My "facts" are completely unbiased... tehy are my own personal experiences. All told my client base puts me in contact with more than 100+ workstations that run some form of Windows... and of the 60+ that now run WinXP I can tell you for sure less than 5 of them were running legitimate licenses for Windows before conversion. Of those 60+, I know that 50+ of the are legit licenses now (I helped find suppliers for many of them) and abouyt 10 of them were running some form of cracked XP. That is, until SP1 disabled many of the cracks. Then suddenly 5 of those machiens went legit. So so far, that's Microsoft 55 or so, piracy 5. Of course, MS >DIDN'T< seel some copies fo XP because of the protection - but from my personal experience I know they came out WAY ahead. It is the same with all the >good< (usable, non intrusive) copy protection. For instance in my conversations with several game companies that make games playable online, once their servers were patched to prevent pirated programs from running they saw sales figures for those games jump. I am not sure why it is such an important article of faith for many ignore the simple, obvious reality. Most prople will not pay for something they can EASILY steal with little risk. If you can increase the RISK, or make it HARDER then you will sell more of it. Objective studies? I don't have any that one couldn't poke holes in if you wanted, but then again neither do those who wish to provclaim piracy is not a factor in software sales. As a developer who has sold software, as a consumer, as a security consultant who is in contact with pirates all the time (users, few crackers but on occasion) and as a consultant who sees how my clients make decisions on purchasing I >SEE< the effect.