The Prospect of a Piracy Free Bangladesh : Will it Ever Happen?
Piracy is rampant in Bangladesh, that’s not a strange fact. Bangladesh has a piracy rate of 92% (according to the Global Software Piracy Study 2006), is the largest user of pirated softwares in the Asia-Pacific and fourth largest in the world. Considering the fact that almost all the software that we use in our PC, from the operating system to the games that we play on our PCs, is pirated in one from of another, is there any prospect of Bangladesh being piracy-free in the near future?
Rather, the question should be addressed as whether we would want to move to a piracy-free Bangladesh. What I mean is, pirated softwares are the only way we can afford to run expensive applications and eye-dazzling PC games on our PC without spending a fortune. Most of the original games and softwares are beyond the reach of us average Bangladeshis. Who would be willing to spend a whole month’s income on a single piece of software?
But did we ever stop to think that if piracy was allowed to run rampant in the world, those softwares would cease to exist in the first place? Millions of dollars are spent behind the research and development of applications that we take for granted. Without sales revenue these companies would abandon production. However, Bangladesh is not so much of an economic power to have an influence on the global market. That is why we are not a serious concern for the giant software corporations.
Although government laws exist, making piracy illegal, but most of us are either blissfully unaware or don’t follow it. More alarming (and embarrassing) is the fact that most of the government offices still use pirated softwares. The first step forward would be to ban the use of illegal softwares in government institutes.
In the present scenario, it is very unlikely that Bangladesh can become a piracy-free nation in the foreseeable future. The main reason for this is that there is no way we could afford an original, non-pirated software. If we are to combat piracy, there needs to be some way to make those softwares affordable to the masses of Bangladeshi people. The original manufacturers could, for example, release special editions of those softwares only for Bangladesh at a reduced price, but then other complications are bound to arise.
Whatever steps taken, the road to a piracy-free Bangladesh is a long one – and very difficult.
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Apr 23rd, 2008 at 4:46 am
Nice post.
I think the main barrier is the willingness to Law. And I disagree that it will be any bad news for us, if piracy is killed in BD. If you are and advanced user, you can get any software for free, sitting anywhere in the world via torrent.
On the brighter side. The mass in BD will be forced to use free open source software. It will be a huge blessing in the longer term. The govt. is killing our generation indirectly by not banning piracy. Look at India, you cant find pirated software in abundance in their markets and their software industry is benefited as a result. They are way way ahead now. We could do the same, if we were taught to value software. Shame.
Apr 23rd, 2008 at 4:46 am
Nice post.
I think the main barrier is the willingness to use Law. And I disagree that it will be any bad news for us, if piracy is killed in BD. If you are and advanced user, you can get any software for free, sitting anywhere in the world via torrent.
On the brighter side. The mass in BD will be forced to use free open source software. It will be a huge blessing in the longer term. The govt. is killing our generation indirectly by not banning piracy. Look at India, you cant find pirated software in abundance in their markets and their software industry is benefited as a result. They are way way ahead now. We could do the same, if we were taught to value software. Shame.
Oct 28th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
I have to agree, thinking of a piracy free Bangladesh is quiet impossible, but never say that use of genuine software in this country has no future. Of course there are many possibilities and there are people who use genuine games rather than pirated. I myself started using original games in 2006 when HALO for PC came out. I wanted to play online and i had to get the genuine copy from out side the country. Even tho i had to use the annoying dialup connection to play it, it never stopped me from playing online. Now net speed has improved and i don’t face the problem of lag anymore a little bit tho. But its still not enough for the games that come out each year. I would say to have a mass user of genuine games we first need a good internet infrastructure then encourage our gamers to buy original games. “If i can’t play online why should i buy a genuine game” thats what gamers are saying now, so we still have a chance to see a nation using its citizen to use original softwares. There are lots of ways it we can achieve this and we need people with visions and unity. One can not make make all the difference but when many minds for that One unity, maybe then we can achieve that what we say now is “impossible”.
