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BSA Says 41% of Software On Personal Computers Is Pirated
An anonymous reader writes "Individuals are turning to P2P networks and auction sites in staggering numbers to acquire or transfer illegal software and in doing so are harming the economy whilst exposing themselves to malware, identity theft and criminal prosecution, according to a report from the Business Software Alliance. Beyond P2P and auction site piracy, the report also draws correlations between Internet piracy and the spread of malware such as viruses, trojans and spyware, which often exploit vulnerabilities in illegal software that does not benefit from security updates provided by manufacturers. Although the correlation is not universal, geographies with high instances of software piracy suffer from high instances of malware."
While you're guessing with such precision, why not choose 42% and grab more nerd eyes?
are true. We'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to decide which.
Karma: Chameleon - mostly influenced by bad '80s New Wave music
Their first graph (which is in percentages, but they don't label the scale LOL) shows remarkably low rates of malware, and an alleged piracy rate (whatever that is) that is 4-10x higher.
Maybe they should check out http://garwarner.blogspot.com/
BSA+RIAA+MPAA=organizations that make up stories and wait for their fake "facts" to be reused by their legislative bought henchmen.
E
Then far be it from me to not meet their expectations.
"Hey kids! Remember that new game you wanted? Well, I need to get us up to quota!"
Because malware never comes with legal software...
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Speaking as an MBA, their unsubstantiated numbers and pretty graphs is good enough for me. I'm going to delete 41% of the software on my machines to make sure I'm not a crook!
It's NOT me! It's the meds! I'm on 1000mg of Fukitol.
If the BSA was genuinely concerned about software piracy, they'd be actively promoting free and open alternatives.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
What a lousy article - all puff and no content:
- The FA discusses online auction sites as a "hotbed" of trading illegal software. But it doesn't say whether the BSA distinguish between online auctions offering cracked copies for download, pirated installation media or perfectly legitimate resale of software which the seller has no further use for.
- There's no real explanation of how they reached this figure - do they assume a single person using a torrent installs the software once? Twice? Never? Once then decides they don't really need it so uninstalls it?
- Even if the BSA did explain how they reached this figure, how do we know that their methodology is sound and gives reasonably accurate answers? AFAIK there is no methodology that is generally known to give accurate answers to the question of "how many PCs have application X installed, where X may or may not phone home and there may or may not be cracked versions of X in the wild which modify any existing phone-home functionality?"
Thing is, the BSA must know that these numbers are not reliable and that they can't get reliable numbers. I think the reason this article exists is the BSA are seeding the news wires. Who wants to bet that the next thing they'll do is lobby representatives in governments around the world using these bullshit figures and that's the only reason the figures exist?
Since the BSA is only concerned with business software, what they probably mean is that 41% of copies of MS Office on home computers are not legitimate copies, mostly copied from work. If those people didn't have a pirate copy of Office, that would probably be using OO.org or some other free equivalent, they wouldn't be paying for it.
(I guess a lot of people have academic versions of Office, and other app;ications like Adobe's suite, and they no longer are students so I guess that makes them pirates too.
Maybe one reason for such a poor correlation between alleged copyright infringement and malware rates is that most who engage in and enable copyright infringement actually do have higher ethics than some companies which deliberately add creepy spyware and malware-like features to their applications in the name of controlling what user's do. Indeed, I wonder if some even explicitly choose copyright infringement sources simply to get spy and malware disabled versions of certain applications.
Maybe they have never considered the fact that there is a correlation between the state of the economy and the amount of pirated software. Maybe they should consider that their prices are far too high to be able to afford. As for harming the economy, my money tends to go towards food rather than software. It isn't like I am saving the money and pirating software, I don't have any money to save.
Oh, but wait... it's a BSA report, which means anyone with a brain already KNOWS it's bullshit. Unfortunately, that means most members of Congress thinking it's true, and I suspect that's their intended audience. It's certainly a not "report" aimed at us. Their goal is to get more laws passed to make them and their masters money, extracted by law from everyone whether they have ever used any of the software in question or not. Another tax on blank media, anyone? How about one on hard drives, CPUs and other components? Pay by the megabyte for connectivity, because obviously we're stealing software? All they have to do is convince Congress-critters it's a good idea, which seems to be shockingly easy to do if you supply enough cash.
