BSA's Latest Piracy Claims 'Shockingly Misleading,' Says Geist 277
An anonymous reader writes "This week the Business Software Alliance published a new study
which purports to estimate the economic gain from a ten percent reduction in piracy of business software. For Canada, the BSA claims that the reduction would create over 6,000 new jobs and generate billions in GDP and tax revenue. But Michael Geist says the BSA claims are based on nothing more than the economic gains from a ten percent increase in proprietary software spending. The BSA now admits its estimate is based on the presumption that every dollar 'saved' by using unlicensed software would now be spent on proprietary software."
Glyn Moody pointed out more flaws in the BSA's report.
The Business Glass Alliance Announces (Score:5, Insightful)
For every 10% increase in broken window glass over 6,000 new jobs would be created and billions in GDP and tax revenue would be generated.
Re:The Business Glass Alliance Announces (Score:5, Funny)
- Canada's GDP would go up by billions of dollars
- Nearly 5 billion dollars would go to taxes
- The lucky guy or gal could spend 3 billion dollars to hire 6,000 people at an average of $50,000 a year for 10 years to build a monument of themselves.
- The lucky person would have 2 billion dollars left to spend
The choice is clear.
Re:The Business Glass Alliance Announces (Score:5, Interesting)
And now that these businesses are being put in their place, they're going to rightfully pay their BILLIONS to the software companies. 6000 new jobs! Nevermind the BILLIONS in paycuts and thousands of layoffs that would be needed to pay for the software if the supposition were true...
You aren't going to get money from nothing unless you're the Federal Reserve®
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What a great assumption. I'm sure if Adobe was able to charge for every copy of Photoshop that's used, every future graphic designer would pay out of their own pocket to get experience with it. They'd show up for their first day of work like they do now, fully prepared and knowledgeable, and the only difference would be Adobe's bottom line.
Either that, or more and more graphic design houses would find themselves having to switch to the GIMP because it's all anyone seems to know. Hmm...which is it?
Re:The Business Glass Alliance Announces (Score:5, Insightful)
Well the extra jobs claim is a nonsense, for starters.
The very fact that the software was "pirated" means that the software is already specified, designed, written and tested - no extra technical jobs needed there.
The very fact that the software was "pirated" means that the software was already widely known about - no extra jobs in sales and marketing needed there.
The very fact that the software was "pirated" means that those users are prepared to do without paid support - no extra jobs in support and maintenance needed there.
The very fact that the software was "pirated" means that the software is already distributed to those who are using it - no extra jobs in distribution needed there.
So what would also those extra jobs be used for? Counting the extra money?
Re:The Business Glass Alliance Announces (Score:5, Interesting)
Due to the Ernie Ball story and the high cost of software, when I stopped loading Windows on home built beige boxes, I started using Ubuntu instead. Now I no longer pay for extra copies of AV software, media players, etc. The net result due to the Software Repository for Ubuntu, I buy less applications and games. I find I don't need CD or DVD burning or ripping software from a retailer.
All I can say is Thank You BSA. You have saved me a bundle. I've gone legal and never looked back.
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That's a bit of a false dichotomy, this isn't a glazier breaking the neighbors window (the vendors forcing the users to pay for something they don't need or want), it is the neighbor breaking into the glaziers and taking windows for his new house without paying (the users taking from the vendor without paying). And yes, I'm aware that nothing is 'broken' or 'stolen' in this case, but I've always had a problem with that argument; obviously the pirated software has value over the free alternatives, why else
Re:The Business Glass Alliance Announces (Score:5, Informative)
obviously the pirated software has value over the free alternatives
I debunk your argument by naming this common logical fallacy [nizkor.org]. This is a textbook example of begging the question based on a false presumption that some F/OSS alternative exists for every marketed software. By the way, why try to make something a "right" when one can already sue for damages based on simple law that already covers this topic anyway, theft. You might want to rethink your argument.
Re:The Business Glass Alliance Announces (Score:4, Interesting)
My point was that the pirated software had value to the the people who are pirating it, not that every piece of functionality was available in a free piece of software. If there is no free alternative available then there is all the more reason that the software has value since there is no replacement for it.
By the way, why try to make something a "right" when one can already sue for damages based on simple law that already covers this topic anyway, theft.
Because as has been pointed out on this site many, many times, theft implies denying access to the stolen item by taking it away. The implication being that creating a copy of something for your own use cannot really be theft since the original copy is still completely usable and available to others. There is also laws that say that content creators have a right to control who copies and distributes their creations, it's called 'copyright', maybe you've heard of it?
