After 20 Years, Critics Question the BSA`s Real Motives
,----[ Quote ]
| A recent Associated Press story highlighted the fact that 90 percent of the
| $13 million collected by the BSA in 2006 came from small businesses. Since
| 1993 the group has collected an estimated $89 million in damages from
| businesses on behalf of its members, every penny of which it keeps. 'I don't
| know of a business where you can get away with raiding a customer with armed
| marshals and expect them to continue to do business with you...' said
| [Sterling] Ball, who shifted his company to open source software after the
| raid.
`----
http://www.baselinemag.com/c/a/Enterprise-Apps/After-20-Years-Critics-Question-the-BSAs-Real-Motives/
Magistrate Suggests Fining RIAA Lawyers
,----[ Quote ]
| Angered at the RIAA's 'gamesmanship' in joining multiple 'John Does' in a
| single case without any basis for doing so, a Magistrate Judge in Maine has
| suggested to the presiding District Judge in Arista v. Does 1-27 that the
| record companies and/or their lawyers should be fined under Rule 11 of the
| Federal Rules, for misrepresenting the facts.
`----
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/01/29/2230246&from=rss
Recent:
Software pirates put sizeable dent in UK economy
,----[ Quote ]
| The Business Software Alliance (BSA) claimed today in its annual "Global
| Software Piracy Study" – which was carried out by analyst firm IDC – that a
| reduction in counterfeit software by ten per cent over four years could add
| an extra £4.46bn to Blighty's economy.
`----
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2008/01/22/bsa_software_piracy/
Antipiracy group's tactics violate Swiss law
,----[ Quote ]
| Switzerland has warned a company that tracks file sharers for copyright
| violations that its tactics violate the country's telecommunication law.
|
| Logistep, which supplies information on suspected file sharers to law firms
| around the world for use in copyright violation cases, has until Feb. 9 to
| respond to the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (FDPIC),
| said Marc Schaefer, the agency's legal advisor.
`----
http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/01/25/Antipiracy-group-tactics-violate-Swiss-law_1.html?source=NLC-TB&cgd=2008-01-25/
MPAA Admits Mistake on Downloading Study
,----[ Quote ]
| But now the MPAA, which represents the U.S. motion picture industry, has told
| education groups a "human error" in that survey caused it to get the number
| wrong. It now blames college students for about 15 percent of revenue loss.
`----
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5j33CBI8sUdc5ni7RlxSj5SIEc2mwD8UB6S0O2
Software pirates put sizeable dent in UK economy
,----[ Quote ]
| The Business Software Alliance (BSA) claimed today in its annual "Global
| Software Piracy Study" – which was carried out by analyst firm IDC – that a
| reduction in counterfeit software by ten per cent over four years could add
| an extra £4.46bn to Blighty's economy.
`----
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2008/01/22/bsa_software_piracy/
Why open source has always deserved a census
,----[ Quote ]
| Ever since we learned that the Canadian Alliance Against Software Theft
| doesn’t take into account open source software when it comes up with its
| annual piracy statistics, we stopped reporting their numbers. When you only
| look at proprietary shipments, you miss a great piece of the puzzle. We just
| don’t know how big a piece it is.
`----
http://blogs.itworldcanada.com/shane/2007/12/12/why-open-source-has-always-deserved-a-census/
Related:
Get free software and save a fortune
,----[ Quote ]
| Though the most popular open- source package is ubuntu, funded by local
| entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth, South African business is generally paying
| dearly for its ignorance of free software, says a study by international
| market research firm Frost and Sullivan.
|
| The report, South African Open Source Market, said allegations by large
| developers, led by Microsoft, and the Business Software Alliance, of piracy
| and copyright violations have cast a shadow over the legitimacy of free
| software.
`----
http://www.thetimes.co.za/Business/Article.aspx?id=602887
Legality of Fedora in production environment
,----[ Quote ]
| Recently the appropriate laws in my country (Russia) have beens
| ignificantly toughened. Now the police can check for illegal software
| usage by their own initiative (without request from the owner). The
| tax inspection demands that software should be registered at
| accounts departments.
|
| During such a checking, the user is obliged now to show all hardcopy
| license documents (with original signatures and stamps).
`----
http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-May/msg00697.html
Hypocrisy off the port bow!
,----[ Quote ]
| Admiral Holleyman of the Bull Shit Association dares claim that our craft
| makes his skainsmates lose (that's the opposite o' win, for all ye
| spelling-retarded coppocias) $11 billion US dollars every year. Hoy-day! A
| flight of fancy I've ne'er seen before such bardleture came before me! Such
| presumptuous posy overflows my yellow bile. As if every man of the
| brotherhood would actually buy the programs he pirates! Bah! Next, I wager
| he'll be so bloody daft to presume that blokes should actually read a license
| agreement, the likes o' which have never been, and may yet never be enforced
| in full.
