BSA has long highlighted the ways properly licensed software creates value for enterprises and economies. For example, a body of research shows that fully licensed software improves productivity and efficiency by reducing exposure to viruses and other security vulnerabilities — meaning fewer system malfunctions, downtime, and IT repair costs. It also comes with value-added services [...]
Read MoreNew Economic Research Confirms the Competitive Advantage of Properly Licensed Software
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Mexico’s Foresight
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Last August I wrote about how Mexico has quietly become one of the world’s leaders in protecting and safeguarding intellectual property. In doing so, Mexico is putting the foundation in place for long-term economic growth and prosperity. And there’s a lot that every government and company can learn from Mexico’s example.
Read MoreThe Right Mix of Policies to Promote Cloud Computing
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With cloud computing, the opportunity is clear. Public IT cloud revenue will grow to more than $70 billion by 2015. Even more significant, innovation enabled by the cloud will generate more than a trillion dollars in revenue over the next few years according to one estimate, and will create millions of jobs around the world. [...]
Read MorePiracy in the Cloud: A Picture Is Starting to Emerge
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One of the most striking findings in the global survey data we are releasing this week is the fact that 42 percent of the people who use paid cloud services for business say they share their log-in credentials inside their organizations. This points to a worrisome new avenue for software license abuse, and it is [...]
Read MoreEmerging Markets Ready for Cloud — Including Paid Services
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If you live in a developing economy and use a computer, then, likely as not, you also use cloud computing services at least some of the time for email, word processing, document or photo storage, or other needs — although you might not understand those services to be “cloud computing.”
Read MoreA Tale of Two Markets
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It’s not every day that someone freely admits to criminal behavior. Traffic tickets aside, few people are brazen enough to acknowledge serious crimes. Yet in BSA’s ninth annual Global Software Piracy Study, more than half of the world’s computer users readily concede they steal software. Some users say they acquire unlicensed applications all or most [...]
Read MoreShadow Market: BSA’s 2011 Global Software Piracy Study
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BSA today released the ninth edition of our Global Software Piracy Study — and in it, we have plowed new ground. This year’s study marks the first time anyone has directly asked a large sample of computer users around the world, “How often do you acquire pirated software?” The answers people have given to that [...]
Read MoreThe Legal Gulf Between China and the West Remains Wide
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What to do about China? It is the world’s second-largest economy and our second-largest trading partner, after neighboring Canada. Yet it remains the wild, wild East of the global economy, a place arguably more dangerous than anywhere else in the world for innovative U.S. companies to do business. If likely president-to-be Xi Jinping is interested [...]
Read MoreSoftware Prices and Piracy in the Developing World: Correlation vs. Causation
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Software piracy rates are highest in the developing world, where per capita incomes are lowest. For some observers, this correlation is evidence of causation. Software costs too much for people in emerging economies to afford, the argument goes; that’s why they steal it. Charge less, and the problem will take care of itself.
Read MoreBSA Commends Senate and House Leaders for Postponing Action on PIPA, SOPA
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The Business Software Alliance today welcomed decisions by Senate and House leaders to postpone action on the PROTECT IP Act and Stop Online Piracy Act to allow more time for substantive concerns with the proposed online piracy legislation to be carefully considered and addressed. Read the statement here.
Read MoreSOPA Needs Work to Address Innovation Considerations
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When House Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith and his bipartisan cosponsors last month introduced the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), I said in a press statement that the bill would have to balance key innovation, privacy and security considerations with the need to thwart the threat rogue websites pose before BSA can give its support to [...]
Read MoreA New Lever to Advance IP Protections
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A recurring theme in this week’s discussions between BSA member-company technologists and their counterparts in government has been the question of how to crank up America’s innovation engine to more effectively foster new industries and create jobs that will drive a robust recovery in the near term and continue powering the US economy over the [...]
Read MoreInside a $59 Billion Heist: The Contradictory Opinions and Behaviors of the World’s Software Pirates
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Earlier this year, BSA reported in its annual Global Software Piracy Study that the commercial value of PC software theft leapt 14 percent worldwide in 2010 to $59 billion. Behind all that theft, of course, were millions and millions of computer users installing unlicensed software in homes, businesses, government agencies, and other enterprises. What were [...]
Read MoreClosing the Financial Spigot for Fake Software Peddlers
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“Follow the money,” the mysterious Deep Throat famously urges Bob Woodward in All the President’s Men. “Always follow the money.” It is sage advice that investigative journalists and law enforcement authorities have been following for generations to ferret out criminal activity. And by the same token, cutting off the flow of money to a criminal [...]
Read MoreMexico’s Impressive IP Leadership
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In the global race to curb intellectual property theft and capture the myriad economic benefits that come from boosting legal software sales, Mexico is setting an impressive pace by leveraging a noteworthy combination of resources from government agencies and private industry. The country’s lead copyright authority, the Mexican Institute of Industrial Property (known by its [...]
Read MoreIntroducing SAM Advantage 2.0
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Organizations in every sector of today’s economy depend on software applications to make products, deliver services, run their internal operations and do business in the global marketplace. It is utterly essential as a strategic asset. But managing software assets poorly — especially by allowing users to work with unlicensed programs — can expose an organization [...]
Read MorePiracy and Security Threats Go Hand In Hand
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Ten years ago, the main threats to security online were vandals and hackers. They chased notoriety and relished the challenge of beating security systems. Their calling cards tended to be denial-of-service attacks, which they used to bring down prominent sites such as eBay and CNN. Today, the stakes are much higher. Organized criminal enterprises are [...]
Read MoreSoftware Theft on the Table at May 9–10 S&ED
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Four out of five software programs installed on personal computers in China are stolen at a commercial value of nearly $8 billion dollars a year. That issue will be on the table this week when President Obama’s economic team sits down in Washington with its Chinese counterparts for their annual Strategic and Economic Dialogue. The [...]
Read MoreInternet Piracy Portal Launch
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Unauthorized copying of software used to require physically exchanging disks or other hard media through the mail or on the streets. This unauthorized copying was ultimately overshadowed by corporate end-user piracy, a pervasive form of copyright infringement that occurs when otherwise legitimate companies install software on more computers than the licenses they have purchased permit. [...]
Read MoreKeeping Strong IPR at the Top of the Trans-Pacific Trade Agenda
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Want to bring down the US trade deficit? One easy way is to reduce software piracy. At last count, the packaged-software industry was contributing a surplus of nearly $37 billion to the US balance of trade — and that was with one hand tied behind its back, because another $30 billion worth of sales are [...]
Read MoreChina’s Software Audits: Green Eyeshades or Rose-Colored Glasses?
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Now that the dust has settled from Chinese President Hu Jintao’s recent visit to Washington, it is worth pausing to take stock of the latest round of developments on the thorny issue of software legalization, long a source of frustration in US-China economic relations. Recall that the issue topped the agenda in December’s ministerial
Read MoreUS-China JCCT Talks Represent an Inflection Point
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After years of frustration with persistently high rates of software piracy in China, could it be that we are about to see actual improvement in legal software sales there? Having met recently with top officials in the US and Chinese governments, I am guardedly optimistic. One thing is abundantly clear: Both governments, at the very [...]
Read MoreAn International Meeting of the Minds on IP Enforcement
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Thirty-seven countries together representing more than half of world trade declared with one voice this week that “effective enforcement of intellectual property rights is critical to sustaining economic growth across all industries and globally.” They further noted: “[T]he proliferation of counterfeit and pirated goods as well as the proliferation of services that distribute infringing material, [...]
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