Veni Markovski of the Internet Society of Bulgaria points to this blog entry on "how BSA data is manipluated for countries in transition, where software 'dealers' make profits about 300-400%." Snip from post:
Today, the BSA published a report about the so-called software piracy.
I say "so-called", because of the interpretation of the data by the Bulgarian branch of BSA.
Here's how the data should be read in historical order:
In 2004 BSA published another report. According to the data there, Bulgaria "had" $ 26 million of "pirated" software.
This year BSA Bulgaria uses new data by IDC to say that, "the Bulgarian IT-sector can double its volume from USD 300 M to USD 622 M till 2009, if the country can lower the software piracy with 10 %. "
Now, how can decrease of $ 2.6 million per year lead to an increase of IT-sector with $ 322 M? That would have been funny, if it wasn't sad.
It seems that either the data is fake – something of which there a number of articles published in the Bulgarian media, or it's deliberately falsified.
Link to full text of post.