So, according to the BSA, when you don't buy software, you put the cash you didn't spend under your mattress so the city doesn't get any tax revenue from it (past income taxes, I assume).

Man, I'd better check under my mattress when I get home! I might just be RICH!

is this: if a company pirates (arrrrr, mateys!) a piece of software, they immediately take the money that would have been used to buy that software and stick it in an underground vault, never to be seen or spent again. That's why the state gets no tax revenue.

What a bunch of schmucks.

Just because somebody pirates something doesn't mean they would pay for it if that was the only way. They would instead just NOT BUY IT. The entire premise that if you are losing so much in taxes is bunk. Pirating may cause harm in disrupting some tax money, just not that much.

I mean, honestly, could people even raise that kinda of tax money if they had the cash to buy the software?

Not as bad as the RIAA?

Does the RIAA have jack booted thugs that can walk into your office with body armor and machine guns? Do they fine you millions of dollars if you can not produce the receipt for every version of software ever purchased or installed on a machine? Etc.

Just think about it... There's no tax revenue on Open Source software! People are using it for FREE! It's the end of the government! OH NOES!!!!

Suppose companies were paying salaries with the money they save by pirating software. Then rather than
X * 0.05 = 25,000 police
we would have
X = 20*25,000 = 500,000 unemployed people

So another way of looking at the statistics is that the BSA wants to put 1/2 a million people out of work in each state.

Lies damn lies and statistics, learn to master them.

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?

Thats ridiculous. Purely ridiculous.

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.

What if I buy legit copies of all that unlicensed software....

By MAIL ORDER?!??!

Oh snap! The BSA is happy and the state still doesn't get 25000 officers!

I make this point at least once a month.

There used to be an assumption of ethics. If someone was caught in a lie or fabrication, it would be shameful and cause harm to the individual or an organization. Even organizations with which you disagree would probably be telling the truth.

Those days are long gone. There isn't any effort into presenting the truth. No one cares. Everyone merely selects facts that support their position and tosses the rest. If you dare to present opposing facts, it just becomes a dispute.

Look at "intelligent design" for some reason news agencies seem to think they they deserve equal time with actual science. That is no different than putting astronomers and astrologers on equal footing. Yes, Carl Sagan said there are billions of stars, but madam Maria predicts that there only 100,000 and half of them are in retrograde until 2012. Dial in, who do you believe? 1-900-USA-fucked

There is no ethics or common sense. There is no public outcry or demand that public statements be factually accurate. We expect people to lie. We then use the lies we like to bolster our opinions based on our prejudices.

Communication is impossible when everyone is lying.

I have three linux machines at home. Every time I fire one up I run several hundred 'programs', including X, Qt, the TCP/IP stack, flash, firefox, amarok, ipchains. My two little headless linux computers, one disguised as a DSL modem and the other as a firewall, likewise run at least dozens of programs. I know there are tens of thousands of computers hosting websites all over the world that, likewise, are running dozens of 100% free programs.
For their 1 out of 5 statistic to be right, within the United States, there must be a dozen people running nothing but pirated software just to make up for me.
I know nine other people who are, likewise, running multiple computers, including several Windows machines, that have 100% legit/free programs on them. So now we're up to a hundred or so people running nothing but pirated software just to make up for me and my nine friends.

Are there vast underground barracks filled with armies of illegal software users in Ohio and Florida? Is China outsourcing its goldfarming to the ghettos of East LA?

Now I did quick mental check of the non-licensed software and must say that i can only think of three products. I could do without it, I am hardly using it. The other hundereds of software are validly licensed and not paid for in dollars and cents.

Regarding the economic principles, money can only be spent once. If people are not spending their money on software, they are spending it on food, clothes, ipods etc. Which would produce tax income for the states.

Unless everyone who does not pay for some software product puts the equivalent in the bank, the assumption that it would generate heaps of additional cash for the states is simply False. Check the current balance on the average persons credit card.

So this person(s) who produced this report have tunnel vision, have different interests or are copying the things they see daily on tv (political tunnel vision).

