Slashdot Mirror

poor bsa

These people like to do that. It's already happening.

Look through past /. articles. You'll see tons of references.

Why doesn't someone just file an anonymous complaint against them with the BSA:

1-888-NOPIRACY

their web form is at:

http://www.bsa.org/usa/report/report.php

I assume any company willing to steal fromm small busines in this fashion probably has already stolen from larger businesses (even if its M$).

A few fines might slow them down a bit. . .

more proof

Here's my idea for fool-proof copy protection.

Every software license comes with a Mafia thug to watch over it. If you copy, you pay or he shoots.

Seems pretty simple, no? No need for confusing EULA's.

Oh, wait. They do.

Well to me personally the difference is that the library has temporarily transferred the rights of listening to the music to the borrower. It can be clearly defined that when one person or entity has paid for the use of the music, and only one person or entity is using that music at any given time.

Software companies, even Microsoft, used to state in their standard EULA's that you were allowed to make several copies of their software as long as it was only being used in one location at any time. These allowances (which imho should be declared as implicit anyway) have now dissapeared from the EULA's -- possibly because the companies believe it's too hard or inefficient for them to enforce. Instead "independent" organisations like the BSA, the MPAA and the RIAA have been formed by the corporate cartels to crack down on and frighten by legal threats anyone doing what the company decides it doesn't like, under the guise of IP law and in a way that they hope will never be decided on at a court that actually matters.

A peer-to-peer information sharing network doesn't naturally have this transferral of rights, because the information isn't moved. It's copied. Letting someone else use it doesn't prevent you from using it at the same time. If you look at a typical peer-to-peer music sharing network, this is exactly what happens. A few people buy something, and their versions of it are duplicated and shared many times between many thousands of people, all of whom are using it simultaneously and independently when often very few people have actually paid for it. Irrespective of how right or wrong anyone might believe it to be, this is nothing like how a library works.

Exclusive rights to an acronym? Please. That was ridiculous.

No doubt. This year, I've paid for my copy of Slackware 8.1, Lycoris Desktop LX, and joined Mandrake Club. Apparently there are other people out there that use, and love Linux, but they are still cheapasses.

These are the same people that would never buy Windows anyway, but would rather pirate it. What does the Microsoft sign say in computer parts stores? 3 out of 4 OSs are pirated.

So what does this research show? It shows squat. Linux still doesn't have the luxury of being preinstalled in retail major manufacturers desktop PCs. Microsoft only sells Windows to large companies that it is able to audit, as well as preinstalled Windows PCs that ship to retail stores.

And the rest of the world is still a bunch of cheapskates. If you don't want to buy it... Don't use it. Mod my down if you wish- if you are angry, but keep in mind that it is the truth.

Poll
25% of all business software is pirated? Does that count home users?

About their estimate of the "demand" for software:

• "PC shipments by state were estimated from a detailed review of the employment and population of each state and market research that surveyed the PC penetration rate of each state."
• "These estimates of software applications [...] were allowed to vary slightly by state. They were then applied to the state PC shipment estimates to form state-specific software demand estimates."

• "This data was compiled only for software applications that were studied in the "2000 BSA Global Software Piracy Study". [...] The resulting shipment data was uplifted to reflect shipments for the entire software industry."

For the retail value of the software (the larger number often quoted by the media) they added 22% on top of that.

The BSA supports draconian measures like the DMCA, they'd probably like even stricter legislation

Do you know this for a fact?

The DMCA was designed to promote a safe and legal online world while advancing the dynamic change that is synonymous with the Internet. Since the DMCA's enactment the evidence of the abundance of creative content available online is proof that the DMCA is working.

I don't have the time to fill it out, but here is the form for reporting a suspected pirate.

It's a hacked version of item 5.1 on this page. They're referring to piracy, not open source.

I once found this on the BSA homepage; I fortunately saved it on my harddrive, but I can't for my life find the link again on their homepage. They probably have removed it...

Anyway, I was both terrified and chocked when I read the message! I've included it below for you to read and judge for yourself:

----8<----8<-----8<-----

Free and open source software harms consumers by negatively impacting both the local and national economies. Fewer legitimate software sales results in lost tax revenue and decreased employment. Free software greatly hinders the development of local software industries. If software publishers cannot market their products in the legitimate market, they have no incentive to continue developing programs. Many software publishers simply won't enter markets where the free software rates are too high because they will not be able to recover development costs.

