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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.
The only shocking thing about this is that they admitted their fudging of the facts after they were called out on it.
My postings are informational and does not constitute legal advice. Act on it at your risk.
Even the US Government Accountability Office has announced that you can not accurately make economy-wide estimations for this type of thing.
Most experts observed that it is difficult, if not impossible, to quantify the economy-wide impacts.
Generally, the illicit nature of counterfeiting and piracy makes estimating the economic impact of IP infringements extremely difficult, so assumptions must be used to offset the lack of data.
It comes from reduced spending someplace else? Or increasing consumer or business debt, right?
This is an old, old economic fallacy. I tried to debunk it once in a blog post: "Broken Windows and the Ghost of Keynes" but you can't kill the undead.
Exactly. Nice assumption that it is businesses that can actually afford the software that are running the pirated software.
And now that these businesses are being put in their place, they're going to rightfully pay their BILLIONS to the software companies. 6000 new jobs! Nevermind the BILLIONS in paycuts and thousands of layoffs that would be needed to pay for the software if the supposition were true...
You aren't going to get money from nothing unless you're the Federal Reserve®
Unfortunately, the new jobs will not be in product development, but rather in legal prosecution and defense, as companies spend more time hunting "pirates" with very little result per dollar spent, then are sued themselves by companies using the same tools they use to attack others.
Oh, and the law teams will almost certainly end up costing far more per 'employee' than developers.
The BSA is what you get when lawyers see how this cycle works, and band together to accelerate the process, while maximizing leverage against companies to keep the cycle going. It's like a union, without the meager shared humility of strenuous work to justify the pride involved - it's all union bosses playing with money here.
Ryan Fenton
Alternatively, I dig a hole in some waste ground without anyone asking me to.
I work very hard.
I bitch and moan about how I worked real hard and demand to be paid.
Nobody pays me.
Later someone else comes along and puts water in the disused hole and starts using it for a swimming pool.
I bitch and moan that I worked very hard and since they're using it it obviously has value.
Yet still nobody pays me.
The moral of the story is, just because you work hard, even if what you do has value to someone that does not automatically entitle you to payment.
My point was that the pirated software had value to the the people who are pirating it, not that every piece of functionality was available in a free piece of software. If there is no free alternative available then there is all the more reason that the software has value since there is no replacement for it.
By the way, why try to make something a "right" when one can already sue for damages based on simple law that already covers this topic anyway, theft.
Because as has been pointed out on this site many, many times, theft implies denying access to the stolen item by taking it away. The implication being that creating a copy of something for your own use cannot really be theft since the original copy is still completely usable and available to others. There is also laws that say that content creators have a right to control who copies and distributes their creations, it's called 'copyright', maybe you've heard of it?
Since the results of the study are self serving, the result mean nothing. The conclusion means nothing. This is not a story, it is propaganda disguised as news. Thusly, this is garbage and should be thrown out with yesterday's chicken carcass.
Athiesm is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.
Due to the Ernie Ball story and the high cost of software, when I stopped loading Windows on home built beige boxes, I started using Ubuntu instead. Now I no longer pay for extra copies of AV software, media players, etc. The net result due to the Software Repository for Ubuntu, I buy less applications and games. I find I don't need CD or DVD burning or ripping software from a retailer.
All I can say is Thank You BSA. You have saved me a bundle. I've gone legal and never looked back.
The truth shall set you free!
I would say Open Office is far from a poor imitation. Lots of folks use it, you don't like it which is fine. The reality is I see it used in businesses all the time for employees who use office type apps very little. We have about 400 call center folks using it. This has saved our company considerable money.
If it were not for people sending them office documents, they probably would be fine with wordpad though.