Bonum Certa Men Certa

It's This Time of the Year Again: Time for BSA and IDC to Compare Us to Murderers

Sailor



Summary: It's another round of insults and propaganda ('piracy' sob story) from Microsoft-commissioned sources

MICROSOFT ET AL ARE doing it again. It is just so very typical. The BSA is pairing up with IDC [1, 2], both of whom are funded by Microsoft to spread such propaganda about 'piracy'. TechDirt says the truth about the meaning of this (Microsoft sometimes loves this so-called 'piracy'), whereas other publications just parrot the propaganda, which is likely to be pushed into reporters' mailboxes. Here is an example:



The figures are a result of a survey published by the Business Software Alliance working with the beancounters at IDC. It claims that 61 per cent of the region's software was unlicensed in 2008, which was an increase from 59 percent in the prior year.


Time after time it's always the BSA and IDC. Who benefits from this? Who references this? It's a rhetorical question. There is a tinge of FUD added to such messages at times, usually when they want to introduce new legislation:

OK, let's forget the spin put on the piracy problem by the usual industry suspects. By which I mean the suggestion that the true cost of piracy is that it helps fund terrorists.

That is just silly nonsense, FUD designed to confuse rather than clarify what has become a growing problem.


In other related new, Apple poses as copyright cop, virtually deciding that everything torrent is to be blindly considered illegitimate.

Apple Rejects iPhone BitTorrent App



[...]

Citing copyright infringement concerns, Apple won’t include a BitTorrent client in the App Store.

The Cupertino-based electronics company rejected Maza Digital’s Drivetrain, saying “this category of applications is often used for the purpose of infringing third-party rights. We have chosen to not publish this type of application to the App Store.”


Apple should also block all Web browsers. After all, HTTP too can be used to... well, transfer files. It's just a protocol [1, 2, 3]. In the same vein, ISPS that block torrent trackers should also block Google. After all, it's efficient when it come to... well, finding stuff.

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Slopwatch: Planet Ubuntu Became LLM Slop and Some People Fail to See the Immorality of Plagiarism
it lessens the incentive for people to publish real articles
Microsoft Layoffs Again in Bay Area
Microsoft relies on people's false belief that being "in LinkedIn" will get you a job; well, seems like even working inside LinkedIn really sucks and you lose the job
People's Understanding of the History of GNU/Linux is Changing
RMS is not a radical, he's just clever enough to see and foresee what's going on
Microsofters Were Scheming to Take Over This Entire Web Site (in Their Own Words!)
Money gets spent censoring/deplatforming people who speak about real issues; no money gets spent actually tackling those underlying issues
Bicycles for the Minds and the Story Harrison Bergeron
"The goal of having people in charge of the tools they use and that the tools should amplify ability" has long been abandoned
[Video] Cory Doctorow Explains DMCA: DRM in the Browser (or Webapp) Will "Make It a Felony to Protect Your Privacy While You Use It."
Pycon US Keynote Speaker Cory Doctorow
 
Mass Layoffs at Microsoft Result in More Whistleblowers From Microsoft
Microsoft's predatory pricing is further
EPO Poll: 68% Dissatisfied With Quality of Slop (Wrongly Framed as "AI") for Patent Classification
Slop does not work, it's just falsely advertised with extra hype (funded by slop pushers that sponsor the major media)
Big Crowds Gather to Learn About Software Freedom From the Man Who Started GNU/Linux in 1983
"It was a great success"
Gemini Links 30/05/2025: Fighting Against the Bad News, and Slop is Dehumanisation Disguised as "Intelligence"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, May 29, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, May 29, 2025
Links 29/05/2025: Chinese Cracking Against EU Institutions (Prague), More Assaults on Media and Its Funding Sources
Links for the day
EPO Workers Caution That the Officials Are Still Illegally Trying to Replace Staff With Slop (to Lower Quality and Validity of European Patents)
Nobody in Europe voted for any of this
Links 29/05/2025: US Health Deficit and Malware Disguised as Slop Generator
Links for the day
Links 29/05/2025: Turtle Roadkill, Modern 'Tech' as a Sting
Links for the day
Thanks for All the Fish, Linux Format
people who once wrote for it (or for other magazines) comment on the importance of this news
Links 29/05/2025: YouTube Problem and Giant Privacy Hole in Microsoft OneDrive
Links for the day
United States Courts With Sworn Testimonies Are on Our Side, We'll Present the Same Here
Chronicling what happened is a moral imperative
Serial Sloppers Ruin and Lessen the Incentive to Cover "Linux"
The Serial Sloppers (SSs) ought to be named and shamed, but almost nobody does this
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, May 28, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, May 28, 2025
Links 28/05/2025: 'Emulation Layers' (Measurements and Linguistics), Libraries, and Discomfort
Links for the day
Links 28/05/2025: More Arrests for Bitcoin-Connected Torture and Prosecutions for Dieselgate-Linked Executives
Links for the day
Even Microsoft (MSN) Covers Richard Stallman's Public Talk in Milan 2 Days Ago
He spoke in Spanish earlier this month (Alicante)
Gemini Links 28/05/2025: Techo-authoritarianism With Slop Plagiarism and "No Online June" (Going Offline)
Links for the day
Links 28/05/2025: GitHub MCP Exploited and MathWorks Discovers Huge Windows TCO
Links for the day
Very High Attendance Level at Richard Stallman's Talk Shows People Can Relate to His Message
Smear campaigns have their limits
Gemini Links 28/05/2025: Celsius-Fahrenheit, Endless Scrolling/Infinite Scrolling, and Trapping LLM Slop Bots
Links for the day
Prison gate backdrop to baptism by Fr Sean O'Connell, St Paul's, Coburg
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
More Photos From This Week's Milan Talk by Richard Stallman
The posts are in Italian, not English
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, May 27, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, May 27, 2025