Single Avast Pro license used by 744,651 pirates

[gtmtnbiker]

I saw this article in the weekly afterdawn newsletter and found it interesting because it was able to actually quantify piracy. I don't now how many users/PCs are in the world but I would have to assume that there's more than 1 billion. So this is less than .1% of computers. It would be interesting to know if the amount was higher in China/Hong Kong than other countries.

http://www.afterdawn.com/news/article.c ... n=20101210

Avast, the company behind the anti-virus software Avast Pro, had a very interesting story to tell this week, in regards to piracy of the company's flagship AV suite.
The company noticed that a license meant for a 14-PC business had made its way online, and was being shared via warez sites.

Instead of killing the license, however, the company let it be, calling the situation an "experiment."

Over the course of 18 months, that single license was used on 744,651 different PCs in 200 countries. Even the Vatican City, with under 900 residents, had two pirates using the license.

Avast says that anyone using that license will now be hit with nagware asking them to buy a real license, or switch to the free version of Avast. If they do neither, the software will stop working.

A Pro license costs $35.

[Frizz.Meister]

It sounds like a huge number of people but in reality as you said, it's a very small percentage of the PC using people.

[gtmtnbiker]

I just realized that it might not be the only stolen/shared key. There could be other ones at there so the actual piracy rate could be higher.

[Limewater]

It sounds like a huge number of people but in reality as you said, it's a very small percentage of the PC using people.

In terms of Avast's bottom line (i.e. the most important issue), the raw number of people is a heck up a lot more important than the percentage of PC users who used the single license.

[gtmtnbiker]

But what percentage of those pirates would buy a real license if they had no choice? Personally, I use MS Security Essentials so it's free and I don't get the freeware nags.

[avrame]

It sounds like a huge number of people but in reality as you said, it's a very small percentage of the PC using people.

Regardless, to a small company, that is easily $2M lost due to piracy.

[samsonlonghair]

FCKGW-RHQQ2-YXRKT-8TG6W-2B7Q8 has to be the most used (or rather mis-used) license of all time.

Not that I ever used a pirated copy o' XP or anything.

[Hobie-wan]

Regardless, to a small company, that is easily $2M lost due to piracy.

That's falling in to the trap that every one of those 744K people would have paid for it if the key wasn't lying around for them to use.

[Inazuma]

It sounds like a huge number of people but in reality as you said, it's a very small percentage of the PC using people.

Regardless, to a small company, that is easily $2M lost due to piracy.

If Avast's program was unable to be pirated, how many of these people would have bought a license?

I think it's likely a very small percentage. There are free virus scanners out there (I use Microsoft's free one and it works perfectly), so I highly doubt that Avast lost millions of dollars here.

I hate when people assume that every single instance of piracy costs the company money.

Personally, I only pirate things that I would never buy normally. I can't be the only one who does that.

[enderfall]

I hate when people assume that every single instance of piracy costs the company money.

Yes, Avast isn't losing all of that money, but overall, if pirating was not an option, these people would be buying some sort of antivirus program, thus the antivirus industry as a whole has lost sales. You can not deny this fact.

Personally, I only pirate things that I would never buy normally. I can't be the only one who does that.

And I hate when pirates say something as ignorant as that. Where exactly do you draw the line? What do you actually deem worth your money? Here's a hypothetical: So if you are in a mall, and happen to stop into a store like say, the Sharper Image, and you see a mechanical toothpaste dispenser. Obviously you would probably "never buy [it] normally", but you'd like to try it out and see what it would be like, so it's OK to "pirate" it and walk out of the store and not pay for it?