Software piracy, a never ending topic

Just these days, the SOPA law has scrambled, it is even delicate to hurt susceptibilities with the issue of how far the rights of intellectual property and where they initiate the rights of individual privacy or management of collective knowledge.

It is likely that for a generation under the age of 20, what worries them the most is that Facebook will close their profile, and others may not go or come. But when we hear positions from Internet giants like Facebook, Google, Wikipedia threatening to generate a blackout in protest ... then we start trying to understand what the hair of SOPA is.

In general, no one doubts that the illegal use of programs or music that someone had trouble producing is a black and white crime. I remember the courage I had when a teacher asked me to authorize him to use a book that I wrote as a class text on the subject of Writing; I was very honored that there was no room when he invited me to give a talk at one of his sessions. But all my excitement fell apart when I saw that all the students had a handful of photocopied sheets, which the professor had sold them for US $ 1.20, instead of promoting the purchase of one in the bookstore that was barely worth 3 dollars. He didn't spend a five on photocopies because the service was at his disposal.

I gave my talk, I explained to them that writing in print these days is an act of altruism, I encouraged them to put their writing course into practice and I left wanting to look for a knife and cut my veins. Ha, I'm exaggerating, I didn't finish the act because at the entrance a student asked me to autograph her XD photocopies. When I did the math, among his 25 students, the teacher made $ 30, of which I didn't see a penny because even the copy that I gave him with an emotional dedication was given away ...

To top it off, the students were paying about $ 140 for their writing course. I mean, for that amount they would have easily bought a book that barely reached 3 dollars ...

Ha, the end of this romantic and frustrating story is the same one pursued by those who produce their own content, in which they invest time, money and above all knowledge. It is unfair that someone else comes, asks his colleague to copy it and, to top it all, upload it to Megaupload for free download.

I honestly think that who does not have the money to buy ArcGIS, should be bought Manifold GIS which is worth less than 300 dollars and is paid with a first job decently charged, if it still does not have that as there is Quantum GIS o GvSIG they do the same.  The business is not in software but in the ability to produce services with the knowledge that has been acquired.

The graph I show is much less than fatal. shows how difficult it is to reduce the use of illegal software in developing countries.

See how Chile stands out in Latin America with “barely” 62% of pirated software in 2010, having dropped from 68% in 5 years; likewise, the progress of Colombia and Brazil is acceptable. I say relatively acceptable even though two out of 5 NOD32 licenses (worth $40) are illegal.

While Venezuela instead of reducing it increased from 86% to 88%; which means that for every 10 AutoCAD licenses in that country, only one is legal. Simply terrible for a company that wants to invest in software development, and despite state efforts in the southern cone to migrate from proprietary to free software.

In the case of Western Europe, the worst case scenario is Iceland, where 49% is presented, Spain / Portugal walk by 40%, which is already less, but more surprising cases like Austria with only 24% taking away merits from Luxembourg (20%) for the particularity of its size but returning them bearing in mind that they are the percentages as far as countries like the United States and Japan have arrived.

For those who want to see the complete document published in May of 2011, with figures from all countries, including maps to see it themed by country, you can see it in this link:

http://portal.bsa.org/globalpiracy2010/downloads/study_pdf/2010_BSA_Piracy_Study-Standard.pdf

BSA is the alliance in which the most important companies in the development of software are associated, among them Bentley Systems, AutoDesk, Solid Works, Apple, Corel and Adobe.

So if the illegal use of software is better, states should force companies and professionals to provide quality services, including respect for the rights of others; just as they expect their rights to be respected for the designs and plans they produce.  Report Piracy is to support individual initiatives.

The hair of SOPA

The bad side of the SOPA law is the extreme level of control that can be reached in matters of individual rights. To give an example:

• A guy puts a blog on Blogger, and in it he cites a place from where you can download illegal programs. The law would empower and compel Google not only to disclose the data and contacts of that account, but Google Blogs (formerly Blogger) can be closed completely.
• That in the case of an innocent boy who did it on purpose, but let's think of forums, where many think, question, suggest, criticize or link. These spaces now play an important role in the democratization of knowledge (GabrielOrtiz.com and Cartesia.org for examples). Due to lack of capacity in content moderation, the owner of the site could lose the right to his domain, to his own content, to his Paypal account and even to his email if he is under the same domain.

I know, it is exaggerating a bit and it would be an abuse ... but the world is full of abuse when it comes to large economic interests. It is also unpleasant the imposition of those who promote this so that countries follow their guidelines under pain of being economically affected; Like the way in some countries private companies are associated to make the state spend thousands of dollars on programs that politicians do not even know what they are for ... but those are already marital matters as incredible as the conspiracies of the new order like the boy who sold 20 million in illegal copies of AutoCAD on BuyUSA.com.

The other problem could be in the attack that these companies could make based on this right against collective initiatives such as Free Software. Although up to now they have not gone beyond boycotting by crediting it with a lack of quality, with a few congressmen (several of the BSA members are from that environment) they could demonstrate that Open Source violates individual entrepreneurship initiatives. Things that the Open Source should care, because in your hands is an intellectual product which is worth millions, but which is not from anyone but everyone, nor could anyone defend if one day they close the source of donations, lodging site or even the source of financing.

While everything happens, you have to get used to the fact that our companies use software legally (which is good for everyone); we do business with the capabilities it gives us. If you don't give more, there are low-cost or free licensing programs.

And wait for someone to propose Open Source hardware, so everyone drops a theodolite from the Internet to make their measurements while discharging as a self-employed.