The other 59% of disk space occupied by legal software consists entirely of Adobe Reader.
MMO Vampire Role Playing
Because RedHat, Novell and the others aren't paying them to shill their stuff.
Even according to the UK Government's recent consultation, about restricting Internet access of suspected filesharers, the figures of estimated damages due to software piracy is a staggering 144 times that of music, TV and films from filesharing:
The BPI claim P2P file-sharing costs the UK music industry £180m pa (2008) while IPSOS gives a loss in the UK for TV and films of £152m (2007). ... Figures for software - the biggest of the creative industries - are difficult to obtain, but it is estimated by the Business Software Alliance that the global business software industry suffers annual losses of some US$48 billion out of a total market of US$450 billion due to piracy. The bulk of these losses is caused by unauthorised copying of software within businesses, rather than by P2P.
( http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file51703.pdf )
So even though the Government has no reason to speak favourably of filesharing in this document, it still acknowledges that most software piracy is within businesses. So why does the BSA now focus on individuals and filesharing?
Note that even if we assumed every download was a lost sale(!), that means the upper bound for damages is $974 million for a six month period, according to the figure in the article, a fraction of the BSA's own estimate for commercial piracy damages, at $24 billion over six months.
the report also draws correlations between Internet piracy and the spread of malware such as viruses, trojans and spyware
Oh, and Government plans to reduce the bandwidth of suspected downloaders - thus making it hard or impossible to download the large Windows security updates - won't effect the spread malware at all...
"...is the Online Auction Tracking System" previously used to prevent piracy of online FPS titles, software pirates have come to fear Quakers' OATS.
I think it depends on the user. You have users who call their friend/family member/etc when they have a question, and clearly are not the ones pirating. Then you have the people who know what they are doing (and from my personal experience) quite often do. The reasons everyone gives are different, but there is often a good bit of it. And they are just as likely to install it on that friend/familiy member's computer when they call needing help with Office or whatever ('Oh, this is an old verson, let me upgrade you).
I've mentioned it before. I have a friend that almost refuses to buy music when they can use whatever the current flavor of P2P is to get it. I had a different friend that gladly would download the newest games from torrents and play them. Not to mention the various other indiscretions I or other friends have done. Several people still will email me with a 'hey, do you happen to have a serial number for...' These aren't college students or poor workers from some low-end job. They are often well paid professionals (often in IT). They just don't want to spend the money. It's not some sense of 'information should be free!' or 'software shouldn't be patented!'. They just don't want to spend the money, so while these reports may not have numbers that everyone believes, I certainly have seen it day to day. Just without a metric that I can quote.
I will shred my adversaries. Pull their eyes out just enough to turn them towards their mewing, mutilated faces. Illyria
Correlation does not imply causation.
Because corporate America considers Linux to be pirated as well. As well as all FOSS software for that matter.
As a Ubuntu user, I can say precisely 0% of the software on my PC is pirated AND I have no issues with malware, viruses, trojans, etc. (according to ClamAV anyway). In fact, probably 99% of the software I run is free & open source. The only proprietary software I use for the time being is Adobe Flash and the ATI Radeon driver, both legally obtained.
I know we'd all like to say that there is no link between illegally copied software (I refuse to use the word "pirated") and malware, but I'm sure we've all seen instances where relatives' PCs got infected by software downloaded from Kazaa, etc.
What really surprises me is that, when given the choice between maybe catching viruses or getting prosecuted for downloading/installing illegal software and using the free and legal open source equivalent, so many people still choose to download their software illegally. I have to say, as a full-time user and software developer, Ubuntu's offering is really, really well put-together and a pleasure to use.
Well:
1. Is simply not true. Adware and spyware are common in commercial software.
2. Also not true - the first thing a pirate does is strip out the crap.
3. If you *have* paid for it, it could be infected. That's why you scan everything.
This article is BS. There are probabilistic elements in software piracy and malware, but those statistics came from /dev/random
If you know where to get your pirated software, then it's more than the distributors honor is worth, to let anything dodgy get into their release.
The bit about "geographies with high instances of software piracy suffer from high instances of malware"; Ok that is probably true, and in S.Korea I don't think you can call legally sell it as a "computer" if it isn't full to the brim with malware.
Apparently it doesn't matter which BSA it is - tbey'll both try to bugger you.