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And it used to be for a limited and reasonable period of time but has been corrupted by content creators over the years (namely Disney). "Pirating" software and other content (some of which falls under Fair Use and is still called "pirating" by groups like the BSA) has become the equivalent for some people of civil disobedience.
"No, I will not give up my seat!" --Rosa Parks, where would we be if she obeyed the law?
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It's not that a big stretch as you'd like it to be.
Enforcing copyright is a form of for-profit censorship. You're not allowing people to privately communicate certain pieces of information in order to enable businesses to sell them those pieces of information as if they were physical goods.
Censorship of private, non-commercial information, whatever the contents may be, is in its essence a infringement of human rights. Censorship for the sole purpose of making a non-natural business method viable makes this
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"My point was that the pirated software had value to the the people who are pirating."
In the US, the distributer is the pirate. In fact using the term pirate in this context goes back 300 years and is specifically regarding the people making the copies, not the people receiving them. While there is now verbiage in the copyright regarding downloading, don't link to it unless you understand it. It isn't saying what most people on /. think it is.
And there is good reason the people receiving shouldn't be held l
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I totally agree I was only pointing out the absurdity of their statement. This money would not magically appear these firms would stop spending money on something else like say employees to pay for this software. Others would switch to FREE alternatives. Either way no way would forcing every "pirate" to be legit actually result in that number of sales.
On top of that few new jobs would be created even if they were right. It takes no longer to write software that 1000 people use vs 10 people.
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Well I think h4rr4r at least has a point that statistics for the number of jobs, the increased tax revenue, and the increase in GDP does not actually mean that it would be economically productive for people to buy 10% more software. People always cite GDP, but money spent on fixing broken windows is also counted toward GDP.
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it is the neighbor breaking into the glaziers and taking windows for his new house without paying (the users taking from the vendor without paying)
However this is intellectual theft. In this situation, the glazier hasn't be deprived of one piece of glass or glaze, so he can sell that glass to someone else.
It would be "more" like me going into a staples, picking up a magazine and taking pictures of an article then putting the magazine back and taking my pictures with me.
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No, it's the neighbor watching the glazier and then exactly duplicating what he does rather than hiring him to replace the windows.
The glazier isn't out any time or materials, he just didn't get a new contract.
The key part is that if the neighbor was prepared to make do with the old plexiglass windows rather than pay the glazier's rates (or if he couldn't afford to do otherwise), then the glazier is not out anything at all. There was never a contract there for him.
Re:The Business Glass Alliance Announces (Score:5, Informative)
I can cite one example of software piracy costing a software publisher: Ernie Ball [cnet.com].
Ball manufactures my favorite guitar strings, the "Super Slinky". In 2000 he was raided by the BSA, couldn't find all the licenses, and settled with the BSA for $100,000. Enraged, he said he wanted all Microsoft products out of his offices and factory. "I don't care if we have to buy 10,000 abacuses," he said, "We won't do business with someone who treats us poorly."
It's now a Linux shop. All the money he hasn't spent on Microsoft products in the last ten years and in the forseeable future is money lost to MS. The BSA's insane zeal to make sure that every piece of software has a license and that the license can be found has cost Microsoft hundreds of thousands of dollars, and will cost far more.
Re:The Business Glass Alliance Announces (Score:5, Funny)
Up Next: BSA claims that Open Source is the same as piracy. All software must be licensed, and those licenses must be purchased from member companies of the BSA.
From the same mindset that brought you "Skipping commercials is theft"
Eureka! (Score:5, Insightful)
I get it! It's so clear now!
My new plan is to pirate $100,000 worth of software, movies, and games every year. The money I save I will put into a retirement account, and I'll be able to retire in style in no time!
Now, I don't make $100,000 a year, and my current expenses are only a little less than my current income, but that's neither here nor there. The BSA has shown me that this logic is sound!
A penny pirated, is a penny saved, is a penny earned, right?
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Re:The Business Glass Alliance Announces (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The Business Glass Alliance Announces (Score:5, Insightful)
Working hard doesn't mean you have done anything of value. I can work much harder digging a hole in the ground but if no one wants the hole and there is no need for a hole there, I can't get all pissy and demand to be paid for all of my hard work.
Opposite side of the coin is that if someone comes along and starts using your hole, you'd reasonably expect to get paid for it, just like anyone else workin' the street.
