New CAAST bullshit release
p2pnet.net News:- CAAST is at it again, distorting a survey to ‘prove’ Canadians are criminally inclined and need new copyright laws to keep them firmly under corporate control.
As Russell McOrmond pointed out yesterday, CAAST’s latest press release, “has them claiming that there is a problem with ‘personal and corporate ethics‘ simply because Canadians don’t agree with their belief that infringing software copyright should be considered more offensive than keeping incorrect change from store clerk”.
Er, keeping change from a store clerk?
Yes.
In the US, the huge and ongoing multi-million-dollar Corporate Copyright Campaign has raised software counterfeiting to the level of major crime.
A Pennsylvania man has been charged in what the US Department of Justice says is the first “criminal enforcement action” against “copyright infringement on a p2p network using BitTorrent technology” and now faces a possible five years in jail, a fine of $250,000, and three years of supervised release.
The man, aged 24, “pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit copyright infringement and one count of criminal copyright infringement in violation of the Family Entertainment Copyright Act,” says the DoJ.
AND THAT’S THE WAY IT SHOULD BE IN CANADA !!!!! – says CAAST (read BSA).
The CRIA (Canadian Recording Industry Association of America, read RIAA, or Recording Industry Association if America) says so too, as does the Canadian version of the MPAA, Motion Picture Association if America, whatever it’s called.
Canada temporarily has a copy of the Bush administration running the country, but notwithstanding, Canadians haven’t yet been brainwashed into believing the corporate bottom line is more important than kidnapping, rape or murder, say.
AND THAT’S NOT THE WAY IT SHOULD BE IN CANADA !!!!! – says CAAST (read BSA).
The BSA – sorry, CAAST – is using or, rather, attempting to use, a Decima survey to bolster its specious assertions, and that needs a good deal of dexterous spin-doctoring.
Sadly, though, that’s well beyond CAAST’s capabilities. In fact, its attempts to manipulate data might better be called spin quackery.
“Software piracy ranked near the bottom of the list of perceived serious offences at 25 per cent alongside copying or downloading a DVD at 23 per cent,” says the Decima study, quoted by CAAST.
“Falsifying a resume ranked the highest (46 per cent) followed by stealing office supplies from work (37 per cent) and keeping incorrect change from store clerks (36 per cent).”
CAAST is short for Alliance Against Software Theft and it’s a clone of the BSA (Business Software Alliance) which has the likes of Microsoft and Apple funding it and telling it what to say.
Clearly, it’s seriously fallen down on its job of keeping Canadians mis-informed and should be disbanded.
On the other hand, maybe not because its parent, the BSA, is equally infamous for its creative misrepresentation of ‘facts’ but the lamescream media continue to parrot its releases just as though they come from reliable sources.
Britain’s The Economist questionned the veracity (to be polite about it) of BSA statements which claimed losses down to counterfeits had increased from $29 billion to $33 billion, as p2pnet said.
As the lead-in to BSA or just BS, the weekly magazine wrote “It sounds too bad to be true; but, then, it might not be true …”
And in the body copy, “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,” it said. “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.”
Nor is North America alone in being inundated by BSA BS. In the UK, about 25% of those using business software do so with an unlicensed, counterfeit or pirated copy, said the BSA’s Robert ‘007‘ Holleyman.
Also See:
personal and corporate ethics – CAAST: creative re-interpretation, September 15, 2006
major crime – First US BT user nailed, September 13, 2006
attempting to use – Canadians Find Falsified Resumes A Bigger Offence Than Using Pirated Software, September 14, 2006
p2pnet said – The Economist angers BSA, June 15, 2005
BSA or just BS – Dodgy software piracy data, May 19, 2005
pirated copy – BSA on ’software piracy’, October 18, 2005
007 – Mr X the Online Spy, May 31, 2004
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September 16th, 2006 at 5:33 pm
Confidential memo to ANAL members
From: American Newspaper Alliance (ANAL)
RIAA-ANAL Relations Director
To: ANAL members.
Please be informed that we have formed an RIAA-ANAL coalition to jointly advance our mutual interest in stopping piracy. As you all know, ANAL papers have givem RIAA free publicity for years, Now they are helping us with their legal expertise.
I have been named RIAA-ANAL Relations Director.
We are already seeing the benefits of the ANAL-RIAA coalition.
With the help of RIAA, we have made a comprehensive study about the problem of browsing of ANAL papers without buying.
This is the problem. At a time when we are loosing sales as a result of competition from the Internet we must stop all piracy against ANAL member, who lose billions because people just browse ANAL papers at at newspaper stands and stores without actually buying the paper.
We have estimated that the number of browses of ANAL papers without actually buying the paper about 10 billion times per year, in the USA alone. Cosidering each browsing a lost sale, we are loosing $5 billion in yearly sales.
RIAA has recommended that ANAL classify the browsing of a newspaper without actually buying it an act of piracy and a crime, just as listening to a CD without buying it is a serious crime punishable with jail time.
Clearly we must act. Here are some of the RIAA suggestions we will be considering:
a. Filming people browsing ANAL papers and then sending them letters with a threat of a lawsuit and a settlement offer. The criminal can settle with us for $5,000. The cost of just answering lawsuit costs over $5,000 and the defendant may risk going to jail and appearing on our front page as a criminal (this part is our idea), so people will tend to settle. RIAA’s similar program, RIAA tells us, is even more profitable than the sale of CDs.
b. Suing the owners of the businesses that sell ANAL papers and allow readers to browse. These businesses, by placing ANAL papers where people can just grab them for browsing, is insducing infringement, reading without buying. The US supreme Court has already decided that inducement is infringement.
c. Lobby to make reading without buying a crime punishable with jail time. After all, if you can go 5 years to jail for copying a dvd, why not the same for stealing from ANAL members, when ANAL is the most powerfull lobby, more powerful than the music and movie cartels, above all at election time, when politicians need us most.
d. Since some ANAL members operate newspapers abroad, we must also lobby so that by treaty, other nations are forced to comply with the new American laws, if they want low interest armament loans and want to import their cheap products into America. Our trade officials at Washington have much experience on this, so there should be no problem. Also if any regime abroad opposes this, our newspapers abroad, with the help of CIA will take care of them.
If you have any suggestion or questions about this program. please contact me, your director of RIAA-ANAL Relations.
RV
September 17th, 2006 at 3:29 am
For the past couple years, I’ve found myself a little perplexed. Here I am, a left-wing liberal, and an American at that, reading a moderate conservative publication from London on a regular basis. I don’t even subscribe to it; my employer does. Why do I read what the company reads?
I guess this answers that question nicely.
September 17th, 2006 at 7:31 am
Dont forget that they always include people who buy macs or pc’s preinstalled with linux in their “haven’t bought windows with that pc, must be a pirate” rubbery figures.