Bark less. Wag more.
- If you've paid for the software, it's highly unlikely that it will contain malware or adware.
Unless it comes from Sony or Microsoft...
1) Can't measure it - you can't measure how many people downloaded your software through illicit channels because, by definition, those channels are usually unmonitored, don't keep logs, and aren't subject to easy investigation. You might be able to measure a particular computer at a particular point in time but any measurement being done on "behalf of" the BSA is going to be worthless. You'd have to randomly monitor thousands of PC's in dozens of categories (home, business, mobile, poweruser, etc.) and get permission to report on any "unlicensed" software there, and then chase it up with the company concerned to see if it was actually unlicensed (rather than just using the wrong VLK or similar for convenience).
2) Can't compare it - the chances of those metrics being stable across such countries as Turkey and the US are unlikely.
3) Can't correlate it - Just because malware goes up with pirated installations doesn't mean anything - it just means that the pirates prefer to download porn which may or may not introduce malware... it doesn't mean the malware is in the pirate software.
Statistics are worthless quoted out of context. We have no idea what was measured, how, why, what bias was introduced by the measures, or anything else.
To be honest, I imagine the percentage to be *higher*... I've seen dozens of people with Winzip on their computers who haven't actually bought it but they heard they needed it to open ZIP files. I've seen dozens of work laptops come back with full installations of football games, office, etc.... technically that's copyright infringement ("software piracy") because it's a breach of the license. I expect the true figure to be nearer 80 or 90%.
But then you have the reasoning that it's somehow linked to malware in any way other than "people get malware too"... almost 100% of the home PC's I see have items of malware on them (again, depending on your definition).
If you want to say "copyright infringement is bad and puts £5 on the cost of every game you buy, or £50 on the price of Office", people would listen. Making up bollocks statistics about nonsense correlations just makes me switch off and let's me know that, actually, you're just trying to scare me into buying things because you can't think any other way would work (and thus don't understand software "piracy" at all). I don't pirate, either at work or at home. I just move things to open-source if I can't afford the real package, and I never buy anything without a demo. No demo, no trial version, no purchase. I also don't buy anything with DRM that interferes with my usage of the product. I'm not alone.
Stop spending your time analysing vague correlations and look at those statistics about why people pirate in the first place. Almost always it's cost, convenience and because a certain percentage of those "pirate" downloads are actually your own customers just trying to get the bloody thing working (I've had to break DRM schemes in work in order to be able to install compliant to our licensing - it was tons easier than our negotiating with the company in question to do the same thing). Be open with those stats and then things get interesting: How many pirates, on average, end up revealing upon further investigation that they *already* own the software in question, but the DRM got in the way? Or that they lost the install disk? Or that they needed original media to recover their PC's and it wasn't supplied by the manufacturer? I've seen all three of those and even done the second myself - I needed a particular install disk and it was an emergency and the person I was working for didn't have the original disk to hand. After I ensured that they were entitled to the licences, I just downloaded one and used that instead (after checksum verification). Does that contribute as being "another" PC with pirate software?
Bull. Shit. Artists.
In. William. Shatner's. Voice.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
harming the economy
Right, like they would have bought it if they couldn't pirate it.
I love this bullshit. As you say, there's no way of telling how many percent of those who pirated would actually buy the software at hand. In my experience often people pirate because they're lazy, meaning they know some program from a while back and instead of looking for a free alternative they just pirate it because they're used to it. But also sometimes they actually need that program, however more often they don't.
Also it's very easy to throw expressions such as "harming the economy" around. But let's think about what this means. If, and we have to remember the big if here, there would be a significant increase in such sales -- instead of people looking for free and/or open source alternatives (which by the way is already happening, anyway let's continue with the hypothesis) -- then in an international aspect this would harm the economy as the national currency would be weakened due to less trade. HOWEVER (one of those important caps moments) -- don't forget that piracy is also an international phenomenon, meaning if all countries have 10% piracy it would be -- in terms of economic balance, exactly the same as if we had 0% -- or 80%.
What about national level? Well at national level the currency would merely shift towards those selling the software, as they collect the fees.
What about the personal economy? Well you would have a slightly stronger currency (given that other countries ignore piracy) yet you would still, at a personal level, make a loss.