Re:The Business Glass Alliance Announces (Score:5, Interesting)
Alternatively, I dig a hole in some waste ground without anyone asking me to.
I work very hard.
I bitch and moan about how I worked real hard and demand to be paid.
Nobody pays me.
Later someone else comes along and puts water in the disused hole and starts using it for a swimming pool.
I bitch and moan that I worked very hard and since they're using it it obviously has value.
Yet still nobody pays me.
The moral of the story is, just because you work hard, even if what you do has value to someone that does not automatically entitle you to payment.
Re:The Business Glass Alliance Announces (Score:4, Insightful)
Alternatively again, I dig a whole for the express purpose of turning it into a swimming pool and charging people for its use. I finish the pool and sell admission to thousands of people but at night, after we're all closed up, hundreds climb over the fence and swim for free.
Re:The Business Glass Alliance Announces (Score:4, Insightful)
Which costs you nothing.
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Which costs you nothing.
Of course it doesn't cost *nothing* but it costs very little - the water isn't free (people will splash out some water) and the chemicals to keep the water clean-ish isn't free (people will dirty the water). In fact, it costs exactly the same, per swimmer, as it does during the day and that is where the problem really is. In addition to that, if the word spreads you allow semi-illegal free night swimming, it is very reasonable that some of the people who would swim (and pay) during the day will choose to sw
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Well if the night swimmers become numerous enough to require a drink bar, then a few vending machines can probably cover up the costs these swimmers incur until the thing becomes big enough that you can keep your pool open 24/24. In the end everyone is winning. Your swimming pool wouldn't gain popularity as fast without the night swimmers.
As far as pools are concerned, supposing people can swim for free at night, I don't think that'll prevent them from paying during the day as that's the time when it is the
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Where is this place? I want to hang out there.
Re:The Business Glass Alliance Announces (Score:4, Insightful)
I love it when people start with a simple analogy and then extend upon that idea, then tell you that you can use the idea in the original scenario.
All I need to do is put a drink machine next to my software, and then I'll be able to double my profits!
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> The reality is far more complicated than your over simplistic view or the over simplistic "Information wants to be free" view.
No it isn't.
"Counterfeiting" creative works is cheap and easy.
This leads to the practice being pretty pervasive.
Corporations and their shills then come along and make all sorts of bad assumptions based on the
fact that the cost of product is effectively zero. Demand (especially for a luxury good) is very
elastic and is inversely proportional to price. The corporations and their sh
Re:The Business Glass Alliance Announces (Score:4, Insightful)
You forget, part of the contract for building that swimming pool, is that after a set amount of time, the pool becomes community property and is opened free to everyone. You on the other hand put in a lock that by law, can never be removed. The pool is free to the public, but no one can get in. After several years, you forget about the pool, and no longer care about the ownership of the pool, but the lock is still on the gate.
Re:The Business Glass Alliance Announces (Score:5, Insightful)
Bad analogy;
if someone comes along and starts using your hole, you'd reasonably expect to get paid for it...
Better: I dig a hole. Some one comes along, pays me a fee for my hole, and then snaps their fingers and creates a similar hole. They then do this 1000 more times, creating holes all over the place. Soon everyone has a copy of my hole, I only dug one hole, but I demand a license from everyone who has a hole. I soon decide that anyone who has a hole now owes me money; regardless of whether or not their hole is exactly like mine. I sue anyone with a hole. Some suites I win, but most I lose. And its done nothing to curb copying of my hole. More people than ever have holes, and tell me to get lost with my efforts to collect on new holes. Even though I'm in the right, its still easier for people to just copy my hole that jump through my byzantine licensing schemes. Instead of creating a new way to make holes, or completely different hole-like paradigms (portable holes, holes to other dimensions, holes that contains delicious meals...) I concentrate my efforts on punishing people with old-style holes. I die alone and hole-less. Stretches the scenario but much closer to the real-world.
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Au contraire!
It sounds like you digging a hole like that created more work for the city who had to fill it in.
So if everybody did that, lots of jobs would have to be created to fill them in.
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No, but people using his/her software DOES indicate that something of value has been created, or they wouldn't use it.
Pay the asking price or use something else, the creator isn't obligated to give you his/her product.
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It only indicates the software has higher value than the risk of being got using it without paying. Not that it has the value the owner wants. I agree that people should pay for software that costs money, but it does not mean if forced too they would not choose something else.
