BSA Report

[Riga, Anthony]

I thought you might get a kick out of this. Somone sent this to me where I work. We are all Winblows shop using these software packages. This is why I use Linux ......... Even if you are installing a bootleg copy of Windblows its still MS advantage. Your not letting other competitors such as Linux being installed.  


2. BSA REPORTS PIRACY SETTLEMENTS, STATISTICS
As part of its annual Sweeps campaign, the BSA (Business Software 
Alliance) announced two recent piracy settlements with engineering 
firms. Speece-Lewis, Lincoln, NE, paid BSA US$50,000 for 
infringement of software from Adobe and Bentley Systems, and Pacific 
Advance Civil Engineering, Huntington Beach, CA, paid US$80,000 for 
copyright infringement of Adobe, Autodesk, Microsoft, and Symantec 
software. The firms also agreed to delete all unlicensed copies of 
the software, purchase replacement software, and improve their 
software management practices. According to BSA, most investigations 
begin with a call to the alliance's hotline, 888-NO-PIRACY.

A recent BSA study puts the U.S. software piracy rate at 23% in 2002 
and estimated the software industry lost nearly $2 billion as a 
result. Globally, the piracy rate is estimated at 39%.  Piracy rates 
for Eastern Europe are 71 percent, Asia/Pacific and Latin America 
are 55 percent, the Middle East/Africa is 49 percent, and Western 
Europe is 35 percent. Autodesk estimates that for every legal copy 
of software sold, five more are illegal. Autodesk reports that it's 
recovered nearly US$60 million in North American since forming its 
Piracy Prevention Department in 1989. 
http://www.bsa.org