Did anybody read this "News Brief" in Thursday's Daily Universe?
The last sentence is the kicker.
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Utah leads pirated business software
SALT LAKE CITY--In the home and at the office, Utah folk lead the nation
in using pirated business software, the Business Software Alliance claims.
The industry group estimates 33.7 percent of the business software used in
Utah is illegal, compared with a nationwide average of 25.1 percent.
Utah's rate is followed by Mississippi at 32.1 percent and Wyoming, New
Mexico, and Nevada at 31 percent, according to the alliance's numbers. The
group figured Virginia had the lowest piracy rate, at 16.2 percent.
Bob Kruger, BSA vice president, said he did not know why Utah had such a
high rate of alleged piracy.
The piracy rates were computed by comparing the number of computers
purchased in each state in 1999 with the number of licensed
business-related software programs purchased, said David Fay of
International Planning & Research Group, which conducted the study for
BSA.
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So if I buy a computer and don't put Adobe Photoshop on it, I'm
automatically considered a "pirate" according to their statistics? No
wonder the numbers are so bloated.
I wrote a letter to the Daily Universe Reader's Forum about it. Do you
think it'll get published?
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In your News Briefs section on Thursday, October 5, you had a brief
entitled "Utah leads pirated business software". The last sentence of that
paragraph reveals how they calculate piracy rates: "The piracy rates were
computed by comparing the number of computers purchased in each state in
1999 with the number of licensed business-related software programs
purchased."
In effect, this is saying that if you have a computer and you didn't buy
any business-related software programs for it, you are automatically
counted as a "pirate". Utah has the highest number of computers per capita
in the nation. Do you think everyone has business software installed on
his or her computer? Probably not. It's no wonder these "piracy" rates are
so bloated.
I've read through the Business Software Alliance's reports on "software
piracy". They list the total wage and salary losses due to piracy in the
United States as $5.35 trillion. Retail losses are allegedly $10 trillion.
These numbers are so bogus. The Gross National Product is only about $9.2
trillion, according to Enth.com.
This report is another classic case of a major corporation using whatever
means necessary to accomplish its end. The Business Software Alliance is
using skewed numbers in an attempt to scare people into thinking the
piracy molehill is a mountain of GNP proportions.
Ross Werner
Computer Science Major
Maumelle, AR
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