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As soon as I can return software I don't like and gt cash back, I'll be happy to buy, try and return. Right now it is extremely difficult for consumers to be treated fairly.
until I can do that, I will download stuff for free. If I do, indeed, get value out of it I will pay for it.
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Try before buy is one thing, but to keep using it without paying is something else entirely.
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Applying your analogy to software doesn't cover piracy. Piracy would be someone copying the WHOLE book and giving it away to others (or charging some price for the copies).
Your analogy would be equivalent to me getting a copy of Mathematica (to use an example I'm familiar with), occasionally people coming to me with some huge calculus problem they can't solve and me putting it through mathematica and given them the answer.
You people didn't use the book, they used information FROM the book. My people didn't
Re:The Business Glass Alliance Announces (Score:4, Insightful)
Wow, the lengths you sick people will go through to justify your thievery. Listen up, douchebag:
Wow, the lengths you sick people will go through to justify anti-capitalistic protectionist laws that stomp on and oppress the rights and freedoms of everyone else because you can't figure out how to get paid what you want for doing what you want do. Listen up, douchebag: Just because you have this outrageous sense of entitlement that people should pay you the exactly the way you want to get paid for doing exactly what you want to do doesn't mean there should be laws stifling innovation and restricting what everyone else can do simple so you can get paid what you want when you want. If you can't make a living doing what you want to do learn how that fryer works. Just because you work on something doesn't mean you should get paid for and expect society to bend to your will. You are a pathetic human being. I bet you'd be screaming bloody murder if they passed a law saying you had to pay half of what you make to whoever made your computer because you used it to produce the software your trying to sell. You'd be out of there faster than it takes for you to get the fry basket out when the beeper goes off.
If you can't figure out how to make a living doing want you want to do I'd suggest doing something else. Don't expect society to shape itself around you just because you feel you deserve to get paid for something. It's funny the number of opensource companies that can make money off something that people are free do download and use for free. Oh and I write software for a living so don't even try pulling out that card.
Econ 101 (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a finite amount of money.
Thus, if $1000 more is spent on software, $1000 less is spent elsewhere. Roughly speaking, 6000 new software jobs equals 6000 fewer other jobs.
This is approximately a zero sum game.
There are benefits to reducing piracy, but their argument doesn't hold water.
Re:Econ 101 (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Econ 101 (Score:5, Funny)
So what you're saying is that virtual dollars are constantly being created and destroyed in Economic Space? Forming the basis for a theory of Economic Vacuum Energy [wikimedia.org]? Which itself is a part of Quantum Economics?
Re:Econ 101 (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Econ 101 (Score:4, Informative)
Economics is certainly a science (at least with some schools of thought), producing a priori true propositions that withstand rigorous logical analysis - like mathematics. The law of diminishing marginal utility, for example, is not a 'pattern', neither is it subject to empirical verification/falsification - it is a priori true as much, or moreso than (depending on which philosopher your talk to), the Pythagoras triangle theorem.
But it's that inherent inability to verify or falsify that makes it a non-science. And for the record, math is not a science, either. Being able to make up a system and then write equations that hold up within that system does not mean that your system in any way models reality. Unless you can empirically test a hypothesis, you're not doing science.
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Also, money is the representation of "value" in the market (goods, man-hours over a given timeframe for services, etc.). Only a fool would think that these resources are constant at any given time. Things are created/destroyed regularly, and the total available can go up or down.
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And economics gets thrown a screwball by things with infinite supply like bits and ideas. When you try to artificially regulate those into "classical" models and try to think of them in economic terms, you run into problems.
Re:Econ 101 (Score:4, Informative)
You're right that economics isn't a zero sum game. It's not because if imaginary money though, don't be absurd. It's because of this: Lets say I make $30,000 this year. But $12,000 goes to rent and utilities. $4800 on food. That leaves $13,200. So did I get paid $30,000 or did I get paid $13,200. Saying that economics is zero sum is saying that I only got paid $13,200. I didn't, I got $30,000. The fact that I spent it doesn't mean it never existed. It means I spent it. If there was only $30,000 in the entire country and I started with all of it, then spent it, the GDP is over $30,000 even though only $30,000 exists. Because I'll spend it, the people who get it after me will spend it, and so on, it keeps on flowing. GDP is a measure of money FLOW, not of money.