By spending money on free software, which is often manufactured by organized criminals, customers also are inadvertently stifling the growth potential of the economy and contributing to the loss of tax revenue and employment. In 1998, free software caused losses amounting to nearly $1 billion in taxes, 109,000 jobs and $4.5 billion in lost wages in the United States.

Though the national free software rate dropped slightly in 1998, free software continues to be a widespread problem for communities across the country, as evidenced by the rise in free software rates of 21 states, which caused the loss of $2 million in wages and salaries, over 56,000 jobs and over $500 thousand in tax revenue. Eight states have free software rates over 40%, and 29 states-more than half the states in the country-have free software rates above the national average of 25%.

Intellectual Property Rights

Software is considered intellectual property-the same as books, music and scientific developments, to name a few. One of the main groups of free software victims is the software developers who, through copyright laws, try to protect the integrity of what is rightfully theirs. Innovation relies on incentives, and when the creators of software programs are denied fair reward for their efforts, there is no motivation to put in the time and resources to develop newer and better products.

Higher awareness of the negative impacts of free software and stronger protection of intellectual property are essential for guarding the software and other digital works that are the driving forces of our economic prosperity in the digital age.

To find out more about the BSA organization, click www.bsa.org.

----8<----8<-----8<-----

>use lawyers as much as possible

When has Microsoft done this?

They don't. Most companies hire henchmen to do all the not so glamorous work.

Yeah. . . and if you want to do adminstration from a campsite. . . but really, Slashdot shouldn't be giving press to such blatant homophobes . . .

OH! BSA not BSA!

It's funny because BSA was actually what I first thought of when I saw the story.

Linux Mandrake is just the latest in a long line of quirkily christened versions of Linux. Previous versions of Linux have been named Red Hat, Slack Ware, Storm and Coral. In stark contrast to the mundane names such as 98, ME or NT preferred by Microsoft, the crazy names of each Linux release hint at its renegade nature.

My foray into the world of Linux began by downloading a "CD image" from the Linux web site. But don't worry, this isn't software piracy, it's perfectly legal! Linux is shareware, meaning that it can be freely redistributed without fear of a visit by the Business Software Alliance. The free availability of Linux is a major reason for its popularity among cash-strapped students and self-styled anti-capitalist hackers.

Before installing new software, it is always advisable to read the documentation. Unfortunately, an unpleasant surprise was in store for me in the "required configuration" section of the manual. I was shocked to learn that Linux Mandrake only runs on Pentium processors, meaning that my hopes of testing the water with my old Gateway 486 were dashed. Furthermore, a whopping 32 megabytes of memory are required to run Linux! Although the advocates of Linux self-righteously boast the efficiency of their chosen operating system and deride the "bloatware" produced by Microsoft, it appears that their claims are blatantly incorrect. Although my humble 486 will happily run Windows 95, it seems that Linux requires far more powerful, and more expensive, computer hardware. Is this really the sign of a lean, mean operating system? Of course not.

Sadly, not even being able to install Linux is just the first of my many complaints. A brief perusal of the features of Linux Mandrake reveals that Linux is sorely lacking many crucial productivity applications. For example, why isn't the industry standard web browser, Internet Explorer, included with Linux? Despite the best efforts of the experts at the Internet Engineering Task Force to encourage adoption of the Internet Explorer standard, the creators of Linux seem to think that they know better. By refusing to adhere to recognised standards, Linux is simply undermining its own credibility.

Similarly, almost all of the world's most popular and widely used software is completely incompatible with Linux! It may surprise you to learn that your copy of Microsoft Office, Outlook Express, or Lotus Notes will not work under Linux. Those who wish to use their computer for recreational purposes are also out of luck, for almost all of the most popular games are unavailable for Linux. Although a wide range of software is freely available for Linux, these pitiful offerings are mostly unfinished, unreliable and do not bear comparison to their commercial counterparts.

Computer security is also an area that seems to have been overlooked by the developers of Linux. In these times when hacking and viruses are commonplace, it defies belief to learn that no anti-virus software is available for Linux. To add insult to injury, there is no Linux version of the popular ZoneAlarm firewall. By using Linux, you are issuing an open invitation to the hordes of ne'er-do-wells on the Internet.

