A rather crass comment in my previous post about the anti-software piracy drive being undertaken by the Business Software Alliance, Optical Media Board and National Bureau of Investigation had me thinking and asking myself; why is software piracy so rampant in the first place, and why is software piracy only being combatted now?
The BSA claims that 71% of the software being used in the country is pirated. That’s not far from the truth. However I’m one who believes that that 71% rate has been around for the past 15 years, and software piracy has been rampant from the start.
My mom first bought a personal computer in 1990, a PC-XT unit with 640 KB of RAM and ran at around 8 MHz, with a paper white CGA monochrome monitor. Our first OS was DOS 3.30. It was pirated, a 5.25 inch floppy disk my mom got from school. None of our software were original either. Our copies of WordStar, Chi Writer, Lotus 123 and even my games like Tetris, Digger, LoadRunner and Alley Cat were all copies from neighbors and friends or the co-teachers of my mom. When we moved up to a 486 PC running DOS 6.0 and Windows 3.1, the same was true; all the software installed therein were pirated copies. Almost all of them were obtained from school.
When computer subjects started penetrating the curriculum at around the same time I entered highschool, we were taught how to use various software. We learned programming with Microsoft GWBASIC. We learned word processing in later versions of WordStar, ChiWriter and Lotus 123. We were given assignments to do over the weekend.
But how were we to do our assignments? Simple. We copied WHOLE programs from our school computer (programs then were small enough to fit in a few diskettes, and the “installer” has yet to be invented) and placed the copies at home, so that we could do our assignments there.
Then came along Windows 95. With Windows 95 came the introduction of MS Office (Word, PowerPoint, and Excel, though Outlook was still in its infancy as “Microsoft Scheduler Plus”). Schools quickly adopted the new products, teaching their use as the “norm.” Again, copies were made (this time CDs were coming into play because it took around 20+ 3.5 inch diskettes to accomodate everything).
All the while, to keep us from getting too bored, we copied games. From diskettes to CDs, we rampantly copied these games as they got better, harder, more challenging, and more realistic.
Fast forward to the present: you have school curriculae that teach students how to use Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office. Programmers have the Microsoft Visual Studio (Visual Basic, Visual C++ or C#) as their staple programming languages. MIS students are taught Microsoft SQL Server. Graphic design students are being taught Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Pagemaker, CorelDraw, and 3D Studio Max. All of these software run under the Microsoft Windows operating system.
These corporate software are very expensive. Microsoft Windows alone will cost between 5,000 and 10,000 pesos. Microsoft Office Professional (the version with Powerpoint included) costs around 30,000 pesos. Microsoft Visual Studio costs upwards of 100,000 pesos. The Adobe Creative Suite, as they call their package today, costs upwards of 60,000 pesos. 3D Studio Max costs around the same amount.
With your working class educated at using (and practically dependent on) these software, these corporate software publishers have practically gained a captive market. It’s not an accident: Microsoft and Adobe openly give hefty discounts to institutions who use their software for “educational purposes.”
However the strategy backfired bigtime. Now you have a lot of students who need to do their assignments but can’t afford the software. You also have a lot of students who can’t afford computers at a time when all reports have to computerized and typewriters are all but extinct. You also have a lot of people skilled at tools they can’t afford to practice on, or professionals who need to bring work home but can’t afford the tools to do the work at home.
That’s where internet cafes and pirated software came in. The need to cater to this captive market brought about the boom in the number of internet cafes. To make the services affordable to the target market, the cafe owners used pirated software, because using original software would require them to jack up prices to levels not afforded by the ordinary Filipino student/worker. With the advent of LAN games and online games, these cafes also started catering to gamers, again with pirated games, running on pirated Windows OSs.
So where do you think it all boils down to? How can we encourage the people to shift to the non-Microsoft/non-pirated realm if they don’t know how to use the tools that mostly only techies know? Again, I don’t condone piracy, but these series of events which I’ve witnessed since pre-adolesence leads me to the belief wherein I can’t blame those who use pirated software. Hell, I use pirated software myself, but try to refrain from doing so whenever possible.
In the end, it’s not really a matter of choice. More than anything else, it’s a matter of education.
