P2P Networks Blamed For Software Losses Doubling 786
L1TH10N writes "CNET News is reporting that software manufacturers have doubled their losses to $29 billion dollars, according to a BSA survey, which is blaming P2P networks for their misfortune. Seems a little too far-fetched to me - a P2P network would be the last place where I would download software, just too much chance that you are downloading a trojan onto your computer. Me thinks the Business Software Alliance are jumping on the bandwagon and vilifying P2P networks just as the Senate is taking aim at P2P providers."
BSA has zero credibility... (Score:5, Interesting)
Thing is, the BSA had zero proof that anybody was doing anything wrong. They just got a list of small businesses from the local town hall, and sent mass letters to everyone in the town. I got mine.
Point is, don't believe anything the BSA says or does.
What loss (Score:3, Interesting)
For example, when a company's expenditures outpace income a loss is reported.
When a development on a product is costing more than revenus from the product that is a loss (even though the company makes money).
The company did make as much money as the expected, (ie their market share dropped) so that is a loss. (Even if a profit is made)
The company's marketshare grew at a reduced rate.
All of these are reported as losses at one point in time or another (depending on the way that statistics align), but the biggest distributor of pirated software in all of these cases is NOT P2P but a much more dangerous network: sneakernet. Friend finds copy of windows 2003 Ent Server he gives it to a friend to friend to a friend etc etc. Or some guy buys a few cd's off the hobo on a blanket in central park. In asia you go into a thrift/secondhand store and pick up what you want. But rarely do you get illegal software from P2P.
Monoculture? (Score:3, Interesting)
I think an increasing number of business computers are running little more than what comes with MS Windows and MS Office, and perhaps another MS product or two, with the only third-party software perhaps being an antivirus and/or some remote backup tool. In other words, Microsoft's control of an increasing amount of the software marketplace is squeezing out other software vendors.
Piracy supports IT industry (Score:2, Interesting)
On the other hand, I wouldn't condone piracy in a business environment. Certainly, if a software improves the ability for a company to turn a profit, then it's only fair that some of the cash flows the way of the developer. Over the past 20 years Singapore has been a hotbed of piracy and IT innovation (sadly no more, the authorities have cracked down hard on the bootleggers). The net result of piracy was to raise the IT proficiency of the average nerd by the age of 10 to that of an office secretary. Not something you'd see if we were required to spend money on every piece of software you install.
Re:well I use open source (Score:3, Interesting)
This is half an honest question and half meant to say "there are a ton of programs without an OSS counterpart"
Re:Whew (Score:5, Interesting)
Free Software for Mathematicians (Score:5, Interesting)
The BSA doesn't seem to employ any statistician ! (Score:5, Interesting)
It's worth reading, even if there is not much information. Their methodology is still laughable. Any statistican who reads their study would throw it in the wastebasket immediately. Or rather, he would use it as an example of "what not to do" for his first year students.
So the study don't say anything about opensource -- so as mentioned before, anyone who uses OpenOffice counts as a pirate. The press releases of BSA say that this factor has been taken into account but (1) I haven't seen anything in the report and (2) you can't, except if you accept very wide error margins.
Talking about which, their report do not provide any kind of estimation about the errors, which is a good indication that the people who made it are not competent. For example, BSA insists on the difference between an illegal copying rate of 32% in Australia, versus 29% in other countries -- there is NO WAY that such a difference can be significant given their methodology.
The worst thing, as mentioned by other people, is that this piece of crap will be shown to every government on the planet to lobby them to enforce IP laws and make new ones if "necessary".
Zorglub
I agree (Score:1, Interesting)
No trip to CompUSA, no order from Buy.com or Amazon, and no messing around with QTparted or other tools.
Yes, I lost karma points and I know I stole... P2P makes it easy to get what I need without effort. Do I believe that software companies are loosing revenue - ABOLUTLY.
Is is right - in short, no
What is the right thing to do... I will tell you if Acornis had been $5.00, I would have purchased it without thought. $49.95 for a program that I use once a year, in an emergency is not acceptable. There was no, easy opensouce way to do what wanted without a lot of time and research.
I believe in the free market. I also know that there is software that I will use once in a blue moon or games/music that I would never look at twice. Is using/listening once from software poached from BitTorrent or eMule stealing? I'm not sure but I feel a twing of guilt and I know things are not right.
I do believe however, that micropayments are a major part of the solution. I would have, without hesitation, paid $5.00 for the software to solve my problem tonight. I would also expect that it would be $4.00 next time I needed to partition a disk and $3.50 the time after that, etc. I will pay to have the latest and greatest, just not $50 to have something that I use once a year and then becomes obsolete.
