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Free Software Inflates BSA's Piracy Claims
crazney writes: "According to this article in The Age, the BSA do not count the effect of free software when calculating piracy rates. The article suggests that free software has made piracy statistics look worse and hence encourages governments to create harsher laws ... Could someone pass The BSA a cluebat?"
That suggests there is salvageable grey matter there. Might I suggest a LART?
bah those BSA figures have always been wrong. I mean not everyone that has a pirated program installed on their computer would necessary buy it if he couldnt get warez version. If all those billions that are lost acording to their figures were true most companyies would be bankrupt by now.
The BSA is exactly that, a Business Software Alliance. It doesn't serve the end user, it serves the corporations, the difference between this and other 'agencies' is that it makes no attempt to hide this. The BSA supports draconian measures like the DMCA, they'd probably like even stricter legislation. They represent corporate greed, they 'blackmail' companies into paying for huge site licenses to cover all the workstations and then some, or face a 'software audit' in which they'll no doubt find some violations. Have a 100 machine site license and a hundred machines, but just bought that new desktop for the boss? Lost the paperwork for the server in the corner?
Tobacco companies fund studies that find that Ciggarette smoking is less dangerous than playing golf in a thunderstorm, the BSA fudges facts to make Pirates seem like the scum of the Earth. The music industry and the 'software' industry have yet to realize that inflated prices lead to inflated piracy. Personally, i'm of the mind that if you make money with software, you should purchase that software. Some companies are alright with this as well, think of the thousands of script kiddies with their pirated versions of photoshop, they were never going to buy it in the first place.. Adobe cares about that printshop, or the graphics design place.. and most of these places wouldn't touch a pirated version of Photoshop with a ten-foot pole. They don't need the BSA to police them, at best the BSA makes a huge hassle, people decide that paying thousands of dollars a year to Microsoft for a site license is insane and switch to something free, many times open-source. Their draconian policies and scare tactics have probably won more converts than a slick red hat ad.
--
Insert Witty Sig Here
I think I read it in some /. comment a while ago - Shouldn't people be encouraging the BSA (as long as they're not lying)? The reason everyone uses proprietary data formats and protocols is because 90% of the world runs on warez copies of MS Office or whatnot. If people had to pay for that cr&p, joe public wouldn't think it's such a good deal anymore.
How much of a drain does the application software (as opposed to high-end and/or custom software, which if anything could be HELPED by free software...SOMEONE is getting paid to adapt that software to an organization's needs) industry put on the economy, compared to the benefits it offers?
How many jobs will be created in businesses that rely upon commercial application software as a result of costs cut through cheaper software?
Shouldn't free software, apart from it's impacts on the application software industry, be seen just like tax cuts are?
Well, unless tax cuts aren't all they're cracked up to be.
"We ask respondents to choose from a very long list of specific software titles, reporting which ones they regularly use. This means we identify Microsoft Word versus, say, WordPerfect," says Metafacts principal analyst Dan Ness.
Open-source competitors are not included as alternatives, he says.
So, do they assume that because x% of users say they don't have a licenced copy of one of Word/WordPerfect/etc, then some percent of this percentage MUST have an unlicenced copy of one of the above? What about people who just don't use Word Processors, or Spreadsheets, or whatever? Seems to be some fishy maths going on here! The article doesn't clarify what's going on.
It's a hacked version of item 5.1 on this page. They're referring to piracy, not open source.
... given that the BSA has defined piracy as "downloading software without paying for it" before. Having a bit of a narrow view on the world, aren't we?
Of course, software (and everything else) should be payed for. Nobody should give something of value away and not charge for it -- you're underselling if you do, and that's unfair to the good people who are trying to make a profit here. How else are we going to have a healthy ecosystem of goods and services?
In these tight times, citizens should not be harming the economy that way. All those ways in which a good transaction is still wasted today! People playing music for their friends, without purchasing records. Walking in parks with just trees and no shops. Reading books without advertising. Come on people, these models are just not viable anymore.
We should teach people that giving things away is stealing from the economy. It's simply unethical.
All generalizations are false, including this one. (Mark Twain)
This one came from K5, not the BSA's web site!
"Could someone pass The BSA a cluebat?"
:)
Okay, here you go.
It's interesting that, while they make the potentially valid point that a proliferation of free software might discourage local software industries from developing, they've completely missed the reasons behind this.
If these software companies went ahead and produced software that was better than the available free software -- that is, actually worth the cost of ownership over the free software -- then they would probably sell copies. As it is, it sounds like the BSA is saying that decent, respectable software companies aren't able to get away with hawking mediocre products, because the evil free software developers are producing software that's as good or better, and giving it away! Well, boo hoo.
Incidentally, this quote's a keeper: "free software, which is often manufactured by organized criminals". Classic.
"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."
Gee - I never realised that all the coders offering their wares under the GPL were doing so with the explicit intent to drive their brothers and sisters employed by the commercial shops to ruin. Thanks to the BSA these nefarious motivations are revealed. Shame, shame!
It is amazing that this can happen. We could lose most of our rights as consumers because of this, based on no real facts. I only hope a judge will see through the lies in court when cases start coming to them.
It looks like these laws will go through though; you never hear headlines in the regular press about any of this sort of stuff - no-one is going to go against it that has any real clout (i.e. FSF are, as far as I can see, impotent).