12 responses so far ↓
1 Eric // Sep 28, 2005 at 2:18 pm
Sure, you can blame the educational system, pero I believe that it all boils down to the prohibitive prices of software. As you said, they would range from your 5000 run of the mill OS, the your 100K Visual Studio. Converted to dollars, your OS would arrive at around 86USD, and your visual studio at around 1754 USD (alam ko pag student ka may big discount pa to). Those prices seem right IF you come from North America, or Europe, or some other well developed country. But from a country like hours, buying an original copy of Windows may mean a month’s salary to a person.
WHO, in his right mind, would ever want to spend his whole salary on an operating system?
Siguro, those people selling the software would have to base their prices on existing economic conditions. Sa akin, ok lang 5K on windows XP, but 30K for Microsoft Office? NO WAY! for 30K, I could get a new pc… and much much more.
2 Jon Limjap // Sep 28, 2005 at 2:31 pm
Yes eric, I agree with you. Pero magkano ba talaga ang kailangan nating ibayad sa Microsoft wherein di sila malulugi? That’s a difficult question to answer really. Maraming pwedeng eching na isagot ang Microsoft to justify that the OS is “appropriately priced.”
What I hate about them is that they don’t offer scaled down versions of their product. Microsoft XP Home, at 5000 pesos, is still laden with features that many of us don’t use, or are ineffective. Try to search for your long lost documents using the Windows Explorer search facility, for example. Hell, I get better results with my Google Desktop beta, and I downloaded that tool for free!
Or wag na yung OS… yung microsoft office na lang! Ang raming add-on features na hindi kasama sa default installation (when you choose the “Normal” setting — even in the SBE! Why don’t they come out with a version that only offers the normal setting, and offer it for that price because people don’t use all the features of MS Office anyway?
I seriously think they could offer a viable substitute for both packages within the $20~$100 range, but they just don’t want to. Katamaran lang, at kasakiman, in my opinion.
3 Eric // Sep 28, 2005 at 2:42 pm
Ok, katangahan talaga…..
haaay.. I forgot to publish my loooong post
4 Eric // Sep 28, 2005 at 2:52 pm
With the current trend, the user looses, because pirated software niya, he can’t get updates and stuff. The software company also looses dahil wala siyang revenue. Ang kumita lang eh yung Manong sa greenhills na nagbenta ng software.
THINK WIN-WIN di ba?
Nung nag start ang MRT, they were charging people around 37 bucks from end to end ata. Ano nangyari? Madami ang gusto sumakay, pero dahil mahal, eh nilalangaw siya. Ang ginawa nila eh nagbaba ng pamasahe, at ngayon eh lampas 200% ang utilization ng MRT during rush hours (malas mo lang pag may putok katabi mo). Kahit papaano, eh kumikita ang gobyerno di ba?
It’s the same thing with software, would the rather na walang kita sila, or mas ok na may kita kahit maliit? Di naman siguro sila malulugi pag binabaan nila di ba? If we really think about it, the program is there, and has probably been paid many times over by users in other countries. All they have to do is copy to cd, put in a manual, add the serial key, and sell. Tubong Lugaw, di ba?
They could price it lower here as a special case. It’s been done before, sa mga textbooks natin. Remember those newsprint ones na may label na “NOT FOR USE OUTSIDE THE PHILIPPINES”? Pwede rin siguro gawin ganun yung software. At least, orig tayo, may kita din sila.
5 Jon Limjap // Sep 28, 2005 at 2:59 pm
Well, I guess it’s just not the “Bill Gates way” of doing things.
6 Trosp // Oct 9, 2005 at 10:16 am
Minsan, sense of guilty feeling na lang ang iiral. For an individual who will use a software for learning and other personal application,like me, yung guilty feeling wala. You’re always thinking that the pirated applicatons that you are using are from software giants (Microsoft, etc.). They will declare billion of dollars losses and yet if you browse their financial statement, billion of dollars din ang profit.
I have this guilty feeling if the application cost a paltry amount, says up to 20 USD, and the developer is an individual and not a software giant. Karamihan ito ay dowloads for Palm applications for my PDA.
Somewhere, I’ve read that this software giants are not keen on running after software pirates in 3rd word countries like us specially on individuals.It seems it will cost them more to do that. On the other hand, mas mainam pa raw dahil yung applications nila are being indirectly promoted.
7 torn // Oct 9, 2005 at 12:32 pm
I lived in Singapore in the late 1980s at a time when Western owners of intellectual capital were making a big effort to clamp down on pirating. I worked for a book publisher and we were involved in a landmark case against a bookseller who blatantly copied and sold popular textbooks.
