Founded in 1988, the Business Software Alliance (BSA) has acquired a kill 'em first and ask questions later rep. In fact, you could almost say it's the RIAA of the software world and its owner-members include Adobe, Apple, Autodesk, Avid, Bentley Systems, Borland, CNC Software/Mastercam, Internet Security Systems, Macromedia, Network Associates, Symantec and, of course, Micro$oft.

"Tactics include bombarding companies with mail threatening jail sentences for directors, even though the organisation has no legal force, and offering up to £10,000 to whistleblowers whose information leads to offenders being uncovered," as Iain Thomson points out in a revealing Q&A in Britain's VNUNET.com in which the term 'software' might have been switched for 'music,' in many instances.

"Opponents have criticised the BSA's approach, maintaining that it uses a trawling system to pressure often innocent companies to open their books, despite a lack of evidence of any wrongdoing.

"They claim that companies refusing to answer the BSA's letters were treated as guilty of running illegal software until proven otherwise."

But, under new leadership, BSA is apparently trying to shift its focus from prosecution to education and Thomson, heading into a Q&A session with the new chairman Mark Floisand, said, "Most IT professionals associate the BSA with threatening letters and the prosecution of software pirates. How accurate do you feel that is?

In a non-answer worthy of Hilary Rosen, "We are best known for enforcement, but that's really only a third of what we do," said Floisand. "The rest of the time is spent raising awareness within companies about what constitutes good practice, and helping them make sure they are legal. The rest of our activities revolve around lobbying on a government level."

But Thomson wasn't giving up. "Nevertheless," he went on, "your naming and shaming policy, aggressive audit requests and payments to whistleblowers have won your organisation a bad reputation in the business."

Quoth Floisand, "We don't name and shame just for the sake of it. If a company calls us and works with us then they'll have nothing to fear. Don't stay in contact and ignore our mails and you may end up in the papers. As for whistleblowers, nearly two-thirds don't want any money for reporting; they just have moral problems with what is going on or are disgruntled ex-employees."

Thomson wondered if the increasing use of p2p nets made his job harder, and the answer was:

"To an extent; and we're monitoring the traffic on those networks carefully. But if you're downloading software over such networks it's useless without a key, and it's key trading that's a bigger threat.

"We're certainly not spamming P2P networks with useless data; we're in enforcement, not counter-insurgency."

Thomson asked, "Doesn't the high price of some software encourage piracy in the first place?"

"It is popularity rather than price that determines how likely it is that software will be targeted," stated Floisand. "Demand is the key driver in piracy. If someone's pirating software they are already making a huge margin so they'll follow the buyers."

Is the whole thing meant to be linked? Someone fix that, quick.

ahem. cough, cough. Did anyone spot my deliberate mistake?

Cheers!
Jon

Lets not lose sight of the issue here.

Software companies and musicians are entitled to money, they make a great product and we buy it. You can't (and shouldn't) expect to get everything for free. Businesses would go bankrupt, people would be out of jobs.

What we need (and are hoping to get )is a better business model. Some software companies are on the right track.

Companies like Bentley Systems, and Autodesk (two products I am familiar with due to my career) do offer a free home license (for non-commercial use) for every paid license a business has.
I use Bentley products at home for personnal use, and fooling around, but I have no need to turn out a commercial product. If i did, then I should have to pay to use the product. I am sure more companies follow this model, others should as well. If you use a program like Adobe Photoshop to work as a Graphic designer, then you should pay for the product. If you use it to touch up family photos, then you shouldn't have to pay.

I don't pirate software. If what I need is open source already, why pirate it?

But how is Adobe going to know the difference between commercial use and family use once you are using the software.

No matter what the use you should have to pay for the product, lowering prices would be nice, 600 dollars for Photoshop is a bit ridiculous even though it is the medium of choice in design.

or they should have a photoshop lite, for just photo touch ups and a High End MS-PAINT feel to it, so that the average person can own photoshop.

Maybe there should be lite versions of alot of software such as CAD, Auto CAD, and there is Auto CAD LITE.

As far as I know, all the programs mentioned so far do have a free version (probably more of a trial version that doesn't seem to expire). People don't like the free versions because more often than not, an important feature is not usable. It costs way too much to buy some of this software, so they pirate it.

I do agree however that people do deserve to be paid. The problem is the price. Make the price right and more people will be willing to pay.

Again, we come back to the 3 million jobs lost in America in the years since NAFTA was first enacted. Thus, 3 million whose spending power has been severely affected in a big way -- and NOT for the better.

Just one question that seems to escape everyone else: To what extent is there a connection between "free trade" and the apparent rise in "physical" piracy? I am curious . . .

One other thing: Why haven't the Boy Scouts of America sued over the Business Software Association's initials (a la the World Wildlife Fund's successful efforts to force the ex-World Wrestling Federation to drop its aforementioned initials; now known as World Wresting Entertainment)? Oh, I forgot, the Boy Scouts are one of those groups, like P2P file-swappers, believing Christians and Catholics, and straight white males, who are constantly piled-on and incited against in the media.

It's more of a problem to software guys because:

1. They have to offer the program from their own servers, you just need to download a 50k key file for such (or a 1k text file with the key on it!)

2. They don't have the alternate revenue streams that music and movie industries do. They need every drop of cash from each sale.

3. Their client base (and almost the entirety of their clients) are technologically savvy. Meaning whilst mom and pop consumer are still out there buying CD's and DVD's, the client base for software ALL know they can cheat and win whenever they like

4. Software compaies now cater to OTHER corporate clietns because they are the only subsection of client that pays nearly 90% of the time! There are few fewer theives on a corporate network. It's simply too risky for a corporate to cheat and risk the higher costs of getting audited and sued later.

