Reason for Piracy in Asian countries
The main & simple reason for piracy in Asian countries can be given simply as, Unavailability & High price
Let me give U an example, the regular Windows XP Pro costs about $199 in US, but here it costs Rs 9600, which is a lot for a citizen of Indian Economy, he can’t pay that much for an OS, & yes, U may say that U get the legal version which U can use for so many years, & according to usage in those years the price is wise, but an average Indian earns that much money in 1 month, so do U think it is good for him to spend his monthly salary on a software OS, maybe in US paying for a legal OS is justifiable as U also get the service from Microsoft, but here in India, there is no service from MS, or any other company, & even if it is here, it’s very niche. However if the software company can lower the price to something adequate for Indian Economy like Rs 3000 for Widows XP Pro in India only, & also provide good service, then there are a lot of Indian who want to go for legal software. If they want they can strip down some of it’s features, like removing IIS from it, as what good is IIS for a simple home user, he don’t need to set up a home network. What MS is doing in Thailand is a really good thing according to market there providing a customized & stripped down OS for that country only, & I m not talking about Language Customization.
Just take another example, Object Desktop costs $ 50, that’s about Rs. 2,300 in India, in that much money one can get a 40 GB HDD which are the most common ones in Indian Market, 80 & 120 GB are still selling slowly, & one can get 9 Extra Large sized Pizza in Rs 2,300. Now this may justify the cost in US, where $ 50 may not be a big amount, but here, the average monthly income of an Indian is very low, & he can’t spend that much on software only. However if Stardock can lower the price for sale in India for say about Rs 600 then there will be a rush to get the software,
The 2nd reason for piracy is unavailability of software here, in US, U can simply go in a computer store & buy Norton Antivirus retail in the box with a CD, but here, U have to hunt for the retail box of software, as it is unavailable, & once one gets it he is forced to pull back due to the really high cost.
Ok, one other mode of purchase if not available retail is online buying, but that requires a Credit card for payment, which is something not common in Indians, instead Debit card & ATM cards have just started to invade the Indian market, also people don’t prefer to buy online, due to either lack of knowledge of fear of security, even though the made of payment online is secure or encrypted, but for an average Joe Indian, this are still Greek. Ok, now suppose that Symantec has lowered the price of NAV to Rs 600 retail, for India, only, & the payment has to be done in Indian Rupees, how is one supposed to pay for it & buy it online if he don’t have a credit card, companies should make the payment system available in other forms too, it will be good if U can simply pay by your debit card or your ATM card, & payment is done by the bank to the company. & make the user believe that the mode is secure & no one get your card details online or by hacking & ones the payment is done he will immediately get an E-Mail in which there will be a link from where he can download the software which is about 50 MB
However the rates of internet is also high & for 98 % users, broadband is still a dream, as either it is not available or too costly, even cable internet has just began to sale in here. & don’t ask about the service, it’s horrible. The majority of users here is either on Dial up or rely on Cyber cafes.
Bottom Line
If a company wants to kill piracy in Asian countries like India, what they should do is
1) Lower the price of product according to the economy of the country, the price in $ in India, is not justifiable, it’s a lot of money which no one will be ready to pay. $20 is not equal to Rs 20
2) Make the product available retail, in stores all over India, or make the online payment system a bit according to the Indian user & not only according to the US or Europe users. Or better if the mode of payment can be done via Demand draft or ATM card, if one wants to buy the retail product from the dealer far away.
Now if the company says, they can’t do this as there is no market for them to do this much changes & invest here, then I say They have no rights to say that Asians are pirating their Softwares , as they themselves are not making it available, so how do U think one will get it from instead of pirating.