`----
http://www.thejemreport.com/mambo/content/view/364
U.S.-China joint probe nets fake software
,----[ Quote ]
| The figure represents 10 percent of software piracy losses in China in 2006,
| according to the Business Software Alliance.
`----
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070724/tc_nm/piracy_china_software_dc
Big businesses boast of patent benefits, for small businesses
,----[ Quote ]
| A report published by an EU task force on intellectual property claims
| that small businesses benefit from a patent system, despite lacking
| almost any participation by the small business community.
|
| Instead, the report, titled IPR (intellectual property rights) for
| competitiveness and innovation, was written up almost entirely by
| large corporations and the patent industry.
|
| [...]
|
| The report does note objections from the likes of patentfrei.de and
| Sun Microsystems, which were recorded at some length in the report.
| But this does not appear to have impacted the conclusion of the
| report in any way
|
| [...]
|
| Jean-Pierre Laisne, of ObjectWeb, an open source software community,
| said that he found the report useless: participants were told that
| all their contributions would be recorded but at the end only
| those of Business Software Alliance and Microsoft were used.
`---- ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/99155/big-businesses-boast-of-patent-benefits-for-small-businesses.html
Updates of Sorts and Things to Watch Out For.
,----[ Quote ]
| While there may have been the Enrons, Haliburtons, and other companies that
| members of We Are Change have to deal with, there are two main
| companies/groups that we have to deal with:
|
| * Microsoft
| * The Business Software Alliance
|
| It’s a symbiotic relationship of sorts between the two. One is supposed to
| make sure that users have shelled out an arm and a leg for their copies of
| software, yet it is used by the other to blackmail these same users. For now
| though, let us focus on the Redmond, Washington software company. In Michael
| Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11, there was a brief clip that allegedly showed a
| meeting of many companies who were talking about Iraq (second invasion of… at
| least it was implied to me anyway), and one of the names dropped: Microsoft.
`----
http://nixedblog.thenixedreport.com/?p=57
Microsoft Happy with the Evolution of Windows Vista Piracy
,----[ Quote ]
| But the truth is that Microsoft is happy with the way Windows Vista
| piracy is evolving. Is there a catch to this? No. The fact of the
| matter is that Windows Vista has delivered a heavy blow to
| software counterfeiters. The reason for this is the new Windows
| Genuine Advantage security mechanism integrated into the
| operating system.
|
| You may not notice this on the surface. On the surface, the
| Internet is crawling with Windows Vista cracks, hacks and
| workarounds. On the surface, every Windows Vista edition has
| been cracked and is available for download via peer-to-peer
| networks. But this is not the true extent of Windows Vista piracy.
`----
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Microsoft-Happy-with-the-Evolution-of-Windows-Vista-Piracy-50577.shtml
Governments Must Reject Gates' $3 Bid to Addict Next Billion PC Users
,----[ Quote ]
| "Microsoft's strategy of getting developing nations hooked on its
| software was clearly outlined by Bill Gates almost a decade ago," said
| Con Zymaris, CEO of long-standing open source firm Cybersource.
|
| Specifically, Bill Gates, citing China as an example, said:
|
| "Although about 3 million computers get sold every year in China, but
| people don't pay for the software," he said. "Someday they will, though.
| As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours.
| They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to
| collect sometime in the next decade."[1]
`----
http://www.cybersource.com.au/press/gates_set_to_addict_next_billion.html
Microsoft seals its Windows and opens the door to Linux
,----[ Quote ]
| Now comes the really interesting question. With Vista's activation
| technology, Microsoft has the power to stamp out piracy everywhere. But
| will it choose to do so everywhere? After all, if folks in China or
| Thailand or Ethiopia have to pay for Vista, they won't be able to run
| it because they won't be able to afford the licence fee. In which case
| they may finally wake up to the attractions of free software such as
| Linux - and it's easy to imagine what that will do to Microsoft's
| plans for world domination.
|
| It's a delicious prospect: Microsoft impaling itself on the horns
| of a dilemma it has created for itself. Roll on Thursday.
`----
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,,1956941,00.html
What about selling free software
,----[ Quote ]
| Gervase Markham, the Mozilla Foundation's licensing officer, in an
| article in the Times Online, talks about being questioned by a
| northern UK Trading License Officer about giving away software.
|
| The trading officer was concerned by a group that was burning the
| free Mozilla Browser on CDs and selling it.
`----
http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/blogs/what_about_selling_free_software
|
|
