TheDoLittle
3rd July 2007, 10:19 AM
You usually have a take a grain of salt with this site,but here's an interesting piece:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070702/165355.shtml
Techdirt Will Pay Up To $1 Million For Proof Of BSA Million Dollar Pay Out
The Business Software Alliance (BSA) is no stranger to bogus numbers. It puts out its easily debunked (even by the firm that did the research) claims of "lost sales" due to piracy every year, and doesn't bother to respond to critics who point out that the numbers are totally misleading. Like the RIAA and the MPAA, the BSA pretends that every unauthorized copy is a lost sale and never admits that there are also benefits to the industry to unauthorized software. A few years ago, the BSA started a "snitch on your boss" program, where it promised to pay "up to" $200,000 if you alerted the BSA to the fact that your employer used unauthorized copies of software (not realizing, of course, that this program probably pushed more people to look at open source alternatives, rather than pay up for software). Today, the BSA is getting lots of press for raising the snitch award to $1 million... sort of. Actually, if you read the fine print, you realize that it's "up to $1 million" and the BSA alone gets to decide how much it pays out under its own, mostly unstated, rules.
Wonder how many dowsers will try for this $1million dollar prize instead of Randi's? Can pirated software be dowsed?
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070702/165355.shtml
Techdirt Will Pay Up To $1 Million For Proof Of BSA Million Dollar Pay Out
The Business Software Alliance (BSA) is no stranger to bogus numbers. It puts out its easily debunked (even by the firm that did the research) claims of "lost sales" due to piracy every year, and doesn't bother to respond to critics who point out that the numbers are totally misleading. Like the RIAA and the MPAA, the BSA pretends that every unauthorized copy is a lost sale and never admits that there are also benefits to the industry to unauthorized software. A few years ago, the BSA started a "snitch on your boss" program, where it promised to pay "up to" $200,000 if you alerted the BSA to the fact that your employer used unauthorized copies of software (not realizing, of course, that this program probably pushed more people to look at open source alternatives, rather than pay up for software). Today, the BSA is getting lots of press for raising the snitch award to $1 million... sort of. Actually, if you read the fine print, you realize that it's "up to $1 million" and the BSA alone gets to decide how much it pays out under its own, mostly unstated, rules.
Wonder how many dowsers will try for this $1million dollar prize instead of Randi's? Can pirated software be dowsed?