Flaws In a BSA Software Piracy Report? 288
Ian Lamont writes "The Business Software Alliance has just released its state piracy study (full PDF also available). The BSA says that one in five pieces of software in use in the United States is unlicensed, and notes that piracy rates are highest in Ohio (27%). However, as noted by the Industry Standard, there are problems with the state study, and the way the BSA is presenting the data: the study only includes eight states, and it is making some questionable connections, including the claim that lost state and local tax revenue from piracy would have been enough to 'hire nearly 25,000 experienced police officers.'"
Experiences officers? (Score:1, Informative)
Lost state and local tax revenue from piracy would have been enough to "hire nearly 25,000 experienced police officers", which being experienced are already working somewhere else. So do we move 25,000 officers from another state to Ohio? Why? Would the source state like it?
Re:I doubt there are flaws (Score:5, Informative)
I had been under the impression that the BSA data was faulty due to their business plan rather than anything else. No car salesman is ever going to tell you the transmission is about to crap out. Of course this car is a great deal!
The BS Alliance has a history of some shady tactics, many worthy of SCO fame. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=bsa+complaint+software&btnG=Search [google.com] gets about 133,000 hits. That usually means there are plenty of people in the world ready to tell you they are unhappy about the BSA.
Yep, no flaws in that data. It's showing you exactly what they want you to see.
switch to GNU/GPL/FOSS/Linux (Score:3, Informative)
Realize this is software used by BUSINESS (Score:1, Informative)
Piracy among home users is much higher. Proof? Look at yourself !! you thieving leach !!
Re:I doubt there are flaws (Score:3, Informative)
Bad search terms. Did you look through the results? Even the top few?
Most of those results are references to the BSA lodging a complaint against an infringer, not the other way around.
This doesn't mean your point isn't valid... but it does mean that you need some better evidence.
Not to mention (Score:4, Informative)
I know, I submitted a former employer and was told that the company was in poor financial condition and would not be a viable target because of that.
So if you're not making much money, pirate away!
Re:For crying outloud.... (Score:3, Informative)
Wow. I wonder if mods could actually look at time stamps before modding redundant. Ah well.
Re:hmm (Score:4, Informative)
"And how would they raise taxes from something that a pirate would not buy? How do they draw a conclusion that, if forced to choose, a pirate would PAY for the software instead of not use it?."
They make estimates of how many pirated copies truly represent lost sales; or, more accurately, they have estimates of the attainable conversion rates of businesses that currently use pirated software, to law-abiding businesses. Although it's a popular myth around here, the BSA doesn't assume that every pirated copy is a lost sale.
"The reasons a pirate doesn't pay for software can be various, but I can assure you that only a small portion of pirates would actually pay/buy the software if forced to choose. They would instead not use it."
Remember -- this is a BSA study. The RIAA tends to concern themselves with individual customers, where the BSA focuses on enterprises that use multiple copies of Office, Windows, PhotoShop, and the like. It's a romantic notion that companies that are busted can simply switch to Linux or GIMP, but the BSA already knows (from experience) that many companies pay up and move to licensed copies of commercial software.
Your statement holds very true for the 14-year-old collector who got Illustrator via BitTorrent and might have used it three times. But that's not who the BSA is after.
Re:Flaw? With the BSA? What a surprise... (Score:5, Informative)
http://news.cnet.com/2008-1082_3-5065859.html
I am having difficulty digging up other articles about the BSA using armed police (in some european countries the police carried machine guns) on their audits. IIRC there were a few slashdot articles on this a couple years ago.
Oh, and my bad. It looks like the RIAA does use jack booted thugs with machine guns...
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/18/magazine/18djdrama.t.html?_r=1&ref=slashdot&oref=slogin
Re:Realize this is software used by BUSINESS (Score:3, Informative)
True, so true. However, I only use Ubuntu at home (even my kids use it). My only illegal software is the DVD player hack that let's me watch the DVDs I legally purchased. It kills me that I have to break the law or buy a M$ product.
Re:Tax revenue? (Score:5, Informative)
You're suggesting that, even with the original media in your hands, the BSA would then accuse you of having pirated that software?
First, they don't say its 'pirated' (except in their lobbying rhetoric) they call it an 'unlicenced' copy, which really amounts to the same thing to them.
Secondly, when you buy a VLA, you often purchase media 'separately'; e.g you might pay 20,000$ for 200 licenses of software X at 100 per copy, and then buy 2 media kits (installation CDs) at $25 a shot. And having the media means nothing, its the paperwork that counts. Plus these days, its pretty common to just download the iso.
As for non-VLA software, if you've got a 'full version' installation media your probably ok, provided you have enough original disks... but if you'v got an 'ugrade version', its not a valid license unless you also have the version you upgraded -FROM- right down to the start of the chain.
Their reasoning is that you could have bought one copy of Office 2000, then bought 10 copies of Office XP Upgrade, and used the original Office 2000 media as the basis for each of the upgrades. So if you can only produce one copy of office 2000, 9 of your Office XP upgrades are 'unlicensed'.
Or in the case of more trusting software, maybe you even bought the upgrade, without ever having owned the original, or maybe you sold the previous version...)
You painted a total nightmare scenario in your hypothetical. Imagine if RIAA, MPAA, and BSA were to form a single cartel, pool their resources, and use their authority over local law enforcement (which they've blackmailed) to conduct such raids of your home.
It would be a nightmare scenario.
And the BSA already does this to businesses -- its generally a nightmare for them, as all but the most organized of megacorps who have a full time staff dedicated to their internal software inventory and licensing have a shot of satisfying the BSA.
Everybody else, even if they actually did buy everything they use, aren't going to be able to prove it.
Plus most businesses fail legitimately. After all even 'good' businesses get nailed on things like Winzip shareware (owned by Corel, a member of the BSA), [I use and recommend 7-zip because of this] or on fonts... e.g. they'll have unlicensed copies of the TrueType font XYZ used in their logo on floating around (which is owned by Adobe, a member of the BSA), for example....
So they get just about everybody on something, and a BSA audit is more about "how much" its going to cost you rather than "if".
Its really quite sick.
Re:Tax revenue? (Score:4, Informative)
They can. And the do.
It has happened with the parent company of my own company. It turned out that BSA needs proof-of-purchase and original media with license numbers printed on disks IS NOT a proof-of-purchase.
Re:switch to GNU/GPL/FOSS/Linux (Score:1, Informative)
Only rejects do any modding the rest of us decent people post.