We'll see if it really does affect things the way /. are saying it will though - are they going to arrest every open source user / contributer? I think that'll be hard to push in court. Though I suppose it won't be possible anyway if DRM stops it being installed / downloaded in the first place...
This idea was invented by Shampoo.
that they didn't factor in Open Source. It would have lessened their argument, and it's bad enough as is. Besides, piracy figures from the BSA and similar bodies have always been - at most - one notch above reading tea-leaves.
Black holes are where God divided by zero
-
Congratulations to all those who work on free software. You now considered to be most likely a criminal. Don't bother calling the FBI, the FBI will probably call youBy 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.
DeeK
MAN! That was one sweet troll!
Not very believable, but just annoying enough to piss off enough zealots.
The "organized criminals" part was the best.
Mad props, boyeeeee
By spending money on free software
A quick web search turns up this original version:
http://www.howtotell.com/ww/bsa.asp
For the link-paranoid, replace "free software" with "pirate software" to get the original text.
Seems like BSA followed usual business plan:
stage 1: Post biased annual piracy statistics in media
stage 2: ???
stage 3: PROFIT!!!
Harsh. If you purchase a product then the very least you should do is purchase the correct number of licences. This is the nature of commercial software after all.
Have a 100 machine site license and a hundred machines, but just bought that new desktop for the boss? Lost the paperwork for the server in the corner?
Then you're one hundred percent in the wrong. When you're an organisation you should be keeping detailed records (after all you probably do when it concerns money owed to you).
You can't use lazyness and sloppyness as an excuse for violating a licence. Whatever that licence is.
If someone used that excuse as a reason for violating the GPL, I doubt it would wash - so why do you think it should the other way?
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
The actual piracy rates are a wild guess as it is. Its based on the number of applications they expect to sell. Since piracy has been around for at least as long as computers, this figure has never been calculated from a static value.
While it is true that they ask people what software they use, a lot of people genuinely don't know. They'll say Word when they have StarOffice
> Could someone pass The BSA a cluebat?
Would a cluebong do instead?
I suspect the BSA is run by rampant free market ideologues. If you pressed them about their philosophy, they would probably say something like that open source software is a threat to the free enterprise system and mostly copies commercial software; while open source may not be illegal, maybe it should be.
Don't expect to be able to reason with those people. Oppose their claims with facts whereever you can, and expose the irrationality and inefficiency of their model of software distribution.
Im sorry, the article mentions Napster as a source of software?!?! Not only does napster not exist anymore, but it never shared software....
The BSA's primary interest is it's own bottom line and the continued employment of it's staff. This is more important to it than the profits of BSA members.
Thus the BSA will generate stories and statistics that ensure it's continued existance.
BSA is not that different from many commercial organisations.
I don''t think they didn't know about freeware. If you've seen your fair share of arguments, you'd know that people often like to use truth, in thier own demented way. My fist thought on this was that they intentionally left those stats in just to have thier own corporate way.
This message was brought to you by the death of 30 brain cells.
Could someone please use the cluebat on the BSA?
Humorless sig goes here.
Have someone inform BSA that the FSF office is actually using pirated word processors for all their work. Let them ask for an audit, and try to force the matter. Immediate self-lart, with lots of publicity for both parts!
In Murphy We Turst
All the laws against piracy actually benefit the Open Source community. Now the companies are starting to realize how expensive commercial software is, when they actually need to start paying the full price for all the seats. This is just what we *need*. One might even hypotethize that MS doesn't want BSA to be too strict, in order to prevent mass migration to greener pastures.
Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
Well, BSA outcry is an old one. They argue that OSS may lead to fewer jobs, fewer taxes, smaller economy. That's complete BS and a lie.
Resources are employed. If you are not coding Windows X for the 10th time in this decade, you are doing something else. What you ALWAYS have to ask yourself is: are we doing this the best way we can? If you can do that something will less resources, it means you are incresing productivity. Are those lost jobs? No for crist sake. Their lost taxes just aren't such, what they really are:
- More taxes, as people can do more things than before (more productivity, more goods and services from the same resources). More profits = more income tax. More goods = more sales tax.
- More jobs, because increased productivity = increased revenues. And that means increased investments (people put money where profits are) and thus increased employment.
And I don't have to mention that a Monopoly will always restrict quantities produced and thus less taxes will go to the goverment. Also, big coporations has moremeans to elude taxes (and this can be statistically proved).
Productivity drives economic growth. No matter how much money is spent in software, what matters is how productive is the software market. And that means competition al low cost. What good is software product if ALL productivity derived must be paid back to their producers?
It's like having the Railroad innovation, and pricing tickets at a price equal to the cost of horse-transport: nobody wins (not even the goverment as no productivity is gained) except the railroad owners.
unfinished: (adj.)
ITS A CONSPIRACY !!
I GET NEITHER "free software" NOR "pirate software" !!
I GET "counterfeit software" !!
TO ARMS ! TO ARMS ! GO SLASHDOT COMMANDO !
THEY ARE REPLACING WORDS IN DATA TRANSMISSION !
and you will come to the following conclusion :
open source = no profit (most of the time)
piracy = no profit
since
no profit = no profit
it follows
open source = piracy
they got that part right.
The BSA is largely based on what is called biased-interpretation statistics and false software sales projections. Piracy is/has been in the world of computer for as far back as I can remember (pre-286 days). The largest problem is that how can a group such as the BSA base some piracy satistics when there was never a time when piracy wasn't around. So it is a guess, right? Exactly.