The (very Singaporean) solution worked out very well. The Singapore government told Western pubishers and record companies: OK, we will protect your intellectual capital, but you have to produce cheaper editions for our markets. It all worked out great — instead of cassettes (we’re talking 1980s here) costing either $1 from the pirate or $10 from the legitimate seller, they were on sale for $5-$7 everywhere. As far as I could see, just about everyone benefited from that, even the consumer since, although he or she had to pay a bit more, there was a much wider choice.
India had some quite interesting copyright legislation in the 1980s. In essence what it said was that you can publish your book in India, but if after 6 months, you have made no effort to publish an Indian edition, your copyright is no longer protected and anyone can publish an Indian edition. Becasue publishers wanted to control the situation (instead of having a third party publish an “India edition” and then perhaps exporting that edition to other markets) this increased the number of cheap Indian editions available. I don’t know whether that legislation is still in force.
8 trosp // Oct 10, 2005 at 8:37 am
i990 I bought some ENYA audio CDs - cost me SD 20.00/each.
9 Jon Limjap // Oct 10, 2005 at 10:17 am
torn,
Similar steps have been taken here, I believe, but the blatant photocopying operations in “ilalim ng LRT” photocopying shops undermines this.
trosp,
In a way yes, it promotes the use of their software, but it also reduces its value.
Take for example, Adobe Photoshop and Macromedia Dreamweaver and Macromedia Flash (Macromedia has since been bought by Adobe though). These software are the most reliable when it comes to web design and development. The problem is both are heavily pirated locally so availability becomes too widespread.
The consequences for the local professional webdesign industry are dire.
Because too many kids have access to the software and claim to know webdesign and HTML and Flash, the cost of developing a professional website has been driven down to ridiculous levels. Some kids offer to develop whole websites for 3,000 pesos for freelance work. Webdesign outsourcing outfits pay 9000 pesos a month to regular employees for 45-hour workweeks.
These very low prices for supposedly “highly-skilled” labor.
And the root cause still boils down to piracy.
10 Trosp // Oct 11, 2005 at 12:48 am
Jon,
As if you are saying somebody who has not graduated an engineering course but earning more than a professional engineer because he found a better way to sell himself. My point is, for a certain job, even without those pirated softwares, kung maabilidad yung tao, he can always find a way. Kung bobo naman, kahit anong legitimate softwares ang ibigay mo wala rin (lalo na kung walang inspiration).
I myself has not finished my engineering course and yet I was pirated from local employer by Singaporean employers to work as an automation senior engineer because of my ability and experience.
I don’t mean I’m not agreeing with you but the above is perhaps he other side of the coin.
11 Jon Limjap // Oct 11, 2005 at 10:39 am
I understand what you mean. Ang abilidad eh malayo ang nararating. No questions about that.
It’s a long story actually…
The proliferation of mediocre webdesigners (the “kids” who don’t have artistic background or any real experience with web design + use pirated versions of their tools) drove the prices down to levels that are hurting the legitimate players. By “legitimate players” I’m meaning those people who use legitimate software and/or have heavy artistic backgrounds AND produce quality work.
Pero as you said, ability works wonders… it became a credibility game and tables turned on the “kids.” Once businesses started appreciating the real value of the legit players many of them started sticking with these guys.
And right now what we’re seeing are the kids’ handiwork imploding… imploding in terms of it’s become sooo impractical to be a webdesigner alone because some people want whole websites that only cost 1000 pesos. Sobrang tagaan na kumbaga.
However in the non-freelance community webdesigners continue to suffer. Meager pay and excessive overtime continue to hound them. Ang lakas ng turnover since yung mga new players naman (arts graduates/computer science graduates) are finding that their salaries are not worth it so they leave immediately. The companies do not mind — they can easily exploit the high availability of new grads eagerly excited to get jobs even with low pay. In the end ang nagsu-suffer in quality eh yung mga websites (and their clients).
I fear that. If the clients are frustrated with the work of these “small players,” maaapektuhan pa rin ang image ng Philippines as an IT outsourcing option in the international IT scene, as opposed to India.
12 Trosp // Oct 12, 2005 at 12:02 am
Siguro kasama na rin yung factor of law of supply and demand. Just look at our graduate architects. A lot of them are working on fastfoods joints as contractual workers. Sa web design or any related IT jbs, inabot na nya ang saturation point.
Tignan mo na lang ngayon ang competition ng mga IT schools, pati nursing at caregiving, isinama na sa course nila.
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