Bogus study to be used at today's IICA hearing?

Robert W. Holleyman II, the President and CEO of Business Software Alliance, is scheduled to speak in favor of the INDUCE Act at the IICA hearing today.

In an odd bit of luck and good timing, the Business Software Alliance just happened to release a new piracy study recently. While these sort of studies are always self serving, this new one claims that there is $29 billion dollars of software piracy going on yearly. The fishy part is that in previous studies the same group claimed that there was $13 billion in yearly losses due to software piracy.

[A] study released two weeks ago by the Business Software Alliance ... estimated the yearly losses from software piracy at $29 billion worldwide ...
Opponents of the copyright bill see the trade group's study as an overt political act intended to increase support for the proposed legislation by portraying software piracy as a rapidly growing problem that is far more costly than was previously thought ...
The trade group's previous estimate of software piracy losses was $13 billion a year ...

The article notes that Microsoft and Hollywood studios are leading supporters of the Business Software Alliance. Larry Lessig is quoted in the article:

"I think the senators were totally misled about what this legislation is about. This would not be a tiny, targeted change. It would be a massive change that would totally sidestep the Betamax ruling."

Better news is that:

More than 40 companies and organizations - ranging from Intel, Google and Verizon to the American Library Association - wrote to [Senator] Hatch on July 7, expressing concern that the bill would touch off a wave of copyright suits and would chill innovation. They requested a hearing on the bill before Congress proceeded any further.

The full witness list for the hearing can be found here. The hearing begins in half an hour, it will be interesting to see how the piracy study is used or if it becomes an issue at all.

Article via the International Herald Tribune (which means it is soon to be archived and thus unavailable).

Other discussions concerning the piracy study can be found here and here.