.NET Server, MS Exchange, SQL server are only getting it for the brag-factor. What about all those people that use Photoshop for a normal image viewer? Those people wouldn't go out and pay $500 for photoshop, they just have it since its the in-thing! I mean, what's a better deal than when its free? Of cousre, why not get the most over-powered/bloated piece of software if its free (windows-user mentality)?
Furthermore, the BSA only projects how many boxes of a product might be sold or they rely on surveys in which people anonymously tell them that they have certain pieces of software and then they tell them if they are pirated or not. The problem is that most people out there downloading
The point is, if the BSA wants to skew statistics, they will. They are an organization supported by business so they will always approach this subject with a slant.
In the article they mention that Open-source solutions were not on their "list" of applications that people use; that actually makes sense - those apps are not produced by BSA-affiliated entities, so the BSA isn't interested in apps people use that aren't the IP of one of their gang.
What I would like to know is if the Open-source s/w is being lumped into those dollar estimates, what price value do they give to, say, Star Office?
Since that app isn't on their list, how can they lump it in with the values given? I would have guessed that Star Office would occasionally get the MS-Office box checked erroneously, but they are careful to mention that the applist is VERY specific, so how can this happen?
Just wondering, since this doesn't seem to make sense.
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
"I suspect the BSA is run by rampant free market ideologues."
This is very humorous.
One could argue the same about RMS: he so believes in the baser nature of human beings, and the naturally seductive nature of a free market, that he must specifically prohibit people from acting how people would naturally act, without the restrictions of his license.
If he didn't believe in the idea of a "rampant free market", he wouldn't think there was such need for protection from "our baser human natures".
It's amusing how much Objectivist philosophy infests both of the self-selected "sides" in this debate. The only thing that they *don't* agree on is "who gets to be Henry Reardon".
8-).
Call me dumb, no really, go ahead I dont care, but what's a cluebat?
Does anyone know of a good product to track software licenses and software configurations per machine? i.e. Some kind of centralized database of all the software products and all the machines you have and where the software is installed to track license numbers. I know it's a pain in the ass and very complex to track compared to open source software, but we need to do it. I just thought I'd ask before I have to write something. What I've found on the web by searching have been less than stellar open source products. I'd even be willing to try a commercial product if it is any good.
I am deeply against this type way of pushing a point. Everyone send them just 1 email to let them know this is wrong. 1 email in your protest. The computer people should stand up once and a while and show them our power too. Expose the frauds!
What if someone with some free time and willing to donate some work would put a website that:
1 - calculated OOS installed based (using their same methods or the ones that'd fit us best)
2- estimated a price similar to one of closed source alternative in other plataforms, that achieved the same tasks
3 - calculate estimated total sales in a BSA likewise fashion
We would then be able to say:
* How much money corporations and customers are saving by using OSS
How much productivity is OSS contributing to the US economy
* How much taxes is OSS producing (based to the fact that 35% of all savings turn into Income Tax + all the indirect taxes collected due to the 65% remaining income beign either used for consumption or investment)
Someone could contribute another posibles good uses of these figures, to fight back BSA arguments and better inform our politicians and the media.
unfinished: (adj.)
The BSA is NOT a government agency, they have no real abilities outside of having a fleet of overpaid lawyers and a buttload of money to blackmail or assult a company with. remember these words... the Business Software Alliance is Nothing but another Company.
And this company is paid to make money for the companies that pay them. Of course they are lying about how much piracy is happening. Of course they publish false and misleading information about the amount of money lost due to piracy. Of course they include linux, BSD, Open BeOS, Samba, Open office, Abiword, Gimp and everything else that is 100% free AND popular in their numbers. It inflates them and makes the lies they publish previousally look even better.
Remember the Business Software Alliance is nothing more than a paid extortion racket. If they threaten your company you should never let them in without a judge-signed search warrant.
They ARE NOT A GOVERNMENT AGENCY! Unlike OSHA who is, they have ZERO legal power and ZERO rights above what you have. Fight the bastards and make them spend their money to get in your building, and then be sure to sue for lost revinue, destruction of property, and public defamation.
Thank you, This post is brought to you by the Council to stop freeware piracy. "Remember every time you pirate a freeware program you hurt...Ummm... well you hurt someone!"
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
stage 1: Post biased annual piracy statistics in media
stage 2: ???
stage 3: Imagine a beowulf cluster of these
doesn't quite work.
Just to be off topic.
Food is the #1 killer in the UK. Well, high fat and energy foods, a poor diet and lack of exercise.
Basically MacDonald's &co...
Don't worry about people smoking in public places, worry about the cheep? junk food that they promote to kids, worry about the KFC opening up around the corner. There far more lightly to kill you than smoking. (per capita)
This information is based upon UK death rates, heart disease coming out #1, followed by cancers.
Also,
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
a different type of clue. When somebody is lost you give a clue, In case of BSA like entities you take the clue, stick it on the Baseball Bat and whack it hard on the thick head, if you are very lucky the clue will go inside, if you are just lucky then you will be successful in breaking the head.
:-)
But if you are unlucky, and bat comes rebounding at you and you will be sued becoz of encouraging terrorism in the digital world
My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
FB : https://www.facebook.com/TanveersPhotography
Sorry, you have your terms and law all mixed up. I can't blame you, the RIAA have been saying this sort of crap for years.