They are equally bad as the RIAA. Not sure how they operate in the US, but here in Belgium and the Netherlands, they don't have the best reputation. If they "suspect" piracy, they'll come knocking on your door and demand to have access to all computer-systems (though in some cases, they do announce their visit one or two weeks in advance). Everyone is ordered to move away from any computer system and they'll start snooping around while you dig up all license information. People not working costs money, but then again, it is not the BSA's money.

What's worse is that if you are not able to find all proper licenses in time, you have two options. Let the BSA confiscate your equipment and go to trial, or sign a settlement. Most business will do the latter. In Belgium, a Printing Shop recently won a case against the BSA which had opted to do the latter (sign the settlement, for 60.000,-, which was cheaper than losing their workstations for an unspecified time) because they were unable to locate all licenses in time (visit wasn't announced). But when did locate all the licenses and asked the BSA their money back, the BSA refused to undo the settlement. In the end the Printing Shop got back their money though the courts, 60.000,00 plus interest plus expenses, but AFAIK, cases like this show that the BSA is nothing more than another money grabbing machine.

The BSA numbers are highly suspect. Here's their forumla:

Infringement = (machines shipped) * (usage estimate multiplier) - (legal BSA) - (legal non-BSA) - (legal FLOSS)

As Russel McOrmond points out, only two of these numbers are actually known: the number of machines shipped and the amount of legal BSA software. The usage estimate multiplier is an estimate of the average amount of software on a machine in a given region. The essential number, however, may be the amount of legal open source software. How on earth do you calculate that? If it is low, then the piracy numbers could be way off. I distribute some open source code, and even I don't have a clear idea of how many people use it. McOrmond says FLOSS not shipped with a PC is often not included. Read McOrmond's article for an in-depth explanation [itworldcanada.com].

My Mac has only a few BSA apps - the OS, iLife, and Photoshop Elements. How is the BSA to know that I'm also running Firefox, Thunderbird and OpenOffice (all FLOSS), or Scrivener, Tinderbox, and NetNewsWire (all legal non-BSA stuff written by and purchased from individuals)? How about my parents' machines, on which I've installed OpenOffice software? They probably wouldn't remember it was open source even if asked.

This is one major reason to buy retail and not a corporate license.

The only thing that allows them to do this is your consent to inspection.

So, according to the BSA, when you don't buy software, you put the cash you didn't spend under your mattress so the city doesn't get any tax revenue from it (past income taxes, I assume).

Evidently yes. I mean what else would they do with it? Spending on expanding the business? Surely not!

Of course, that assumes they ever had the money in the first place. I mean, if I have 0$ and I chose to pirate MS Office... well.. sure that counts as a lost sale, and lost tax revenue to the BSA... but since I had 0$ left in the budget, I was never going to buy the software or anything else for that matter.

But what REALLY bugs me about the BSA is that they consider upgrades for which you can't prove a complete chain for as a 'unlicenses/unauthorized/pirated'.

I mean, I have Vista Ultimate Upgrade on my PC. I obtained that legally, by upgrading my copy of Windows XP Professional Upgrade, which I obtained legally by upgrading my Windows 98 upgrade, which I obtained legally when I upgraded my Windows 95 retail which was purchased on 25 floppy disks over a decade ago. I do not have those floppy discs or license anymore from the original 95 purchase. (And it might even have been an upgrade to Windows 3.11 for Workgroups... I don't even remember.)

If I were audited by the BSA they would find my copy of Vista as 'unlicensed'.

This sort of scenario happens all the time in BSA audits where companies that bought a 5 user VLA in 1992, then in 98 upgraded them to a 10 user VLA (5 new licenses, 5 upgrade licenses), then upgraded to a 20 user VLA in 2002 (10 new licenses 10 upgrade licenses), then upgraded to 25 licenses in 2006 (5 new licesnes, 20 upgrade licenses)... and the BSA shows up...

And you pull out your licenses ... and all you've kept are the 2002, and 2006 ones, but you misplaced or discarded the old 92 and 98 ones, so they determine that you have 15 valid licenses. (the 10 new ones bought in 2002 and upgraded in 06 plus the 5 new ones in 06. The rest are unsubstantiated and you better pay up quick you lousy crook!

Meanwhile the company your dealing with has been bought twice since 92, and the product has been renamed 3 times... and they have no record that you bought a VLA from a company acquired by a company they acquired years ago. Even the accounting records have been destroyed. All that old shit takes up valuable space.

