BSA Study Shows Software Piracy Declining in Many Countries

The results from the Business Software Alliance’s fifth-annual study on global software piracy revealed some statistics that would put a smile on any software company executive’s face: Of the 108 countries that are covered in the recently released report, the use of pirated software dropped in 67 countries. In just eight countries did the piracy rate increase.

For example, Russia’s PC software piracy rate dropped seven points to 73 percent. (In the study, piracy rate is defined as the total argentina number of units of pirated software deployed in 2007 divided by the total units of software installed.) “Russia’s piracy rate is still high, but it is decreasing at a fast pace as a result of [software] legalization programs, government engagement and enforcement, user education and an improved economy,” states the BSA study’s findings. (A copy of the complete BSA study can be found here.)

Many low-piracy regions, such as the United States, United Kingdom and Austria, showed decreases (though they weren’t huge) in their piracy rates. The three lowest-piracy countries were the United States (20 percent), Luxembourg bolivia (21 percent) and New Zealand (22 percent). The study also found that many developed economies continued to show gradual declines, including Australia, Belgium, Ireland, Japan, Singapore,

Downloading Free Movies: How it Works

Downloading free movies is an easy thing to do: you simply use some free software that links you to a peer to peer file sharing network, and choose the movies on the network that you want. So how does it work? Where do these movies come from? Actually they are stored on somebody else’s hard disk, and it is not difficult to do.
With a p2p software package, the software you use accesses the hard disk of other members of the network. Many of the different companies that offer the software are connected to the same network. Although the software is basically free of charge, you generally pay a one-time life subscription that pays for a boosted version of the software (essential for large files such as movies), the other software you get such as DVD burning software and DVD players, and also for support.

Interesting Times For Forex Trading Beginners

The first quarter of 2008 saw the United States Dollar lose about 12% of its value against the Japanese Yen. It also sunk to new lows against the Euro. While these facts may have profound implications for the movers and shakers of the world economies, what do they really mean for those just beginning to break into forex trading?

To make the above data more relevant to the beginner, this particular example can be applied–an American consumer with one dollar could buy 110 Yen worth of Japanese candies at the start of 2008. But towards the middle of March, the same one dollar could only buy about 96 Yen worth of Japanese candies.

This kind of volatility can have disastrous consequences in the real world, especially to an American importer of Japanese candies as the example above would suggest. On the other hand, forex traders, especially those with their ears firmly planted on the ground, could actually have cashed in big time on this kind of currency fluctuation.

During times like this, veteran forex traders might actually issue a caution to those just beginning to test the forex trading waters. The reason is simple–beginners might become too spoiled. They may think that making huge amounts of money is this easy.