Now let's ignore the moral aspects here, you can yell theft all you want but that's another discussion. This discussion was about the economy and how someone tries to bullshit you from this angle to change your mind. Change your mind for the right reasons, if you consider it theft then fine, but don't eat whatever crap that's thrown at you. By using the expressions such as "economy", a very big machine which can be difficult to understand, you can persuade somebody into a lot of things, since ultimately they will tend to feel stupid because they cannot break down the concept and understand how this hurts the economy -- you see no explanation is given, and that's the point of the argument. So if you feel stupid, that's even more of a reason to ask the question: why?
I am the lawn!
BSA Says 41% Software On Personal Computers Is Pirated
Well customers choose linux because Apps are easier to pirate. Steve Winfield of Microsoft's anti-FOSS Partner Technology Team (a.k.a. Delta Force) says so. It must be true.
In other news, sources not partnered with Microsoft announce that Microsoft's desktop market share has dipped down to 59%. Between Conficker and Internet banking exploits, it could happen.
Seriously, better check the BSA's definition of 'pirated'. Previous announcements like this turned out to classify any non-MS software as 'pirated'.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Not one single program on my computer is pirated.
Not one single program on my computer is paid for.
Vista 64 Ult/Win7 64 Ult, Office 2007 Pro, VS 2005-2008 Std, MSSQL 2005-2008 Std-Etc.
If you can get it all for free why steal it?
And no I don't have a MSDS or other paid subscription, that would be paying for it.
" geographies with high instances of software piracy suffer from high instances of malware."
Isn't this because the places you have to go in order to get free software aren't policed for malware? This really has nothing to do with the pirated software itself, but instead it has to do with the law preventing people from trading software for free in the first place. Software trading is outlawed == only outlaws will post software for trade (i.e. people already engaged in nefarious activities like malware).
stuff |
Hey, it works well for the *AA's in perverting public opinion and getting laws enacted so why should the BSA be any different?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
First off, aside from the questionable validity of this study, I wonder really just how much these guys are "harming the economy"?
Personally, I've made an effort to avoid pirated software these days (I'll admit, I used some back when I was younger, but open source was less common back then and I had no money to spend anyways).
I mean, almost everything has a free replacement available these days.
Windows -> Linux
Outlook -> Thunderbird
Office -> OpenOffice.org (or actually Gnumeric and Abiword, which I actually kinda prefer myself)
Photoshop -> GIMP
Visual Studio -> GNU Compilers + lots of IDEs
Numerous Commercial CD Burning Programs -> Numerous Open Source CD Burning Programs
Don't get me wrong I know that for *professionals* GIMP often just ain't gonna compare to Photoshop. However, for personal computers at home, I think the vast majority of users are fine with the above. More to the point, I think that if the choice actually came down to paying retail price for the commercial versions or using free software (instead of their actual choice which was free pirated commercial software or free open source software), I doubt that very many at all would opt to shell out the cash.
And therein lies the problem - if these people would rather use free software instead of paying when called on this, then the net change in income for the makers of the software is nothing. That's not harming the economy. Indeed, it's likely helping the economy as if more people were forced to use open source and free software at home, then when they got to work and their boss asked them what programs they need budgeted into next years budget, they might just opt to keep using the open source ones, which would result in a DROP in revenue for the commercial companies. Methinks they don't want to push home users too hard here.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Apparently it doesn't matter which BSA it is - tbey'll both try to bugger you.
This hasn't been true for decades.
The OTHER BSA, the one that goes camping has had a strong child-safety aspect since the late 1980s or early 1990s.
The BSA requires adult leaders and Scouts to go through a sexual-abuse-awareness training program, and they even make those programs available to outside groups. They also have a 2-adult rule at all events and prefer 3 or 4 adults. They do not allow adults to be alone with Scouts unless there is an emergency or they are "alone" with but within eyesight of another adult.
I would be far more worried about a similar group that didn't have a 2-adult policy than the Scouts.
Oh, and as for the Business Software Alliance buggering you or more accurately your wallet, no argument there.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Or Electronic Arts.
"Did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?"
I do, but they are not copyright infringement sources. If I already own a license, they are simply enhanced methods of distribution or a convinient malware-cleansing caching proxy.
Or, is the BSA just a bunch of extortionist thugs?