But, some parts are zero sum. If you presume that the amount of pop people drink in a year is a fixed value, then the cola wars are a zero sum game. Coke can only make more if Pepsi makes less. That's got nothing to do with money being finite, and everything to do with demand being finite. And the OP's example is another on of these cases. If Company X has pirated software, and switches to legitimate software, they are spending $1000 more. This extra spending does not increase their income. Now, assuming that they were just sitting on that $1000 then this improves the economy, just like broken windows do. But if they were going to spend that money anyway, it's only a redistribution of wealth. It couldn't possibly create jobs unless you can show that software development companies spend money on different things, and that somehow those different things tend to go to big spenders so the economy is more stimulated. I doubt that's the case. (Plus most of that money, in TFA's example of Canadian companies, wouldn't even be staying in the same country).
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Your econ 101 class didn't teach you that economics is not a zero-sum game?
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No, wealth can be created from labor and resources.
Look at it this way: Where did money come from?
If the supply is always finite and unchanging, then there can be no money now, because orignally there was none. It had to come from somewhere.
If you say there can be no more money created, how was the second dollar (pound, peso, whatever) created after the first?
And the second million or billion?
Try Econ 201. They go into more depth.
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How is there a finite amount of value? Each person that can/does supply services is an increase in value. Every mineral and piece of food that comes out of the ground is a bit of value added.
Every piece of food digested/rotted, and every item gone to the dump is value removed.
None of these totals are constant. I'm sure, at best someone could come up with the value available per-capita is fairly constant, but I'd have trouble believing even that.
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How much value do you get from the air you breathe? How much is it worth, in a monetary sense?
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No link to goldline?
Not Shocking (Score:4, Insightful)
How is it shocking? Every study released by industry groups on the effects of piracy, thus far, has been way off the mark in estimating the economic impact of piracy. This is about as unshocking as you can get. Did anyone really expect a trade advocacy group to not mislead you when they report on stuff like this?
Re:Not Shocking (Score:5, Interesting)
The only shocking thing about this is that they admitted their fudging of the facts after they were called out on it.
BSA is biased anyway (Score:4, Interesting)
Even the US Government Accountability Office has announced that you can not accurately make economy-wide estimations for this type of thing.
Most experts observed that it is difficult, if not impossible, to quantify the economy-wide impacts.
Generally, the illicit nature of counterfeiting and piracy makes estimating the economic impact of IP infringements extremely difficult, so assumptions must be used to offset the lack of data.
Re:BSA is biased anyway (Score:5, Funny)
Generally, the illicit nature of counterfeiting and piracy makes estimating the economic impact of IP infringements extremely difficult, so assumptions must be used to offset the lack of data.
Well in this case it would be "making an ass of u and mptions"
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Doubly misleading (Score:2, Insightful)
Nor does it account for the jobs created by the money *saved* by not paying for said software.
Zero sum (Score:5, Insightful)
"the reduction [of software piracy] would create over 6,000 new jobs and generate billions in GDP and tax revenue"
That also assumes that any money not spent on proprietary software is being stashed under a mattress.
The truth is more like the money would be diverted from other spending, and these "billions" of dollars would just be distributed differently, with no plausible increase in net GDP or tax revenue.
It's might even be positive for the economy (Score:5, Insightful)
A lot of people who pirate (eg.) Microsoft Office will only use it once a month or so.
Spending $600 so they can use Office a dozen times a year is probably worse for the economy than spending it on something else.
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Spending $60 or $6 towards a donation to improve your favorite free alternative might not be. Just because you use it infrequently does not mean you should be using it with out the owners consent.
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Even Microsoft admits they benefit from piracy [techdirt.com].
Every time somebody pirates MS Office instead of installing Open Office is another person locked into their document formats, another person emailing MS Office documents to other people and another person who gets used to working with MS Office instead of the competition.
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Economics is not a zero sum game. Dig something valuable out of the ground and you've just "created" new money by adding something valuable that wasn't there before. (This applies to anything valuable, digging stuff up just makes the point clearer)
However, your point stands in the sense that if people have to start paying for something that used to be free and does not increase revenue in any way, then the money for that item must come from somewhere else. $1000 more spent here means $1000 less spent some
Re:Zero sum (Score:4, Funny)
And where does that dollar magically come from? (Score:5, Interesting)
It comes from reduced spending someplace else? Or increasing consumer or business debt, right?
