Estimating the impact of software piracy at the close of the 1990s is a task that—despite the best intentions—often resists straightforward measurement. In 1998, piracy was front-page news in some places, but mostly an ambient risk, a silent factor lurking beneath the official numbers. For analysts seeking to make sense of its effects, ISIC 6201—computer programming activities—presents a logical foundation. This code, however, serves as both a map and a fog: it collects the full population of software producers but says little about how the tides of piracy affected them individually.
To start, one assembles a census of all ISIC 6201-registered firms in the relevant geography for 1998. In the United States, for example, the list is long and varied—large software houses, boutique developers, new entrants focused on everything from games to productivity tools. The number, in isolation, says little about piracy, but it does define the population most exposed to its consequences.
The challenge is to compare what these firms actually sold (legitimately) to what might have been sold in a piracy-free world. Public companies sometimes reported lost revenues due to piracy in annual statements—rarely with any precision, often with an air of frustration. Industry groups, like the Business Software Alliance, produced headline estimates each year, attempting to quantify global and regional losses. These are, at best, indicative: built on sampling, consumer surveys, or even periodic enforcement sweeps.
A useful approach is to select a basket of well-known software products, track their reported sales, and—where data allows—compare those figures to estimated numbers of users, drawing on everything from market research to online forum activity. In markets where legitimate sales fall conspicuously short of user counts, the gap is likely filled, at least in part, by pirated copies. For large ISIC 6201 firms, this gap can be measured in lost market share or stunted revenue growth. For smaller players, the evidence is often more anecdotal: the story of a product with enthusiastic early reviews, but disappointing commercial results.
Enforcement data, where available, adds a further dimension. National copyright offices, trade groups, and even customs agencies sometimes published records of raids, prosecutions, or seized counterfeit disks. Mapping this enforcement activity by region, and overlaying it with the distribution of ISIC 6201 firms, highlights both exposure and resilience. Some areas, due to strong enforcement or public awareness campaigns, saw a dip in piracy rates and a partial rebound in legitimate sales. In other regions, the pattern was less encouraging—weak enforcement, high rates of piracy, and little incentive for small firms to invest in new product lines.
Yet enforcement data is, by nature, uneven. Not every raid is reported; not every prosecution leads to conviction. Some companies, wary of reputational damage or retaliation, chose to handle piracy cases privately or quietly withdrew from affected markets. The correlation between official enforcement and actual piracy rates is, at best, partial. Still, the timing of major enforcement campaigns—when cross-checked against firm revenues or product launches—sometimes reveals a temporary boost in sales or a shift in market focus.
Some analysts have tried to model the “what if” scenario: estimating the counterfactual revenues for ISIC 6201 firms under different piracy rates. These models, usually built on assumed elasticity of demand, can be persuasive in aggregate, though less so for any one company. They are best used as broad signals rather than fine tools, especially since consumer behavior in the presence of piracy is complex. Not every pirated copy represents a lost sale; in some cases, piracy even served as unintentional marketing, building a user base that later converted to legitimate purchases.
Documentation throughout the process is essential. Every assumption—about market size, reporting gaps, or the link between enforcement and sales—should be recorded. Piracy, by its very nature, is a phenomenon of shadows and partial evidence. The resulting analysis is rarely complete, sometimes frustratingly so. But by triangulating ISIC 6201 firm numbers, legitimate sales, and enforcement data, it’s possible to gain a more grounded sense of how piracy shaped the software sector in the final years of the twentieth century. The effects are uneven, the boundaries blurred, but for those prepared to look closely, the signal, though faint, is there.