Making up Numbers

It goes without saying that groups like the BSA and RIAA just make up the numbers they use to try to influence public policy. Actually, it doesn't go without saying, but it's been said better elsewhere. Slashdot has an item today on BSA's latest made-up numbers:

JakiChan writes "According to this story on Yahoo! news the BSA commissioned a study that decided that 39% of all business software is pirated, down from 40%. The decline is attributed to the BSA's enforcement techniques. 'The piracy rate was calculated by comparing the researchers' estimates on demand with data on actual software sales.'" In other words, some guys sat in a room and decided that people probably wanted to buy ten copies of software, but only five were sold, so the piracy rate must therefore be 50%. By a similar process we can calculate that 99% of all ocean-front homes are pirated.