The shortcomings of Linux are obvious. Without even installing Linux Mandrake, I have exposed several fundamental flaws. Surely it is not too much to expect that, after ten years of development, the creators of Linux would have addressed these problems? The real question that the prospective Linux user must ask himself is, "Why bother?" After all, Microsoft Windows comes free with most PCs and there simply isn't a need to replace it, particularly not with a product of inferior quality.

Although it is always tempting to support the underdog, Windows XP will be the deserved victor in the battle ahead. I recommend that those Adequacy readers who are hoping to upgrade their operating system patiently wait for the release of Windows XP, rather than foolishly wasting their time, effort and money on Linux.

Get into security. The goverment will throw money at you.

the group found that 57 percent of respondents never or seldom pay for copyrighted works they download. And 12 percent admitted to pirating software.' How much do you want to bet that 45 percent gap is freeware and/or open source?

A significant percentage of Internet users knowingly
violate copyright laws.
57 percent of downloaders either seldom
pay or never pay for the copyrighted software
they download. And 36 percent of all Internet users say it is not likely they will ever pay for software they download.
Of all Internet users, 12 percent admit to acquiring unlicensed commercial software.

the group found that 57 percent of respondents never or seldom pay for copyrighted works they download. And 12 percent admitted to pirating software.' How much do you want to bet that 45 percent gap is freeware and/or open source?

A significant percentage of Internet users knowingly
violate copyright laws.
57 percent of downloaders either seldom
pay or never pay for the copyrighted software
they download. And 36 percent of all Internet users say it is not likely they will ever pay for software they download.
Of all Internet users, 12 percent admit to acquiring unlicensed commercial software.

So, in short, yes 57% of people probably have downloaded software from the internet without paying; its probably more like 100%, just the other 43% were too stupid to understand the question, or understand that at one point they probably DID download software without paying for it.

The actual press release says "57 percent of those who have downloaded software either seldom or never pay for the copyrighted works they download". So those 43% were already excluded. The other 43% surveyed apparently said they pay for the software they download more often than seldom.

Skew the respondent audience by making it a web survey

Spin the questions and couch them in terms with multiple interpretations ... and call it a valid representation. Check the so-called survey results... there is just short of zero (and I'm being generous) information about how this study was conducted.

I have downloaded copyrighted software and not paid for it. Was it illegal? No -- it was "free for personal use" (e.g. WebWasher.) You know how guilty I feel about that? Not at all -- until now. Now, I feel terrible, because I helped the BSA fudge better numbers by fitting into that 57%.

Jackasses.

I have no idea what that quote means. I went to the BSA press release, but the ZDNet wording is lifted directly from it. Moving on to the report itself, it says:

57 percent of downloaders either seldom pay or never pay for the copyrighted software they download. And 36 percent of all Internet users say it is not likely they will ever pay for software they download.
Of all Internet users, 12 percent admit to acquiring unlicensed commercial software.

I really should just go home and watch the Simpsons...

They have to legislate for something that CD/DVD makers should be doing on their own initiative, for their own good?

Very much as in the US. Ask your friendly Senator Fritz Holling and many other that are either stupid or dishonest. Remember, it is the US that already passed the DMCA.

In the EU, you don't have to be a law enforcement organization to carry out a search order?

In the US you don't have to be a law enforcement office to conduct a software audit on anyone and impose your fines at their leisure.

The courts will assume you actually own the copyright just because you claim to, so that you can file false claims against someone just to fuck with them?

Ask any musician in the US about Sonny Bono and "work for hire". Just be ready to run real fast.

They're suggesting giving police powers to the the alleged victims? ("more powers by copyright holders to seize and preserve evidence of piracy")

The US is already way ahead in this area

Remind me not to visit europe anytime soon.

Right. Stay in the US, where personal freedom is sacred and nobody would allow corporations to take away their rights.
I'm not sure if your a troll. If you are, bon apetit; if you're not, well, try to get out more.

More to the point, it's a fundamentally flawed plan.

Only one person needs to convert it to analog

So why waste everybody's money (i.e. not theirs) with stopping most people from videoing their kids wearing Mickey Mouse(C)(TM) T-shirts when it'll not even have a measurable impact on unauthorised copying.

