June 10, 2002

Empty pockets make software pirates

CNet: Global software piracy rose for the second straight year in 2001 although monetary losses shrank, according to a report issued Monday by the Business Software Alliance, a trade group.
The BSA's seventh annual "Global Software Piracy Study" estimated that 40 percent of all business software installed around the world last year was illegally copied. That compares with a piracy rate of 37 percent a year earlier and 36 percent in 1999, after several years of steady declines.

Bob Kruger, vice president of enforcement for the BSA, an industry-supported group that tracks and enforces software copyrights, said the global slowdown in tech spending was a likely contributor to the upswing, with shrunken IT budgets prodding workers to make illegal copies of co-workers' software. (full story)

My spin:This is not rocket science....nor anything new. If you've only got $10,000 and need $50,000 worth of software - you'll either wait (which is what I would do), or buy a CD burner.....which is what I know many do.