Skimming through the comments so far, I get the impression that most people are concentrating on the argument that if a person can't pirate, that doesn't mean they will buy. TFA makes an even better point: They BSA assumed that, by value, 50% of the software in use is pirated. Otherwise a 10% reduction in piracy wouldn't result in a 10% increase in sales, even if all of the ex-pirates purchased. Gee, doesn't 50% seem a little high?

How did BSA get 50%? A questionable study said greater than 40%, and since 50% is greater than 40%, it must be the correct number. (The actual number was 43%, FWIW.

The earlier study included countries such as China and Russia and it appears (even the detailed version didn't really say) that they assumed that each piece of unlicensed software counted as much as each piece of licensed software. So every unlicensed copy of Windows 98 running on an underpowered PC in a third world or BRIC country was as valuable as any piece of brand-new business software.

One thing that makes this look like so much hoo-ha is that the "detailed studies" available as PDFs don't contain any collected data or details about methodology. It's just nicely presented conclusions and spin.

The part added by kdawson isn't quite right. The article is available on the New York Times website, but was not written by them. It obviously says: "By PAUL QUINLAN AND JOSH VOORHEES of Greenwire", "Copyright 2010 E&E Publishing. All Rights Reserved", "Greenwire is published by Environment & Energy Publishing." The actual New York Times article was written by different people and doesn't say anyone was "awed."

In addition to what truthsearch said, Alex Brown was a very influential person in the "but it will be different this time" camp. It's getting to the point that there are very few credible people who aren't employed by Microsoft or its partners who would argue that anymore. So more governments may conclude that Office 2010 doesn't produce output that matches a valid ISO standard. Besides, people enjoy schadenfreude.

Any user flagged as a "hostile life form" is punished by the website playing Mr. Shatner's version of "Mr. Tambourine Man" the next time they access the site.

You are right, TFA did say the appellate court affirmed the lower court decision. I missed that. However, in an earlier blog post the same author said the appeals court overturned it. I think he forgot which way the lower court initially ruled. I admit that's sloppy. He definitely is an attorney, though, for what that's worth.

I don't think the legal costs to date were included. The reasonable costs and attorney fees mentioned in the settlement were for filing the stipulated judgment if Katzer doesn't make the payments on time. Also, if they had to go to arbitration in the future, the looser would pay the winner's attorney fees.

I think Katzer was trying to give himself time to come up with the money rather than having the court put a lien on him or forcing him to pay the money immediately. Jacobsen got the injunction he wanted, though (he doesn't seem to trust Katzer for some reason), and by being able to force Katzer into binding arbitration, he should be able to avoid the hassle and expense of the courts if Katzer starts misbehaving again.

No, as TFA, which was written by a lawyer, makes clear, the decisions of the lower court that weren't overturned create precedent as well. The idea is that the law is to be administered consistently, so judges will tend to rule consistent with previous decisions. Precedent created by a lower court isn't as weighty as that set by a higher court, but it still exists.

The decision by the appellate court was on a very important point. If copyright law couldn't be applied to software that is copied and distributed without payment, F/OSS would have lost an important weapon. It was important that the court ruled that this does not make the licenses too broad to be enforced. All of the logic used by the Court of Appeals to reach that conclusion also sets precedent (or strengthens previously existing precedent).

I don't understand why you are making a big deal about the fact that the case was heard in federal court. Federal courts have precedence over state courts in matters of federal law. Copyright law is federal law.

... and the rulings will likely be influential in other circuits, as explained in TFA.

TFA might be getting slashdotted, though. Google has it cached: http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:http%3A%2F%2Fwww.consortiuminfo.org%2Fstandardsblog%2Farticle.php%3Fstory%3D201002190850472

Well, this discussion wouldn't be complete without some mention of Nazis or Neo-Nazis, I guess.

At and before the time Linux was developed, yes, they behaved very differently. As a matter of fact, the real owners of the patents have always behaved differently. SCO never actually owned the patents, after all.

I'm in the real world, where I didn't say anything about PJ not being level-headed or insightful in absolute terms. I just said that Andy Updegrove is a bit more so. That was in the context of document standards, of course. That is much more his area of expertise than it is PJ's.

PJ was very level-headed and insightful when the subject was SCO's lawsuits. Her background was very relevant then. On subjects that don't have much to do with lawsuits or the GPL (e.g., OOXML) she often doesn't do as well.

To see what I mean, compare how PJ and Andy blogged about UOF when they first heard about it:

• Andy's blog
• Groklaw

PJ was already declaring victory for ODF in 2006 (before OOXML even got to ISO/IEC) just because UOF existed and there was some people were interested in harmonizing UOF and ODF! If that doomed OOXML, what has all of the fuss in the last couple of years been about then?

Andy is a lawyer and mostly a big picture guy. If you want more technical details, you might want to check out some other blogs, such as Rob Weir's that talk about ODF, OOXML and so on. Rob is a co-chair of the OASIS ODF technical committee, so he knows what he's talking about. As a paralegal turned journalist, PJ just doesn't have the kind of background that bloggers like Rob and Andy have.