Recent stories based on press releases from the Business Software Alliance (BSA) and the Orwellian double-speak named Canadian Alliance Against Software Theft (CAAST) are claiming that 36 per cent of software used by Canadians is infringing CAAST member software. (Canadian Press, p2pnet story1, p2pnet story2)
This is a false accusation based on flawed statistical methodology that doesn't adequately differentiate difference between not "paying per" for their member software and those of us who have switched entirely away from "pay per" business models. I believe they are quite deliberately including their major competitors as "theft", something that is clearly misrepresentation of the facts and something that they should be under legal investigation for.
More info: CAAST misinformation
Suggesting that increasing the amount of money people pay CAAST would improve the Canadian economy is like blindly suggesting that increasing taxes would improve the economy. Increasing taxes would also mean more government employees would be hired to manage (or mismanage ;-) this money, and would clearly benefit the bottom line of the government.
This ludicrous study sidesteps the primary question of whether there are better ways to get the same services, something that has a clear "yes" answer for software. The growing multi-sectored Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) economy has proven that it is possible to produce, distribute and fund high quality software without charging "pay per" fees.
I strongly believe that the concept of "Software Piracy", a concept that was created and is perpetuated by the "Software manufacturing" industry represented by BSA and CAAST, is costing the entire economy a lot of money. These organizations do not represent software authors, but are a group of dying dinosaurs dependant on an antiquated way of thinking.
It costs a lot of time, money, legal, political and other resources to keep track of and enforce "pay per" models on something that is a pure intangible like software. This is especially true in a world where, for the majority of the population, paying these outrageously high "pay per" fees would otherwise feed hungry people.
"Every license for Office plus Windows in Brazil - a country in which 22 million people are starving - means we have to export 60 sacks of soybeans," says Marcelo D'Elia Branco, coordinator of the country's Free Software Project.
This is the time of the year to be thinking of other people, and while we also have poor people in Canada that are unable to pay these unnecessary "pay per" fees, the problem becomes even more obvious when we look outside of the rich countries.
More info: Supporting Microsoft office is a support for hunger?
The solution to the problem of the "software manufacturing" tax is the switch to software that is produced, distributed and funded using more modern business models such as FLOSS which do not charge "pay per" fees.
Whether people are switching to FLOSS or not paying the "pay per" fees for "software manufacturing" is something that we'll never know for sure as there is no accurate way to "count" a pure intangible such as software. All we do know from these studies is that the antiquated "pay per" business model is failing.
Letter to CTV
I sent the following smaller letter to CTV who printed the Canadian Press story.
Please do more research before republishing these flawed press releases. This study does not adequately differentiate between software copyright infringement and the growing number of people who are switching to legal competition where it is legal and encouraged to share.
Suggesting that increasing the amount of money people pay CAAST would improve the Canadian economy is like blindly suggesting that increasing taxes would improve the economy. Increasing taxes would also mean more government employees would be hired to manage (or mismanage ;-) this money, and would clearly benefit the bottom line of the government.
I am a commercial support person for Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS). This is software that is paid for up-front during development, and does not involve a charge per copy. Every computer I have purchased for myself or my customers has been "estimated" to have some demand for CAAST software, and yet no CAAST software is ever used. This means that by their flawed methodology of counting computers shipped, estimating the demand for their software, and subtracting actual shipments has always counted me as a "software pirate".
The real solution to the software copyright infringement problem is the migration to methods of production, distribution and funding of software that does not charge per copy. This means that the real Canadians Against Software Theft are people like myself that are producing, distributing and funding FLOSS.