The system on software and software distribution is broken but I don't see an easy solution without easy, ubiquitious, micro-payments on an almost per-use basis for many(most) software packages. I think the technology is there, the paridigm is what is broken.
Re:Lost Revenue: Formula (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, software companies *are* loosing money to "piracy." Many are indirect losers. Lets go back to the BMW thing again. Who would buy a Ford if they could have a free BMW instead? Same with software companies, people aren't buying Paint Shop Pro because they got Photoshop for free. However, the BSA, MPAA, RIAA, and others are destroying their credibility by giving out ridiculously exagerated numbers. Remember the people who told you pot was as bad as herion?
Re:Ps (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Why steal software? (Score:1, Interesting)
they are using it for personal use.
thats the point. $100 is therefore too expensive, for them.
adobe needs a noncommercial personal use license, no lessened features, none of that garbage, just a license for like $50, full photoshop. they would own that market, the market that currently is undervalued because those people are pirating photoshop.
Re:Ps (Score:3, Interesting)
I also wonder how much of this $29 billion comes from people just not understanding the concept of licensing agreements. They think that if you purchase a disc, you can install that disc on any computer you own. I've had a hard time convincing people that you can only install Office on one computer (unless you buy a site lisence or something). They think they can just buy the disc and install in anywhere, but technically they are in the wrong. Most people don't see this as piracy and never will and I agree with them.
This is why I also agree that nothing could be better for the open source community than strictly enforced DRM regulations. Once it becomes harder to steal Windows than it is to install Linux, people will come around.
I guess expecting logic wouldn't be too logical (Score:5, Interesting)
The irony being, of course, that the vast majority of their claimed losses are outside the US, where a United States P2P ban would have absolutely no effect.
I download my software on P2P all the time (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Complete Bullshit (Score:3, Interesting)
True. And if he was going to buy it, the it is a loss. So if you want to claim that software piracy isn't costing companies money, you have to be prepared to say that every single person who pirates software wouldn't have payed for it. Do you really believe that? It seems to be some sort of polite lie that everyone on slashdot is supposed to pretend that no one ever pirates something that they otherwise would have paid for.
Re:But Would They Have Bought It Otherwise? (Score:3, Interesting)
PaintShop pro works just fine for me. It's about $100 retail. They sell it for less on thier website, where you can get a fully working version for free, that times out if it discovers your system date is more than 60 days later than the install date.
The cheapest way to get is paid download, followed by odering a boxed ver from thier website (you can download the full version at the same time) followed by buying at the store.
It will use all the same plugins as the Adobe product will. I dunno what features Photoshop could have to be worth several times as much, but PaintShop has more than I'll ever use. The only thing I can figure is thier selling to the same demographic as Apple Computers.
Mycroft
Maxima (Score:3, Interesting)
I have a friend who uses Matlab for a living and he uses Octave at home because it's essentially the same thing (except all the user contributed toolboxes that cost extra in Matlab).
Re:Uh huh... (Score:2, Interesting)
Actually at work we ran into a situation where we needed Win98. A custom controller board with software is in use off a serial port. The software requires hardware level access to the serial port so Win2K etc was out.
(that's another plus for open source, if we had the source we could modify it for this purpose)
Re:Ps (Score:2, Interesting)
In the olden days he would have bought a copy of MS windows then pressured me into installing a bootleg copy of MS office. Today I can point to the efforts of the BSA and requirements for product registration and he sees that Linux is the best (and safest) option.
My sister is savvy enough to install her own software, so has installed bootleg copies of most applications. Recent virus outbreaks have gone beyond her sys admin capabilities, so she has had to enlist my help. In the past my recommended cure has been 'install Linux', which she has refused, but even she is beginning to see that Linux is now the best alternative. Once my Dad is up an running, I'm pretty sure the remnants of her resisance to Linux will evaporate (thanks Mr BSA!).
Next on the list is my fiancee...
Re:Silly article summary (Score:3, Interesting)
This is how open source software works. This is how society works when you're in a crowded restaurant and someone claims that the food is poisoned. If everyone is in their own private booth getting food, the lack of communication does have the possibility of leading to harm. Until P2P offers feedback ratings on a combo hash and filename, there's little to be done with it to verify safety except to do one's own "best effort" and pray no one else is able to hide things better than you are able to find them.
