Electronic Piracy

4 Pages 879 Words

Many college students have at least one piece of software on their personal computer that was obtained or distributed illegally. Software piracy is an extremely large operation causing the loss of billions of dollars of revenue to software companies worldwide. New estimates find the loss of software companies at ten billion dollars a year due to desktop software pirating. (BBC News, 2003) This number is on a startling rise from the losses in 2000 of only three billion dollars according to the Business Software Alliance. (Wakefield, 2002) Although many feel that this loss is insignificant when looking at the great deal of money the software industry takes in, the people who lose the most value are the consumers. Many consumers who buy pirated software, knowingly or unknowingly, are left without support and possibly with harmful versions of these programs. (BBC News, 2003) A study fore the BSA found that if Western Europe were able to cut computer piracy just ten points, Software companies could create one million jobs and boost the value of their technology sectors 250 billion Euros by 2006. (BBC News, 2003) Software piracy protection also adds to a great deal of creativity for software developers. Many companies feel that their programmers are more likely to produce better software if the copyright protections are greater and they receive money for their hard work. “Strong intellectual property protections spur creativity, which opens new opportunities for businesses, governments, and workers,” said Beth Scott, European Vice-President of BSA. (BBC News, 2003)
Although software piracy is an extremely large part of copyright issues, there are also two other big issues, music and movies. In 2002, the music industry blamed illegal music downloading for a record loss of ten percent in record sales. (Hermida, 2003) The vast array of information on the Internet has lead to a great loss in both the music and movie industries in the past f...