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I’ve always wondered how companies figure out how much piracy is costing. Now we know, they make it up.

FOR MONTHS, Canadian coppers have been claiming that software piracy costs the country $30 billion.
The figure has been used by countless lobby groups to get the Canadian authorities to bring in some tougher anti-piracy laws.

US Ambassador to Canada David Wilkins even quoted the figure in a March 2007 speech critical of Canadian law.

However bogger Michael Geist thought there was something fishy about the figure and asked for the sources behind the Royal Mounted Police’s $30 billion claim.

The letter came back from red-faced coppers confessing that they made up the figure based what they had read on the Internet.

But if it is on the internet, isn’t it true?

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