And that's the VLAs... Its far more difficult for a small business to keep every box and license of every piece of software they ever bought just so they can show the BSA one day, especially after a few rounds of upgrades. And small businesses with 4 or 5 people don't usually have VLA's, just a cupboard where they have a bunch of stuff, and when the cupboard is full they usually toss the old versions of old software they've upgraded from...)

Its pure bullshit.

Can you imagine the BSA doing an audit of your home, not for software, just for everything in it. How much of the stuff in your home can you "prove" is legally purchased? You have receipts for every CD, every book, all your cutlery, dishes, pots, clothes, furniture?

Of course not, but that doesn't mean its all STOLEN.

Eliminating the failed prohibition model "war on some drugs" would result in being able to fire 25,000 cops as "not needed at all", as the main result of said war has been an accelerated crime rate related to black market prices and the associated violence with those huge sums of money. No telling how much savings there, but I would imagine it is in the billions. Switching to free and open source, just with governmental use on governmental machines, and especially if magically it could be retroactive back 10 years or better, would have freed up enough cash to give every person in ohio a free computer on savings over software licensing fees, said fees based completely on the "artificial scarcity" model of busy-ness as it relates to digital copies. And probably allow them to give upgrades every few years as well, using the same exact cash levels they are spending now.

Now mine is thin air and I admit it, but at least it is closer to reality than the BSA and MAFIAA "enron styled" accounting figures, and that tie in with cops and crime was just too obviously *lame*.

In other words, get on board with the anti-piracy program and you will have more revenue to trample peoples rights outside of cyberspace.

Keep in mind that part of the target audience of the report is the law enforcement community who at some point has to see some benefit for themselves if they are going to enforce anti-piracy laws. Notice that they don't talk about it in terms of after school programs, or more teachers. Nope, not here in Amerika. We need more cops damn it! The people are getting too uppity.

So the moral of the story is that it's easy to make unauthorized copies of software and bait a company into being an accessory to it and use the BSA as your personal army to settle your backpay vendetta?

You should consider running for office.

Then perhaps another acronym is in order: RICO [wikipedia.org]
The BSA apparently have a long-established pattern of illegal behavior.

And you don't think that could have something to do with copyright infringement not usually being a crime? Unless you mean actual piracy, which often involves eyepatches and speech impediments..

You can also buy an Apple product or a DVD player to legally play DVDs. Even the latter is more intelligent than a M$ product ;)

Disclaimer: As a software engineer I absolutely in no way shape or form support software piracy.

I have serious issues with studies like this which indicate that "lost tax revenue" could do this or that for the population. Where do these groups think the money is coming from? The taxpayers would be the ones coughing that cash up, and in an economy like this there's no more cash to cough up.

Don't compare things to real dollars unless you can prove there is a market willing to pay those real dollars!

Are you the kind of person who calls policemen "pigs" and think that people who help policeman against criminals are "snitches"?

To me, a "narc," "rat" or "snitch" is someone who gets caught at something, so he rats out others who were doing the same thing as he was so he can get off lightly, thus profiting from whatever he was doing wrong, then further serving his own interests at the expense of others by ratting them out.

This case is different. The above-mentioned douche bag set up his former employer and profited from it, while his co-workers - who had nothing to do with his pay dispute - were effectively screwed in the process.

So, yeah, I'd go along with rat, and any number of other epithets.

Evolution is the upstart pseudo-science with pick-and-choose evidence and no proof

There is a HUGE body of evidence to support the evolutionary process. Everything from germs acquiring resistance to antibiotics to butterflies wing color changes as an adaptation to pollution.

The process of evolution is hardly pseudo-science, indeed, it is probably the single most important scientific discovery of man. It represents a victory over religious and superstitious nonsense and an important step in understanding our place on this planet.

Genetics? Yes, of course. Evolution? No. Not one single person. Evolution, correct or incorrect, has less scientific importance than the discovery of bananas being rich in potassium.

I would submit to you that "genetics" as a science would not be possible without an understanding of the evolutionary process.

As for the "value" of studying the path of human evolution, you may say that has no value, but that view also would tend to assert that sciences like anthropology or archeology have no value either.