Not Everyone Buying Ridiculous Loss Claims From The Software Industry

from the it's-about-time dept

Every year when the BSA comes out with their bogus numbers about "losses due to piracy," we try to (helpfully, of course!) point out where those numbers are problematic. Yet, every year, the BSA continues to put out the same bogus, overhyped numbers. In the last two years, however, one of the more interesting things is that the press backlash to the numbers has been noticeable. Some still repeated them as is, but many more reporters put in quotes from people questioning the numbers. The Economist even did a whole article trashing the numbers. It appears that people are finally realizing that these "loss" claims, which count every unauthorized copy as if the user would have bought it, are misleading at best. With that in mind, it's interesting to see that a student in the UK charged with reselling counterfeit software "worth £250 million," according to IBM has been handed a very light sentence, involving 140 hours of community service. Now, this guy was clearly doing something very illegal. It wasn't even a case where he just made the software available -- but he was selling it as well. However, in what other situation would you hear about a situation with so much in "losses" where the guy responsible got such a light sentence? While the judge says that an early guilty plea helped create the light sentence, it sounds like he may have also recognized that the losses claim was a bit extreme as well.