Simply because a peice of music is Copyright, it does not automatically mean that it is illegal to download that peice of music over the internet. Many smaller artists offer their music for download, either because they do not have a record contract, or as a teaser to intice you to buy their album. See mp3.com The music is still copyright; the creator automatically assumes copyright of anything the create. Allowing you to download their copyright material does not automatically remove their claims to copyright; if you take that music and attempt to pass it off as your own, you are in breach of copyright still, and the copyright holder can sue you.
Just be sure not to fall in the RIAA's trap of mis-using words and terminology in future. Its bad practice, and easily leads to confusion of an argument (Which is what the RIAA are aiming for, at a guess).
The BSA is NOT a government agency, they have no real abilities outside of having a fleet of overpaid lawyers and a buttload of money to blackmail or assult a company with.
With said fleet of lawyers and buttload of money, they can obtain court orders against other companies suspected in violation of software license and request the use of armed peace officers/LEOs in assisting in software audits.
Support or oppose their position, this image of the BSA is one they use in reality and like to keep fresh in the mind of both willful violators and those frantically searching for the software license to that copy of Excel 3.0, lost in the fourth move in seven years.
Fear is a great motivator.
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
That's debatable. What isn't debatable is that the vast majority of their income is derived from the huge fines etc that they levy even if their victim then buys a site licence.
The motivation is all wrong: the BSA (and in Oz, the BSAA) stand to make more from hurting people than from helping software companies.
Here in Oz at least, when they send an audit demand, the correct answer is `ummm...' followed by some hurried quick checking. If the checking ain't too disastrous, you proceed to `OK, send your guys around when you're ready' - you see, the EULA gives them the right to audit, not the right to force you to audit.
If they do bother to come around, you make everything as difficult as possible, e.g. by only allowing them to audit a machine when the user is present (privacy regulations, you see), then arranging for a skeleton staff when they do arrive so that the minimum number of computers are available for checking, and make finding out who `owns' a computer as difficult as possible. Meanwhile, all the time, so sorry, wish we could hurry things along a little but can't break these rules.
Depending on your situation, you should be able to cut them down to six computers a day or less. Over 3 working man-weeks to audit a hundred-screen shop. Make them earn their fines. And keep harping on about your reliable Linux servers, your bulletproof OpenBSD network machines, and how you're testing Linux Terminal Server technology for your desktops and wondering whether it's worthwhile cutting over to it...
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
1) They don't need a warrant or anything like it. While I don't neessiarly think they need something like a search warrant, they should ahve to present a case to a judge showing that they have sufficient reason to believe that you do indeed have pirated software. Also, they should be limited (as in the case of a search warrant) to auditing the software packages they have evidence are pirated and nothing else.
2) You have to pay for it. When the audit happens, your people have to prove to them that you have paid for your software. This costs money. They should be required to reimburse you for all staff time spent doing the audit. After all, they are the ones that want it done.
3) There needs to be a reasonable age limit on software they can audit. I'd say no more than four yeats. You just can't keep records forever, after awhile they need to be destroyed to make space. I work for a university department that isn't too big (say 100-150 people total) and four years of our finincial records occupies a filing cabnet, several huge binders, and a number of boxes.
Also, I don't know what they BSA accepts as "proof" but I feel that it needs to be whatever kind of record your company keeps (within reason). So if you have POs that show orders for the software, they need to accept that. Many software does not come with adiquate physical documentation of a liscence and for large orginazition there are no reciepts other than the PO papework often.
Basically, from what I've read about BSA audits, I just feel they have too much authority. They should need to go to a judge, present convincing evidence that you have pirated software. All the software they want to audit must not be more than four years old. Then the judge issues an order for an audit, limited ot the software they presented a case for. Then, the BSA orders teh audit, and pays the costs. They are then reqired the accept the documentation your present, so long as it is reasonable (ie not handwritten notes).
So if an employee reported that their company was pirating Windows 98 the BSA would have to take their sworn statement to a judge, the judge would then allow an audit for Windows 98 only. If then during the course of the audit the company produces credit card recipts proving they indeed purchased all their copies, the matter is over and the BSA has to go away, after reimbursing them for audit costs.
If a system like this was the case, I'd have no real trouble. They couldn't then use audits as bully tactics and would only be able to go after people they had some reason to believe were breaking the law. I do think it's only fair given our country's presumption of innonce laws.
A fuckstick looks more like yourself.
"There's also the recognition that there are some barriers to entry at the desktop level and support issues are important. "
Like people who pirate software worry about support from software makers!!!! duh!
Are any free software companies BSA members? Why would the BSA account for software created by non-members?
Now that business auditor integrity is being questioned by congress post-Enron, I'd love to see the BSA's practices put under the microscope. These guys are enforcing copyright law, and are supported by their very members. I'd hardly call the BSA an impartial auditor. It wouldn't suprize me if BSA members pressure the BSA for "results" or threaten to not support ($$$) the BSA.
The clue bat is for hitting, not passing.
Free Software = Communism (Defined by M$)
Communism = Crime (defined by senator McGarthy)
Crime = Piracy (defined by BSA)
Therefore Free Software = Piracy
Just like Axe make makers don't take into account the effect of an axe murder? I thinking I'm beginning to see...
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Investigator: Mr. Kruger, do you have current legitimate licenses for every single software title on each and every computer you own or use?
