Software Piracy Declines

Dom

Software piracy has declined by 2 percent in the United States in 2002, according to a study commissioned by the Business Software Alliance (BSA), a software watchdog group.

According to the annual report, the software piracy rate declined from 25 percent in 2001 to 23 percent in 2002. The state-by-state study was conducted by International Planning & Research.

The BSA also says that it collected $3.1 million in piracy-related settlements from 37 companies nationwide as part of its third annual campaign to raise awareness and educate businesses about the importance of using licensed software.

Cleanest States

The ten states that saw the largest reduction in piracy from 2001 to 2002 were Louisiana, Maine, Oregon, West Virginia, Idaho, Hawaii, Alaska, South Carolina, Washington, and Oklahoma.

Nine states had the lowest piracy rates in 2002: Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, Washington, and Virginia, along with the District of Columbia.

According to the BSA, though the rate of software piracy was down in 2002, it still cost the U.S. economy $1.9 billion--up from $1.8 billion in 2001--and led to the loss of more than 105,000 jobs.

"It is encouraging news that the U.S. piracy rate has dropped two points from 2001, but there is no acceptable level of piracy," says Robert Holleyman, BSA president and chief executive officer, in a statement. "Our hope is that the BSA's educational programs, public policy initiatives, and resources and tools for businesses will result in a continuing decline in software piracy rates."

The trend echoes a worldwide drop in piracy, which the BSA reported in June.

Campaign Continues

Jenny Blank, the BSA's director of enforcement, says that there is no magic bullet to stop software piracy.

"If there were, we would have found it and used it," she says.

Blank says that the BSA has been successful in getting its message out to businesses and plans to continue those efforts.

"We'll also continue to enforce our members' copyrights," she adds.

In addition, Blank says, the BSA is doing more outreach to children to get the message to them before they're out of school that software piracy is illegal. "We want them to understand they should respect intellectual property as they would any other property, before they reach the workforce," she says.

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Source: PCWorld

WaltC

The quote about children and piracy is really amusing. These people must be clods. Didn't anyone ever teach them that the surest way to get children and teenagers to do something is to tell them they can't do it?....

The real threat in piracy is the commercial pirates who are manufacturing knockoffs of legitimate software which people are *buying* instead of the real thing--that's the only real danger to software companies. The irony is that although M$ for YEARS has been using holograms in its software certificates and embedded within its commercial CD's to try and reduce commercial piracy, the people whom groups like this are blaming for piracy are the ones actually, and unknowingly, *buying* the knockoff software when they think they are buying the real thing. Can't get any more ironic than that.

I always love it when these groups publish statistics showing how much money and jobs casual pirating is "costing" the industry. It's pretty funny when you consider the fact that compiling statisitics as to how many casual pirates would have actually bought and paid for retail copies of the software they pirated *if they had had to buy it* is simply impossible to compile. IMO, a great majority of them would have lived without the software if they had had to buy it, and so the "loss" figures they use in terms of money and jobs is entirely fictional and has no basis in reality.

What's real are commercial pirates who are investing big sums of $$ to create knockoff software complete with imitation packaging which they are selling into the market of legitimate customers who buy the software they use. Even the bootlegging pirates are smart enough to know that most people interested enough in software to buy it *will* buy it--and it's the paying customers that these knockoff artists are after. Sigh...if only groups like the SBA and the software companies had as much sense as the commercial pirates (who clearly understand that most people buy the software they use) they'd be much more effective. Instead, they are going around the country lecturing pre-teens on the "evils" of casual copying and downloading--which is especially hilarious considering that none of these preteens has the $$ to buy very much software even if they were so inclined. Ah, the blatant stupidity of it all is overwhelming...

digitalwanderer

I just found it amusing that I live in one of the states with the lowest percentage of piracy!

Esaz666

My thoughts.
Nice quote Dom.

Dont beleive the hype everyone.

Respect 'intellectual property' , unless it's made by any company supporting the Riaa.
Do what you like, copy what you like. If you use it and it's worth it buy it. if it's not worth buying
dont.

I respect 'intellectual property' but my idealogy of what is wrong or right is completelly at odd's with large corperations and money head company's.

some software is just not worth buying. Maybe my attitude is tottally wrong, everyone agree's that people shouldnt sell pirated cd's but if you download a software program and try it for a while, and it turns out to be crap. I dont see why people should pay loads of money for it. unless they can afford it. I just dont think software piracy is theft. It is your right to use something which is freely available if you cannot afford it.

The large corperations and large media company's are trying to demonise and criminalise the population because they want one thing, to force us to pay. I view life in the long term, and it is simply not in our interests to support these company's.

'According to the BSA, though the rate of software piracy was down in 2002, it still cost the U.S. economy $1.9 billion--up from $1.8 billion in 2001--and led to the loss of more than 105,000 jobs' what a load of rubbish.

Sorry but we wasnt gonna buy it anyway. If it doesent make the money it's just not worth the money.
I will only buy something if I choose, I will not be forced by law.

But If you use something and you think it's worth it try to support the people who produce it. Software has never been such a big market before. I have grown up on computers They are not my life but I am interested in the way things change, Things seem to be changing for the worst, more controls, more laws, less freedom.

This post is probarbly gonna get me flamed to the max, never mind.

MurderOne

i agree with the above statements.

its gonna be interesting if companies do manage to wrap it all up in drm and put an end to it altogether. then they will see just how many more of their shitty products will be sold. my guess is not very many.

MIG-31

but the one thing that comes to mind if piracy is droping the price of the original stuff won't drop so what would be the next excuss?

The_Neon_Cowboy

please note that these rates are based on those who were cought... it just people have gotten smarter