And how the F329 is the D-A converter supposed to know what's authorised and what's not? Bear in mind the BSA's recent press-release asking for UK law to be changed here, bottom of the page to assume that copying is illegal without even having to prove it in court.

My friend called Microsoft for help with their licensee problems, in a hope to get some discount, because he heard an MCSE said Microsoft always give favours to valued customers.

Microsoft was so kind as to send an external auditor BSA to help with their licensing problem.

Later Microsoft sent an invoice to offer to help them waiving the legal liability for using unlicensed software that external auditor found out, if he agreed to sign a 5-year purchase contract.

Well, at least Microsoft had given audit for free....

I'm calling the BSA hotline. You should too.

If anyone needed an audit, a previous convicted felon^H^H^H^H^Hpirate might do it again.

In the US of A, it is perfectly legal for any American to purchase any politician. You don't need to be from Virgina to contribute to Mr. Boucher's reelection efforts. I'm sure certain nefarious organizations will fund his opponents. Do your part and keep this guy from getting crushed for standing up to legalized racketeering.

Sincerely,

The Business Software Alliance

Open-source software should be advertised as "BSA-Free". Really, IBM should put this in their commericals about their Linux/Apache-based products. Open with a Gestapo raid and end with a "still psyched?".

...after all they say that the BSA is calling a Truce. You have one month to get legal.

All Success in this kind of activity can acomplish is to popularize arts under open licences.

I see efforts by the RIAA like this like I see the BSA, it is the symptom of a problem raising peoples awareness of the negitive impact of itself. The problem being lenghty(infinate) copyright stay and binding contracts you don't have to physically see or sign prior to purchase.

Officially free to watch and copy Internet TV here we come. Sure it won't be the same content, but it will be targeted to an audience that marketers know is smarter anyway. I'm sure a couple of reality shows, a few documentations, and a variation on junkyard wars would be a good cheap start. TV will now have competition, thank you TV police.

I'm sorry, but the law states if you have Linux on your hard drive, you go to jail.

Typically, after an initial investigation of the lead, the BSA contacts the organization reported, although in some cases it pursues a software raid.

There have been stories on Slashdot and elsewhere detailing raids on companies where law enforcement agencies have, at the request of the BSA, shutdown companies for days while hard drives are searched, and often trashed.

Here is an article with a litle bit of background.

An individual's use of unlicensed software is no different than the same use at a place of business - indeed many of these cases are not the result of systemic business practices, but rather a single rogue employee. The reason the BSA chooses companies is due mainly to the deep pockets issue.

They have the same power as the BSA, which is to say that they have no legal powers. What they do have though is the ability to sue you causing you to spend a good deal of money to defend or you can settle out of court.

In this case, I think the RIAA did the right thing. They went after the illegal copyrighted files on the network. On the otherhand when they are going after Napster, Kazaa, or whatever.. They have very little case. Napster is a tool, like a gun. And as the NRA often says, "guns don't kill, people do.." blah blah...

[Disclaimer: I'm not trying to equate guns to napster, but this was just to prove a point]

Having been on the other side of the problem (trying to maintain a few thousand PCs) I can see the need to control what's loaded. If something breaks the cause could be just about anything, and the last thing you need is to find rogue software the user loaded, even if it's legal and won't get them in trouble with the PC police. Maybe it wasn't the rogue software, maybe it was. Maybe unloading it to check will just make the problem worse. It's a headache the techs don't need.

Bottom line: it's their computer, they make the rules. And here one rule is users don't load any software. Another rule is you can be fired for breaking the rules.

Could it be...the Business Software Alliance? In their Guide to Software Management, they say business owners should
"Ensure that software can not be downloaded from the Internet by employees without special approval."
They further suggest automated tools to help enforce this rule and say employees should sign an agreement to abide by it.

It also suggests, BTW, that software that is "free" or available for unrestricted downloading from the Internet is probably "too good to be true" and should be avoided.

Allow me to explain.

Alan Cox; Richard Stallman; Bruce Perens; Wichert Akkerman; Miguel DeIcaza.

What do you see in this list of names? Are there any African-Americans on it? Absolutely not, none of those names sound like one a self-respecting black person would have! No Maurice, no Luther, no Lil' Kim. There are many other lists such as this, you can see one here. Flip through each page, do you see anything other than white faces? Of course you don't, because Open Source and its adherents are ardent racists and they absolutely forbid access to the sacred 'kernel' by any person of color.

