"It turns out that all of the world's problems could be resolved by stamping out piracy, or so goes the story from the Business Software Alliance. The BSA--"Be prepared (to intimidate people into slobbering submission)"--never met an alleged software pirate that it didn't hate, and believes that piracy has a huge negative impact on the global economy, including the U.S. economy, as Ars Technica reports. In fact, it paid (commissioned) IDC to come up with the following numbers:If the amount of software piracy in the U.S. were to be reduced by 10 percentage points over the next four years, IDC believes the end result would be $41 billion in economic growth, $7 billion in additional tax revenues, and the creation of over 32,000 new jobs. In countries with higher rates of piracy, the impact would be even greater.
Maybe, maybe not. The real question for the BSA is this: since the software industry apparently can't solve the piracy problem by kicking in the doors of small and medium-size businesses based on tips from disgruntled ex-employees, perhaps it would do better to encourage its members to go open source, obviating the incentive (and ability) to pirate software." by Matt Asay
Source: Full Article @ C|Net Blogs
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