Yet again the BSA managed to release figures quoting astronomical rates of piracy in places like China, Vietnam and Indonesia. In keeping with what is now becoming a bit of a tradition with these global surveys, the BSA used a highly sophisticated data analysis and gathering system - but didn't bother to find out anything about the legal framework governing copyright in the countries to which they refer.
Given this is not the first time it has hamfistedly assumed that every country in the survey has the same level of usage of proprietary software, and the same legal recognition of software copyright - I am at a loss as to why anyone continues to pay attention to its autocratic warbling. Nonetheless, the Business Software Association of Australia (BSAA) has featured prominently in the news since the release of the report.
Before we go any further, let's just set the record straight. The bit about Australia is just for show - no Australian companies are full members of the Business Software Association of Australia, so we may as well drop all pretences and just call it the local representative of the Business Software Alliance.
For the uninitiated, the BSA is essentially a US-based group of corporate para-militaries (aka lawyers and accountants) whose influence in government has enabled them to amass unprecedented powers of search and seizure, regardless of local laws or professional norms. Just ask anyone who has been through a BSA(A) audit -- well that is anyone who is brave enough to talk about it given most are forced to sign non-disclosure clauses as part of settlement.
Last time I interviewed Jim Macnamara, chief-of-staff of our local BSA militia, he was railing about Vietnamese rates of piracy, and saying Australia was in danger of following a similar path. According to the latest piracy study, the rate of software piracy in Vietnam have fallen to 94 percent, but this time last year it was as high as 97 percent.
However, alarm bells should start ringing if it appears that any country could allow its legal system to be so extensively flouted. Why implement the laws in the first place?
As it turns out, the BSA figures have nothing to do with the Vietnamese legal recognition of copyright, which protects software copyright for a period of 12 months. According to Vietnamese law, Windows 3.11, 95, 98, ME and any other edition brought out more than a year ago is no longer protected. Hence, while piracy may well be prevalent, it is nowhere near the 94 percent the BSA is quoting. To put it in context, if we had similar laws in Australia, Microsoft would not have been able to sue the PC for Kids charity out of existence for providing under-privileged families with access to a computer with software that was by and large out of date.
Now, whether or not the Vietnamese situation is ideal is neither here nor there. Vietnamese sovereignty enables that country to draft and enforce its own laws as it sees fit. Such sovereign states have been known in the past to draft laws that are entirely and only in the interests of their constituents (like Australia's proactive quarantine and customs policies).
This isn't always in the interests of large software corporations, which have fought long and hard to protect their interests in the countries from whence they sprang - and are not about to relinquish any of their gains in order to exploit new markets.
Which is of course why people like Macnamara get paid obscene amounts of money to berate governments and industry about the importance of protecting the copyright of US companies according to US law - despite the fact they are operating outside of US jurisdiction.
BSA criticism is not just aimed at countries like Vietnam and El Salvador. Recently the BSA(cough, cough)A, thought it in our interests to warn Australia we may well end up on the US Government's "watch list" for illegal software use. As it turns out we weren't included - although the poor old Kiwis made it. So New Zealand gets to be compared with countries including the Bahamas, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Malaysia and Thailand, for failing to follow US directives regarding the implementation and enforcement of copyright laws.
The fact that this so called "watch list" flies in the face of the right of every sovereign nation to draft and enforce its own legal system was apparently totally forgotten, as every bunny IT media outlet scrambled to interview BSA godfather Robert Kruger - as he toured the world in support of local lynch mobs.
Give me a break! Can you imagine the response if Saudi Arabia were to criticise the Australian Government for not implementing Sharia law? Would the same journos be falling over each other for interviews with Prince Abdullah? Did we all elect Bush as President of the Commonwealth of Australia while I was asleep - or did Gatsey get the guernsey?
The simple fact is the US copyright legislation has been hijacked by a series of extremely powerful companies, which have limited interest in protecting the rights of the author or artist, but substantial amounts to gain from protecting their own distribution rights. And it is not necessarily in this country's interests to follow blindly down the path of eternal copyright renewal, or the BSA(A)'s 'dob in your boss' approaches to intellectual property rights enforcement.
If such a heavy-handed approach gains local support through informed and unbiased debate, I may not agree with it - but I would be obliged to support it. In fact we could come up with the most draconian, creativity-killing, monopoly-establishing copyright protection act the world has yet seen - but it is crucial that WE come up with it, without the interference and meddling of greenback-lubricated mercenaries, armed with flawed survey results.
It is way past the time our Feds changed the copyright laws and placed a time limit on protection. It is a joke to expect anyone to observe these laws if/when a piece of software is past its use by date especially when the manufacturer/owner of the copyright has ceased to support it!!! In most cases any support ENDS when the warranty runs out. Try to get any support 2 years down the track..doh
Our copyright laws are our laws, not the USA's. The BSAA had better get it sorted before someone takes THEM to court. They are nothing more than overpaid hatchet men for their US bosses.