Lets look at another list, this time a compendium of the companies using Linux. Are there any black owned companies on that list? Nooooooo. How about these companies? They all have something to do with Open Source software, any of them owned by an African-American? No again. Here is an extensive collection of photographs from a LUG (Linux User Gathering) meeting, more can be viewed at that link. What is odd about these pictures, and every other photograph I have ever seen of a LUG meeting, is that there is not one single black person to be seen, and probably none for miles.

More racist overtones can be found by examining the language of Open Source. They often refer to 'white hat' hackers. These 'white hats' scurry about the Internet doing good, but illegal, acts for their fellow man. In stark contrast we find the 'black hat' hackers. They destroy the good works of others by breaking into systems, stealing data, and generally causing havoc. These two terms reflect the mindset of most Linux developers. White means good, black means bad. Anywhere there is black, there is uncontrollable destruction and lawlessness. Looking further we see black lists that inform other users of 'bad' hardware, Samba, an obvious play on the much hated Little Black Sambo book, Mandrake, which I won't explain except to say that the French are notorious racists. This type is linguistic discrimination is widespread throughout the Open Source culture, lampooned by many of its more popular sites.

It is also a fact that all Unix 'distros' contain a plethora of racist commands with not so hidden symbolism.

It can hardly be coincidence that the prime operating system of choice of the 'open source supremacists' - Linux, features commands which are poorly disguised racist acronyms. For example: 'awk' (All White Klan) , 'sed' (shoot nEgroes dead), 'ln' (lynch negroes), 'rpm' (raical purity mandatory), 'bash' (bring a slave home), 'ps' (persecute sambo), 'mount' (murder or unseat nubians today), 'fsck' (favored supreme Christian klan). I could go on and on about the latent racist symbolism in Linux, but I fear it would take weeks to enumerate every incidence.

Is there a single unix command out there that does not have some hidden racist connotation ? Suffice it to say that the racism pervades Linux like a particularly bad smell. Can you imagine the effect of running such a racist operating system on the impressionable mind ? I don't have to remind you that transmitting subliminal messages is banned in the USA, and yet here we have an operating system that appears to be one enormous submliminal ad for the Klan!

One of the few selling points of Open Source software is that it is available in many different languages. Browsing through the list I see that absolutely none are offered in Swahili, nor Ebonics. Obviously this is done to prevent black people from having access to the kernel. If it weren't for the fact that racism is so blatantly evil I would be impressed by the efforts these Open Sourcers have invested in keeping their little hobby lilly white. It even appears that they hate the Japanese, as some of these self proclaimed hackers defaced a web site with anti-Japanese slogans. Hell, these people even go all the way to Africa (South Africa mind you, better known as White Africa) and the pictures prove that they don't even get close to a black person.

Of course, presenting overwhelming evidence such as this is a bit unfair without some attempt to determine why these Open Sourcers are so racist. Much of the evidence I have collected indicates that their views are so deeply held that they are seldom questioned by the new recruits. This, coupled with the robot-like groupthink that dominates the culture allows the racist mindset to continue to permeate the ranks. Indeed, the Open Source version of a Klan rally, OSDN (known to the world as Open Source Developer's Network, known to insiders as Open Source Denies Negroes) nearly stands up and shouts its racist views on its demographics page. It doesn't mention the black man one single time. Obviously, anyone involved with Open Source doesn't need to be told that the demographic is entirely white, it is a given.

I have a sneaking suspicion as to why their beliefs are so closely held: they are all terrible athletes.

Really. Much like the tragedy at Columbine High School, where two geeks went on a rampage to get back at 'jocks', these adult geeks still bear the emotional scars inflicted upon them due to their lack of athletic ability during their teen years. As African-Americans are well known for their athletic skills, they are an obvious target for the Open Source geeks. As we all know, sports builds character, thus it follows that the lack of sports destroys character. These geeks, locked away in their rooms, munching on stale pizza and Fritos, engage in no character building activities. Further, they interact only with computers and never develop the level of social skill that allows normal people to handle relationships with persons of color.

Contrasted with the closed source, non-geeky software house Microsoft, Open Source has a long, long way to go.

