Are we Pirates? Do we live in a Pirate world?

The word "piracy" since the old days has been used to refer to " robbery or illegal violence at sea. "1 The term has been continued to be used even to this day, with similar meaning but attributed to a different context.  Virtual piracy or also known as Internet piracy is an ongoing and fast expanding trend, with  the incredible growth that is clearly visible in the information technology sector, and a concern for personal information and  intellectual property. For most of us the term "piracy" in these days is associated with 

"the unauthorized reproduction or use of a copyrighted book,recording, television program, patented invention,trademarked product, etc."1

The Business Software Alliance(BSA) trade group, which is an anti-software piracy group, with collaboration from the International Data Corporation produces every year a software piracy study in attempt to estimate the amount of copyright infringement of software in different countries. Although there have been several criticisms on the way the study data has been gathered and some of the assumptions made which could "get a first year student of statistics into trouble."2, many of the politicians or governmental organizations rely and quote these statistics as facts to support their arguments "The results of the study have already been quoted by an MEP from the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE)"3

Here you may find BSA's latest study published on May 2011:   2010 Piracy Study

A table from the study showing the piracy rates:

So what is Canada's current standing in the world of software piracy?

Contrary to most opinions, Canada is not a "pirate haven" at all. In a recent survey entitled Global Survey of PC User Attitudes 2010-2011 performed by BSA with "the survey’s list of 32 countries, with what BSA referred to as “regular pirates,” Canada ranked 29th... the BSA pegged Canada’s overall software piracy rate at 29 per cent of all PC users."4   

"...the BSA, whose members include major software vendors such as Microsoft Corp., Adobe Systems Inc., and Symantec Corp., said nearly 47 per cent of computer users globally “acquire software by illegal means most or all of the time.”4

Here is a graph illustrating this:

People who obtained their software through illegal means always or most of the time where refereed to as "regular pirates".

Some of the piracy that is committed comes from the vagueness and the complicated licensing of software products “Many of these users are unaware that they are participating in illegal practices such as downloading programs from peer-to-peer networks or buying a single program and installing it on multiple machines over the allowed number of installations,”.4 In my opinion educating the user and having clearer and concise licensing schemes from software companies could potentially reduce piracy around the globe. 

1. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/piracy
2. http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/it-at-work/2005/06/24/lies-damn-lies-and-statistics-39205464/
3. http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/it-strategy/2005/06/24/bsa-figures-do-not-add-up-39205463/
4. http://www.itbusiness.ca/it/client/en/home/news.asp?id=64215