This is an old, old economic fallacy. I tried to debunk it once in a blog post: "Broken Windows and the Ghost of Keynes" [robweir.com] but you can't kill the undead.
not to promote piracy, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you were to increase software sales by 10% for an equal reduction in piracy, you would be causing billions of dollars of HARM to the economy because those former pirates would experience no increase in value in the software they have and now have fewer resources to spend elsewhere.
Piracy does cause some harm to the software/entertainment industry, but it does so by enriching the greater economy by creating a net gain in value when you consider the big picture.
Their argument is fundamentally flawed in ways far beyond the fact that they are making up random numbers.
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Well, I suppose as long as you aren't in the business of producing software this is a great argument.
I'd say the argument also applies to houses. Currently in the US there is a surplus of houses, so many that cities are bulldozing them to prevent their use by squatters, gangbangers and drug dealers. Also, we just had a huge crisis because the bond rating people decided to ignore reality and rate bonds AAA no matter what. The result was a huge influx of money into the housing market which has now disappear
Another way to look at it would be (Score:2)
The money that teh evil pirates have stopped from reaching the bonuses of software company executives has instead been spent supporting thousands of real jobs. Or orphans. Or whatever, since these are these figures are being pulled out of someone's ass.
History repeats (Score:5, Insightful)
Where the jobs are. (Score:5, Interesting)
Unfortunately, the new jobs will not be in product development, but rather in legal prosecution and defense, as companies spend more time hunting "pirates" with very little result per dollar spent, then are sued themselves by companies using the same tools they use to attack others.
Oh, and the law teams will almost certainly end up costing far more per 'employee' than developers.
The BSA is what you get when lawyers see how this cycle works, and band together to accelerate the process, while maximizing leverage against companies to keep the cycle going. It's like a union, without the meager shared humility of strenuous work to justify the pride involved - it's all union bosses playing with money here.
Ryan Fenton
what about the CAL BS that they some time push on (Score:2)
what about the CAL BS that they some time push on you as well needing all kinds of documents and being very picky about what one you need.
If the dollar is saved (Score:2)
What the industry refuses to admit (Score:4, Informative)
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The problem is that mostly what BSA is concerned with is piracy in businesses.
A business that is using a pirate version of Microsoft Word would very likely continue to use Microsoft Word no matter what, even if it cost something. Same goes for most things that are really useful in a business environment.
Photoshop is somewhat questionable - there are a lot of people that download it because it is there and free. If they had to pay their modest requirements might actually be fulfilled with Paint.
Now, the pi
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A business that is using a pirate version of Microsoft Word would very likely continue to use Microsoft Word no matter what, even if it cost something. Same goes for most things that are really useful in a business environment.
With free options available like OpenOffice, even that assumption has to be put in question.
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Even Microsoft has admitted that they're rather have somebody pirate MS Office than install a copy of Open Office.
Re:What the industry refuses to admit (Score:4, Interesting)
I would say Open Office is far from a poor imitation. Lots of folks use it, you don't like it which is fine. The reality is I see it used in businesses all the time for employees who use office type apps very little. We have about 400 call center folks using it. This has saved our company considerable money.
If it were not for people sending them office documents, they probably would be fine with wordpad though.
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And of course there is economic value to "piracy": advertising and lock-in.
Microsoft's lock on the market happened because of illicit, unauthorized and implicitly authorized copies. Their resulting monopoly position has been worth vastly more than any revenue foregone or lost.
Even if a software publisher doesn't end up with a monopoly, no-cost copies can create a viable market size where none existed before.
There have been serious economic analyses that suggest the market has a below-optimal illicit copyin
Even more disturbing (Score:2, Insightful)
What's even more disturbing is that this along with anti-piracy of music and movies is being touted by many as a significant part of the cure to the poor US economy. We also have similar attempts by the broadband providers claiming net neutrality will cost jobs. Verizon has already stopped their Fios rollout in the US regardless of the net neutrality outcome. It's a total joke how every industry that wants some government concession or intervention uses "loss of jobs" as their primary tactic.
A devil's game (Score:5, Insightful)
Conclusion: YES, you want people to pay for software they use but (IMHO) measuring the economic impact is a devil's game. At best.
...reduction would create over 6,000 new jobs,,, (Score:2)
...In India.
But it would benefit the open source community immensely so you just *go* BSA. Prosecute away. OpenOffice needed that boost. Linux too.
Down with All Software Taxes! (Score:2, Interesting)
All I hear is how taxes hurt the economy, by taking money away from small businesses, so they have to lay off workers.
