BSA's Latest Piracy Claims 'Shockingly Misleading,' Says Geist

An anonymous reader writes "This week the Business Software Alliance published a new study which purports to estimate the economic gain from a ten percent reduction in piracy of business software. For Canada, the BSA claims that the reduction would create over 6,000 new jobs and generate billions in GDP and tax revenue. But Michael Geist says the BSA claims are based on nothing more than the economic gains from a ten percent increase in proprietary software spending. The BSA now admits its estimate is based on the presumption that every dollar 'saved' by using unlicensed software would now be spent on proprietary software." Glyn Moody pointed out more flaws in the BSA's report.

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Re:The Business Glass Alliance Announces

[Anonymous Coward]

I ran the numbers and if the members of the BSA gave a Canadian 10 billion dollars:

- Canada's GDP would go up by billions of dollars
- Nearly 5 billion dollars would go to taxes
- The lucky guy or gal could spend 3 billion dollars to hire 6,000 people at an average of $50,000 a year for 10 years to build a monument of themselves.
- The lucky person would have 2 billion dollars left to spend

The choice is clear.