I’ve mentioned before that free software and its ilk decreases opportunity for taxation and regulation. Tim Lee wrote on the same topic a couple months ago. So I’m slightly pleased to see the argument endorsed by the Business Software Alliance, as told by Russell McOrmond (emphasis added to all quotes below):
The claims in the recent press release included the following:
Software piracy also has ripple effects in local communities. The lost revenues to the wider group of software distributors and service providers ($11.4 billion) would have been enough to hire 54,000 high tech industry workers, while the lost state and local tax revenues ($1.7 billion) would have been enough to build 100 middle schools or 10,800 affordable housing units, or hire nearly 25,000 experienced police officers.
Of course the BSA’s concern for tax revenues is disingenuous, in a totally unsurprising fashion:
I guess any money not paid to BSA members just disappears and is not spent on other things in the economy that also involve jobs and taxes. In the real world we know that money not spent on software will more likely be spent on other things which are taxed the same — or even higher, given how BSA likes to also lobby to get software taxed at a lower rate than other products or services.
McOrmond also makes a slightly surprising claim about the BSA’s studies that I’d love to have verification of:
I know that people choosing legally lower cost software such as FLOSS are included as “piracy†in these studies. I guess my supporting FLOSS (both commercially and as an individual) could be blamed for their not being enough money to adequately equip the Canadian military in Afghanistan. I guess this makes me a terrorist sympathizer, by the BSA “logicâ€.
Regardless of whether FLOSS is counted as “piracy” in studies, the logic that it doesn’t directly facilitate the collection of taxes to fund military (or state schools, housing, or police) is pretty unassailable. Of course it could reduce costs and increase quality for each of these functions, as for anyone else.
“McOrmond also makes a slightly surprising claim about the BSA’s studies that I’d love to have verification of”
I am happy to provide that, and it is in fact detailed within the IDC study itself in its methodology.
I extract the formula in the following article:
http://blogs.itworldcanada.com/insights/2008/02/19/lies-damned-lies-and-iipabsaetc-statistics/
Simple formula:
Infringement = (machines shipped) * (usage estimate multiplier) – (legal BSA) – (legal non-BSA) – (legal FLOSS)
So, if their estimate of legal FLOSS usage is off by 10%, then their estimate of infringement is also off by 10%.
IDC uses the software that a machine is shipped with for their FLOSS study, with that being the least common way that FLOSS is installed on computers — especially outside the enterprise when FLOSS is installed through legal downloads from the Internet or by amateurs.
FLOSS is also an ideal way to reduce copyright infringement, and increase respect for copyright, given the activities which most people wish to do (use and share the software) are already authorized. It is really only software developers and commercial companies that are doing things with the software that require them to pay attention to the details of the license agreements.
Contact me via http://flora.ca if you wish to discuss more.
Ok, so “I know that people choosing legally lower cost software such as FLOSS are included as “piracy†in these studies” is true, but a bit misleading — their formula explicitly includes FLOSS as counting against “piracy”, the problem is that they undercount FLOSS.
But your overall point, and additionally your point about FLOSS being an ideal way to reduce copyright infringement (by the same token, it is an ideal way to reduce copyright restriction costs) is absolutely correct.
Mike
Hi there Russell and Mike, the formula that provide by Russell is proved to be true? If i provide free software with my own copyright, will that be illegal?