Author: Roan Yboa

A report out by market research company IDC has found that piracy rates of software in Australia has dropped 2 percent, from 28 percent last year.

Now before we start patting ourselves on the back about how honest we’re becoming, I don’t know if it’s peoples’ conscience at play here, or maybe a more practical reason for the decline.

I remember four years ago getting a letter from the anti-piracy folk who said we were running pirated management software on one of our computers. A disgruntled employee had told them this was the case, and to be honest, we had no idea. It took us a while to hunt down the item they were talking about, and as soon as we found it after an internal audit, we kicked it to touch.

But here’s the thing. We knew we had to find some legitimate software, but realised it might cost the earth. However, after roaming the net we found some open source software that meet some of our needs. To fill in the gaps that the open source gear couldn’t accommodate, we spent about $2,000 on licenses. In the end, it turned out it was not a very expensive exercise. And, I think you will find this is one of the main reasons people have decided to go legit – it no longer as prohibitive on their bottom line as it once was.

Of course, there is the “we’re getting more honest” argument to fall back on.

After watching the recent series of Underbelly, which was set in the 1970s, you forget how good the criminals had it back in the day. None of the state police forces worked in tandem, there were no databases, and DNA evidence wasn’t even on the radar.

Today, being a criminal must be hard work – not just to earn a dollar but to stay one step ahead of the law. Think about it – there are street cameras everywhere; there is a DNA database that is being added to every day; there are new ways of tracing criminal activity; databases are shared by a mere click of the button; and the Internet can get a criminal’s ugly mug to millions of people in a matter of seconds.

Take William Stewart for instance, who has become a bit of a folk hero in New Zealand over the past few weeks. This guy, if he wants to stay free, would not want his face plastered all over the Internet. Now he has, not one, but two Facebook pages dedicated to his exploits and some wily entrepreneur has started selling Billy the Hunted One t-shirts online.

Dont’ get me wrong, I’m not that naïve to think that criminals haven’t also moved with the times and are using technology to help their cause, too. They can track police scanners, use mobile phones to talk to each other, and, especially in the case of cybercrime, have found fresh fields to do what they do.

However, I can’t help but feel that technology has given law enforcement more help than the criminal. Here’s hoping it continues.

Not everybody would know who Maurice Jarre was, but to give you the heads up, he was a well-known French composer who died at the end of March. He was three-time Academy Award winner for film scoring, and the father of well-known French synth musician Jean Michel Jarre.

On his death bed Jarre was claimed to have allegedly said “One could say my life itself has been one long soundtrack. Music was my life, music brought me to life, and music is how I will be remembered long after I leave this life. When I die there will be a final waltz playing in my head that only I can hear.” Poetic, nicely put, and a wonderful sound bite for the press.

Unfortunately, he never said it, Irish university student Shane Fitzgerald did when he put it in Jarre’s biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia is a very popular online encyclopedia that can be updated by visitors to the site. There are the odd checks and balances

Fitzgerald, rightly, was worried about how quickly information is spread around the globe with little or no fact checking, and that soon certain pieces of information before fact, even though they are fiction.

Just so everybody knows, I am not a trained journalist, and I’m not trying to act as some moral arbiter or am I tut-tutting journalists. There is every possibility that at some time in the future I could post something that needed a bit more research. Being an embracer of technology and the information age I certainly like the fact that with a few clicks of the cursor I can get the most up-to-date information available. But Fitzgerald’s little experiment proved that we are far too willing to take things at face value.

I am lucky in that I only have to look at a product and discover its merits (or lack thereof), and do not have to rely on Wikipedia or third-party opinions. However, most people in the communications industry – whether they be bona fide journalists or bloggers, or whatever – have to rely on research to get it right.

Has the information age almost become a contradiction in terms? Is there too much information that isn’t being vetted, or scrutinised? Not because people are lazy, but because there is no time. Who is responsible for this dilution of information? Well, we can all take a little responsibility for it. Impatient readers wanting the story now; editors and owners wanting to get the story up first; and journalists for not telling their bosses to hold on for a few minutes while they delve a little deeper.

What do you think? Has the Internet made us less informed?