Join me in my next article where I will lay bare the rampant anti-semitism in the Open Source community.

Hmmm, it's hard to imagine anyone being as rude as MicroShaft. Can you imagine that Sun is not in Microsoft's possition becuase they did not act like Microsoft? Ever heard of a BSA raid on Solaris software? No? That would be because Sun is not a member of BSA

Funny how people are saying that Sun is being abusive for asking for redress of wrongs that M$ has been found guilty of. The trial will be as short and sweet as Microsoft desires. In fact, they could settle out of court for their wrongs, but they won't. Microsoft brought themselves to this by refusing to co-operate with anyone. Java is a small piece of the damage Micorsoft has done to the world with their silly little tricks to break other people's software. Sun managed to survive Microsoft's abuse because they had their own hardware and platform. Other companies were not so lucky, and their employees lost their jobs while M$ pushed their inferior garbage on people. Sun will, we can be sure, put together some reasonable costs they suffered from Microsoft not living up to their word. It is right that Microsoft pay, but they won't. They are going to spend all sorts of money on defending their wrongs and then complain that all the lawsuits are bankrupting them.

I like Apple as a company.....well, sorta. There's plenty of reasons to like them. The simple fact that Microsoft and Eisner aren't all buddy-buddy with the folks at Apple is a good start. But why does Apple insist on being part of this joke of an alliance that probably doesn't like their 'Rip, Mix, Burn' campaign anymore than Eisner does?

Man, you obviously don't read the propaganda by the Business Software Alliance.

According to those fine folks, software companies lose twentysevenbazillion $ a year, by pimply faced pirates that run a warezed copy of Autocad.

Of course it's the same guy, who'd have otherwise caughed up a couple K to purchase a license.

• For old dos games, you might need Bochs
• Abandonware: Classic Trash
• ,
• theunderdogs.org, abandonware.universal.av7.net,
• arcade emulation: mame.net, mame.dk, mamefans.metropoliglobal.com
• To code new games that run on DOS/Win32/*nx/BeOS, use allegro.

• MPAA
• RIAA
• NAB
• BSA
• IDSA - stoopid anal idsa protecting 15 yr old dos games LOL!!

No, Macs account for about 5% of new computer sales. Because Macs tend to have longer lifetimes than PCs, that 5% of sales translates into a larger percentage of actual desktop systems in use -- I've heard that the BSA estimates them at 15%, though I can't find this on their website.

Actually, I don't think the BSA counts hard drives per se, but their method for estimating piracy (as of May 2001) was (essentially) to count the number of PC's shipped, then compare the number of applications they *think* will be installed per PC to the (number shipped pre-installed + number bought in stores). (See especially pages 8-9 in the PDF file.) People have been complaining about this for a while, but it's the BSA's stated position not to back down (since that would lead to lower piracy figures and less public outcry).

The BSA claims to have "softened" since the 1997 article, but I doubt it, considering that a year ago they were still sending out anti-piracy letters threatening clandestine raids, etc. Microsoft was helping them, and people were complaining about it. They basically pick random companies, threaten to sue them out of existence, and simultaneously try to get employees to turn them in. I doubt much has changed since then.

Anyway, I've strayed off topic from your off topic post. :-) Back to the original question, they count PC sales (and probably motherboards, etc. too) so yes all our Linux/FreeBSD/whatever home built computers are counted in the piracy figures. Also, I know MS OEM license agreements won't let companies that sell Windows sell blank computers because "they're sure to pirate Windows." MS has recently started charging for Visual Studio along with MSDN because "everyone who buys MSDN will use Visual Studio, so we might as well charge them for it." Etc.

I'd like to thank my good friend google for helping me along with this post. :-)

Actually, I don't think the BSA counts hard drives per se, but their method for estimating piracy (as of May 2001) was (essentially) to count the number of PC's shipped, then compare the number of applications they *think* will be installed per PC to the (number shipped pre-installed + number bought in stores). (See especially pages 8-9 in the PDF file.) People have been complaining about this for a while, but it's the BSA's stated position not to back down (since that would lead to lower piracy figures and less public outcry).

The BSA claims to have "softened" since the 1997 article, but I doubt it, considering that a year ago they were still sending out anti-piracy letters threatening clandestine raids, etc. Microsoft was helping them, and people were complaining about it. They basically pick random companies, threaten to sue them out of existence, and simultaneously try to get employees to turn them in. I doubt much has changed since then.

