The money loss figures always make me laugh. They arent "losing" any money at all because these people arent going to buy the software. The only time software companies can claim lost sales is when they bust the bootleggers. Even then it is an iffy claim. If someone sells 50,000 copies of Office 2k Pro for $10 a pop, that doesnt mean those 50,000 people would have still bought the software if it was $400. You could shut down all the pirate sites tonight and I bet no major software company will show any significant increase in sales, except maybe Microsoft. People will buy new versions of Windows if they have to. Discreet, Alias|Wavefront, Softimage, etc are dreaming if they think any of those damn pirates are going to shell out the cash for their apps. As far as bandwidth goes, major groups like DoD leach FTP space from companies with annonymous access on fat pipes. This is called a pub. The software usually gets put deep in many subdirectories with codes and directory names that the average FTP application will not see. The software moves quickly from pub to pub and gets deleted almost as fast. At that point, it is known as "0-day" warez. Those 'in-the-know' log in and download the software in it's "0-day" state while it is circulating the pubs. Eventually it filters down to Usenet, medium and smaller FTP sites, IRC, web sites, etc. Direct TV is even better for dreaming up these huge "loss" numbers caused by people with hacked access cards.