5. Software makers have to charge insane amounts for their products now to offset their theft. This high price only drives up theft. Of course no flavor of protection has proven worth the money it took to develop it. It's a VERY poor position for them all the way around.

I offer this as an example.
Has anyone here ever hear of "Spybot Search and Destroy". I hope by now, everyone is running it on there own systems, at least on a weekly basis.
I pretty well know these folks, although I'm just a client of their's. However, I have on one very rare occasion been able to provide them with a note they were not already aware of in the past two years of there service, in there quest for "privacy". For which they were gladly appreciative of, and added to there program that week. Absolutely the best customer service of any application I have ever came into contact with.

Get this they are soley funded on voluntary donations, suggested at $5. Since I pay Symantec a regular $20 a year, (which I think they earn), I have a promise I keep with them "Spybot Search and Destroy" for a very similar service, for the same amount. It really is what they deserve, in my opinion, although they might argue with me. And despite numerous awards and solicitation, they continue to dwell in the atmosphere of just being well liked.

Now shouldn't the whole internet be like that?

To Mike311, you are right, Musicians are entitled to money, but the riaa finds ways to F^&K em out of it.

I don't think this article has much relevance. A company makes software, puts it on the shelf, and you buy it. That's how it should be. It's when the RIAA gets in the middle and jacks up prices and attempts to halt an evolving culture that there's issues.

I just got 2 hardcore metal cd's, "STINK!#BUG", and "A5515TeD l1V1NG". ((smokin'))

I want to compare the sales of independent artist and compare them to the RIAA's slumping sales. Is there a way to do that?

theHERMlT said "Spybot Search and Destroy"

Spybot Search and Destroy SPYBOT SEARCH AND DESTROY spybotsearchanddestroy SPYBOT search & DESTROY spybot SEARCH AND destroy

http://security.kolla.de/

Cheers!

I'm not trying to get off track of this thread, however, I'm trying to make the point: "Unrestrained use will emerge", without authors selling their sole's to the "grey people".
My only reasoning is a hope that authors of unique proportion can appreciate this. Also that the authors of less than famous proportion can accept it.

A Note:

Without the funding, research and popularization of any work, will the world know any of todays artist for what they are worth?
Which artist are remembered solely on the merits of their work?
Are the artist of today willing to accept the mantle of responsibility?

I agree with everyone, software prices are just plain ridiculous. I understand paying $30-$50 for a good game, but $300+ for things like Office, Photoshop, etc. is stupid. Hell, Paintshop costs $80, but not everyone has $80 to spend on a paint program.

The same goes for anti-virus software. In reality, this type of software should be free to everyone considering the number of viruses out there. They should be free with unlimited free updates for the life of the program.

In the messed up reality we live in, the best anti-virus software goes for $20+ and only gives you a year on the update subscription and that's not reliable sometimes. Add to that the fact that they re-release it every single year with maybe a few GUI updates and you see the idiocy.

Most people just don't have the money to buy all their software, not with the prices. So there'll always be software piracy, even if downloading of music and movies is stamped out.

Spybot search and destoy is great! It has saved my butt a coupla times!

Clearly some high-end software, such as the aforementioned Adobe and Autodesk offerings, truly is expensive. Unlike RIAA-sanctioned music, however, these expensive offerings are driven by market prices, are often exceptional products and are NOT targeted at the average consumer.

I don't like vilifying the BSA because, at least as of now, the software companies have been extremely intelligent in dealing with consumers. Virtually all major companies offer trial-versions and educational prices for home users. It only makes sense, seeing that these home users will eventually go out into the workplace armed with a predisposition for that particular software package.

$800 for a copy of After Effects may seem absurd to someone using it at home, but to a motion graphics firm looking at a $50,000 job, it seems more than fair.

I'm honestly not a BSA lackey, I just think lumping them with the RIAA is a huge mistage.

Is the , ahem, cough, cough, mistake the fact that this is probably a 10 or 15 year-old story?

I don't mind "villifying" the BSA.
They are arseholes. Who do you think nudges the FBI into putting Warez groups in prison>?

Look, they're all arseholes...some are just more smelly and hairy than others..but an arsehole by any other name smells just as bad...
The RIAA just happens to manifest the biggest case of inflammed hemorrhoids at the moment.

Just remember...when you see the initials,,RIAA, MPAA, SBA,BSA, that final "A" is for Arsehole..not ASSociation.
But maybe I'm wrong, a bunch of fat bastards running around suing kids and trying to put people in jail, they couldn't be bad could they, they couldn't have their OWN skeletons and their OWN hidden secrets of wrongdoing could they?????? Naaaaaa...course not....
BULLSHIT! What we have is the Waffen SS, the Spanish Inquisition,the Salem Witch trials, the McCarthy hearings, all rolled up into a nice little ball with their little special initials...
REAL IGNORANT ARROGANT ARSEHOLES
BASTARDS & SUEHAPPY ARSEHOLES
MOVIE PUSHING APELIKE ARSEHOLES...
~~~~and that's the truth!

I am with CodeWarrior.... I BOYCOT THE BASTARDS......

the act of writing software is a service, and people should be paid for it on an hourly basis.
However, software in itself costs nothing - unless you can find the perfect copy protection, which you can't.

If you want to make money off software, just sell hardware to run it on.

"Sooooo...How much sofware would you like to buy?"
"None. Because I don't pay money for software, you faggot piece of monkey shit. Now get offa my properta before I get my gun."

Oh yes, fuck them all, especially Bill. he has enough money already.

As for the rest:
Adobe sucks
JAVA sucks
Real sucks.

And someone please kill the Video Professor for spamming my mailbox.
...
Just venting a little.