Regards
Tanvir Ahmed Kabir
PS: I have COD4 original but the net speed available is still not enough to play this game online. Who or what should i blame?? and i am not the only one with this problem.
Mar 22nd, 2009 at 9:51 pm
well i myself use to pay for games and software, but when my dad went Bangladesh, i myself started seeing the piracy world as a cheaper and a better or way of getting software and games.
i still think that bangladesh people wouldn’t bee able to afford a windows xp or vista disc.
but however if bangladesh could use open source software/free software , then it could be a start of someting new.
Mar 24th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
The thing is letting people use freewares wont get us out of piracy. If you ask what kind of software people are most fond of using for their entertainment, gaming comes first; and how many games do you get as a free ware? Yes the flash and the Java based games are mostly free but they cover the smaller part of the gaming world. Big giants like Activision, Sony, THQ, Sierra, IDSoft Blah blah etc etc, they never release free versions. But one thing we all forgot, back in 1999 and before; we used to get demo games which came from authorized distributors of different software. People used to buy those and they would know what games are good and meets their demands. Now a days we don’t see that practice. People would say, “What if i buy the game and find out the game sucks and has a bad story and a bad game play, my money would go to waste”, now here is the interesting fact that led us to trust pirated disc more. They are cheap and you can throw the disc away if you don’t like the game, I hope you got my point. We need to change the ways we do marketing for the games. Oh! you can say we see demos om the net, wait haven’t i told you about our internet speed, like 10 to 26 kilo bytes of speed? That is not enough for some one to download demos that are 500MB to Gigabytes of size. So yeah, either you can give demo disc or force our illiterate Government to give us what Net Speed we want hahahaha. I mean for the love of Internet, we still think the countries Freedom will be at stake if we have better internet. More likely you can manipulate the citizens if you do not give them what they deserve, what ever that is. Piracy is good business for the government too you know ^^. Anyway i still see future for the use original softwares and there are lots of ways to make that dream real.
Sep 5th, 2009 at 10:40 pm
i get 100-250 kilo bytes download speed and i live in Bangladesh i’m serious its takes me about a hour to download a 1 gb file
Sep 9th, 2009 at 9:06 pm
ffs i live in u.k i USE To get about 25 KB download speed, i changed to sky and now get 200kb and again i changed to orange and now get 800KB INTERNET SPEED!!!!!
Bangladesh goverment should invest some money in computer coders in bangladesh and tell them to make a linux distrubtion based of ubuntu linux and distribute it out for free,
hope fully Microsoft will stop crying to bangladesh government about pirated windows software lol,
not just that linux is loaded with open source software like firefox , open office and what u need can be found in the synaptic packet manager or sometimes u can stil use cracked win software used through WINE( i windows emulator )
but games… they will stay pirated, but thier are loads of linux games available.( but not as good)
but linux is free and open source, oeople are en titled to do wat ever they want with it, and i think Bangladeshi wud be a sik country if everyone learnt linux coding in school or college( i no its hard for people to get in to college or university)
SO thier should be a LINUX BANGLADESH !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
AND GET THE SLIMLINE PS3 , IDEALY CHEAPER FOR ITS MONEY AND ONLY £200/$300 ON THE MARKETS, AND free internet and free online wich is better than xbox 360 !!!!!!!!!!!!!
PS3 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sep 12th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
I get your point about Linux, but tanveer, you see the amount of games on windows is greater then Linux and then their is the issue of user friendlyness ^_^. I believe that Linux is way better then Windows but it is still not enough for most of the user world wide. Many may not agree i know but Linux might become the next big thing but it may take while. Oh about the Free internet with PS3, now how the heck do you get that?!? i mean one needs to have a conenction from any ISP in the country to use net or be online, how does a console let you have that for free. In bangladesh its not like you a telephone line and the net comes free or whatever. We still have to pay and we do not get the speed we pay for. In India there are several companies compiting who can give faster speed to their users but here in Bangladesh people would devide a 128KB line and give to 60 users. And this system is also in the fiber optic ad wireless business. People who do the ISP business here, try to profit more by giving less to the people. Hey!!! whats wrong in that if the people here are stupid and don’t realize they are being cheated, painfully true 😯 .