...then shut the f*ck up, go away, and take the BSA with you!
Bob Kruger: Uhh.. well, we uh..."
Investigator: Mr. Kruger, have you or anyone else currently in the employ of BSA ever used software for which you did not possess a valid legal license?
Bob Kruger: Bblblb-b-b-plplpppht blub..blubb...
Investigator:
Vortran out
Knowledge is like ignorance.. too much can be just as bad as not enough.
Since stiffer laws that give them more control is their goal, of course they will inflate things to promote THEIR viewpoint..
They have a clue.. and pretty damned effective..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I think it's naive to think that software piracy isn't rampant. People STEAL copies of software from work for home, STEAL software from computer labs, "BORROW" copies of software from friends. I think we should all admit that software piracy among people who have "no real need" for the software and "wouldn't purchase the software anyway" is pretty damn common, and that that same thinking is used to justify downloading copyrighted music. While the BSA may be fumblating numbers the real statistics probably wouldn't be as pretty.
Its funny. When I was little we used to take these little flouride pills [that is what I think they were anyway] because they helped give us strong teeth. We used to rinse with flouride solution at school once a week as well. Looking back, I simply think we were a bunch of guinea pigs.
If it isn't natural, don't eat it. Unfortunately, I'm already addicted to all the unnatural junk food that is out there and I'm sure its killing me.
The BSA, Aptly named. Everything they say is BS. Thst goes for the MPAA and RIAA as well. Piracy is a red herring. Take movies as a single example. They brought in the highest grosses in history over the Memorial Day and Fourth of July weekends. They claim pirates are robbing them blind, but still are obscenely rich, and getting richer. It does not suprise me at all that the BSA is claiming open source distribution as piracy so it can fudge it's numbers.
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
As a "rampant free market ideologue" (Libertarian), I will be the first to point out that you have confused the meaning of free-market economics (i.e. capitalism), which implies the absence of government interference (coercion) in the market, with a hypothetical regulation, imposed through coercion, which happens to favor one particular group over another. Capitalism does not necessarily imply profit but only the absence of coercion in the market. Free market economics is grounded in voluntary cooperation, not coercion (which is the definining prerequisite of any government). Hence, open source software falls squarely into the category of free-market enterprise, and in fact, to a greater degree than any software vendor which relies on patent law to sustain a business model. (Patent law, you may be surprised to know, is contrary to the true principles of free market economics, because it is derived from coercion.)
See free-market.net if you are interested...
After all, the BSA is just Microsoft's "Brownshirts", little more than their own private little extortion and stormtrooper division.
MS does not acknowledge competition that is not like them (closed). Therefore, neither will the BSA.
In the wake of the current corporate accounting scams, why aren't the RIAA/MPAA/BSA members being called to task for the $BILLIONS they claim in public FUD in "losses" to "piracy", yet they NEVER EVER put these in their financial statements...
Methinks the IP lobby needs to either PROVE these losses or be sued for fraud.
Corporatism != Free Market
Software development isn't cheap. Anyone can tell you that. Programmers make quite a bit more money than I do.
And I can definitely see your point of view. Since I now use entirely free software, I don't have to worry about copyright anymore. But copyright is an issue with proprietary software. For the most part, it isn't right to pirate software (such an awful term) because copyright is the law and these industries are honest in basing their business on the law. But there is a rather large ethical exception to this, in my opinion.
Its when developers use copyright as a means to force upgrades. Believe it or not, people don't always upgrade their software because of some compelling feature or improvement in the software. Some people are being charged an arm and a leg just to remain compatible with everyone else. Thankfully, some clear-minded people have decided to use free software in the infrastructure of the internet. But we still have the same problem in other areas. People upgrading to the next version of Word so that they can read the files they recieve. And what about in third world countries. It sounds like they can not even install a proprietary operating system, simply because the price is not adjusted to their economy. No wonder piracy is such a large problem there. I see no ethical problem here, either.
Also there is the matter of the technical divide. I honestly don't know a lot about it, but it seems that the difference between the haves and havenots is also one of technology. Now computer prices have gone down quite a bit, but software seems to have not have. Is it legitamate to pirate the software in this case? I'm not really certain.
Also, there's the problem of when your friend wants to borrow your Windows CD because he lost his or he has to reinstall the OS that came with his computer. If I'm not mistaken, some software licenses won't allow you to resell the software, or disassemble it. At this point, its no longer an issue of copyright but of control.
The law it seems is relatively well defined compared to the ethical issues copyright raises. So if you want argue against piracy on ethical grounds, there has to be more than "look at all the hard work and expense they put into this software." And it should be noted that free software removes all these ethical problems since the effects of copyright are reversed.
When software was a luxury, things were a lot more excusable. But people need softwarwe. If they can't afford it, they will take it. And a system that says "if you can afford the software, pay, if not, just take it" wouldn't work either (who decides?).
(I hope no one takes this an in depth analysis because its all off the top of my head, and I'm rather baffled by these problems, personally)
as long as they're not lying
where did you get your 90%?
remember 57,3% of all numbers are made up.
and 50% of all statistics are lies.
First, I have always felt that the BSA's piracy claims were such CRAP. Where do their 'estimates' come from? They run a number of 'surveys' that are full of loaded questions and they include media counts from pirate shops that have been raided, making the assumption that since the illegal copies exist, someone will use it.