From wikipedia:
> According to an article in Mother Jones magazine,[4] the BSA discovered in 1995 that Antel, the Uruguayan national telephone company, had pirated US$100,000 worth of Microsoft, Novell, and Symantec software. The BSA's lawyers in Uruguay quickly filed suit, but dropped the suit in 1997 when Antel signed a "special agreement" with Microsoft to replace all of its software with Microsoft products. This has led to accusations that the BSA is a front for Microsoft, with its other members being enlisted purely to disguise Microsoft's dominant role.
While I am a programmer and try to buy all the software I use I find it difficult with some products to keep up with the upgrades.
BLOAT:
For example Word & Excel (Office) - to keep bashing M$ - is a bloat. There is not really a version which is minimal enough for my needs. I really-really do not need all the crap that ships with MS Office. I do not use their mail, I do not use anything other than Excel and Word. I would be happy with a minimal version, or a second hand version of Office 2003 (the one I use on my Mac). Still, document formats are forced on people and most people just HAVE TO get it, and then do not want to pay because they feel they are buying the same product over and over. Oh, did I mention SPACE? Yeah, to read a document I really need to have gigabites of crap installed on my systems? I know I can select packages, but they still install a crap load of libraries and all that what would not be needed by just e.g. Word and Excel.
PRICE:
I use almost only free software to develop. Jedit, vi, whatever, but form time to time I need something that costs money. Most of the time I am faced with a price tag of $50-100 for an app I would use once (e.g. to decode a stored procedure or to save in a special format, or to repair an installation)....
Version & function
Here is Zend studio for example: I simply hate the new version, I cannot make peace with that eclipse bloated horror. I love the old version and the functions in it are more than satisfactory for my PHP needs. But can I buy it? No. I cannot/do not want to use the new version and I cannot buy the old version, so my option is: pirate it - since it is against my standards I am trying to use something else, but this old yet unavailable version is something I go back to from time to time.
I think companies should have more options and combinations of their products, for the utility kind of things there should be a 10-day license too so people would more likely to buy the version they need instead of pirating it.
And let's not forget that even though I might pirate a certain bit of software from company X (for any of the reasons you mentioned), that I am NOT using a similar competing software from company Y. Even piracy increases market share.
Of course, the BSA isn't going to mention that in their statistics.
Are you really surprised when most people justify their choices this way? Would you also be surprised to know that most people feel this way? Most people, when faced with the fact that the law isn't serving them, will start to ignore it.
The RIAA doesn't deserve protection under the law anymore. And as much as I'll get flamed for that statement, we're all thinking it, and we're all acting on it.
But if you want a non-inflammatory morally relevant statement - I've been paying taxes on blank media for years, paid directly to the RIAA, and THAT has bought me any free copies I want, of whatever I want. Because I've already paid for it. And so have you.
Their Calculation goes like this:
as you can see, they just have to raise their estimates of "how much software a PC needs" a little bit to skyrocket the piracy... also they don't consider people using free software or older versions of software, so all in all their piracy report means nothing more than "we would have wanted to sell THIS much more software!"
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
I don't doubt it, but on the other hand, Adobe, Microsoft, et. al really ought to lower their prices. Ever since Microsoft knocked Wordperfect/Corel Office and Lotus Smartsuite pretty much out of the market the price for Office Pro has quadrupled. Ever since Corel Draw became irrelevant and the graphics companies consolidated (Adobe buying up Aldus, Corel buying up Jasc, etc.) the Adobe apps have skyrocketed in price.
They got where they are through piracy: if fark-reading college students didn't pick up photoshop off of "warez" sites and learn their suites, Adobe might not have been able to maintain such dominance in the industry. If every Tom, Dick, and Harry didn't "pirate" Microsoft Office, maybe the monopoly wouldn't exist. Maybe Microsoft just might be more interested in interoperability because it would benefit them. They got where they are through piracy, and then implemented strict "activation" schemes now. The thing is, activation schemes only penalize paying customers. People who run 'cracked' software don't have to deal with false positives. They don't have to call Microsoft and wait on hold for 20 minutes for manual craptivation after they've done their second semi-annual Windows reinstall or did their video card upgrade. "Pirates" just install their cracked and slipstreamed Windows and Adobe Creative Suite install and they're done. Activation and Genuine Advantage don't affect them in the slightest.
