p2p news / p2pnet: Many (most?) young Canadians are, well, a little dodgy, to be charitable, Big Four record label organization the CRIA (Canadian Recording Industry Association of America) and BSA (Business Software Alliance) clone CAAST (Canadian Alliance Against Software Theft) have established.

“While some observers believe Internet piracy is a widespread phenomenon, most illegal file swapping is done by younger Canadians, says the CRIA.

And, “Almost two-thirds of computer science students, who are preparing for careers in programming and software development, pirate software, compared with 46 per cent of students in other fields of study,” says CAAST.

Now, a new BSA BusinessWeek Research Services ’study’ says things are bad in the States as well. There, some 22% of recent college graduates download or copy various kinds of copyrighted files at work (or on their work computers) without paying, it states unequivocally.

It’s now standard operating procedure for corporate cartels to commission reports so they can quote them in support of dubious messages they want to get across as fact via the mainstream media.

The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) and MPAA (Motion Picture of America) are past masters, and nor are they alone. Commissioned reports are also a favoured PR ploy of the BSA (Business Software Alliance), which has just launched an RPG in which players pretend to be a company managing director, “moving from room to room in an office, working out how illegal software was allowed to proliferate”.

Here’s a p2pnet reader’s review: “Weapon selection needs a lot of work, as does the control system. Gameplay is very limited and the player feels very guided towards a particular course of action. The music was impressive for about 20 seconds after which it becomes very repetitive and somewhat annoying. The entire premise of the game is not very believable, something modern gamers will be disappointed with. The enemies are very easy to spot though.”

But back to commissioned reports, if you’re someone who shares files online and you’re looking for a new job, you’d better be careful

According to the BSA item mentioned earlier, the, “vast majority of Managers (86%) say that applicants` file-sharing attitudes and behaviors have an impact on their hiring decisions”.

Apparently, about a third say if, “they [sic] company knew that a job applicant had lax attitudes toward illegal file-sharing in the work place, they would probably (23%) or definitely (6%) reject the candidate (total of 29%).

And, “If a company knew that a job applicant had improperly obtained or shared files in the past, they would probably (24%) or definitely (10%) reject the candidate (total of 34%).”

Not only but also, “Managers say that, if someone was caught improperly obtaining or sharing copyrighted files at work, the person would probably experience the following kinds of consequences:

• They would be disciplined or reprimanded (62%)
• They would be fired (18%)
• Two in ten managers (19%) are not sure what the consequences would be.
• They`d be put on probation (14% of hiring managers and 16% of supervisors)
• Nothing would probably happen to them (8%)
• They`d have to pay a fine, or have other legal problems (3%)

A list showing how the questions are phrased isn’t included, sadly.

Meanwhile, another BSA study, this time criticized by Britain’s The Economist and entitled BSA or just BS, infuriated the BSA, owned by such as Microsoft, Apple and, “The implication that an industry would purposely inflate the rate of piracy and its impact to suit its political aims is ridiculous,” said a spokeswoman.

She probably believes it too.

Also See:
CRIA – Canadians are thieves: CRIA, September 29, 2005
CASST – Thieving Canadian students, August 9, 2005
an RPG – Bizarre BSA online ‘game’, May 11, 2006
infuriated the BSA – The Economist angers BSA, June 15, 2005

This entry was posted on Friday, May 12th, 2006 at 5:36 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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