Second, another often over-looked issue with software piracy which affects the survey results is (and this is NOT an excuse, just a statement of reality) that may of the individuals that use software illegally, would NOT use it any other way. They just could not justify the purchase. They either use it so ill often that it is not worth owning or it is just too expensive and they the could never afford to buy it.
If the BSA thinks piracy is bad (and it is) and they know a driving force in piracy is the high cost of software, why are they not pushing their members to reduce the cost of software so that it is more affordable? That would increase sales and make up for the (suspect) claimed losses from piracy.
One of the reasons is, by having vastly inflated piracy numbers that they use to bully the government into making tougher laws and businesses with which to threaten with big lawsuits, they can continue to justify the high cost of software.
It is the old catch-22, it cost so much cause of all of the stealing, they are stealing it cause it cost so much!
I have to use this cause I can't afford a real sig...
They don't need a clue. They've demonstrated that they'll take any liberty toward advantage, ethical or not. The GOVERNMENTS need the cluebat. They seem to suck down that swill by the bucketfulls. It's time for them to ignore the crap that the BSA, RIAA, or any other alphabet industy group prepares for their ingestion.
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."
About their estimate of the "supply" of software:- "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."
The difference between "supply" and "demand" is defined to be the "piracy".For the retail value of the software (the larger number often quoted by the media) they added 22% on top of that.
Overseas Invasion
Excerpt:
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
I payed Linus the full price of $0 for every copy of Linux I've ever installed!
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
The strong bit is kinda a myth, it makes your teeth brittle so that they crumble away.
I think the floride replaces some of the calcium outer layer of the tooth, producing a composite.
the floride boney stuff being 'harder' and the calcium boney stuff being 'stronger'
I know people who have teeth that crumbled away, like me for-instance.
No link, figures. Show some proof.
PHP is the solution of choice for relaying mysql errors to web users.
Ok, well this doesn't have much to do with the actual topic, I just though I needed a place to vent this information. I was watching G4 TV (video game channel) today, and for their 'Players' series (which intereview celebrities about video games), they went to Asia Carerra's house. For those who don't know, Asia Carerra is a master of the copulating arts (or a pornstar if you want to be a d*ck about it*). Well, apparently Asia is very much into PC gaming and running her own website. And when I saw running her own website, I mean I think she's actually the sysadmin. In her gaming room were 4 PC's and a massive bookshelf with books on linux, unix, tcp/ip, photoshop, apache, etc... She even creates her own Unreal Tournament skins in photoshop. Now damn...i'm impressed. How come I've never heard of this before, particularly being a member of the geek kingdom? And just to make this thread relevant, how does the BSA deal with people owning multiple copies of a game and not using all of them? So, what counts as use; does a sale count as use or does the game need to be used, for it to be use. Use use use.
Only the meek get pinched. The bold survive.
So long as they aren't being used at the same time. I don't have the exact details with me but I've read the MSOffice licence and they have it worded so that if someone purchases Word for work they can also install it on their home machine.
In addition to the above good answer, I'd videotape each machine audit over the BSA[A] tech's shoulder, capturing what s/he types, and what's on the screen. You'd need it for the courtroom, if it came to that. Plus, it adds hassle factor.
Of course, the legality of whether you can tape varies by jurisdiction, IANAL etc, but I believe in my town you're entitled to tape your own conversations.
Big Daddy, Johnny, Burp, Aunt Zelda, Scott, Slurp, Big Momma
On the one hand, Microsoft attacks free software (mainly because it's bad for Microsoft's business plans, so it seems.) On the other hand, while free software has a strong hold in certain sectors -and a bid for certain desktop uses- Microsoft continues to aggressively price upward their offerings to businesses.
They're driving IT departments toward free software. Self-defeating in other words, particularly considering today's economy and business climate, where IT budgets are not faring well.
Big Daddy, Johnny, Burp, Aunt Zelda, Scott, Slurp, Big Momma
"software piracy fell $US1 billion to $10.97 billion due to a "decline in software prices making the benefits of original software more compelling against the risks of software piracy and the effects of a worldwide economic slowdown", the groups say"
You mean that bringing the price of a product down more in line with its real value makes people more likely to buy it? Unbelievable.
The religious keeper of the web page The Premature Death of Rockstars argues that rock stars do not live as long as the general population. He states that the average age at death of rock stars is 36.9 and 75.8 for the general population. What is wrong with this use of these statistics? This is an illustrated example of lying with statistics.
From the slashdot story (well, actually the link) about tech riddles.
Buying a Dell computer is equivalent to dropping the soap in a prison shower.
I never understood how exactly the numbers are figured. Piracy obviously doesn't cause as much financial loss as is reported. For example, some 14 year old pirates 3DStudio Max to create 3D graphics in his basement. There is no way this kid could afford this software at all, yet they are reporting this as a 'loss'. It's not a loss at all... they didn't lose a sale, heck they never would have got his money in the first place! How can companies claim to lose money on something they wouldn't have sold anyway.
Another example: video game piracy. Once mod chips / mod plugs came out, Sony reported tons of losses due to software piracy. Here again, a lot of those sales they wouldn't have made. How many people downloaded and burned games "just because they could". Half the (games/music/software.. you pick) would still be sitting on the shelf at the piraters local retail store regardless of whether or not they pirated it.
Coronary heart disease statistics
Eating habbits and desiese
It's hard to get straight figures about food, smoking is easy because it's an easy target.
