Malware Hidden in Pirated Games Infects 400,000 Devices
- Thread starter Parkinsond
- Start date
Here is a current list.
Software Piracy 2025 Stat Watch | Revenera Blog
2026 software piracy and license compliance statistics and Top 20 Software License Misuse and Piracy Hotspots (China, Russia, India, USA, and more).www.revenera.com
These statistics can be biased according to ChatGPT (I mentioned this in my previous post):
For some countries like the US, Germany etc. these statistics are most probably too high. The right proportion can be established by including also the data from shiftdelete. Unfortunately, the statistics from an authoritative body like the BSA, are hard to find.
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ForgottenSeer 123960
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ForgottenSeer 123960
@Andy Ful
To remove the vendor bias, you must look at Traffic (who is visiting pirate sites) rather than Money (theoretical lost sales).
The gold standard for this is MUSO (a data company that tracks piracy demand via web traffic) and Sandvine (internet bandwidth analysis). They measure activity, not lost dollars.
MUSO 2024 Piracy Trends and Insights (PDF)
To remove the vendor bias, you must look at Traffic (who is visiting pirate sites) rather than Money (theoretical lost sales).
The gold standard for this is MUSO (a data company that tracks piracy demand via web traffic) and Sandvine (internet bandwidth analysis). They measure activity, not lost dollars.
MUSO 2024 Piracy Trends and Insights (PDF)
They are not mine, and I noted the issues related to the reliability of statistics. I think that the correct result is somewhere between the data from Revenera and Shiftdelete. I could not find the most correct data (that from BSA).
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ForgottenSeer 123960
Look at this post above yours.
Post in thread 'Malware Hidden in Pirated Games Infects 400,000 Devices' Malware News - Malware Hidden in Pirated Games Infects 400,000 Devices
Some statistics are based on the percentage of traffic to pirated web content. But a great part of such traffic is unrelated to pirated software, but to TV, digital publications, music, etc.
tadviser.com
The most reliable statistics related to pirated software are from the BSA association, which represents the interests of the world's largest software developers,
Traffic to pirated sites in the world is declining. Russia accounts for 7.1% of traffic
Most PC users are not ready to accept the idea of buying expensive computer programs and prefer to use "pirated copies," thereby violating the legal rights of copyright holders. What threatens the use of unlicensed software?
tadviser.com
The most reliable statistics related to pirated software are from the BSA association, which represents the interests of the world's largest software developers,
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ForgottenSeer 123960
The BSA has not released a Global Software Survey since 2018.Some statistics are based on the percentage of traffic to pirated web content. But a great part of such traffic is unrelated to pirated software, but to TV, digital publications, music, etc.
Traffic to pirated sites in the world is declining. Russia accounts for 7.1% of traffic
Most PC users are not ready to accept the idea of buying expensive computer programs and prefer to use "pirated copies," thereby violating the legal rights of copyright holders. What threatens the use of unlicensed software?
The most reliable statistics related to pirated software are from the BSA association, which represents the interests of the world's largest software developers,
If you want the most reliable look at software specifically, you are right to point to the BSA methodology, but you must acknowledge that the data is historically frozen at 2018.
If you want the most up-to-date look at what's happening right now, the MUSO 2024 report is better, provided you filter it for the "Software" category only, which shows a 2.1% decline in 2024.
The stats in your original text (from ShiftDelete) are the worst of both worlds, they take Old BSA stats (2018) and slap a New Year (2024) on them to look current. They should be disregarded
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Yes and No.
First, the author stated that: "Note: Data cited is based on trends and estimates from industry reports up to 2025."
Second, although the statistics presented in the ShiftDelete article look reasonable, the author did not include the sources. So yes, they cannot be counted as reliable as the older BSA statistics from 2018.
I think that for countries like the US or Germany, the data presented in ShiftDelete may be even more accurate than statistics based on the traffic to websites with pirated content.