So, equivalently, the software industry should stop taxing all the other businesses by charging them money at all, and give away software for free. That way, 100% of the money companies spend on software would go towards creating jobs!
Stop taxing us, software companies! Clearly you hate small businesses and the American worker!
Self serving study results. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I could make a nice soup out of yesterday's chicken carcass. You can ditch the 'study' but leave me the carcass.
Tag Line (Score:5, Insightful)
"BSA. Because not enough people are using Open Source"
Shockingly Misleading? (Score:3, Insightful)
Er. I am not sure how "Shocking" it is. Anytime the BSA or the RIAA or CRIA etc... use "statistics" to prove a point they usually aren't worth the paper they are printed on. They don't even make an attempt to be even remotely accurate or truthful. They just use it for "Shocking" talking points, that they feed their bought and paid for puppet politicians to repeat over and over again in the media so they people buy the hokum they are selling.
I would be hard pressed to even think of organizations that I would trust less in their use of statistics and the "general use of numbers". In other words all they spout is BS, why would I ever consider anything that they spout not to be BS.
This article would make more sense if they only put quotes around "Shockingly" in a smarmy sarcastic way, unless that was the intention anyway...
Other errors: 43%, not 50%, etc. (Score:3, Informative)
Skimming through the comments so far, I get the impression that most people are concentrating on the argument that if a person can't pirate, that doesn't mean they will buy. TFA makes an even better point: They BSA assumed that, by value, 50% of the software in use is pirated. Otherwise a 10% reduction in piracy wouldn't result in a 10% increase in sales, even if all of the ex-pirates purchased. Gee, doesn't 50% seem a little high?
How did BSA get 50%? A questionable study said greater than 40% [bsa.org], and since 50% is greater than 40%, it must be the correct number. (The actual number was 43% [bsa.org], FWIW.
The earlier study included countries such as China and Russia and it appears (even the detailed version didn't really say) that they assumed that each piece of unlicensed software counted as much as each piece of licensed software. So every unlicensed copy of Windows 98 running on an underpowered PC in a third world or BRIC country was as valuable as any piece of brand-new business software.
One thing that makes this look like so much hoo-ha is that the "detailed studies" available as PDFs don't contain any collected data or details about methodology. It's just nicely presented conclusions and spin.
Are they lawyers? (Score:3, Insightful)
Or people who wanted to be lawyers, but were too dumb to get into law school?
Seriously, you'd have to be really stupid to be able to write such a report and not have heard of opportunity cost. Yes if $X worth of software was bought instead of pirated the software makers would have an extra $X, but someone else (the now not pirating company, or more likely their workers or suppliers) would have $X less.
So any economic benefit depends on the relative multipliers of the software companies and those sombody elses. I put my money on the sofware makers having a much lower multiplier for the local economy.
Or of course they aren't stupid, but are intentionally lying.
And that's ignoring any issue with the whole "people who pirate would buy it rather than not having it at all if we reduced piracy" assumption.
Choosing between two groups of losers (Score:3, Insightful)
Software pirates (commercial and noncommercial alike) certainly need to be caught and punished. However, when people like the BSA prove themselves to be liars, there aren't any "good guys" in the picture. When the enforcers are as much scumbags as the pirates are scumbags, there is no credibility. It's like being in New Orleans - deal with a mugger or deal with one of the corrupt cops. Hell of a choice.
It should be sufficient to be able to say "Software is not a pirate's property for him to take or use, but they're doing it anyway" and prosecute on that basis. An argument of "I wouldn't have bought it anyway" should be wholly irrelevant. But resorting to histrionics like this just plays into the hands of the pirates and stirs up anger against the people who should have been the ones on the moral high ground, and makes the enforcers rightfully more despised than the pirates.
Pirating does not confer value (Score:4, Funny)
If you say different, you have declared Uwe Bolle's movies to have a non-negative value, which is plainly false.
Additional copies sold = 99% pure profit (Score:4, Insightful)
It is really hard to argue that selling additional copies of software will create more jobs. Maybe little with packing of software boxes and tech support. Otherwise all extra copies of software sold are pure profit. All it achieves is to transfer money from software users to software companies shaderholders.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Even if you have the receipt you get charged.
Even if some paperwork obviously got mixed up (you have 5 running copies and 5 licenses, but one of the running copies has the wrong serial number) you get charged.
Even if the licenses were known to have been destroyed in a fire or flood, you get charged.