In my wandering of the Web, I came across a report dealing with an issue that affects absolutely everyone reading this. On June 8, the SPA released a report of the top ten U.S. metropolitan areas with monetary losses due to software piracy. The top three cities were: New York (with almost a quarter of a billion dollars in losses); number two was Los Angeles; and number three was the Chicago area.
Is piracy wrong? Is it just a yes or no question, or is there a grey area? This week I'll deal with the anti-piracy side. Two weeks from now I'll try to handle the pro-piracy sector.
The SPA, the anti-piracy division of the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA - http://www.siia.net/ ), is a leader in the fight against piracy. They state in their recent report that "Software piracy is a crime." For the last 10 years the SPA has attempted to squelch out piracy. They've been somewhat successful, reducing the percentage of illegal copies of software in use from 48% to 25%. The SPA wishes to raise awareness of the problems piracy can cause. Many companies they represent are small software businesses. "Software piracy can put those companies - and their employees - out of business and out of work within a matter of weeks." Fortunately the SPA isn't the only one out their putting up a fight.
The website http://www.nopiracy.com/ hopes to combat this problem by educating the masses. For example, "In the US alone, software piracy cost 109,000 jobs in 1998... [and] by 2008, piracy is expected to cost an additional 175,700 jobs." Kind of puts it into perspective. Consumers, businesses, parents and teachers are able to learn what they can do to prevent software piracy. The site even offers a free teaching guide covering ethics and values of software use. They also offer a section entitled "Warez: Myth vs. Fact". In it they debunk many of the excuses warez sites (sites that offer pirated software, such as games, for free) use to defend what they're doing. And finally they dish out the actual U.S. law regarding piracy. It is difficult to argue with. Someone caught infringing a copyright can be fined up to $250,000 and 5 years in jail. Yikes!
So is there any validity to the arguments those who support piracy make? Is there an upside in stealing software? Come back in two weeks when I try to attempt to see piracy in a positive light. We'll see in that's possible.
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