RSS Feed

Software Piracy in Poland

10

May 11, 2010 by Aleksandra Łuczak

Found on www.thenews.pl

Every second computer programme used by Poles is illegal, shows a report commissioned by Business Software Alliance. 

 In 2009, as much as 54 percent of all software used in Poland came from illegal sources, two percent less than in 2008. The value of the pirated software is estimated at 506 million USD.  
null
The research by Business Software Alliance was conducted in 111 countries. Poland was the fifth in the European Union when it comes to software piracy, following Latvia (56 percent use illegal software), Greece (58 percent), Romania (65 percent) and Bulgaria (67 percent). The most honest PC users turned out to be the citizens of Luxembourg (21 percent pirate software), Austria (25 percent), Belgium (25 percent), Finland (25 percent) and Sweden (25 percent). 

The report also shows that in 2009 computer piracy in the whole world increased from 41 percent to 43 percent, which is attributed to a dynamic growth of big developing markets, such as Chinese, Indian and Brazilian, where computer piracy is commonplace.

What do you think can be done to eliminate software piracy in Poland? Should dishonest users of the pirat software be penalized? What can you do when you simply cannot afford original software?

Have your say!


10 comments »

  1. Wojtek says:

    We should have a choice legally download a program that certainly would be worse but for free and the program for which you would have to pay. Most of the people do not have the money to have the original program that’s why they so often go back to illegal.

  2. Karolina Marciniak says:

    Quite a lot has been already said on the topic of software piracy but the problem still exists. Software piracy can be called a “modern age disease” because the percent of people who download pirated software is rising along with the rise of availability and speed of internet connections. Some say that if people would be given a choice to pay as much as they think they should and as much as they are able to piracy wouldn’t exists. That’s of course a lie because there were experiments like that, and of course some people decided to pay anything from 1$ to 50$ but more than 50% paid nothing. It depends on the mentality of people, almost every polish person if given a choice to pay 1 zloty for something or to get it for free will prefer the other option. What I think those people don’t realize is that they pay for their inernet connection and for the electricity consumed by their computer so is it really cheaper to download illegally than to legally buy something?

  3. Paweł S says:

    I think that the most problem in Poland is that software piracy isn’t recognise like robbery. When we get a file we don’t think it is illegal, for people it isn’t wrong, we don’t think that’s steal of somebody’s property. I know a lot of people who isn’t poor but they do it becouse it’s easier than go to shop for CD or DVD.

  4. Paweł S says:

    I think that the most problem in Poles mind is that software piracy isn’t recognise like robbery. When we get a file we don’t think it is illegal, for people it isn’t wrong, we don’t think that’s steal of somebody’s property. I know a lot of people who isn’t poor but they do it becouse it’s easier than go to shop for CD or DVD.

  5. MalwinaK says:

    I think one of the reason that Poles prefer illegal software is easier way to get it. They are convenient and choose the fastest way. Perhaps if it were an internet stores which allow you (after payment) to quickly download software , there would be a more likely to choose legal software.

  6. MarcinG says:

    I think that stealing software is wrong. People shouldn’t do that. On the other hand the software is very expensive – but if somebody can afford to buy a computer he/she have money to get the software, but We can use MSDN Academic Alliance and get free original Microsoft Windows.

  7. Przemek S. says:

    In my opinion the biggest problem in Poland is our law. For example when upload servers have appeared, dramatically increased number of people who upload games, movies or other software. What the problem is? In Poland it is completely legal. When I upload file to server I just can claim that it is my backup of my legal software. Next problem is that our law enforcement does not have efficient instruments to fight with pirates. And that is why they are completely immune.

  8. Ola says:

    Some softwares can have an abstract prices. For example Adobe Photoshop. I won’t pay few thousand for opportunity to correct my holidays photos so I use cheaper programs but many of us will prefer to download free but illegal version of this program. Lately I bought the original software for my computer but it cost 130 PLN and I’m sure if the price were bigger I wold not buy it. I understand people who downloads programs and why they do that so I don’t judge them.

  9. Damian says:

    It is good to add some comment due to polish problem with ACTA agreement. Piracy is a big problem in whole world. Whether it is USA or Poland most of us have piracy software. It does not matter it is one program or everything in our computer. Piracy is piracy. We are never forced to choose one program instead of other one. We always have a choice. There are various replacement programs that can be selected by us.

  10. IzaB says:

    I think the problem is that people (generally) don’t understand that download pirated software is stealing. They download pirated software (very often even if they have money) because is easy(sometimes even easier than go to traditional shop) and because they don’t realize that is steal of somebody’s property. To reduce this problem we should educate people. On the other hand if software companies reduce the prices of their products for the personal and private use then probably more people will decide to buy legal software. And after all the software companies gain more money.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Skip to toolbar