Anyway, I've strayed off topic from your off topic post. :-) Back to the original question, they count PC sales (and probably motherboards, etc. too) so yes all our Linux/FreeBSD/whatever home built computers are counted in the piracy figures. Also, I know MS OEM license agreements won't let companies that sell Windows sell blank computers because "they're sure to pirate Windows." MS has recently started charging for Visual Studio along with MSDN because "everyone who buys MSDN will use Visual Studio, so we might as well charge them for it." Etc.

I'd like to thank my good friend google for helping me along with this post. :-)

How is the parent post flamebait?

You're right, he shouldn't have to turn the stock over to Nintendo. What the heck do they have to do with it? Are they some kind of governmental body or NGO? I mean, *he bought and paid for the units.*

Originally, there was precedent for banks seizing property if you didn't pay them, because, let's face it, you owed them money. This was similar to your neighbor coming and beating you up because you borrowed his club and didn't give it back. There was also precedent for governmental agencies (e.g. tax collectors) seizing property, for much the same reason.

Then, in the 1800's, the US got into "eminent domain." Basically, this means if the state doesn't agree with how you're using some land/property, they can seize it. But note, now for the first time it wasn't "theirs anyway," they're just flat out taking it.

...take a little step through seizing illegal drugs, etc...

and we wind up in the state we have nowadays, where college dorm rooms are routinely raided for computers. I mean, these are people in *college* for crying out loud! Can they really afford to replace their computers? If the FBI wants to take the warez ("illegal materials") or mp3's, shouldn't they just take the hard drives, give the seizee (I think I just invented a new word) a new equivalent capacity or value hard drive, and *oh* -- make sure to give them a copy of the OS too, since you wouldn't want them pirating Windows, which they will obviously do since you just gave them a new, blank hard drive, and that's how we count pirates! Oh, I forgot, it's the secret po^W^WFBI, and you're a Suspected Criminal, so that means all your base are belong to us! Welcome to the land of the free, biotch!

So obviously, IMO, having *anyone* seizing property because of an *alleged* violation of the DMCA is just way over the top.

• If a price for a software product seems too good to be true, it probably is
  
• Be wary of software products that come without any documentation or manuals
  
• Beware of products that do not look genuine, such as those with hand-written labels
  
• Watch out for products labeled as academic, OEM, NFR or CDR
  
• Beware of sellers offering to make "back-up" copies
  
• Be wary of compilations of software titles from different publishers on a single disk
  
• Check with organizations such as the BSA should you become a victim of software fraud
  

The astute reader will have already caught my drift by now and realized that with Linux and the GPL (and all the other OSI licenses) you don't ever have to say sorry to the BSA. So why not taunt them? Report yourself today!

Actually, before someone jumps up and says something, let me point out that I don't think that reporting yourself to the BSA is really a good idea. It's like walking up to a 300 pound thug and saying something nasty about his mama. But we can dream, can't we?

:Peter

• If a price for a software product seems too good to be true, it probably is
  
• Be wary of software products that come without any documentation or manuals
  
• Beware of products that do not look genuine, such as those with hand-written labels
  
• Watch out for products labeled as academic, OEM, NFR or CDR
  
• Beware of sellers offering to make "back-up" copies
  
• Be wary of compilations of software titles from different publishers on a single disk
  
• Check with organizations such as the BSA should you become a victim of software fraud
  

The astute reader will have already caught my drift by now and realized that with Linux and the GPL (and all the other OSI licenses) you don't ever have to say sorry to the BSA. So why not taunt them? Report yourself today!

Actually, before someone jumps up and says something, let me point out that I don't think that reporting yourself to the BSA is really a good idea. It's like walking up to a 300 pound thug and saying something nasty about his mama. But we can dream, can't we?

:Peter

Perhaps M$ is keeping track of how many machines your firm's corp. edition has been installed on. This way the BSA would know who to target during the next Amnesty^H^H^H^H^H^H^HExtortion period.

From the bsa.ORG website: "BSA worldwide members include Adobe, Apple, Autodesk, Bentley Systems, Borland, CNC Software/Mastercam, Macromedia, Microsoft, Symantec, and Unigraphic Solutions."

-Joe