It's pathetic when the "counterfeit" software is superior to the legitimate.
What is the solution? When it comes to operating systems, there is Linux, BSD, OpenSolaris, and other options - or even Mac OS X if you're adventurous enough to explore the hackintosh option (or just pick up a Mini). When it comes to office suites, download openoffice.org. With rare exception, the OpenOffice.org Suite will do everything you need it to do, and if you're an advanced user, you'll find that many features (such as integration with databases) is actually easier and superior in OpenOffice. Sure, the macro language is lacking in documentation, but if you're a coder, you'll be too busy appreciating knowing that your macro will actually work on a Mac to think about missing VBA.
When it comes to graphic suites, unless you need things like layer effects, droplets, and other advanced features, gimp, inkscape, and xara extreme are very likely good enough for you. If you know what layer effects are, then no, gimp won't replace Photoshop, but your living probably does rely on Adobe product to some extent so go out and buy it; yes, it runs on Crossover Office (or even wine with some finagling).
I run Linux about 95% of the time. F/OSS does it for me. Here is what I still need Windows for:
* running my embroidery machine
* Netflix (damn you, netflix! Bring the flash player back!)
* syncing my iPhone (let's get with it, Amarok!)
* several games that run on neither Crossover nor Cedega - and yes, a couple of them are Microsoft games
Now, I had a really good Hackintosh install running for a while - but I had to wipe it to free up a drive for a job. When I go back to the Hackintosh I plan to install Snow Leopard. I would love to run OS X 100% of the time (Yes, it's legal. I do own a Mac but like PC hardware better; I use workstation motherboards and faster CPUs and video cards) but I find the KDE environment so productive with kioslaves in konqueror, it's hard to give it up and switch to the Finder. Most F/OSS software I run on Linux is also available on OS X. Worst case, it runs under fink.
Seriously though: let's give companies what they want. They got where they are through "piracy" because tom, dick, and harry learned the apps at home and brought that knowledge to the office where it influenced purchase decisions. Download F/OSS instead, learn it, and bring that knowledge to the office. You'll see Adobe, Microsoft, etc. either lowering their prices or even "licensing" software free for personal use, much like the antivirus companies did.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
So they are counting "Used Software" as Pirated Software? Most software sold by auctions were used once and then sold via an auction to the lowest bidder. If one sold a book via an auction, it would not be considered pirated, but selling software via an auction is considered pirated? Some software sold via auction is still new and never used, is that pirated software as well? If so how is that different from a friend of mine buying the software new and then giving the copy to me to use as he bought two copies one for him and one for me to use. Is it pirated software then?
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Me too, i specifically go for pirate copies of various things because they are typically free of phone home programs, onerous install requirements (eg license codes) and onerous runtime requirements (like putting the cd in the drive - who wants to carry around a stack of low capacity media like cds?)... The pirate copies are better, the fact that they're cheaper is secondary.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
"Software never was a product. And it never will be. It's a service. A service done once. And that work is what you pay for. Not the result. Because that would be the sick twisted view that Gates introduced back then. (Yep, you can thank him for that too.)"
no, you are paying for the result, because the result is what you actually use.
"Think if it like we all throwing money in a pot, to pay for a big software project. Then if there is no more work to do, and we don't think that what was done is worth more than what we already payed, we stop paying."
I feel the same way about GNU software. It's my right to use it any way I see fit (including selling it an not giving back to the community). I'm glad we are on the same page.
As always, it is unclear just what they consider "pirated". For example, if your company purchases 100% legitimate software via eBay, the BSA will not accept this as your software during an audit. They refuse to accept any and all eBay receipts. Hence, it is quite likely that they have counted all purchases via auction sites as pirated, even though this is clearly not true.
This is only one of many "rules" they apply that make little or no sense. Did you know that possessing the complete packaging of a program, including the original CD/DVD and the enclosed license certificate is, according to the BSA, not proof of ownership? You must have an original receipt, with the company (or individual) name correctly spelled, which explicitly lists the product and version.
The BSA may once have been a way to combat piracy'it has evolved into a monstrosity. Microsoft, Adobe and the other companies should terminate their relationships with it and start over.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
They go farther. If you buy a used computer with Windows already installed and don't pay anything to Microsoft they classify you as a pirate even though that is entirely legal under US copyright law.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.