Here's what i found on food
Diet
One reason why CHD rates are high in the UK is because the average diet is so unhealthy. In particular fat intake - especially of saturated fat - in the UK is too high, and fruit and vegetable consumption is too low.
The percentage of food energy derived from total fat in the UK diet is falling only gradually. It was about 42% in the mid 1970s and is now around 39% but the type of fat eaten has changed: the percentage of food energy derived from saturated fat falling from around 20% to about 15%.
The fall in saturated fat consumption is reflected in changes in the types of food consumed. For example, since the mid 1970s the consumption of whole milk has fallen by 74% and butter by 76%.
However not all recent dietary changes have been beneficial. Since the mid 1970s consumption of potatoes (other than chips) has fallen by 40% and bread by 22%. The consumption of fresh fruit has risen by 43% but vegetable consumption has not increased.
UK dietary statistics also show marked social class and regional differences in the consumption of fresh fruit and vegetables, with people on lower incomes, and those living in Scotland, Northern Ireland and the North of England eating considerably less than those on higher incomes or living in the South.
Smokers account for 111,000 deaths
CVD (cardio vascular desiese) accounted to 260,000 deaths (some of whome were smokers).
CHD by itself is the most common cause of death in the UK. One in four men and one in five women die from the disease. CHD caused over 140,000 deaths in the UK in 1997
an article on fluride in water etc
There's quite a bit of stuff on Fluorosis &co out there if you look
Here's a cracker
Materials and dosages:
Calcium Citrate and Magnesium (Nature's Life, Garden Grove, CA 92841) containing Calcium (Citrate) 1000 mg, Magnesium (Oxide) 667 mg) 2 tablets with 1 capsule of Potassium 99 mg (Nature's Way Products, 10 Mountain Springs Parkway, Springville, Utah 84663) - 99 mg Potassium amino acid chelate
In addition, nutrients may be supplemented with a good multivitamin preparation (which must contain choline and inositol, and very low - or no - iron). The best one I have turned up is "Green Multi" from Nature's Life, Garden Grove, California 92841. Because the organophosphates diminish absorption of nutrients while increasing the requirement for them, both this preparation, plus the calcium/magnesium and potassium mentioned above, can be dissolved in the mouth - absorbing through the mucous membranes of the mouth. Individual supplements can be taken as desired - such as vitamin E (an antioxidant), vitamin A (to help protect vision), copper (which phosphorus binds to), zinc (balances copper), and B complex (balanced - the only balanced formula I know of is "Balanced B-Complex Formula" from General Nutrition Corporation, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15222). Vitamin C is also useful, although I don't recommend dissolving that in the mouth. The teeth (and bones) are under sufficient stress as it is - both from the corrosive effect of the phosphorus, and from the storage of fluoride which makes teeth and bones brittle. Dissolved Green Multi dissolves through the skin, too.
All fluorine exposure should be avoided - which may be difficult considering water supplies are being increasingly fluoridated. Fluoride absorbs through the skin as well as via mouth, making hot tubs and swimming pools places to add to the body's already excessive fluoride.
I Troll no more
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Our company got an audit request from them one time. I saw the reply before it went out and, stripped of the mumbo-jumbo, it said basically: "As our computer systems contain information that is classfied and we have our own auditing system, there's no way in hell that you'll ever so much as set foot in our building, much less audit our systems."
They got a lawyer to harass us. We got a lawyer to harrass them and they never even attempted to get a real court order. The audit thing was basically a form letter they send to everyone. They have no evidence of piracy taking place and they can't get any kind of court order without it, and they damn well know it. All they can do is make threats.
If someone tries to audit your systems, call a lawyer. First thing.
Globally, it says, software piracy fell $US1 billion to $10.97 billion due to a "decline in software prices making the benefits of original software more compelling against the risks of software piracy and the effects of a worldwide economic slowdown", the groups say.
I wonder, if Windows XP Professional was $50 US (Hell if it was even $75 US) instead of $299 how much that would cut BSA's piracy figures by?
Calculus Brown
Puttin the Funk back in mathematics!
Ok, check me on this:
Let's theoretically say that I have a pirated copy of some overpriced commercial software which the company charges $20,000 for.
I have a copy of it because I happened to see it on a website and someone said "That software is pretty cool, you should have a look at it".
So I download it, have a look at it, shrug, and throw it on a CD somewhere and stick it on the shelf.
Whatcha wanna bet that this instantly gives the BSA marketing department another $20,000 to add to their tally of "the evil that piracy does"?.
Capitalism is the investment of capital (read money) in a business in exchange for equity (read ownership). Capitalism can flourish even in heavily regulated states such as Nokia in Finland, or even in state Capitalism such as many of the red army owned factories in China. Indeed, Capitalism can have some real failures in wide open economies such as the current Russian Republic, the US in the 1920s or even the current US if their is not a working rule of law.
The truth behind the troll
All those things they don't wan't you to know about flouride and junk food
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Free software folks should applaud the BSA's efforts to do draconian enforcement of their "intellectual property". Since most users who "pirate" proprietary software can't afford to pay, strict enforcement will drive them to Linux and other free software. In areas where it is not good enough, folks in the third world have brains and more time than money, so they will be highly motivated to help make it better.
The fact that you don't see such points made that often on Slashdot suggests to me that most of the Slashdot crowd is more interested in the "free beer" aspect than the "free speech" aspect of free software/open source.