Sep 27th, 2009 at 1:23 am
The bloody Corrupted Goverment should at least issue the piracy first, 95% of bangladesh is practically using pirated software. here’s what i think the software developers and the goverment shud do.
1. Ban Piracy, Pirating 1 copy of software results in 1 or more Years in Prison.
2. Software and game developers should lower the prices in third world countries. Tk 1000 (£10)per game is enough.
3. They should use Open source software like Open office or Linux
4. STOP BEING SO GOD DAMN SELFISH YOU DAMN GOVERMENT!!!
Sep 29th, 2009 at 10:34 am
“Corrupted Government” Yes..so true…i can bet you this; the very PC that our PM uses, i wonder if it uses an authenticated Windows or what ever the OS maybe. Its hilarious when i come to think about it. From my childhood time, i remember and if not wrong, the father of the nation {not mine} said “I have been given the country of thives”. I know many of you haven’t heard of this dialouge cause that has been omited from todays “Bhashon”. I give him credit for that cause atleast he had the balls to stand infront of those thousands of men and women..speak out the truth about the nation, its future and get away with the comment. Anyone trying to say that out loud today might get a boiled egg shoved into their !@# lolz. Anyway if you want to get rid of piracy, start it from the government offices. We the people of this nation are like sheeps and the govenrment is the Shepperd Boy. Its time we speak out “BAAAA!!” and stop the sheppherd boy from making bad deals with the wolf?!
Oh and banning piracy is not a good idea!… i will explain it later. Right now banning piracy would be like taking the candy away from the Government….i mean the Kid.
Dec 1st, 2009 at 6:26 pm
You are forgetting the benefits of piracy. For one – its because of piracy video games are this popular in Bd otherwise not many ppl can afford 1000+ bucks for a video game or software. its ridiculous. i myself would stop being a video gamer.. or atleast a hardcore one if that was the case. i agree that piracy is bad however . Because id love to see devs being paid for real for the games they work hard for and piracy prevents that. But the prices outta be cheaper..
Dec 2nd, 2009 at 11:37 am
@ James
Yes, the main factor is affordability. If game publishers can bring games within our purchasing power then it will be a real benefit to them. Perhaps not a boxed copy, but digital downloads for 500 Taka each (just as Steam or Direct2Drive). They will have no marginal expenses except for the bandwidth.
And think about it this way, if you’ve spent months working on a game, worked long nights to pour your heart and soul into a game, how would you feel if someone pirated it and made it available for millions to download for free?
Jan 21st, 2010 at 11:29 pm
direct2drive is a good idea,coz frankly,i m a regular student,and i cant afford a 3000 tk worth game.and its just not me,the majority of gamers in bd are just regular students.The only way to get piracy free and affordable games is an idea like d2d,which we should get from gaming sites of bd like gamersworld……………
Jan 22nd, 2010 at 4:30 pm
@Abir
It will be nice if you can download games from legitimate game download services. However, the main factor is net speed.
However, you can use Steam http://www.storepowered.steam.com to buy and download original games in Bangladesh. They often have special sales at really low prices.
Feb 5th, 2010 at 2:02 am
Piracy is like the lung cancer, it has a success rate (is that really the right word?) of 87% and people are getting much to comfortable with it. I hate having to go to shops and seeing rows of messy, badly ripped and oftentimes buggy pirated PC games, and worst of all I feel bile running through my throat when I actually plunk down money to buy them but do I really have a choice?
Duder, I’ve seen you mention buying games through Steam quite often in your blogs, mind telling me how to? I’ve skimmed through the site’s support section and found almost zero to minimal info on international purchases. Do I need an international credit card? What’s up with all the horseshite about regional restrictions and pricing? Digital distribution is a daunting thought to an average Bangladeshi like me but I’m willing to take any measures just so I can game with some solace and zero “disk copying before installation” or any other shite…
Feb 5th, 2010 at 2:01 pm
If Microsoft deploys headquarters here, then you can rest assured that piracy of the Microsoft operating systems and other software will come to a halt. All the bigger malls will be forced to stop, or face hefty fines.
