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BSA Creates Piracy Statistics

JakiChan writes "According to this story on Yahoo! news the BSA commissioned a study that decided that 39% of all business software is pirated, down from 40%. The decline is attributed to the BSA's enforcement techniques. 'The piracy rate was calculated by comparing the researchers' estimates on demand with data on actual software sales.'" In other words, some guys sat in a room and decided that people probably wanted to buy ten copies of software, but only five were sold, so the piracy rate must therefore be 50%. By a similar process we can calculate that 99% of all ocean-front homes are pirated.

25 of 675 comments (clear)

  1. And in other news... by da3dAlus · · Score: 5, Funny

    79% of all statistics are made up on the spot. My math professor always said so, so it must be true.

    --

    Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.
    1. Re:And in other news... by bathmatt · · Score: 3, Funny

      Oh, you can use statistics to prove anything that is even remotely true...

    2. Re:And in other news... by McWilde · · Score: 5, Funny

      Wow! That's up 13% from last year.

      --
      Maybe
    3. Re:And in other news... by fredrikj · · Score: 3, Funny

      I see you're trying to increase it further, so I'll counter with some true statistics to bring the number down:

      2/3 of the human body consists of water
      17% of the sides on regular dice are two-eyed
      0% of all prime numbers are even (tricky)

      And finally...
      25% of all statistics provided in this post are false

    4. Re:And in other news... by FuzzyDaddy · · Score: 5, Funny
      Children's bodies can be as much as 75%.

      Given the number of stops we make on long car trips with my daughter, I'd put that number closer to 99%.

      --
      It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
    5. Re:And in other news... by Spunk · · Score: 4, Funny

      The human body is 50 - 65% water depending on age and weight. Children's bodies can be as much as 75%.

      Ergo, children are not human. It all makes sense now.

    6. Re:And in other news... by kfg · · Score: 3, Funny

      "If you want to get all mathematical in someone's face, do it right. ;-) "

      Indeed. It always pays to study the classics to see how things have been traditionally done. Even the most tired cliche became that way because of its inate broadbased appeal.

      I think you'll discover that if you want to get all mathmatical in someone's face history records that nothing beats a pi.

      KFG

  2. Damn pirates! by Hogwash+McFly · · Score: 5, Funny

    By a similar process we can calculate that 99% of all ocean-front homes are pirated Yarrr. There be many a pirate on the high seas.

    --
    Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
  3. Re:fuck you by BabyDave · · Score: 5, Funny

    I disagree - my statistics show that only 39% of /. trolls think that *BSD IS DYING, compared with 40% last year, therefore *BSD IS LESS DEAD that it was last year.

    Oh, and for "statistics" read "numbers that I pulled out of my ass

  4. According to RIAA maths by stud9920 · · Score: 3, Funny

    ....it's only 12%, but some of the were real big percents.

  5. More accurate method by dfn5 · · Score: 5, Funny

    If they did their stats similar to the stats over at distributed.net I think it would be alot more accurate. And it would also spur competition amongst the piraters. I think it would be cool to see who could pirate the most.

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    -- Thou hast strayed far from the path of the Avatar.
  6. As a pirate by Timesprout · · Score: 5, Funny

    I would like to apologise for the heinous crime of software copying. I promise to mend my ways and return to a good pirate lifestyle of murder, rape and pilage on the high seas

    --
    Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
    What truth?
    There is no dupe
  7. Pirating? by Deflagro · · Score: 5, Funny

    I don't steal things, I just borrow them from strangers for as long as I need them. The eyepatch is purely for aesthetic reasons....

    --
    Der Tod ist der einzige Weg hier raus!
  8. Re:Huh? by Binestar · · Score: 5, Funny

    Because the houses are on the Ocean, Pirates have access to them for Pirating. You would think Pirates would like to Pirate all the homes they can, but they can only get to 1 out of every 100 homes to pirate. But because they wanted to get to 99 out of 100 homes, the piracy rate is 99%.

    Excellent logic no?

    --
    Do you Gentoo!?
  9. Re:BSA by evilviper · · Score: 5, Funny

    Read the slashdot title... "BSA Creates Piracy Statistics". No, they didn't gather, collect, or compile them... they "created" them.

    --
    Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
  10. Re:let's get it out of the way, right now! by notque · · Score: 4, Funny

    No, 100% of statistics are worthless, but 21.53% of all statistics are made up.

    Side note.

    Adding a decimal point increases the truth of any statistic. 82.34% of people say so.

    --
    http://use.perl.org
  11. Acronyms by Zog+The+Undeniable · · Score: 5, Funny

    At least we now know what the "BS" stands for in "BSA".

    --
    When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
  12. Decrease from 40% to 39% - I'm Sorry! by Picass0 · · Score: 5, Funny


    I guess I was slacking last year. I'll do my best to get that back up to 41% next year. I PROMISE!

  13. Re:Did they... by notque · · Score: 4, Funny

    Everything is measurable. 92.31% of people say so.

    --
    http://use.perl.org
  14. BSA? by djeaux · · Score: 5, Funny
    Well, I opened my s-mail this morning & had my annual pledge card from the Boy Scouts of America. Then I open Slashdot & see that the BSA is conducting a study of software piracy. Talk about cognitive dissonance!

    Must be all those 12-17 yr old boys working on their computer merit badges...

    --
    "Obviously, I'm not an IBM computer any more than I'm an ashtray" (Bob Dylan)
  15. Mod parent down!! by dipipanone · · Score: 3, Funny

    ASCII ribbon campaign for peace

    Peace ribbon?

    You can't fool me -- this is clearly yet another goatse.cx troll, only rendered in ascii.

    Years of repeated slashdot exposure mean that today I'd recognize that savaged sphincter anywhere -- even if it is hiding in a couple of ascii characters.

  16. Re:How is this interesting? by the_Bionic_lemming · · Score: 3, Funny

    Enterprise class?

    Oh god - holodeck accidents, Time travel incidents, and the Borg are in YOUR future!

    --
    _ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
  17. Re:subjective world views and causal myopia by ghostlibrary · · Score: 5, Funny

    "And for software, because every PC is a software copying machine, since inception we have had a problem."

    Yes, I'm sure their software sales would be way higher if no one had a PC.

    --
    A.
  18. ObSimpsonsQuote by mrjive · · Score: 5, Funny

    Homer: Aw, people can come up with statistics to prove anything, Kent. Forfty percent of all people know that!

    --
    If you can't beat them, arrange to have them beaten. -George Carlin
  19. Conspiracy hats on everyone by MalachiConstant · · Score: 3, Funny

    With these methodologies you have to wonder...

    Here's some conspiracy thoughts:

    Somewhere deep in the bowels of BSA headquarters there's a group of people who have this all planned out.

    BSA Drone #1: Okay, first year we'll say piracy dropped a small amount thanks to our efforts. This will convince the companies and congress that our efforts are successful, but we need more help.

    BSA Drone #2: Right, then during year 2 we'll get some more laws passed and get people used to more extrememe copy pretection.

    BSA Drone #1: Right! They bought into the XP activation, now we can roll out the next step.

    BSA Drone #2: Which is...?

    BSA Drone #1: Tying activation to a bank account! It's the only way to be sure they're not pirates! Then when we have that in place we'll report a drop of 5% and complain loudly about OSS making it impossible to do audits.

    BSA Drone #2: So stage 3 is requiring all government and big business customers to go 100% closed source. Brilliant!

    BSA Drone #1: Let's get a taco.