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.

Comments

And?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

I don't see the problem, it works for the "Linux usage statistics" that we hear about all the time on Slashdot that people are pulling out of their asses. It works both ways, guys.

nice quote

[Zan Zu from Eridu]

Though piracy rates have decreased, the amount of money lost has risen partly because software prices have gone up, according to the study.

Since the members of the BSA fix the prices for their own products, they can keep up these kind of nonsensical claims indefinitely. Like "The number of pirated copies has decreased 100%, but prices have gone up 200%, so piracy is actually getting worse, therefore we need trusted computing enforced". They can manipulate this any way they want to fit their agenda.

Re:Did they...

[Fizzlewhiff]

I love when people try to justify their criminal activity with excuses like you give. So you may not use it professionally, you still are using it. And if the product is too expensive for you, it doesn't justify stealing it. Theft is theft.