In Singapore, piracy stopped somewhere between 1998 and 2002 (I literally saw my favourite store being raided). Although there are still a couple of stores which sell such media, they often close and open with new names. For the most part, we have to resort to Malaysia for these “inexpensive” goods =p
But that’s a first-world nation we’re talking about. Without piracy, developing nations will fail to join the digital age, an age where technology is key, and growth is dependent on what mediums the masses have access to. If you’re going to charge $150 for software, would the average family here be able to afford them? I know the gap between the rich and poor is wide here, and only the rich benefit. You can get anything if you have money, but that speaks for a minority. Hell, even in the first-world, piracy comes in a different form – downloads. Since internet connectivity speeds are high, it takes a couple of hours to download a full ISO.
Piracy is hard to stop, even more so for developing nations (where it should _not_ be stopped).
Feb 6th, 2010 at 9:15 pm
@Jason K
It’s really simple, but yes you do need an international credit card. First of all download and install Steam. Then purchase the game from Steam’s store. Finish the checkout process and a new dialog box will open and you have to choose Steam as the app. The game automatically downloads then.
You even don’t have to do that hassle. Since games are tied to your account, the game will automatically start downloading the next time you log in. Plus, there is no regional locks on games sold via Steam, as far to my knowledge.
Apr 19th, 2010 at 12:39 am
This makes me think of CIBC in Canada. My co worker went and talked to a financial rep about their potential death pledge (mortgage). That is the real name of mortgage if you did not know, death pledge. Parliament translates to speak and lies.
Anyways back to the topic. He was asking about how the recession hit them and the huge bail out the Canadian banks got but didn’t need. He said oh of course we needed it. We only made 40 million last year during the peak of recession…. excuse me?? ONLY 40 million? and this warrants putting up all your fees and cutting your services? F banks… they are a fraud on the people. Why do you pay to have them invest with your money and they pay you no interest? Why you loan the government money through rrsp or taxes that they give back and they give no interest. But if you owe them anything for a second, you owe three times the original estimate. This article made me think of the multitude of publishers that have already made BILLIONS and they complain one of their releases didn’t make enough… more like they made millions instead of billions so they are upset. Mid recession, Ubisoft decides they should release their games ten dollars higher than all other new ones have been coming out at. It works with all the fan boys so now all major releases from any publisher is 70 to 80 dollars… that is 45 dollars in pure excess profit above and beyond a normal market increase for any other industry. THE ONLY industry putting as little in and taking as much out as these publishers, are oil companies.
Apr 19th, 2010 at 12:50 am
Other problem with banning piracy is that ALL major corps use it… EVERY SINGLE ONE. Many have insiders in other companies to help leak software. This is where most leaked copies come from… so the original source is due to a publisher paying a hacker/developer to leak their competitors software. Then they tell us the slumping sales are pirates faults when it was their direct competitor that paid to have it happen.
This is like the virii industry. Ban virii and there is no need or point in anti virus anymore. Anti virus companies have been paying and helping to release thousands of viruses to keep us buying their junk. Does not help that there are so many back doors into windows which allows the creation of most of these virii.
Even having this argument about this, seperates the end users and their opinion when we need to be united and demand lower prices so that people don’t have to steal to have the game.
You make bread or milk too expensive and the poor must steal to survive. Same thing with games its just games are not necessary but try to explain that to a halo fan boy. Much of our culture is based around shit we do not need though.
Apr 19th, 2010 at 2:23 am
we dont need a game console, we just want one lol…(addiction)
what we need is food, water, shelter, clothes and all the basic essentials.
however technology is something that is a ‘Must’ have, and having it makes a person happy.
Jun 4th, 2010 at 10:02 am
Do you have a wish to see Bangladesh stay a poor nation for ever? If not then piracy needs to be continued for several more decades so that we can train significant part of our workforce and become a better economy. Bangladesh is not USA. She can’t afford to not live without piracy just yet!