Anti-piracy outfit the BSA has issued one of its studies which include the usual statistical nightmares which are designed to frighten politicians into locking up more citizens.
The study claims that half of PC users are pirates and have installed unlicensed software.
BSA's ninth annual Global Software Piracy Study has shown a sharp increase in software piracy, especially among emerging economies.
The group said that in the UK, according to TechWeekEurope, more than one in four programs users installed in 2011 were unlicensed.
Of the 15,000 computer users from a total of 33 countries around the world, 57 percent admitted to using pirated software, up from 42 percent the year before.
The BSA estimates that the global annual cost of software piracy has reached $63.4 billion.
But the UK is below the global average, with just 27 percent of computer users admitting they have acquired software illegally last year. As far as the BSA is concerned that means that the industry lost £1.2 billion.
The BSA said that the UK is in a double dip recession and thinks that it is important to protect the creative industry's intellectual property and its contribution to the economy. But the BSA did not seem to think that the recession was the cause of piracy and that its products were now too expensive for people to afford.
It also ignored the fact that the more expensive software is, the more likely it is to be pirated. This is born out by the fact that piracy is more common in developing countries where users are broke.
Instead, it claims that the penalties for piracy are too light. Its figures show that more than three quarters of UK PC users surveyed do not think the risk of getting caught is an effective deterrent to software piracy.
The BSA is calling for a stronger damages law, including double damages, to stop the increase in illegal software use. This is the same mantra it has trotted out for ages and it is fairly clear that it does not work.
That has not stopped Julian Heathcote Hobbins, general counsel at Federation Against Software Theft, calling for the government to bring in new laws which will make it easier for Big Content to lock up pirates.
However, there is another side to the problem which Big Content has not worked out yet. If half the world are pirates then democratically they are in the majority. If a "crime" is that common then it probably is not a crime in the first place. Big Content needs to look at the prices of its content before it starts blaming users for finding cheaper ways of getting it.
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Now, when it comes to Confidence, oka Reality, the duty of every "Devil" is to afford confidence to those lacking confidence, there being [almost] no good guy who exists for the sake of goodness. Don't believe it? Name one person who does not have a price stamped across his forehead. Just one out of the billions will do. Yet another Simplicity which Eludes. Yes, dearies, every good guy needs a bad guy or else his goodness will crumble, just like that. If true, isn't this a miracle on its very own turf. Better buy its "stock"/fairytale then. Within Reality/Divinity, the duty of the first is to wait for its last, weethout vun single exception, dahlingsss, much like all good Cp'tan knows, he has to be the last to leave the sinker, whereas with Relativity/Humanity, the duty of the last is to prop up the first. Yes, eet's gut to be zer chosen vun.
For the likes of "BSA" to demonise in the manner of a wild Yankee out saving the universe through Demonocrazy, much like a Control Freak never, ever, controlling itself, firstly or finally, this is Abandonment on the loose. What do you mean by, "How is that so"? Because any entity who champions for Infinitisers like "The BSA" has a weakness the size of a chasm somewhere, there being no smoke without fire, should one be privy to the Smoke N Fire, of course. Like every Good Cop desperately hiding its Bad Cop, the saintlier the Good Cop, the more devilish will be its Bad Cop. A 6.x-billion-to-1 bet "for". Any takers? Yes, all the addicted, the ignorant, the know-eet-all-really-know-nuffin', the naïve, and the sympatheticos are lining up to take on the bet. This is the very reason why one's reality was principled by Divinity to be of Self and never of Others. Beyond this principle, lies a higher principle which is that Others could only be realised within Self. The Mind gettin' sweaty, ja?
Whenever a human needs the answer to confusions/complexities like, "The BSA", "The Preseedent", "The PM", Zer Popey, and other holier than thous, he only needs to address the saintly part, which is that, why would anyone wants to be seen as a saint, let alone being a real saint? Because he has something bad to hide. Afterall, whom have you met who constantly insists that he is a human but is otherwise insane? Even chimps are never as insane as the Good Cop constantly needing the Bad Cop by his side - so to speak. Hence wars, whores, pimps, drugs, entertainment and more. Name one human[ised] activity which does not require its antithesis. Just one will do. As such, and by corollary, the human activity which does not require its contrast is the real and progressive one, all other ping-pong-ing activites being regressive/circuitous activities. For show and nothing else.
Just because everybody else does a thing does not mean that thing is right (or wrong). Theft is theft, even if 1/2 all PC users steal software.
That said, I take anything the BSA claims with a large grain of salt.