Maybe PS 5.x - PS 4 a bit too lacking (Score:2, Interesting)
(I upgraded to PS7 due to it's transparent gif handling, but have seen no real reason for me to pay for the CS upgrade yet)
Re:Silly article summary (Score:3, Interesting)
You're being a little overdramatic. Morality has not gone by the wayside because joe user downloads mp3's off the internet.
Microsoft wants four hundred dollars for Office. Four Hundred! It costs twenty dollars for a CD and ten bucks to get into a movie, nevermind the ten more dollars you spend on soda and a popcorn. There is a reason people infringe copyright (which is not stealing, you do not deprive another person of anything). The prices are too high and most of what is available is crap. This surge in "stealing" hasn't affected the auto industry or any other industry for that matter, because it's not stealing and it's not a fall into depravity. It's just the realization that we're all getting screwed.
When it comes to shareware, they just don't offer enough for the money. Who would pay fifteen dollars for a screensaver or an archive tool. It's rediculous. These things are a commodity. They have been for quite some time. People are also sick of being swindled by the software industry when learn that they have to pay a big chunck of change just to get their computer to do what they bought it for.
Re:Ps (Score:2, Interesting)
They know how to make a sale. They also know that college students don't have any money. But they do know that if they give them something for free (or dirt cheap), the student (or any other consumer) will buy it again as soon as they have money. That little tactic is one of the first things you learn in business school, but left out of most Computer Science college curricula.
People who download software rarely will use it more than once or twice. The only business they're losing is business that wasn't their's to begin with.
P2P piracy is a problem (Score:2, Interesting)
Virtually all software only anti-piracy methods are powerless to stop unlawful copying.
I fell the inevitible result will be that major PC software developers/publishers move to a subscription payment model.
Why do you think there have been a flood of massively multiplayer online games of late? Because you can't play if you don't pay. No easy way around that.
Its the same reason Microsoft has tried pushing this subscription model so hard for their OS and other software suites.
Re:Silly article summary (Score:5, Interesting)
Artificial scarcity enforcement will always fail.
Even in the face of a draconian future [fourmilab.ch] where DRM is mandated to be wired into all hardware, and each person needs an identifying digital certificate to access the "SECURE internet", there will STILL be huge subchannels where information flows freely as well as a huge blackmarket for open hardware (from China no doubt).
The best business model for CREATORS to switch to in the face of this new reality is to GET PAID UPFRONT FOR THE SCARCE ACT OF (GOOD) ORIGINAL CREATION, instead of relying on many small forced payments for an artifically scarce copy (carried over from when the media itself was scarce and distribution expensive). The Street Performer Protocol [firstmonday.dk] is one such model; there are many more variations. These kinds of distributed patronage systems are the way to go, IMO; not lock and key.
--
Re:Ethics (Score:3, Interesting)
You've hit the nail right on the head. It's about MY ethics. What are you going to do if MY ethics don't equate copying software with property theft? Ethics, unlike laws, are not enshrined in statute books. Everyone has their own set.
Stealing from The Donald is still stealing.
Who's The Donald?
Re:Why steal software? (Score:3, Interesting)
On the topic of 3D modelling programs, a few of the major players are warming up to the fact that they can get a bigger pool of beta testers and end users by simply giving away nearly fully functional copies of their software. Among the foremost of these is Side Effects Software [sidefx.com]. Through their Apprentice program, they allow absolutely anyone to use the latest version of Houdini - a 3D suite that's made its way into some very big movies, like Spider Man, X-Men, Final Fantasy X, and so forth. They have both a Linux and a Windows version. More importantly, they have a sane approach to watermarking. Unlike the Maya PLE, which has so-called "unobtrusive" watermarks that actually make it rediculously difficult to work, or view renders, or even export any files, Houdini Apprentice has a small logo in the bottom-right of renders, and some tiny text in the bottom-right of viewports.
Aside from the watermarking issues, Houdini Apprentice is limited to 640x480 renders, which seems reasonable. These guys have their heads on straight. They offer a solution that benefits potential learners without making pirates of them all, as well as themselves without hemorrhaging insane amounts of cash.
Along the same lines, Oracle, mySQL and Trolltech's QT use a licence that allows free personal use, but require purchase for business use, right? I'd say that's a very good business model for any of the major software companies with multi-thousand-dollar software packages aimed at enterprise-level customers. Why keep trying to sue the pants off of the small fry when you can turn so-called piracy into free publicity (the positive kind) and advertising?
