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?"

Comments

Doesn't surprise me...

[evbergen]

... 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.

Re:Cluebat?

[a_n_d_e_r_s]

Hey, I always use

ls -lart

Better yet

[mizhi]

Could someone please use the cluebat on the BSA?

think like business people......

[XavierXeon]

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

Re:These people have a clue.

[A_Non_Moose]

Open source software is a threat to their members...{snip}

Well, when your tactics hit below the belt, I suppose turnabout is fair play.

{SEG}