Politicians see a lot of pressure groups with axes to grind and corporate backing to pay their bills, and they know exactly how much to trust their numbers.
Of course the BSA doesn't exactly rely on its numbers to make its case. They rely on other numbers in campaign contributions as well. But thats a whole 'nother ball game.
Paul.
You are lost in a twisty maze of little standards, all different.
Skeletal Fluorosis - A crippling bone disease caused by excessive consumption of fluoride
This is what I mentioned in my troll.
and the best yet Unicef wow i didn't know unicef had an anti fluride campain
I still havn't found clear stats on deaths caused McD's &co. or the name of the hormone/enzime or whetever released by fat cells that makes you hungry.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
actually you are incorrect. I did some contract work for the BSA last year and yes, they ARE as draconian as some other posters have suggested. I quit the job because I was so sickened by the audacity of their belief of power over software license holders. They should be checked and analyzed at every turn so they don't push things too far. They are equally as bad as the MPAA. And, BTW, Microsoft lobbyists are the biggest voices in BSA if that tells you anything...
However, within three days M$ would mysterically 'see' your difficulities and offered you a 5 years lock-in contract in order to waive your legal responsibility of using unlicense software. Great, you don't need to face that 2 years jailing and $5000 fine for each unlicensed software used. How nice they are...but wait, how did M$ know my situation, where did they get our information?
What the hell do you think the BSA is??? It's the Business Software Alliance, made up of companies like Adobe and Microsoft. Of course whatever the BSA discovers will be forwarded on to the affected companies. Jeez, talk about needing a cluebat...
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
"The DMCA was designed to promote a safe and legal online world while advancing the dynamic change that is synonymous with the Internet."
"dynamic change", as opposed to what, hmmm, static change?
Redundant pricks.
SpyDock: Scientific Python in a Docker container
Apparently, she was saving enough people from parking tickets that the city's transportation revenue was starting to feel the effects...
Remember, no good deed goes unpunished.
It would be interesting to find out the statistics of the BSA webservers regarding the OS and browser used. BSA must be aware of the amount of Freeware OS and browser traffic they have. Would they want this to be audited? Could the BSA servers worldwide become /.ed?
...The BSA web server runs on free software (Apache/BSD) Ask Netcraft.
If it's good for them, it's good for you...
Piracy was around before the 8086 days.
I use to won an Amstrad with games that were on tape i use to use my tape recorder to make copies for my friends.
...I think you'd have to have signs up warning people, at least here in Oz, but they could be _small_ signs. (-:
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
If the majority of audits are that difficult, it will become uneconomical for them. It's got nothing to do with the sucker(s) that they rope into doing the actual audits. You can't go into a job like that with a clean heart anyway.
The harping lets them know that if they come down hard on you, you're out of there.
You might make a point of mentioning at the last moment that if you do jump ship, one of the Linux publications (e.g. SlashDot, but no need to be specific) has expressed interest in writing up your story.
If done right, this motivates them to tread lightly. If botched, you'd better start planning that article, 'coz it's gonna be a doozy.
One of the things about Open Source is that very little is done in a corner. Certainly it will make a mark if (maybe post-writeup) the policy is adopted by a significant number of corporations worldwide. Kind of like OneMillionDads but for software.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
(borrowing, or buying & returning, lots of CDs to rip is just not as practical).
You reckon? If I assume a 512kbps connection (better than most available in my country)
CD = 74 minutes ~= 74Mb MP3'd
74Mb * 1024 = 75776 Kbytes * 8 = 606208 kbits
606208 / 512 = better than best case transfer: 1184 seconds, or roughly 20 minutes.
Ripping and encoding a single CD takes all of ten minutes, and since the major bottleneck while
ripping is the CD drive speed, you have processor time left over to be encoding the tracks while
it rips. I know there are better connections than 512k in the US, but I doubt they're the status quo. So 10 minutes per CD, where you can potentially buy or rent multiple CDs, or a 20 minute download, per CD, if you get close to top speed?
No, I think it's much much more practical to rip the CDs.
For the record, you can turn a linux box into a background-ripping machine with the right software... I had my machine set up to look up CDDB (or freeddb? I forget) for any CD stuck in the drive... if it identified as an audio CD, it started ripping immediately, and queued the tracks for MP3 compression at 192kbps. This was for the purposes of MP3'ing my existing CD collection.
This sig is part of your complete breakfast.
Or are they like our regular religious callers, returning to base for doctrinal drenchings after each visit?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
The government agencies use free software from GNU yet from sources that guarantee performance. Procurement forms entered my desk space for free software with buys on guarantees from one particular company. Such desk existed at U.S.SBA. The buys ranged from fifty thousand on up to one million to guarantee performance of the software from the Free Software Foundation. The procurement did not buy the software because the software is free yet did buy limited future contracts to insure features of the Free Software Foundation work on government systems. Nonetheless, the company is listed GSA. The procurement smelt like the backdoor to ye ole pirate outhouse.
So you are saying good will is unethical and the red cross is unethical, donating blood (or anything else) is unethical.
Fine, if that's where capitalism is heading I declare myself communist.
- Voice of Ambience -
If my company wants me to work in my own home, with my own computer equipment, they better hell provide the softrware I need to do my work.
So far all companies have done so.
The argumrnt that one is forced to pirate Word because one needs to bring work home is complete bunk.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.