Re:Silly article summary (Score:4, Interesting)
Exactly. Did you actually read the part where I said that this supposed newfound "immorality" is NOT affecting the auto industry? People are not jacking BMW's at left and right because that is theft, downloading music, software, and movies IS NOT THEFT. It's something called COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT. It's a civil matter and people are sued in court but are not jailed. It is completely different than stealing.
You can argue that piracy isn't stealing till your blue in the face, one, it doesn't change the fact its illegal, two, you took something you have no right to , and three, the meaning of words change, language is not a static entity, so if the general population uses the word steal in the context of downloading music, movies or software, guess what it comes to mean. If you don't believe me, look up the word Gay some time.
There is also a point in being exact with your words. When you claim people are breaking some law, when they really are not, it makes a big difference what you say. The dynamic aspect of language does not change how laws work, nor should it.
What about stealing software we've paid for? (Score:3, Interesting)
Now the software v.1.5.1 comes along and they have the functionality I was promised before working properly, but want me to upgrade at two-thirds the cost of the full package. But I've already paid for that functionality. Had I been smart, I would've pirated the program first to see if the functionality was what I wanted.
Adobe, MS, Apple, Macromedia
Just my thoughts
Re:Silly article summary (Score:5, Interesting)
The skilled engineer builds custom software for companies with deep pockets. The automotive equivalent of having a shop that builds race cars and does custom fabrication.
And this software I make is in turn sold to other companies with deep pockets. They like the assurance that a company will fix bugs if they find any and provide them with expert support on their setups. You dont get that with microsoft.
Re:Newsgroups (Score:5, Interesting)
This could be considered offtopic, but I think not. This is where the software industry should look when trying to account for their losses.
It's even a little worse than that (Score:3, Interesting)
One of the reasons I first started downloading some software in college is to get versions of software without annying protections - so any software protection (like requiring CD's, hello game makers!) actually DRIVES people to find sources of pirated software to make the software they have PURCHASED more usable! And once you've found the fountain, it's pretty hard to stop drinking.
Re:Silly article summary (Score:2, Interesting)
Personally, I don`t see why people say copyright infringement is ok if you find something wrong with what the person is offereing. Another disclaimer: no, not one post here has said it is ok. All that many slashdot users do is defend it by giving meaningless excuses like its too expensive or there are too many features that I don`t need. If this is all really the case, well, pick up and find a different program.
Unfortunately, I don`t by any of these arguments about how so many people feel this software is crap. There is really only one question to ask yourself and you`ll see my point, why would you waste time getting yourself a pirated copy of a program, possibly exposing yourself to great risks, when both the proprietary program is not good and there exist better open source alternatives. I`ll give you the most prevalent reason that so many people here won`t admit to, the software is perfectly fine and the reason you pirate is because it is good and you have found a reasonably safe way to get it illegally. Yes I do have some pirated software adn a lot of software that exists in a limbo like area(namely, I split the price of it and me and a friend share the thing). but you know, I didn`t get them for free because I thought the software was overpriced or not good, but rather I found a nice free alternative and I`m just not all that moral(UT04 is worth 50 bucks, I just had the option of getting it for free, go figure what I`m going to do). So I will admit it, software companies have lost money to my free alternatives.
Hey its the same with the movie theaters. If I want to check out a movie, I used to have to rent it. As I went to blockbuster, that was 4 dollars into their pocket, some of which makes its way back to the parent companies and movie studios. Well, every since I can get the movie for free, screw renting it, and when I find ultra high quality downloads, I don`t usually think about buying it either. If everyone on this site stopped arguing points like `they don:t know if I would buy it, so how can they say they lost money` and just took a long look at the things they ahve done, maybe they would see things a little different. I will admit that not all pirated versions of software are sales, but you know, I would bet a whole lot of them are and so while the industry might not have lost 29 billion, I will beleive they have lost a reasonable percent of that money.
and of course, my sematics tidbit: is it theft, I`m not quite sure, but I`m damn sure if I wrote an amazing computer game with incredible code and my program was so well set up that it didn`t require support, I would want some compensation for it. Now imagine I spent the last 5 years of my life working on this code and now everyone `infringes on my copyright` and uses it for free, I would be one pissed off person because my pleasure from seeing people like my game sure as hell wouldn`t feed me. Honestly, wouldn`t any of you be?
~Gordo3000
Re:Silly article summary (Score:3, Interesting)
Shareware is not dead. One of my close friends has paid registrations for his shareware software equivalent to approximately 30% of the devices capable of running it.
Of course, his software is useful and cheap - always a wise combination.
