to the article, the latter's revenues
were $8 billion last year. That's a pretty handsome sum. Yet,
most of them have dropped what used to be the best of the
industry standards: Free technical support. In addition, new
versions tend to be plagued with bugs than the old ones used to
be.

If you were to drop by my home office, you'd be able to see
boxes of original software programs that I no longer use. Yes, I
have spent thousands of dollars on software programs, and all of
them have ended up gathering dust on my shelves. Why? Because
they're no longer compatible with current versions of software
programs that I use.

Making new versions incompatible with older ones is one of the
ways software makers are ripping off end users. Unfortunately,
the mass media seldom talk about it.

Take the case of IBM's OS/2 for Windows as an example. OS/2
for Windows was one of the most inexpensive but technically
superb operating systems around. Here in Jakarta it costs $55,
and in the States $39 (through mail-order channels). That's very
reasonable pricing. Unfortunately, installing this technically
superb operating system requires that you already have Windows
3.1 on your system. Now, in what some people at IBM call a
deliberate action from Microsoft to kill OS/2 for Windows, the
latter has been phasing out Windows 3.1 and phasing in Windows
3.11 and Windows for Workgroup 3.11. The new versions are, as you
can guess, incompatible with OS/2 for Windows. If you happen to
have bought OS/2 for Windows, you cannot take advantage of
Windows 3.11 or Windows for Workgroup 3.11.

In the U.S., where PCs are sold with Windows pre-installed,
this is causing a big problem since more and more of them come
with Windows for Workgroup 3.11 instead of Windows 3.1. It means
that people in the U.S. are in bad luck if they want to take
advantage of OS/2 for Windows on their new PCs. Only after a lot
of finger pointing and customer frustration did Microsoft offer
patches to enable OS/2 for Windows to install on systems with the
newer Windows. It's the users who suffer the most from the
ongoing war between the two giants.

Windows Chicago

And now, wait until you try Windows Chicago, which will appear
in a few months. I won't be surprised if it turns out that you
have to upgrade every single one of your existing programs in
order to be able to work in this new, 32-bit environment. That
was exactly what happened in 1990, when Windows 3.0 first came
out. All existing programs at that time could be run only in
Windows 3.0's Standard mode. If you wished to run them in 386-
Enhanced mode, you would have to upgrade to their new version.

Having mentioned all this, just calculate how much an honest
computer user will have to invest every year. No wonder the
software industry has been named the fastest growing industry in
the last decade. In no other sector have there been so many
entrepreneurs who have gotten so rich so quickly as those in the
software industry.

Folks, the point I've been trying to make is this: Can we
still say that software publishers are the victims? Isn't it true
that computer users are also the victims?

There's another point that can be made here. In Indonesia,
very few people realize that buying computer hardware is only
half of the story and perhaps one 10th of their total investment.
In this country, people even cut down on RAM chips to save money.
Could you then really expect them not to resort to software
piracy? Let me now hear your comments.