p2pnet news | Freedom:- What’s the difference between the RIAA, MPAA and BSA?

There is no difference.

MPAA means Motion Picture Association of America, RIAA is Recording Industry Association of America and BSA is Business Software Alliance.

All three are front organizations owned and maintained by vested entertainment and software interests to give the entirely false illusion that they operate in a fair, free and open market place, as p2net has observed on many occasions.

Michael Gaertner, owner of a tiny architectural firm in Galveston, Texas, had a note from the BSA.

It, “demanded $67,000 – most of one year’s profit – or else the BSA would seek more in court,” says Associated Press.

“It just scared the hell out of me,” Gaertner says in the story,

Behind the BSA are the likes of Adobe Systems, Microsoft and Symantec and, “Of the $13 million that the BSA reaped in software violation settlements with North American companies last year, almost 90 percent came from small businesses,” AP states.

Given the pristine reputations of the companies backing the BSA, one would suppose the recipients of BSA demands pay up because they’ve been caught doing something they shouldn’t have been doing —- just like some RIAA victims, very young children among them, pay up when the RIAA accuses them of being massive online distributors of copyrighted music.

Right?

Well, not exactly. Only one of the RIAA victims has ever appeared in court, and the results of even that case are, to be charitable, highly questionable.

Court cases don’t happen because without exception, the accused are all very ordinarily people who simply don’t have the financial or legal resources to take on the organised music cartel in fair and even contest.

It it doesn’t seem to be very different for BSA victims.

Technology managers and software consultants, “say the picture has more shades of gray than the BSA acknowledges,” says AP, going on:

Companies of all sizes say they inadvertently run afoul of licensing rules because of problems the software industry itself has created. Unable or unwilling to create technological blocks against copying, the industry has saddled its customers with complex licensing agreements that are hard to master.

In that view, the BSA amasses most of its bounties from small businesses because they have fewer technological, organizational and legal resources to avoid a run-in.”

In the US, the largest software market, the story goes on, piracy rates have not budged in years.

But in much the same way the entertainment cartels frequently make up piracy statistics to suit the occasion, and which are immediately picked up by the mainstream media as being reliable and accurate, the BSA appears to do much the same, with the same result.

Britain’s The Economist has been in continuous publication since it was founded in September, 1843. It’s one of the most highly regarded and prestitgious publications, routinely read by heads of state, and captains of commerce around the world.

“It sounds too bad to be true,” wrote The Economist of BSA piracy figures in the lead-in to a story entitled, BSA or just BS?

It went on, ” but, then, it might not be true,” referring to a BSA report which claimed losses due to fakes product increased from $29 billion to $33 billion.

However, said The Economist:

The association’s figures rely on sample data that may not be representative, assumptions about the average amount of software on PCs and, for some countries, guesses rather than hard data. Moreover, the figures are presented in an exaggerated way by the BSA and International Data Corporation (IDC), a research firm that conducts the study. They dubiously presume that each piece of software pirated equals a direct loss of revenue to software firms.

To derive its piracy rate, IDC estimates the average amount of software that is installed on a PC per country, using data from surveys, interviews and other studies. That figure is then reduced by the known quantity of software sold per country-a calculation in which IDC specialises. The result: a (supposed) amount of piracy per country. Multiplying that figure by the revenue from legitimate sales thus yields the retail value of the unpaid-for software. This, IDC and BSA claim, equals the amount of lost revenue.

Two years on, “If they were going after actual pirates, that would be a different story, but they’re going after hardworking companies,” AP has Barbara Rembiesa, head of the International Association of Information Technology Asset Managers, stating

“Instead of just being the software police, be the police in the sense of helping old ladies across the street,” the story quotes Barbara Scott, a software consultant for Redemtech, as saying.

“The BSA could become more of a partner with organizations that they’re hammering as well.”

But, “Rather than a helping hand, BSA targets say they feel a stinging slap.”

After an audit, “the BSA generally demands at least twice the retail price of software deemed out of compliance,” says AP, continuing:

“It also seeks the ‘unbundled’ price of software that is sold together. So if a company loaded too many copies of a $300 package of Microsoft Office, the BSA might tally the retail value of every element in the package – Word, PowerPoint, Excel, etc. – which totals more than $1,000, and then at least double that.”

But in the same way brutal and unjust entertainment industry attacks on the very people who’d be expected to buy ‘product’ are resulting in a massive and increasing haemorrhage of customers, goodwill and credibility, the same applies to the software houses

Adds AP:

In one case, a BSA raid on musical-instrument maker Ernie Ball Inc. cost the company $90,000 in a settlement. Soon after, Microsoft sent other businesses in his region a flyer offering discounts on software licenses, along with a reminder not to wind up like Ernie Ball.

Enraged, CEO Sterling Ball vowed never to use Microsoft software again, even if “we have to buy 10,000 abacuses.” He shifted to open-source software, which lacks such legal entanglements because its underlying code is freely distributed.

For many businesses, open-source has seemed technically daunting or unable to match the proprietary programs seen as essential in some industries. These days, however, the march of technology might be changing that.

That’s one hope of Michael Gaertner, the architect who worried his BSA encounter would crush his business. Now he wants to rid himself of the Autodesk, Microsoft and Adobe software involved in the case.

“It’s not like they have really good software. It’s just that it’s widespread and it’s commonly used,” Gaertner said. “It’s going to be a while, but eventually, we plan to get completely disengaged from those software vendors that participate in the BSA.”

Stay tuned.

Slashdot it!

Also See:
Associated Press – Software Group Targets Small Business, November 26, 2007
The Economist – Dodgy software piracy data, May 19, 2005

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This entry was posted on Monday, November 26th, 2007 at 2:01 pm and is filed under Freedom. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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