Still, 30% market penetration is stunningly good. (Shame for him it's a small market). And demonstrates the flaw in your statemetn that shareware is dead.
Fact is, people tend to pay when they perceive they're receiving value.
~Cederic
Re:Silly article summary (Score:2, Interesting)
Exactly. And this is why companies like Adobe who peddle high-priced software for the masses will eventually lose to Free Software. If the risk of using proprietary software when you can't afford to acquire it properly gets too high, then you'll use something that is truly free even if it isn't as good as the proprietary version -- as long as the truly free version is good enough. And when you eventually get to the point where you are in a position where you influence purchasing decisions, are you going to then encourage your company to buy the software that you have no familiarity with, or are you going to encourage them to use the same software that you are familiar with, and is free to boot? You'll recommend the software you're familiar with, and the fact that it's free to the company will be an extra bonus.
Multiply that by tens or even hundreds of thousands of times over and what do you get? A failed proprietary product, and possibly even a failed software company, that's what.
The only exception to this is software that has no true equivalent, such as operating systems, and software that's cheap enough that even the pirates and poor college students can afford it. Windows doesn't really have an equivalent because nothing else out there will run the programs it runs.
Re:Silly article summary (Score:5, Interesting)
Would you people please stop using this as a justification to not pay for something! I can't beleive what I am reading,
Learn to read, if you will. He wasn't justifying illegal copying, but pointing out that despite the GGP's claim that the software industry was effectively dying.
There are 1000's of people downloading software at no cost to them, which is normally sold for a price, how can that not hurt a company?
How would it hurt your company if those people hadn't bought your software otherwise? If someone copies Photoshop 8 in order to produce a few graphics on his personal homepage, is he stealing Adobe $1200? What do you think would've happened if he hadn't been able to pirate any image editing program?
Whether the correct answer is 2 or 3, it most certainly isn't 1. In both cases, he wouldn't have paid Adobe any more money than by pirating Photoshop. So in effect, piracy may hurt the competition, rather than the company whose product is illegaly copied.
So, based on all this crap people are trying to unload with regards to copyright and justifications based on prices or features, blah, blah. Let's just take the example of a Newspaper, there is copyrighted information in that and for the most part, this stuff is available online, so instead of reading the Times online, step into your local news stand, grab a copy and walk out, do you think that you will be stopped?
There is a real cost for printing a newspaper, and, more importantly, they might later run out of copies so they can't service paying customers any more. The same is not true for file sharing. Try stealing a hotdog. Do you think you will be stopped?
Lastly, have you seen the balance sheet on this company? they are making billions! How can they get away with this?
No, but if my company makes billions in software then I'm not supposed to whine all day about rip-offs, that's just ridiculous. Copying Photoshop or MS Office is illegal, but I'll spare my pity for those who're really in need, like kids in India whose parents can't afford $10 for diarrhea medication.
I posit that Adobe and Microsoft actually benefit greatly from piracy, and that it's the smaller competition instead which suffers. Why? If tomorrow was the day on which copying MS Office and Photoshop became impossible, what do you think would happen?
In the short term, MS and Adobe might see more profits, but in the long term, a lack of a private user base would hurt their business sales dramatically. Just consider that Microsoft is currently promoting MS Office over the OOo/SO competition by pointing out that people are already used to MSO and would need to be retrained expensively. Wouldn't this argument be reversed if home users actually preferred OOo? And then consider Microsoft's statement that they do not plan to enforce their copyright towards private users. Why not? Simply because a "stolen" MS product is still more useful to them than a legally purchased competitor's product. By far!
Who do you think hurts Microsoft more? A student who pirated Windows XP, or myself? I'm not running XP at all, I'm running Gentoo Linux. Moreover, I'm a software developer. Switching from Windows to Linux has made me aware of portability issues. All applications that I produce now (at least if I'm given the choice) are portable to just about any platform of your preferrence, or easily made so. I use wxWidgets [wxwidgets.org] for GUI, mult
..and yet... (Score:3, Interesting)
I just bought two piece of software this way...SpySweeper, which and WinAmp. WinAmp comes closest to being real freeware, with only a few minor features disabled. But they only charge $15.
So either I'm not typical or the "shareware" industry is alive and well. And perhaps because they're not charging a lot of money.