The statistics from ShiftDelete significantly differ from those of BSA. For example, Venezuela 68% instead of 89%, Paraguay 65% instead of 83%, 65% instead of 80%, Algeria 65% instead of 82%, etc. For some countries like Russia and China, the results are the same.
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ForgottenSeer 123960
The ShiftDelete article is likely not using a new, secret 2025 dataset. Instead, the "lower" numbers for countries like Venezuela (68%) and Paraguay (65%) appear to be averages or "blended" data from multiple older sources (potentially mixing BSA's rate with different commercial value studies), or simply hallucinated/estimated trends.
The reason China and Russia match the BSA 2018 data exactly (66% and 62%) while Latin America differs suggests the author cherry-picked, using the famous BSA numbers where they fit, and potentially using different (or made-up) "estimates" where the BSA numbers (like 89% for Venezuela) seemed too high or outdated.
I found the data from the Revenera report (Q1 2018):
www.revenera.com
We can see that :
This proves that statistics from Revenera and BSA are completely incomparable for some countries, especially for the US and Germany.
I am not aware of any events that could change this in the year 2026.
2018 Revenera Software Piracy Stats and BSA Software Survey
The Software Alliance recently released its 2018 Global Software Survey, and I thought it would be useful to review some of the findings and their implications for software vendors and end-user…
www.revenera.com
We can see that :
- In both statistics the China, India, and Russia are among the first four most affected countries.
- The result for the US is the opposite. It is the second in the Revenera report and the last among over 100 countries in the BSA report.
- The result for Germany is opposite too. Germany is among the 10 most affected countries in the Revenera report, and among the last ten of over 100 countries in the Revenera report.
This proves that statistics from Revenera and BSA are completely incomparable for some countries, especially for the US and Germany.
I am not aware of any events that could change this in the year 2026.
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ForgottenSeer 123960
You focused on the wrong one.I found the data from the Revenera report (Q1 2018):
2018 Revenera Software Piracy Stats and BSA Software Survey
The Software Alliance recently released its 2018 Global Software Survey, and I thought it would be useful to review some of the findings and their implications for software vendors and end-user…
View attachment 295597
We can see that :
The BSA report:
- In both statistics the China, India, and Russia are among the first four most affected countries.
- The result for the US is the opposite. It is the second in the Revenera report and the last among over 100 countries in the BSA report.
- The result for Germany is opposite too. Germany is among the 10 most affected countries in the Revenera report, and among the last ten of over 100 countries in the Revenera report.
This proves that statistics from Revenera and BSA are completely incomparable for some countries, especially for the US and Germany.
I am not aware of any events that could change this in the year 2026.
I stated if you read my posts, that If you want the most up-to-date look at what's happening right now, the MUSO 2024 report is better, provided you filter it for the "Software" category only, which shows a 2.1% decline in 2024.
My post was unrelated to your posts.
Did you mean this report?
2024 Piracy Trends and Insights:
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ForgottenSeer 114717
AI is far more accurate and up-to-date than ANY 10 second Google or other search engine search.
Try harder.
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ForgottenSeer 114717
AI uses credible, valid sources without having to look them up. It provides the citation links.
Try harder.
You are not a trustworthy member to follow his advice; I have better members to trust.
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ForgottenSeer 123960
You hand out a lot of advice for someone who is wrong this often. You still ask the same sheer volume of questions you did on day one, yet you posture as an expert here. Hiding behind 'I only advise' is a massive cop-out, parkinsond. At the end of the day, research is research. Whether someone uses Google, an AI like Gemini, or pulls a dusty book from a physical library, the fundamental process of gathering information is exactly the same. Search engines and AI are just faster tools. Stop pretending your methods make you superior.
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ForgottenSeer 123960
You frequently present your opinions as facts only to be corrected. A bit of humility would serve you well; your demeaning attitude toward others is exactly why I’m speaking up. This isn't about Bazang needing a defender, his real-world industry experience and depth of knowledge speak for themselves—it’s about your lack of respect for people who actually know the field.I ask to learn, instead of providing misleading info
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