Maybe piracy is more rampant when you're charging $500 for what is just an update to an existing program? I don't know, and the people who really do know are telling us the truth.
once again (Score:4, Interesting)
"We were on top in 20th century, and we're too lazy and/or stupid to come up with a new business model to replace our failing one. Besides which, somebody out there might do better than us and outcompete us, and we can't abide a *real* free market - we could lose against actual competition! So instead we're going to buy the legislators we need to artificially prop up that outdated and outmoded model that our entire business depends upon. If that infringes on liberties, or spits on the principles of capitalism, do you really think we give a shit? Now shut the fuck up, consumer proles, and think what you're told to think."
Congress is clearly for sale, and everything under the sun can be patented or copyrighted for near-eternity, squashing anything remotely derivative for all time (Disney will make sure of that, with future Mickey Mouse laws). Why bother with the effort of coming up with something new, especially if that means you might fail against savvier competition? Stasis is good, mmmkay, because stasis is the best chance an old-style company has of maintaining it's position. If stasis can be bought and the worthless consumer cowed into submission or brainwashed into thinking that new copyright laws are Holy Writ (and so many slashdotters have demonstrated the success of this tactic), then why not?
Maybe this *is* the new business model, where free market capitalism is something to crush at all costs. And with it the best chance for the creation of new technologies, new companies, and new challenges to stodgy old ways of thinking. All the better if you can get the more brain-dead consumer fucks to actually argue your case for you....
Max
Re:Diamonds (Score:3, Interesting)
The economy is fine - the people must be criminals (Score:3, Interesting)
My son and wife can't find a job, I work for the Gub'mint (or is it G'Dubmint?) and am stuck using free software like Mozilla Firefox and Linux (actually, that's a good thing).
This actually reminds me of RIAAs complaint a few years back that kazaa, napster and P2P were ruining album sales. Huh, I would have thought it was the crappy music, but whatever. (I got sick of their whining, and haven't bought a CD since - why support that crap?).
In the past, I've taught classes on managing web servers, but no one is signing up anymore - someone must be giving out free instruction online!!! Quick! We must get all the information off the internet - teachers' careers are being ruined! Before our educational institutions all close, the internet must be destroyed! (or at least start charging customers $1/per character they download! at least I can still make a buck).
Back to reality, I'm left with one question. Is the dept. of homeland security passing out paranoid pills in DC?
Re:Newsgroups (Score:2, Interesting)
Where's that next killer app? Where are the real changes in the OS? Beyond just making silly changes in the desktop or changes solely designed to lock customers into the product line, there just hasn't been a lot of new things coming out of Redmond.
But that would be OK if they just offered real value in the form of new releases for their existing products. Microsoft has been so intent on adding new features that they rejected any notion of real quality in their products. I was interviewed recently because I signed up for their "get the facts" win2k3 evaluation package and, when asked what new features they could add to the product to make me choose Microsoft, I flat out told them "You don't need to add new features that bring in new problems. All you need to do is fix what is already there. It is about the bugs!"
As for subscription based licensing, Microsoft's first foray into that failed miserably! Their last round of licensing changes was intended to move customers in that direction. Under Licensing 6.0, customers paid more but were supposed to have access to upgrades that never materialized. Licensing 6.0 has turned out to benefit nobody but Microsoft. And it increased costs at a time when many of its customers were struggling under the pressure of a weak global economy.
I don't have anythig to do with P2P software downloads. I have personal experience with two of my clients that justifies this: one downloaded a copy of XP from a warez site while the second bought one of those "Get WinXP for $50" from an e-mail. Both got spam relay trojans built-in for no extra charge! In the end, the solution for both was to buy a retail copy of XP Home.
In short, Microsoft's problems have nothing to do with P2P and everything to do with their business model.
Re:Newsgroups (Score:5, Interesting)
Customers flocked to PCs and Microsoft/Lotus/Adobe/Apple/Novell because you could buy it once and forget it for 5 years. When Gates had something new, he usually made it better/sexy enough to get people to upgrade. For all your moaning, I don't see any laws forcing people to upgrade to Windows XP. Run Windows 3.1 if you'd like -- nothing stopping you but model year envy.
One big problem with "Enterprise Linux" is that it's basically Ye Olde IBM business model where you pay annually for stability. Which is fine for Oracle servers and the like, but probably will never be competitive with the featuritus of shrinkwrap software. This should be obvious if you compare the relative advancement of (say) Solaris against Windows in the 90s.
Re:Newsgroups (Score:2, Interesting)
With windows, you can no longer license windows 98(not that you want to, mind you) and are obligated to get Windows XP, regardless of if you preferred, required 98.
No, no laws are forcing this. A monopoly is.(Think as if Toyota were to prohibit anyone from selling any used cars to anyone)